---
The arena suddenly fell into a frightening silence...
Rin Evelyn stared at Eon as if he were a monster,
while Professor Era was barely holding herself back from ughing.
Cyril’s growl suddenly resounded.
“You damned bastard, my ancestors are the ones who said that.”
Eon was surprised by Cyril’s sudden anger.
Then he said angrily,
“Hell, what does that have to do with me if your ancestors were blind?”
The spectators took a cold breath at Eon’s bold statement.
Cyril growled,
“You brat, don’t you know who I am?!”
“How the hell would I know who you are, brown boy? Do I have to know the name of every dog I meet?”
Cyril choked when Eon called him a brown boy and a dog, and replied sharply,
“I am Cyril, you bastard… Cyril Valerian, you—”
He was about to curse when Eon spoke again in a voice full of doubt.
“Valerian? One of the three ruling families of the empire?
Isn’t it said that the Valerian family bloodline all have silver hair and bck eyes?
For hell’s sake, tell a lie that isn’t exaggerated and I’ll believe you. Look at yourself. You’re not a Valerian talent. I’ve already fought their third prince, and he was only in the first year… man, do you know if the ruling bloodline hears that someone is borrowing their name to bully first-year students, I’m sure death would be kinder to you… well, what do you think? Pay a thousand mana crystals and I won’t report you.”
A stunned expression appeared on Cyril’s face as he heard Eon say those words.
Does he really not know me… or is he just an idiot?
He came out of his daze and roared madly.
“You bastard! I only used 50% of my strength and didn’t use the Heaven and Earth Rune Pool and didn’t even activate my bloodline! How the hell do you say I’m weak?!
And how the hell are you bckmailing me, a Valerian of the branch lineage… no, you pay a million mana crystals and I won’t report that you said the ancestors of Valerian are dogs!”
Eon replied angrily despite his exhaustion, refusing to lose this battle of words after losing his combat battle earlier.
“I only used 10%, otherwise I would’ve dug your dog’s grave today.”
Words he himself didn’t even believe, but he didn’t care. He had already reached his limit and no more fighting would break out. It was only an attempt to provoke Cyril.
Then he said,
“Hell, if you’re from the branch lineage that’s even worse. How about I report you to the ruling family and say one of their descendants tried to buy the Valerian reputation with only a million mana crystals… if you don’t give me a damn billion mana crystals I’ll make sure you’re executed, you bastard who abandons his ancestors for a million mana crystals.”
Cyril’s mind could only stop when he heard Eon’s words.
How the hell… how the hell does such a shameless bastard exist in this world?!
He could only ugh in anger.
“Ahahaha, 10%? Look at yourself panting on the ground like a dog… and if you report it, we’ll both be executed!”
Eon replied with the same angry ugh.
“If I’m executed together with the great Valerian descendant, that’s not a loss at all. And I’m sure the ruling family isn’t stupid enough to execute someone who didn’t even know their ancestors said that… although I’m not wrong in the end, and your shoulder is the best proof.”
Shameless. Shameless to the extreme.
Everyone in the training arena — the students, Rin, Era, and Cyril — thought the same thing.
Cyril found nothing to reply with. Eon wasn’t wrong, even though he knew Eon was only saying it to provoke him as a joke.
Just when he was about to respond—
Era’s voice intervened as she stepped toward them with a smile she could barely keep from turning into ughter.
“Alright you two, why are you like dogs fighting each other? This was just a small spar… ah children, you really cause trouble for this beautiful dy… come on, let’s stop here.”
She said that while pcing her hand on her forehead.
Eon muttered quietly,
“You mean a beautiful old dy…”
Eon’s eyes widened suddenly when he realized what he had said, and his instincts screamed at him to move aside.
He barely commanded his body to move when a fist struck the back of his head, smashing him into the ground and cracking the earth beneath him.
He didn’t even need to raise his head to know who it was.
It was Era.
Just how the hell did those words come out of my mouth? Do I want to die?... Damn my mouth.
“You bastard! How dare you call me old?! I’m only 76 years old! Real old people live more than 500 years!”
Era’s voice rang out with a hint of anger.
Cyril muttered,
“You deserved it.”
He didn’t finish his words when Era’s gaze fell on him.
A chill suddenly ran down his spine.
“Cyril, how do you get dragged into provocations from a first-year student like this? Do I need to send a report to your grandfather? He already has high hopes for you. I only agreed to this spar to make you see that the new generation is full of talents and you shouldn’t become arrogant just because you awakened a fifth-rank Heaven and Earth Rune.”
Cyril lowered his head and could only feel anger toward himself.
Era’s gaze softened as she looked at Cyril and stepped toward him, pcing her hand on his shoulder.
“Alright… I was a little harsh. A little pride and arrogance is natural at your age… even I wasn’t better than you when I was your age, actually worse.”
She couldn’t help but ugh slightly as she remembered a certain memory.
Then she looked at Cyril.
Despite his status and talent, Cyril was truly a good person and trained far harder than the other students, even though he surpassed them in resources and talent.
That was why she pced her hopes on him reaching **Rank S**, the home of real monsters.
“Cyril… you needed this. Although I didn’t expect you to suffer like this, it’s better this way. You should thank Eon. I can see you actually respect and admire him. I was afraid you would remain arrogant, otherwise the new generation would hit you hard and you wouldn’t recover from that shock.”
Cyril looked at his teacher with a complicated gaze of gratitude and could only nod while sighing.
He truly admired Eon.
How could someone from a remote kingdom who couldn’t even use mana reach this level of power?
He even helped him strengthen his foundations, though in the most irritating way possible.
Era looked at Cyril with relief as she saw him nod.
She didn’t want her good student to be swallowed by pride and arrogance and remain standing still, unaware that his peers had already begun catching up to him quickly, threatening to surpass him.
It was good that Eon had put some pressure on him today.
That would benefit him greatly in the future.
Speaking of Eon—
She turned toward where he was.
He was rubbing the bump on his head with a frown.
She couldn’t help but let out a muffled ugh as she looked at him.
She never expected someone with such a personality to exist in this academy.
Someone who could defeat Cyril even if Cyril used his full power without restraint.
Her smile slowly disappeared as she remembered a scene from the entrance exams…
---
Eon was standing there, a look of hesitation on his face as he extended his left hand to grip the middle of his right arm slightly below the elbow. His aura slowly rose, glowing from beneath his feet up to his right hand, which was open and pointing toward Arthur Grimlock, who was more than twenty meters away and could barely stand. Arthur felt Eon’s aura lock pressing in on him from the sides, forcing him to face Eon’s move directly without any chance of escape. When he saw a white sphere slowly forming in Eon’s palm, a chill ran down Grimlock’s spine. If he took that hit, he didn’t even know whether he would remain alive, and even if he survived he was certain he would suffer serious injuries that would not heal anytime soon...
He could only grit his teeth fiercely while cursing himself for not waiting for Aria and Selene on the ninth floor before climbing to the tenth floor to chase Eon. He was certain he could defeat Eon if he used his full power against him, and that Eon would not be able to escape like the previous time on the fifth floor when Eleanor Rofilyon fought him. He had justified it to himself that he had simply been careless, which resulted in Eleanor being seriously injured by Eon before he left without giving him a chance for revenge.
But when he faced him now, he realized that Eon himself had not used his full strength in their previous battle either. He was ridiculously strong—it could not be denied.
The two of them had fought for ten minutes. Whether at long range or in close combat, Arthur had never been able to nd a decisive blow even after exhausting all his tricks.
If the fight had continued for another minute, he was certain Eon would win. But it seemed Eon had suddenly changed his mind and wanted to end the match quickly when he noticed something in the distant horizon, even if it meant revealing his trump card—a move he had clearly been hesitant to use despite victory being within reach.
Arthur had an idea why Eon suddenly changed his mind. Selene and Aria were coming. What surprised him was how Eon had noticed them even though they were outside his line of sight, and how he knew they would reach this pce in less than a minute at their speed.
But since Eon had decided to use his trump card, that meant he was certain it would defeat him in less than half a minute at most, allowing him to leave the battlefield and finish the test without fighting Aria and Selene.
Arthur could only grit his teeth and spit the words through them harshly.
“I surrender.”
Before a pilr of light wrapped around him and teleported him away.
Just as he was about to leave the battlefield, he saw Eon sigh in relief as he slowly withdrew his power back into his body.
Arthur sighed regretfully. He had not been able to see Eon’s trump card and how powerful it truly was, but he could not risk suffering serious injuries that might leave him unable to leave his bed for at least two weeks.
Fsh.
Arthur disappeared from the battlefield with deep regret.
When Professor Era saw that scene, she could only take a deep breath as the hair on the back of her neck stood up in a chill.
Not because Eon’s move could threaten her.
No.
There were two reasons.
The first was: how the hell could such a terrifying technique exist in the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy—and a technique she had never seen before.
The second reason was far more frightening.
Eon’s greed and terrifying ruthlessness.
Arthur and most of the instructors might not have been able to see it—but she did.
Inside the sphere itself, there were three white spheres forming, their pressure far more terrifying than the outer sphere.
The outer sphere was only a decoy.
The first sphere was aimed at the exhausted Arthur.
And the other two were vaguely aimed at Aria and Selene.
He intended to take them all down with a single move before they even entered the battlefield. He had already pnned to defeat them.
He had hesitated to use his ultimate move, but when he decided to use it, he did not want to waste it on Arthur alone. He wanted to use it on all three of them and end the test quietly.
A monster.
That was the conclusion Professor Era reached when she saw Eon back then.
A terrifying level of mental control that would normally require decades of continuous training.
But this monster was destined to be like fireworks that light up the sky with a dazzling fsh—then disappear suddenly just as quickly as they appeared.
