Knock, knock, knock
"Galito, are you ready? You're the only one left!"
Outside the stone house, Giggs pounded on the wooden door. His voice, muffled by the mist and rain, sounded especially heavy.
But no matter how hard he knocked, there was no response from within.
"Think Galito might've already left?" Leona wiped the rain off his chubby face.
"No way. The senior said he wouldn't be here to pick us up until the afternoon. I made plans with Galito to leave now," Ant shook his head, stepping up to knock as well.
Lynn slowly approached, tightening his grip on his suitcase handle as he stared at the silent stone house. A vague sense of unease began to creep up his spine...
Could it be… just like the original Lynn…?
"Galito, what are you doing in there? Don't waste everyone's time!"
After knocking for a while and still getting no answer, Ant shouted toward the door and reached out to pull it open.
The wooden door wasn't locked; it swung open easily.
Thump, thump, thump
Before Lynn could get a clear view of the inside, he saw Ant stagger back like he'd seen a ghost, falling to the ground in panic.
"G-Galito…"
Beside him, Giggs furrowed his brows and stepped forward to take a look. His pupils instantly contracted, and his face darkened.
Over Giggs's shoulder, Lynn could see a human figure hanging from the ceiling beam.
The body sagged limply, the skin pale and lifeless; he was unmistakably dead.
"?!"
This was the first time Lynn had seen a real, horrifying corpse.
His eyes flew open in shock. Subconsciously, his fingers brushed against the scar on his left wrist, which had nearly healed. His heart pounded violently.
'So it's true… Just like the original Lynn, Galito couldn't accept being eliminated, and refused to face the crushing school debt… He chose suicide instead.'
If being expelled meant going to a better place and being debt-free, it might not have been such a big deal.
But where they were going was worse.
Emeraldwood City is a chaotic, gang-ridden place teeming with wild beasts, where ordinary people die every single day.
And on top of that, they were saddled with debt contracts they could never afford to repay.
That kind of fall from the mountaintop to the abyss, with no hope for the future, was enough to shatter anyone's spirit.
"Sigh… what's the point? There's always hope if you're alive…"
Chubby Leona had also seen what was inside the room. He sighed, face pale.
"Hope? More like clinging to life," Giggs muttered bitterly, his face gloomy with resentment.
"That's not entirely true. Sure, we didn't become wizard apprentices, but as long as we pay our magic stone dues on time, the school won't come after us.
"And if we can save a little extra, maybe we can even get a big house and marry someday," Leona murmured, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.
"And who knows, maybe one day… we really could become wizard apprentices…"
"Hah! Half a lesser magic stone every month, increasing by 25% each year! If it were that easy to earn, would Galito have killed himself?
"And as for advancing? If we couldn't manage it while we were still on the mountain, what makes you think we can do it at the bottom? We're lucky just to survive."
Giggs scoffed and walked straight into the stone house.
"What are you doing?" Ant asked, puzzled.
Without looking back, Giggs replied flatly:
"Galito might be dead, but his stuff is still here.
"Quit standing around. Help me search his things, split them up, and let's get down the mountain."
Ant and Leona hesitated for a moment but followed him in.
Among the five of them, Giggs had always been the most mature.
He never said it out loud, but within their group, he'd naturally assumed the role of leader.
Lynn exhaled softly and followed them inside.
Before long, they had found:
2 Lesser Magic Stones
2 Gold Dragons
68 Silver Wolves
They split the items evenly, then prepared to leave.
Leona pocketed his share, then looked up at Galito's swaying corpse.
He sighed again, shook his head, and slowly stepped forward, trying to take the body down.
Lynn hesitated for a moment, then stepped up to help.
As the old saying goes, "Let the dead rest in peace."
They had already taken his belongings. While they couldn't offer him a proper burial, the least they could do was make sure he didn't stay hanging like that…
But just as Lynn took hold of Galito's legs, his expression changed slightly. A shiver ran through him.
The corpse was still warm beneath the trousers.
But instead of comforting him, that warmth sent a chill straight through Lynn's bones.
He suddenly became acutely aware that what he was holding... was a dead body.
"Leave him. The school will send someone to deal with it later," Giggs's voice called from the doorway.
Leona loosened his grip slightly, unsure whether to let go.
But Lynn took a deep breath, tightened his hold again, and with a sharp "One, two!", he gave a heave and successfully lowered Galito's body from the noose.
Leona quickly lent a hand, and together, they laid him gently on the couch.
Lynn exhaled and looked into Galito's wide, unblinking eyes. Reaching out, he gently closed them.
'Rest in peace…'
"What's this?" Leona suddenly bent down and picked up a pale yellow slip of paper from the floor.
It must have fallen from Galito's pocket.
"I saw it when I searched him earlier. It's just a note on Hossen's Meditation Method. You can't take it out of the school anyway. Just toss it and let's go."
Giggs leaned against the doorway, his voice low and serious.
Leona glanced over briefly, pursed his lips, and handed the note to the curious Lynn standing beside him.
Lynn took the notebook and examined it carefully.
On its pages was a kind of strikingly beautiful and unusual script, the common language used by wizards.
Though its lines were curved and elegant, and somewhat resembled the phonetic alphabet common in the West in his past life, in essence, it was more akin to the hieroglyphic characters of his own country in that previous world.
"Just as Giggs said, these are only some notes the original owner already knew..."
Lynn was about to discard the notebook and leave.
But suddenly, a strange scene unfolded before his eyes.
Under his gaze, faint blue lights slowly shimmered on the pale yellow paper, then coalesced into several lines of characters:
[Hossens Apprentice Meditation Method Notes (Incomplete)]
[Consume mixed source energy to glimpse the principle.]
Lynn froze in place, and at the same time, a message came to him
"You can consume mixed source energy to glimpse the truth within, and thereby obtain great power..."
He instinctively held his breath. His heart pounded violently, and his throat felt dry.
Is this… my "golden finger" (special ability)?
Without hesitation, Lynn's mind focused, and he immediately chose to attempt the glimpse!
But moments later, another message appeared:
[Insufficient mixed source energy.]
"Hey, Lynn, are you coming or not?" Giggs called impatiently from the doorway.
Lynn frowned inwardly but showed no reaction on his face. He tossed the white paper onto the ground and briskly walked toward the door.
"Coming."
At the door, Giggs glanced at him once and strode ahead.
Ant looked at him and Leona, sighed, and spoke with a heavy tone:
"What use is it to set him down?
"In a little while, the school will either feed him to Lord Ushmuell or use him as teaching material. In any case… there's no chance for him to rest in peace."
Lynn barely caught what he was saying. Most of his thoughts were still focused on the strange characters that had just appeared before his eyes.
Mixed source energy… what is that?
…
The rain and mist blurred the surroundings.
The four of them moved forward silently and soon arrived at the edge of the wizard formation.
Beside the stone path stood two dark gray stone pillars, each carved with the Hossens school's inverted triangle emblem, with a twisted, entwined bloodvine at its center.
Now, moistened by rain, the vine glowed with an eerie crimson light.
After a brief pause, several bloodvines identical to the school emblem slithered out from both sides of the path.
This was the so-called Lord Ushmuell Ant that had been mentioned.
Lynn stared at the writhing vines, quietly hiding the surprise in his heart. Like the other youths, he stood silently in place.
The cold, coarse vines coiled around their bodies like snakes, meticulously searching every inch of their clothes and luggage.
When the vines reached Lynn's luggage, they discovered a pale green book inside.
Suddenly
The vines entangling Lynn tightened abruptly, lifting him high off the ground!
Lynn grunted softly, his heart pounding wildly as flashes of the original owner's memories surged through his mind.
After a moment, struggling against the pain, he shouted:
"I've signed the contract and know the rules, Lord Ushmuell! That is just crystal chip crafting knowledge I bought earlier, a mortal technique, and involves no wizard knowledge from the school!"
After a while, Lord Ushmuell dropped the book and put it down.
All the apprentices had signed strict confidentiality contracts forbidding them from revealing any school knowledge in any form.
Ushmuell understood this perfectly; its cruelty was a natural temperament.
Lynn staggered a few steps, feeling like his whole body was about to fall apart.
He bent down to pick up his rain-soaked luggage and the book. Before he could straighten up, he was roughly pushed out of the wizard formation by Ushmuell.
Almost losing his balance, Lynn looked back and saw Giggs and the others being treated the same way.
Leona, careless for a moment, stumbled and fell, rolling twice on the stone path before lying still on the ground.
After a moment, he got up, filthy and disheveled, and stood silently with the remaining youths outside the formation, glancing back at the school grounds behind them.
Under the dull sky, the four wet, youthful faces were heavy with unease and confusion.
Though only a step away, they could no longer step into the place where they had lived for nine years, from childhood into adolescence.
The rain continued to fall, and water trickled down the youths' damp cheeks.
At this moment, no one could tell if those streaks were rain or tears.
Only now did Lynn suddenly realize: they were nothing but a group of naïve teenagers, around fifteen or sixteen years old, locked away and raised on this mountain.
"Senior Dor told me," Ant murmured, "that at most only thirty percent of people survive one year down in the city.
"Of those, over half won't last two years. As for three years…"
Ant shook his head, staring gloomily at the endless greenery surrounding the city of Emeraldwood below, whispering in the rain,
"One day, we'll all end up like Galito, hanging from the beams."
His voice didn't carry far.
In the blink of an eye, it was swallowed up by the rain.