“Ferdi, bro... what is this??”

“Ah—ah hahaha, I remember now! Really, I’m so sorry, little bro Vinny, and everyone. It’s actually like this—this badge was handed to me by a friend today, and he asked me to keep it for him for a few days. You know how it is, the uniform pockets are too shallow. I was afraid I’d lose it, so I just pinned it inside my inner lining.” Ferdi scratched the back of his head and tried to laugh it off, but no matter how you ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) looked at it, it felt like a forced explanation.

That kind of explanation—other than him, would anyone really believe it??

No. He probably didn’t even believe it himself.

And the Ferdi in front of them seemed to have decided to smash the jar and give up. Facing the strangely unified, doubting gazes of everyone, he clung to the idea of “as long as I’m not embarrassed, the embarrassed one is everyone else,” and forced himself to grit it out all the way to the end.

Vinny really wanted to ask, Who’s that friend? How come I’ve never seen him? Never even heard you mention him? But thinking about it—if he said that, Ferdi’s lie would get pierced, and then he truly wouldn’t be able to come down from the stage. So he didn’t say it. He didn’t point it out.

But still.

Vinny felt the badge in his hand was a little hot, like he desperately wanted to throw it away, but also had to keep gripping it—because if he threw it away, wouldn’t the others just pick it up and look??

For some reason, a powerful sense of shame rose in his chest. Even though the one who joined a support fan club wasn’t him, he still had that feeling of wanting to sink into the ground.

He had been forced to participate in that contest too, okay? Mm—if you counted “wanting to beat Aesphyra once” and “wanting to get an ice-element spirit elixir,” that probably did count as being forced.

Right now, Vinny had the kind of awkward, mortified feeling a poor student would have after cross-dressing for money and tuition, only to get caught by acquaintances—even though they hadn’t recognized that it was him.

That thing had happened a long time ago. Vinny had slowly forgotten it. And yet now it got dragged back out and forced him to remember all over again—dead memories came back to attack him.

And also, what the hell was this support fan club supposed to be?! Other than that beauty contest, he had never once swaggered around Carillian Academy in women’s clothes. So how could there be a dedicated fan badge for the fake identity he’d created after cross-dressing??

If you insisted it was because of that beauty contest, then in Vinny’s opinion, that contest had zero value to begin with. Not a single Destiny Heroine from the original story participated—how could that be considered valuable??

If even one Destiny Heroine had entered, could he have won? It was precisely because the Destiny Heroines basically looked down on contests like that and wouldn’t bother participating that he’d been able to take first, okay??

Vinny genuinely hadn’t expected the impact of his one-time cross-dressing to be this huge. In a situation where he himself had no idea, he’d ended up with fans, and even his badge had been produced—and was being carried around by his male friend.

It gave him a chilling feeling.

No—this is creepy, you know? He’s a guy?!

After that, this disaster that could be called the card-player-soul club’s great catastrophe ended.

But it also very much hadn’t ended.

After this, a lot of people’s gazes toward each other changed. Vinny felt that no matter what happened next, from now on, whenever everyone looked at someone in the club, they’d stick a string of tags in front of his name.

“Oh, you joined a school-beauty support fan club too? So you’re so-and-so’s fan? So you like that type, huh??”

Now... who knew what their friendship would become.

If the situation weren’t wrong, Vinny really wanted to choke up at the right moment and say, What will become of our card-player-soul club from now on?

But obviously, now wasn’t the time to focus on that. The problem was Ferdi.

Vinny really didn’t want to see Ferdi right now, so he left without even deciding how to deal with those “traitors who betrayed the card-player soul.”

Holy hell, this was way too ridiculous!

After returning home, Vinny calmed himself down and, for the first time in a while, opened his Virtue panel.

The last time he’d opened it, he’d turned into a poor bastard. This time, naturally, he opened it because he was rich again.

Vinny looked at the Virtue displayed behind the balance line—an enormous sum of 11194. He felt much more confident.

Forget those weird, irritating things for now. Let’s see what the current Virtue can do.

The first thing Vinny looked at was the “realm upgrade” section. Even though upgrading realms required not only Virtue, but also progress on many tasks, realm advancement was still the main issue.

As his realm rose, Vinny’s thinking also slowly changed. Before, when he was still Apprentice-class and Sorcerer-class, realm advancement didn’t feel like that big a deal. He could even cross a small realm gap and defeat opponents, so he felt realms weren’t that important.

But after crossing the Magus realm and formally reaching the tier of a true powerhouse, Vinny finally realized just how important realms really were.

Controls and mechanics were important, sure—but having strong stats was the most direct kind of strength. More important than anything. No matter how good your control is, you can’t stab someone through with a chopstick. Maybe you stab them dozens of times and nothing happens, but the dragon-slaying blade in their hand is a real “one strike for 999.” If it hits you, you die without even leaving a corpse.

As realms rose, even surpassing a single small realm became a chasm of difference—enough to crush a pile of people. After so many life-and-death battles, Vinny understood that deeply.

Take the simplest example: Magus-realm Aesphyra could defeat fanatics. So now, if Aesphyra had likely already stepped into the Master realm, then there was a strong chance she could, without using [Saint’s Favor], beat five fanatics with one hand tied behind her back.

That wasn’t exaggerated at all. That’s just how huge the tier gap was.

So raising stats—raising realms—was the biggest improvement, and the most straightforward way to become stronger.

Vinny checked whether he met the conditions to go from Junior Magus to Intermediate Magus, and how much Virtue it would cost.

Luckily, his prerequisite task conditions were met. That section wasn’t grayed out, which proved the Virtue system allowed him to upgrade to Intermediate Magus.

And the cost of the upgrade was 10000 Virtue. He could afford it.

Vinny remembered that upgrading from high-tier Sorcerer-class to Junior Magus had cost 8000 Virtue.

The Virtue cost was getting larger and larger, but saving Virtue was meant for spending—for becoming stronger. He had no hesitation. These cold numbers were only truly valuable when they could be converted into something real.

So Vinny pressed the “Upgrade to Intermediate Magus” button.

‘Virtue deducted: 10000.’

‘[Current Virtue: 1194].’

‘Upgraded to ‘Intermediate Magus’.’

Hoh ho ho!

Vinny threw a punch into the air. Even though it didn’t create any airflow at all, he still felt like he’d become stronger by a huge margin—like he’d reached a new height.

An Intermediate Magus that others would need who-knew-how-long to grind for, and who-knew-how-many insights to gain before advancing—he clicked once and got there. If word got out, who knew how many people would envy him.

Maybe the Virtue system really was the goddess’s cheat for him. After all, he was a lone, former villain. If he didn’t have some cheats, how could he catch up to the pace and avoid that guillotine hanging above his head, ready to fall at any moment??

Honestly, Vinny felt like the current him could be more arrogant now. He could speak with more pride.

If you dropped him into any nation’s forces—even a non-human nation—he’d be stronger than most transcendents.

It’s just that now he had to start saving Virtue all over again.

Compared to before he enrolled, when he’d only been Apprentice-class, in less than a year he’d charged all the way up to Intermediate Magus. That was a qualitative leap and improvement.

No wonder those bastards in the Church of the Dawn immediately panicked after prying through internal channels and learning he already had the Magus realm.

Because in their eyes, even if he entered Carillian Academy, he was still just mud that wouldn’t stick to the wall. Now that mud—mud they saw as nonthreatening and not even worth dirtying their hands—had actually become a rising star. Who would dare gamble on that kind of instability??

But even though his realm-raising speed was already outrageous compared to others, he still couldn’t compare to the Destiny Heroines.

Of course, that didn’t include Destiny Heroines like Milian and Dale, who didn’t really have stats.

Think about it: even though he upgraded realms so easily, he still tried with all his might and couldn’t beat Aesphyra or Isatia, getting left far behind them. That showed just how strong the Destiny luck on them was. Even with a cheat strapped to his body, he still couldn’t catch up.

At that thought, Vinny let out a long sigh.

When he was inside the academy, he was protected by Carillian Academy. No matter what, Carillian Academy was the remnants of the Tyrelis Ancient Empire. No one dared gamble on how many terrifying ancient-imperial magic arts and ancient-imperial treasures had been passed down here. Add to that the Carillian Academy Headmaster who never showed her face—about that never-once-met headmaster, Vinny had heard rumors. Supposedly, she was the only [Purgatory] realm on the Tyrelis Continent today.

Therefore, on the entire Tyrelis Continent, even the Church of the Dawn wasn’t particularly willing to become Carillian Academy’s enemy openly, because there was simply no need for that.

But what about after he left the academy? If he still hadn’t reached a realm where he could seize and take away [Saint’s Envoy], then what?

At that point, he would have to personally resist the pressure of the Church of the Dawn. With the sheer size of the Church of the Dawn, as long as he couldn’t seize and take away [Saint’s Envoy], he definitely couldn’t defeat the Church of the Dawn. No matter how strong he was, it wouldn’t matter. The Church of the Dawn had plenty of people stronger than him—there were even plenty stronger than the current-stage Aesphyra.

And besides, could he really hide it for that long?

Shaking off those thoughts to keep his mindset steady, Vinny could only stop thinking about it for now.

Since things had come to this—eat first.

“Vinny... are you not in a good mood?” At the dinner table, Dale sensed Vinny’s emotions. Seeing Vinny holding his utensils without moving, he asked with concern.

“It’s nothing, Dale. I’m fine right now.” Vinny shook his head.

It really did prove that line— the stronger you became, the more you could feel your own smallness.

The weekend ended. Whether anyone wanted it or not, amid a chorus of complaints, everyone rushed to the exam rooms. Just looking at their mental state, you could tell how many people were about to suffer this time.

But compared to usual, Vinny was pretty calm. Sitting there, he was extremely steady, with a sort of veteran-master vibe.

You could only say it was a coincidence. During his entrance exam, he’d been assigned to the same exam room as Aesphyra. Back then he’d handed in a blank paper with only his name written on it—and he’d even mocked Aesphyra.

Now, for this written exam, he was assigned to the same exam room as Aesphyra again. And they were pretty close, too. There was only a single aisle between them—basically sitting across from each other.

Before the exam started, Vinny even saw Aesphyra shoot him a teasing look. He didn’t need to guess. That damn white-haired nutball was already waiting to see him embarrass himself.

‘[Virtue +30].’

‘[Current Virtue: 1224].’

Vinny rolled his eyes at her, put on a I don’t know you, I don’t want to talk to you face, and after the papers were handed out, he buried his head and did his own work.

But this exam really was difficult. Vinny wasn’t some genius. Even though Isatia had taught him for a while and he’d improved a lot, some questions still stumped him. But thanks to Isatia’s special training, he still managed to grind out uncertain answers in the end.

After he struggled his way through finishing the exam paper, he let out a breath, lifted his eyes, and looked around—only to find, unexpectedly, that a lot of people were looking up.

What—was this exam actually that easy? Everyone had finished, and he was the only one who’d struggled this hard??

But Vinny quickly realized that wasn’t it. The students looking up and glancing around had a kind of helpless confusion in their eyes. Rather than the ease of being done, it looked more like they’d been knocked stupid by the questions.

Vinny frowned and glanced at Aesphyra beside him.

A terrifying nut person like her obviously wasn’t affected. Just looking at her posture, she was already done. She rested her cheek in her hand in boredom. When Vinny looked over, she returned a smiling look, then—like she’d been deliberately waiting for Vinny to look up at her—she elegantly stood and turned in her paper.

This bastard... really was as annoying as ever.

But this time, she definitely wasn’t going to get to watch his embarrassment.

Vinny clicked his tongue internally, checked the time, and found there were less than twenty minutes until the exam ended. So after giving his paper a rough once-over, he went to turn it in as well.

As he passed other students, Vinny saw many of them still struggling, with pained, deep-thinking expressions.

Looks like his performance... was actually considered good??

After handing in his paper and walking out of the classroom, as expected, he saw Aesphyra at the classroom door. Somehow, she’d produced a cup of fruit tea, and she was drinking it while watching him.

“Vinny, you seem to have done pretty well this time?~” Aesphyra said with a bright smile. “At least this time, you weren’t competing on how fast you could turn it in?”

Damn it—she was squatting here, and she even deliberately got herself a cup of fruit tea, just to camp him and mock him, right??

You damn—

“That’s right. Like you need to say it?” Vinny glanced at Aesphyra. “This Young Master taking action—how could there be any mistake? You’re going to be disappointed this time. You won’t get to see my embarrassment.”

“Eh? That’s harsh~ Vinny, in your eyes, is the only reason I’d show up here to watch you embarrass yourself?” Aesphyra tilted her head.

“Then what else could you be here for??”

“Can’t I be here to bring fruit tea to Vinny~?” As she spoke, Aesphyra lifted the fruit tea in her hand and offered the straw toward Vinny. “Vinny, have a taste~?”

Damn it, this again, huh?? This move really never failed.

“Get lost, get lost, get lost. I already said this Young Master is allergic to nuts! Especially moldy nuts. Take that stinking fruit tea you’ve contaminated with nut juice and move it farther away!” Vinny rolled his eyes at Aesphyra.

“Oh~ really?”

“Tsk tsk. Look at how smug you are. You didn’t get to see this Young Master get roasted until burnt, so you’re regretful, huh??” Vinny rolled his eyes at her.

“Can’t I be happy that Vinny did well?” Aesphyra narrowed her pretty eyes. “Come to think of it, Vinny seems to have been deliberately studying these days~?”

“So what? This Young Master is hardworking—did you think otherwise??”

“Oh? Is that so? Could it be that some classmate was willing to suffer and teach Vinny~?”

“Tch! This Young Master is naturally gifted! And who this Young Master relies on is none of your business, you nutball! That’s this Young Master’s connections. Do you even understand connections?” As he spoke, Vinny caught sight of a figure appearing behind Aesphyra, and he greeted her.

“Yo, Isatia—were you in the exam room next door? How long have you been out?” Vinny walked toward Aesphyra’s direction, but then changed course mid-step and turned toward the black-haired girl.

“Not long.”

“You waiting for someone here?”

“Mm.” Isatia gave a concise nod, then looked at Vinny and said seriously. “Waiting for you.”