Neo shook his head and it brought a smile on Felix's face until Neo spoke.
"I wanted to train by fighting stronger enemies."
Felix covered his face.
Seeing his exaggerated actions, Neo smiled.
While his answer was not a lie, his main aim was the Starplum fruit.
He could always fight stronger enemies.
However, he could get Starplum only from the competition.
The clock pointed at midnight.
Suddenly, a screen appeared before Neo.
[Quest: Win the rank battle tournament and become 'The Ruler' of the first year students.]
[Reward: Essence Breath Spell, Immortal Exp +50]
[Failure: -90% stats for one week.]
The rewards were generous.
Essence Breath Spell would allow Neo to draw the Divine Energy from air.
He would not need to depend on food to regain the lost Divine Energy.
Immortal Exp would save him 50 days of work.
The failure condition, however, was brutal.
His stats would get suppressed for 7 days if he couldn't get the first rank.
Going to the Underworld in that condition was no different from asking to be killed.
'I can reject the Quest. There is no need to take such a risk…'
'Who am I kidding? I'm going to accept it.'
Felix called out to him.
"We should team up," He continued.
"It benefits me and both of you.
"The others will target me after I spent the day with Arthur. It's better for me to have allies.
"You two, on the other hand, don't belong to the God Clans and don't know about the specialities of the students from them. I can reveal everything to you if you help me."
Neo's chances of becoming the first rank would increase if he had someone as strong as Arthur on his side.
There was, however, one problem.
"Are you strong enough to—"
Before Neo could complete his words, the wall facing the yard exploded.
A shadowy figure dashed into the room.
Felix, closest to the wall, barely had time to block the attack.
The shadow struck him in the chest and threw him across the room.
Dust and gravel flew in the air.
Just when the figure moved again, a bolt of golden lightning hit it in the chest.
"Felix! Are you alive!?" Arthur shouted while he fired the second lightning bolt to stall the figure.
"I... d-don't think so."
Felix stood up with a stagger.
He held his chest and tried to stop the bleeding.
A sigh of relief left Arthur's lips.
He stared to the shadowy figure.
"Who attacks us? The tournament rules clearly said fighting is banned until tomorrow."
"The time is 12:01 am." Neo stood next to Arthur. "It's already tomorrow."
Both of them waited for the dust to settle.
Arthur drew a sharp breathe when the assaulter was revealed.
A humanoid shaped shadow.
It wore a knight armor made of shadows and held a shadowy sword.
"…A shadow summon. It's a otherworldly monster." Arthur's face hardened. "How did it enter our world?"
The Shadow Knight crouched.
It suddenly dashed, covering half of the hall in a split second, and slashed at Arthur.
He didn't have time to use a shield spell.
The sword was about to hit him when Neo appeared in front of him and blocked.
The metallic noise of the clash forced Arthur to cover his ears.
Neo twisted the blade, causing the Shadow Knight's sword to slide down on the blade, and hit the Shadow Knight sword's hilt.
The sword fell from its hand.
At the same time, it closed the gap and punched towards Neo's face with the other hand.
Suddenly, a larger lightning bolt appeared from behind Neo.
It hit the Shadow Knight and the Knight's upper body exploded.
"Huff, huff, thanks for helping me," Arthur said.
He had to use a stronger attack to defeat the Shadow Knight before it took them out.
"No problem. You covered for me too."
Arthur noticed Neo's condition.
Despite his calm expression, his palms were torn when he blocked the attack.
He probably took internal damage too.
Nevertheless, his quick reactions saved Arthur.
"Watch out!" Felix called out to them.
The Shadow Knight's body trembled.
Its torso regenerated and became whole again.
"It's alive." Arthur prepared to cast Spells. "We need Holy Affinity to defeat it for good."
"You have Holy affinity?"
"…I have yet to awaken it. Sorry."
Neo bolted towards the regenerated Shadow Knight.
"Get me close to it!" Neo said.
"Okay! But can you defeat it?!"
Arthur casted multiple weaker lightning bolts.
His precise Divine Energy control made Neo jealous.
The Shadow Knight swung its sword in a large arc to stop the lightning bolts.
The momentum of the attack caused the air to stir.
Neo slid beneath its sword and behind it.
The Shadow Knight, distracted by Arthur, couldn't respond immediately when Neo grabbed its nape and casted two stacks of Necrotic Touch.
"That's dangerous! Get away from—"
Cracks appeared on its body and it crumbled into nothingness.
Arthur was left agape.
"What was that? It didn't look like Holy Affinity."
Neo tried to control his breathing.
'Curse this damned body. I'm exhausted after a single fight.'
"Cough…cough… forget about me. How did you defeat the Shadow Summon?"
"Good, looks like you have enough energy."
He picked the sword Felix dropped and gave it to him.
"Get ready. We aren't safe yet."
The building suddenly shook.
Noises of monsters appeared from the yard.
"Is that…" Felix gulped.
"Yeah, there are more Shadow Summons." Neo helped Felix stand. "Looks like the first student to target us is a Shadow user."
They stood at the edge of the broken wall.
Felix covered his face with as if he wanted to cry.
The yard was filled with Shadow monsters.
The ones with the bug shape were eating the buildings foundation to bury the dormitory along with Neo, Arthur, and Felix.