"Sure," Lake agreed readily to her proposal.
Kate’s eyes widened in surprise, "...I didn’t expect you to agree so... easily."
Lake picked back up his utensil as he spoke, "Why not? Teamwork is safer and more efficient."
Kate’s lips tightened, and she hesitated for a mont, "...I guess it does make sense if you put it like that, but when I hear it from you, I can’t help but feel there’s a catch."
"Well, this ti there’s no catch," Lake replied with a smile.
Kate frowned, "I don’t like this. I’d rather have a catch than work with you without one."
Lake’s eyelids twitched slightly when he heard her. "Well, if it makes you feel better, my main purpose for working with you is to help train my glorious and brilliant future guild master. After all, the stronger you are, the less work I’ll have to do in the future."
Kate rolled her eyes at Lake’s reply. "Sigh... Fine. I’ll just take your word for it this ti."
Hearing her agreent, Lake only smiled slightly as he continued to eat.
At this point, everyone was sitting around the dining hall, talking about their plans for tomorrow.
Lake saw that almost everyone had already ford their respective teams.
Out of the twenty Sacred Class students, not counting the fairies, there were three five-n groups and one two-man group. The last remaining student seed to join a group from another class.
Of the five-n teams, one was made up of the group of boys that usually hung out together in class, led by Conner, one of the top ten students in terms of Fitness Index among the first years.
The second group was made up of so of the girls in the class led by Fiona, another top ten student.
The third group was led by a student nad Braden Newell whose strength wasn’t anything outstanding, but made up for it with great leadership skills.
As for the two-man group, it was made up of Bradford and Allen, who always trained together.
After Lake finished eating, he turned his gaze to Kate again, who was still sitting across from him. She was scrolling through so news on her wristband.
"I must say, I’m surprised that you chose to work with instead of leading your own group," Lake suddenly said.
"Huh?" Kate raised her head with a slight frown.
"I don’t an anything by it, I just thought of you as the type who preferred to lead others instead of working in a group. When you ca up to asking to team up, I was actually kind of surprised if I’m being honest," Lake said with a curious expression.
He really was surprised when Kate suddenly ca up to him and asked to team up. Originally, he had planned to hunt alone like he did in the entrance exam, but when Kate asked to team up, he agreed.
This was because he felt like it was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
A month had almost passed since Lake got the system quest to gather allies, and while everyone had made significant progress in their training, there hadn’t been much improvent in their combat skills.
Lake didn’t pay much attention to this before as he was already struggling to just gather enough allies, let alone work on improving their combat strength.
However, after going through the terrorist ordeal in Moonlight City, he realized the importance of increasing everyone’s combat skills. When he saw how easily Kate’s father decapitated the Prestige leader, he learned sothing.
Strength could indeed get one far, but without the skills to control it or properly utilize it, no matter how strong you were, you would still be killed in the face of a true master.
That was how Lake felt when he recalled that brilliant sword arc, resemblant of moonlight itself. It wasn’t sothing that could be replicated by just being of a high level, one needed the countless hours of training to go along with it.
A year was a short ti. If Lake wanted to be prepared for whatever the system warned him of, he at least wanted to make sure that all of his allies were capable enough.
Since Kate wanted to work together, he decided to just bring her along and use it as a chance to refine her skills further.
In fact, he was already thinking about using this exam as another whetstone to train the rest of the students too. However, he still hadn’t co up with a detailed plan to achieve it.
"It’s not that I don’t wish to lead others; it’s just less efficient compared to just following you," Kate said after hearing Lake’s opinion.
"What makes you say that?"
"Your strength and skills are one factor, but the main factor, I would have to say, is experience."
"Oh? What experience are you referring to?"
"...Naturally, I’m referring to your experience when you hunted with the third years," Kate said as she quietly averted her eyes.
Lake smiled when he saw this but didn’t ask further.
He knew that Kate had been investigating him privately and recently found out about his trip to Star City a few months back.
She probably used that as a basis to make her current decision, but didn’t want to reveal that she was investigating him.
’It probably would’ve been a lot easier if she had the support of her guild...’
Rembering how Kate’s parents banned her from investigating him, Lake recalled the ti when he t her father, Arthur Blackheart.
He had tried to read through his fate but was t with the "skill level not high enough" notification.
When Lake saw this notification, he felt that sothing was wrong. Logically, no matter how powerful Arthur’s fate was, it shouldn’t be able to block the level three Observer of Fate skill.
Even people with Golden Fates like Roro and Harper couldn’t block his skill. This got him to start thinking about what was common between people whose fates he couldn’t see through and people whose fates he could, and that was when he found it.
The common point that linked them all.
A high level of Martial Attainnt.
Whether it was Alec, the Principal, or Arthur, they all had at least achieved the level of Martial Grandmaster and had more unique fates than others.
Of course, Lake didn’t have any concrete evidence to back up his theory as cases like Bradford, who despite having a low realm, still blocked his skill, also existed.
He would still need to do so tests and verify his guesses, but that required him to et with other Marital Grandmasters and above. Considering how low the population of such people was, Lake decided to postpone his plan.
Normally, Lake would have given up after this point, but he felt like digging a little deeper. Using the Web of Fate, he quickly found the people around Kate’s father and started investigating from there.
However, even after doing all that, he still wasn’t able to figure out much. It seed that all the information relating to him was almost non-existent.
No one in the guild seed to know him, but that only left him with even more questions.
Why did the Guild Master of a high-ranking guild seem to know him when no one else in the guild did?
Why was he so adamant about stopping his own daughter from investigating him?
Was he doing it to protect Kate? Or was he doing it to protect him? And if so, why?
All these questions piled up in his mind, but he decided to ignore them for now.
No matter how mysterious his past may be, he would eventually find out later when he beca stronger, and it wasn’t like he was desperate to know.
He was curious since the matter seed so mysterious and was related to him, but he didn’t have any personal attachnt or feelings towards his past, so it didn’t matter even if he didn’t find out.
As Lake was thinking of this, he suddenly received a ssage notification from his wristband.
With a raised eyebrow, he opened the ssage notification, curious as to who would ssage him now.
"...."
"What’s wrong?" Kate asked when she noticed Lake’s sudden silence.
"Nothing, it’s probably..." Lake trailed off.
"?"
"It’s just that I suddenly had a bad premonition..." Lake said slowly as he read the ssage a second ti.
It was only a few words that didn’t seem to hold any particular aning, but when Lake saw who the sender was, he couldn’t help but feel that sothing was amiss.
[Instructor Alec: et in room 301.]
....
Since he didn’t have any reason to reject, Lake reluctantly walked up to the third floor.
Standing in front of room 301, he took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
"Co in." Alec’s exhausted voice sounded from the other side.
As Lake wondered why he sounded so tired, he opened the door and walked in.
The room had a simple layout with a bed, desk, and a few chairs.
Alec was sitting behind the desk reading through a piece of paper. He was holding his head with one hand as his tired eyes read through the paper.
’No wonder he sounded so exhausted.’
Lake looked at the stacks of paper littering the desk and didn’t know what to say for a mont.
"Ah, you can take a seat," Alec said as he gestured to one of the chairs opposite the desk.
Lake nodded before closing the door behind him.
After Lake took a seat, Alec finally put down the paper in his hand before turning to look at Lake with a sigh.
"Sorry about that."
"No, it’s fine... So, what’s the deal, teach? Why did you call for ?"
Hearing Lake’s question, Alec took a second to think before resting his chin on his hands.
When Lake saw this, he suddenly got that bad premonition again.
"Lake, I’m sure you’re already aware that your strength has already long surpassed the rest of your classmates, right?"
"Yes?"
"Then I’m sure that you’re also aware that your skills have long surpassed the recomnded level for this exam."
"Yes..."
"Even after we went through all the trouble to increase the difficulty to match your level..."
"...."
Lake slowly beca silent as an idea as to what this was about appeared in his head.
"So, in light of your overwhelming strength, the Academy has decided to give you a separate test aside from the basic point requirent everyone else has to et."
Lake’s expression turned dark as the reason for his bad premonition finally revealed itself.
"Ok, and what exactly is this extra test?"
Alec chuckled with an evil smile on his face.
"It’s quite simple actually, you just have to accept so extra teammates into your group."
Lake frowned slightly as he folded his arms.
"Alright, I don’t have any problem with accepting extra teammates, but I already have soone in my team so I can only accept three more students." As Lake spoke, he raised three fingers.
"Perfect! It’s exactly three students the Academy wants you to take care off!" Alec spoke with a wide grin which caused Lake to have second thoughts.
’Three students, and he wants to take care off them, not work with them... No, it couldn’t be...’ Lake suddenly had a terrifying thought as a shiver went up his spine.
"Bastard... you wouldn’t..." Lake looked at Alec with fearful eyes.
"Hey, I may be casual with my students, but watch your language." Alec frowned when he heard Lake curse him, "But if you’re as smart as I think you are, then yes, I would."
As Lake heard Alec’s confirmation, he felt his head start to hurt.
There was only one person that could make him feel this frustrated.
"My poor brain cells..."
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