While they were exploring the tomb of Roselia, a lot of things had happened.

The war had gotten worse!

The creatures of hell, for some reason, had gotten more aggressive.

Hell's paradise, a spatial rift that connected the realm of the living to the hell realm, had started appearing in massive numbers all around the planets owned by the federation.

The federation dispatched all of its soldiers and every top-notch expert to go to different planets and close Hell's paradise before they could stabilize.

Once stabilized, the creatures of hell could step into their planet.

As they liked to prey on demi-humans, aliens, and humans alike, irrespective of their color, handsomeness, or horror, it was easy for any soldier to calculate that the damage would be huge if they failed to close one within the estimated time that it would take for it to stabilize.

The federation made it mandatory for every top-notch combatant to close at least one Hell's paradise or contribute to the destruction of one; thus, everyone, from the emperors and the leaders of the four great families to instructor Theodore, Instructor Alex, and Instructor Kyle had to move their butts and deal with the adverse situations popping up in different planets.

It just happened that after rolling in deep troubles and fighting for five straight days, Alex the alchemist returned to the academy. He had finished his mandatory duties and now wanted to relax for a few days, but as his luck or rather fate would have it, headmaster Tirion called for him only after a day.

He went to him, only to find out that many groups of second-year and first-year students with powerful backings had made a petition and demanded his presence.

They wanted him to do his job and teach them alchemy.

Or get the hell out of the academy if he was going to laze around!

"Why can't a man even get allowed to rest after working hard in this place?" He cried out.

Left with no choice, he decided to hold alchemy classes starting from Monday.

When Vincent heard that, he immediately informed instructor Alex that he would be joining his classes. Hopefully, Alex wouldn't mind him. As he was a particular class student, the instructor couldn't refuse him even if he didn't want him in his class, not like he didn't want Vincent to learn alchemy. His guardian, Theodore, had specifically told him to treat Vincent better than others. Not to mention, he didn't dislike this kid. Instead, he viewed him in a favorable light because he helped them root out the trouble happening in the lower legs of the river of 208 legs before it could grow bigger and spread to other areas.

The next day, after taking a hot bath, Vincent felt extremely relaxed. All the tension that had gathered in his muscles from fighting for the last several days, as well as all the mental strength that he accumulated from knowing and coming across the crimson one, dimmed significantly. He ate breakfast in the canteen with King Wrath and Leilani while feeling extremely light-headed. Nevis and John weren't here. Iris came only when they were finishing eating. Slightly worried about why her brother had missed lunch, Leilani inquired about where he was and what he was doing from his girlfriend, Iris Twilight.

She told them not to worry, that John had taken the fruit of life to awaken his superpowers. She also told them that Nevis stayed behind to guard him and make sure no one, from students with ill intent like Felix to the academy's staff members, such as rooms' cleaners and so on, would enter the room and disturb John.

Even though there was a sign that said, "do not disturb as there is a person inside who is trying to awaken his superpower," Nevis believed it would be better to guard the door.

While sitting in the food court, Vincent glanced a few times at Damien. This person looked familiar to one of his childhood friends. And the things he said the previous few times also asserted the fact that he knew him. He wanted to strike up a conversation with Damien but decided against it. He was feeling that something terrible might happen; that's what his guts feelings were telling him. In the end, he decided to confront him to know more about his past another time.

After lunch, Vincent went to the classroom where instructor Alex would be teaching alchemy to the students. There were many people here. Some of them took the alchemy lesson for the first time while the others had dabbled in it previously. All of them were strangers to Vincent. He moved past them and sat in an empty area. He didn't notice that when he entered the room, Eric, the student council president, who fought for his sake, was looking at him with a scrutinizing gaze. Eric's knight was sitting behind him, and he turned to look at the person who caught his master's attention.

With two pairs of eyes on him, Vincent noticed that someone was looking at him. Call it his vampire senses. He turned to look around and saw two men, a pretty boy, and a big, burly man, looking at him. What did they want from him? Did he know them? Eric flashed a smile at him and looked away. Since his master was no longer staring at Vincent, his knight felt no need to glare at him threateningly either.

'What a weird pair.' Vincent internally thought. He found out that the two were already advanced-level combatants. Talk about being rich; these two guys indeed came from wealthy families who fed them so many recourses that they managed to open all their channels and even connect them together to form a circuit before the age of 20!

One of them belonged to the Great Ambrose royal family, while the other came from the family of knights that served them!

Lucky them!

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Monthly Goals: 27/30 Chapter!