"Can you tell me why on earth you said I could fix something that’s clearly impossible to fix? Do you want to drag me down with you?" Clara asked for what felt like the umpteenth time in two days.

Now she was in a terrible bind because she had to repair a complicated tool she didn’t even understand. Even though she was a toolmaker, she’d been expelled from her clan for being useless!

For being useless!

She’s clearly no expert.

But this guy made her out to be one...

Lucius smiled slightly as they both walked through a vast forest on the Island of Civilization. One of the beast breeding grounds.

"Don’t worry, repairing that tool he mentioned is pretty easy. In fact, I have some samples here. While we’re hunting the Jaguar, I’ll teach you how to repair them," he replied.

Clara didn’t believe him. "I asked you why you did it. I don’t believe you can repair those tools, let alone teach me how to do it."

"The students we’ve been assigned aren’t arrogant, which means they’ll be open to change and learning. You noticed that, right?"

Clara nodded, confused. "Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?"

"And the teacher isn’t a bad guy at heart; it’s just that he’s been stuck teaching the most hopeless students in the academy, so naturally he harbors some resentment toward the F-Ranks."

"Yeah..." Clara nodded again, even more confused by his words.

"That means that if I decide to help them, we’ll likely form a group capable of moving up a grade, backed by a teacher from a prestigious family and two losers like us."

Clara frowned. "You want to..."

"Yes. I intend to make sure all those poor little souls can move up a class."

"Why? I never thought Lucius Asturias was a kind-hearted man." She was genuinely surprised.

Lucius smiled. It wasn’t that he was being kind-hearted; it was just that there were many benefits to doing so.

"I’ll do it in just one year. I plan to apply for one of the Academy’s Core Workshop spots. I heard they only give them to students with truly outstanding achievements."

"You want to apply for one? That’s going to be really hard. With my older brother and your older brother already taking up spots, it’s become difficult to achieve the number of feats needed to match them."

"But that’s a feat that surpasses Casius’s. So, if we work hard, everything will be fine." Lucius laughed.

"You’re very optimistic," Clara replied.

"I’m not, actually. I’m pretty pessimistic about the future, you know? I think we’re headed for certain destruction, and I don’t know why. Sometimes it keeps me up at night," Lucius joked.

Clara shook her head. "You’re weird."

Lucius burst out laughing. "I only know what I’m capable of. I’m not an optimist, but I believe in myself just as much as I believe in the rankings."

Clara didn’t know what to say.

"By the way, do you know anything about hunting jaguars?" Lucius asked.

"If they’re normal jaguars, I suppose I know a few things. But the Three-Step Jaguar—isn’t it impossible to hunt at our current level? It’s too fast; faster than many cheetahs."

"Well, it’s not that hard. Jaguars are like cats, after all. Both like to hunt their favorite prey. I’ll give you a hunting tip: never go after what you want to hunt, unless it’s very big and not that fast. It’s better to look for its favorite food and chase it toward places where there are traces of your prey."

Just then, Lucius stopped. He looked at some peculiar tracks on the ground. There are no three-legged beasts in this forest, but here were three uneven footprints, spaced far apart.

"We’ve found the jaguar’s territory," Lucius smiled. "That means its favorite prey isn’t here: the hairless rabbit."

Clara was in shock. How did he figure out that these were the tracks of a Three-Step Jaguar? She figured it out after thinking about it for a moment. But how on earth did he find it so quickly?

Lucius noticed the questions written all over her face. "I followed the scent. Three-Step Jaguars love to be where there are yellow flowers; they love them because they can camouflage themselves among them. Before coming in here, I found out what kind of yellow flowers there were, and I was told there were Honey Orchids. I just followed the trail."

"A trail? A scent? What are you, a dog? I don’t see any Honey Orchids around here!"

"Heh, thank goodness. If we did, we’d be in trouble." Lucius replied and turned to head in another direction.

"Make yourself clear, Lucius Asturias!" Clara was forced to follow him.

--

In a room inside the academy, Darius met with his informants, who brought him welcome news.

"You say Lucius entered the Central Lake Forest, with the help of the Lakeside Family?" Darius asked, suddenly excited.

"Yes, young master. Apparently, he went to hunt a Three-Step Jaguar. That’s what I was able to find out."

Darius’s eyes shone intensely. "Central Lake Forest... My family holds a lot of power there." He smiled sinisterly and looked behind him.

One of the Academy’s most outstanding students was currently standing behind him.

Kenneth Findflower, ranked 1,200th, a powerful Rank D.

He doesn’t belong to a family, but he’s talented. Because of that, the Asturians took him in when he was a child and have groomed him to be Darius’s right-hand man.

"Your men are free right now, aren’t they?" Darius asked.

Kenneth nodded. "Yes, sir... Do you want me to..."

"Go kill him. This is a golden opportunity. I already failed by letting him into the academy so easily."

Kenneth tried to intervene. "Sir, the rules..."

"The rules of the forest say that anyone who dies in one died by a beast. Don’t worry. If anyone tries to investigate you, I’ll take care of them myself."

Once again, Kenneth hesitated.

It was true that he hadn’t been raised to follow Lucius, but he was still the son of Valerius Asturias, the man who had rescued him from the streets. Was it right to do that?

"Lucius is no longer my father’s son, Kenneth. Why do you hesitate? In front of all of us, my father said he would no longer be his father. And he renounced the Asturias surname as well. He’s a traitor!"

Kenneth pressed his lips together tightly.

"Just go and kill him. That’s an order," Darius declared.

Kenneth finally nodded. "I’ll do as you command, sir."