The sands and waters of time waited for no man, demon, or god, and not even reincarnators.

A new day began, and Simon was woken up by the usual sound of explosives in front of his door.

He woke up with a groan, stretched and yawned, wore his mask, walked out of the room and started running to the academy entrance like all his classmates.

The race to the gates of the academy was peaceful and not filled with chaos like past races.

None found Simon’s trouble, but Simon noticed that some of his classmates were giving him strange looks and were also staring at him more than normal.

At first, Simon believed that it was because they were seeing him for the first time after a ’long time’.

He attended none of the classes yesterday, and because every single day seems to center around him, he believed that it must have been strange to them not seeing him throughout yesterday.

However, turns out he was wrong.

He overtook two of his classmates, and before he got too far away from them, he heard one of them speak.

"Is he really going to fight a life and death battle with one of our seniors?"

He reduced his speed so as to hear their conversation.

"It has been confirmed by a lot of people and I heard that even Instructor Valdin confirmed it."

"So the slave is going to die today?"

"I hope so. I don’t like him, and I think he’s too arrogant."

"I know right. Can-"

Simon ignored the two children from here on, and he increased his speed, though his mind was on what he just heard.

’So, the factions decided to publicize my life and death duel. Do they plan on making their fighter embarrass me like I did to their underlings?’

Simon pondered on this for a few seconds before he shook his head and pushed them to the back of his head.

Since he could not understand what the actual goal of the factions were for this life and death duel, he would not bother stressing himself with their possible plans.

No matter what they wanted to do, he would find a way out of it and triumph.

’Akaza has done what I asked him to do. He was able to buy information on the skills, power level, and artifacts of Blackblade.’

’All that information cost me nearly a thousand merits. It’s unfortunate that I’m getting broke, I couldn’t buy all the information about Blackblade from the Intelligence Office.’

Simon pondered briefly on the information Akaza sent to him, then he focused on getting to the academy entrance before the deadline.

A few minutes later, Simon finally reached the academy entrance along with some of his classmates.

As more of his classmates arrived, the stares he received increased and if not for the fact that they could not speak in the presence of Instructor Valdin, the air would be filled with conversations about his life and death duel.

Simon ignored all their stares, but the one stare that made him narrow his eyes was the stare of Instructor Valdin.

He could not see Instructor Valdin’s face because it was covered by a shadow, but Simon could strangely perceive pity from the aura of the Velari.

He could not help but frown slightly.

’Pity? Why am I perceiving pity from him?’

Since he could obviously not get an answer to his question, he waited for their class instructor to break the silence.

A few minutes later, Instructor Valdin spoke.

"Today, you’ll be having the courses under the Body Pillar, however, I’m sure you’ve all heard of the latest news."

The instructor looked at Simon, and everybody also looked at him.

Simon indifferently raised a brow.

Instructor Valdin gestured at Simon.

"Broken Halo is going to be partaking in a life and death duel today, and it’s going to be in the next one hour. "

He looked at Simon.

"Broken Halo, your physical training instructor- Instructor Emith- has allowed you to miss her class today."

"She wants you to be fully prepared for the match."

Simon recalled the instructor who was like an insane soldier that loved pushing her students to the brink of death.

’I guess she’s not so heartless after all.’

However, Instructor Valdin’s next words made him to instantly regret those thoughts.

"However, she said that if you somehow survived the duel, then you’ll do double the drills and exercises in her next class. And she does not plan on going easy on you." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"And she also said that you should not think of avoiding the next class or you’ll suffer the consequences for that."

Simon’s expression froze, and for some reason, he had a terrible premonition regarding his future training with Instructor Emith than his upcoming life and death battle.

After saying these words, Instructor Valdin turned and walked into the academy with the First Years following him like ducklings following their mother.

Only three Initiates failed to arrive at the academy entrance before the deadline for reasons only known to them, and the First Years had no idea, but this was a good sign to the instructors and higher ups because the last five sets of First Years were not as determined and responsive as Simon’s set in the first week.

After Instructor Valdin, Simon, and the rest of his classmates entered the academy, Simon was taken aback when he saw that so many Intiates and even Instructors were looking at him.

He could hear the murmurs and conversations of some Initiates he passed by, and they were all talking about his life and death duel.

Simon blinked in surprise.

’Did the factions spread the news about the duel? Everybody in the entire school seems to know about my duel with them.’

’How strange. Are they that confident in Blackblade killing me? What if I win? Wouldn’t it be a blow to their reputation?’

’Are they just that confident? Is it foolishness? Or is there a deeper plot to this as I suspect?’

Simon could not help but frown as his mind was filled with numerous questions under the intense stares and gazes of the whole school.