"Easy on the kid, Galbert," a voice drifted from the side, echoing from another sparring hall at the far end of the corridor.

"It seems he doesn’t fully grasp the size of the chance he now holds."

"Mond! Keep your nose out of this matter!"

The seventh-year class president and leader of the Formal Team, Galbert, suffered a visible change of face. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a sharp, twitching irritation as another student approached.

John shifted his gaze, calmly checking the newcomer. He expected another titan, perhaps someone with even more blue clusters. Instead, he saw something that didn’t make sense.

Mond lacked a single blue code cluster. In fact, John’s scan revealed fewer than twenty special white code clusters in total, making him look, on paper, significantly weaker than Galbert or even the lesser lackeys.

’Strange,’ John’s eyes narrowed, using his Frame Recognition to find the hidden catch, yet he found none. ’He looks weaker, but why did Galbert get riled up the moment he appeared? He’s reacting as if he’s met his nemesis.’

John’s interest and curiosity were piqued by this unexpected situation. Noticing John’s piercing gaze, Mond let out a dry, rattling laugh.

"You do know he is the one you should eye like this, right?" Mond said, gesturing toward Galbert. "I’m just a normal student in the last year of the academy. A background character in their glorious story."

"Stop acting like bullshit," Galbert retorted, his voice low and dangerous. "Everyone knows you were the one behind killing Jackline!"

"That’s nonsense!"

John stood perfectly still, watching with internal amusement as the situation escalated between the two seniors. He took a subtle step back, playing the role of the innocent bystander while closely watching every interaction.

"I never touched her!" Mond countered, his voice turning cold and sharp as a razor. "She was your girl, Galbert, so you should know better than anyone how she spent her final moments. She died in the middle of a lecture, in front of everyone, without me sitting anywhere close to her. Unlike a certain someone who was holding her hand at the time."

"You..."

The accusation in Mond’s words was heavy, hitting Galbert like a lightning blow. It was clear that the history between these two ran deep, a blood-soaked rivalry that John felt curious to dig into further later on.

"Fine," Galbert spat, swallowing the retort he clearly wanted to scream. He totally ignored Mond after that, throwing a final, threatening glance over his shoulder at John.

"Just stay away from this spot, kid. This is the training ground for the Formal Team. Next time you come poking around where you don’t belong, I won’t be nice."

Galbert retreated into the hall with his gang, the heavy doors closing with a loud, metallic bang that echoed through the corridor, leaving John and Mond alone in the sudden silence.

"Don’t mind what he said," Mond sighed, leaning against the cold wall. "Jackline was a girl both of us fought to win the heart of, once upon a time. But in the end, she preferred a direct heir of the Sword Family over a nobody like me. Can’t say I blame her. Status is a powerful drug in this world."

"A nobody who is apparently strong enough to make their class president flinch?" John didn’t beat around the bush. He pointed directly toward the glaring contradiction his eyes had spotted.

If Mond were just a nobody, as he claimed, Galbert, a man overflowing with blue-grade codes and Paragon backing, would have simply crushed or ignored him. Instead, John had sensed a deep-seated hesitation in Galbert, a genuine fear of fighting Mond head-on.

"Oh, you took the wrong idea entirely," Mond laughed eerily, grasping exactly what John was hinting at.

"He didn’t retreat because I’m stronger than him. I was strong once, years ago. I was the class president for the first three years of our tenure. I was the genius, the one everyone talked about. Yet all of a sudden, my growth halted. I hit a wall while others surpassed me. Now, I’m just a weakling haunting the halls."

John looked at Mond, feeling as though he were looking into a distorting mirror. He could tell the man was covering the core truth with a thin veil of lies, using reality to sell a lie.

Mond looked weaker according to the special code count. And yet, Galbert’s fear was real, and that meant Mond was hiding a trick up his sleeve, one that didn’t show up in his ability’s vision.

"If you want to keep secrets, then it’s fine," John responded with a calm smile, his eyes lingering on Mond for a moment longer than necessary.

"But if you want to step up and get stronger, truly stronger, then come and find me. I’m establishing a new club, for elites only. And I’m giving you one invitation to consider. Don’t waste it."

John’s words visibly surprised Mond, but John didn’t linger. He turned and walked away without waiting for an answer. He didn’t need to know what Mond was hiding yet; the fact that Galbert was wary of him was recommendation enough.

’Mond... Interesting...’ John silently looked through the list Cissel and Elena had provided. That name was nowhere to be found.

It made him wonder just how many hidden gems were drifting through the academy, undetected by him or his friends yet. Powered up by this discovery and the thrill of the hunt, he headed toward the stairs to check the higher-floor sparring sessions.

’What is that?!’

Just as his foot hovered over the first step, a flicker at the periphery of his vision stopped him cold. It was on the lower floor, near the maintenance access at the base of the stairwell. There, partially obscured by the green structure of the building, he spotted it: a cyborg.

His eyes narrowed instantly. Through his ability, he saw the unmistakable silhouette of a human, but the internal structure was a distinct duality.

Half of the body was composed of white human code, while the other half was a green machine code. It was the distinctive signature of his enemy: the cyborgs.