BOOM!

Ronan stood near the rear of Class B’s formation, watching the explosion tear through the alliance’s front line.

Dust erupted beneath Elara, Armani, and Adam.

Shattered roots scattered outward, and dust spread everywhere. The blast carved a shallow trench across the clearing. There was a large dust cloud, and Ronan could see signs on a small crater that formed where it detonated.

Ronan’s eyes narrowed as he watched with relative calm.

The explosion had not been designed to kill.

It threw people off-balance. Created gaps in formation. Separated leaders from their support. Made every student question whether they would step on a bomb next.

Grace had not simply ambushed them. No, she had done more than that. Even before they arrived, she had made sure to turn the clearing into a deadly weapon.

Not that the idea was exactly complicated or hard to come up with in principle. Rigging a battlefield with bombs was simple.

It was the execution that was impressive.

It didn’t matter how complicated your plan was, if the execution was subpar, it was a bad plan. And a simple plan with perfect execution was oftentimes better than a complicated one which was near impossible to execute.

Class B stumbled.

Class A students fell into Class C’s line. Commands overlapped with one another. Someone shouted to retreat. Another yelled to hold.

The temporary alliance collapsed on itself, and lost itself in the chaos. With that one small move.

Grace’s question about trust had not been philosophy.

It had been about fundamental battlefield design.

She did not need them to betray each other. This was far more effective.

The dust began to clear.

Certain patches of ground was destroyed, while others remained untouched. False safe lanes appeared, guiding fleeing students directly into Class S’s firing angles.

The assault had started.

And the one to initiate it was class S.

Ronan checked Elara almost immediately.

She survived the blast. Her defensive instinct forced mana through her body at the last second, absorbing the impact and throwing her backward. Blood traced her lip, but she remained conscious.

Ronan watched as the battlefield descended into chaos.

Students started going all out at each other, throwing magic, clashing weapons. It was a scene he had once read on paper, but seeing it now was very interesting. Even awe inspiring.

But Ronan had no intention of getting involved.

He activated Stealth, making his presence less noticeable. In an environment like this, it wouldn’t be as effective, but it would make students less likely to notice and target him.

Ronan maneuvered around the battlefield, making sure to path along the outskirts. His Stealth skill, which was level 6 now, was doing wonders in keeping his presence low-key.

Then the statue came into his vision.

The synchronization team moved into position.

Iris stood at one channel, calm despite the battlefield shaking around her. That’s how she was. Calm, no matter what the world threw at her.

A second Class S support student took the opposite channel.

Irene guarded the base of the statue, sword raised, mana gathered.

The two minor nodes were brought forward.

Ronan watched the twin streams begin to connect.

The flow twisted slightly.

Iris seemed to notice, even if her fellow classmate didn’t.

Her expression sharpened.

She adjusted, smoothing the instability before it could rupture.

Her control was precise.

Her mana responded without hesitation.

Ronan’s eyes narrowed.

The disruption rune had worked.

Freya placed it exactly where he told her.

The hidden obsidian piece woke beneath the stone, interfering with the dual-channel synchronization in ways that should have destabilized even a talented mage.

But Iris had not broken.

Yet.

The instability continued beneath the surface, growing worse with every passing second.

Each correction Iris made prevented immediate collapse but stacked pressure back into the flow, forcing the dual streams deeper into irregularity.

The statue’s mana grew denser, less clean, harder to regulate, all because Freya’s – his – disruption rune sat hidden beneath the stone, quietly bleeding chaos into a system meant to run smoothly. And knowing Sapphire’s handiwork, it wouldn’t be detected unelss there was an actual investigation for it, and he knew class S didn’t have time for that.

Ronan nodded to himself. Iris wouldn’t be able to hold up much longer.

He turned his attention away and started searching for his real objective.

The conditions lined up almost perfectly. Dual-node instability. High-output students channeling enormous amounts of mana in close proximity. Fractured cores of students leaking residual energy. Smoke obscuring natural flow. Fear pressing students past sustainable limits. And above it all, the statue itself acting as a destabilizing anchor, overstrained and screaming silently through distorted rune patterns.

This was the perfect time to find a host. All the conditions were met.

Yet the Refinement Leech did not appear.

That bothered him.

He’d expected something by now – some ripple in the ambient mana, some distortion near the wounded or exhausted students.

But nothing.

Only the distortion Freya’s rune created was present.

Was I wrong?

Ronan’s jaw tightened. He’d researched this. The southern region’s mana density, the Academy’s environmental manipulation, the way battlefields like this one created exactly the kind of fractured, desperate conditions parasitic organisms thrived within.

Unless the conditions weren’t enough. Unless the leech required something more specific than generalized chaos and mana instability which the books didn’t speak of. That was a very real possibility.

Or...

Or unless it simply wasn’t here at all.

Ronan turned away from the statue, moving deliberately toward the battlefield’s outer edge.

If the parasite emerged, it wouldn’t manifest at the center immediately – not where mana output was highest and most students concentrated their attention.

It would follow the runoff first to observe. It wasn’t a mindless entity from what he’d read.

He activated Sapphire’s detection ward, letting it pulse faintly against his palm as he slipped between trees and broken ground.

Behind him, the war intensified.

Explosions cracked through smoke. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Spells collided mid-air, scattering embers and frost across churned dirt.

Students screamed orders, curses, warnings, and fought against each other for control over the statue. The war created by the Academy that pitted them against each other.

Ronan paid none of it any mind.

His focus narrowed to mana flow, terrain composition, and ambient fluctuations. Searching for anything useful.

Then something else caught his attention.

Ronan noticed Luca Underwood.

The protagonist fought near the western side of the area, separated from the statue by multiple layers of smoke and enemy movement.

At first, he was untouchable. Every student who approached him was knocked aside with clean, overwhelming force – the kind of strength that made Ronan’s own weak body feel laughable by comparison.

But the attacks didn’t stop.

Several groups converged at once, not attempting to defeat Luca directly but trying to bind him, delay him, exhaust him through coordinated pressure and numbers.

Ronan understood why. Luca could end this. Easily. The protagonist had abilities— – rule-breaking, plot-armored abilities – that would let him turn every Academy student present into fodder if he chose to reveal them.

But he couldn’t.

Not publicly. Not without exposing powers the Academy couldn’t see yet.

So Luca fought restrained, limited to what a talented first-year should possess, and that meant he was being slowly overwhelmed by students weaker than him acting in unison to defeat him.

Luca roared as he kicked one of the students in the chest, sending him flying, but right after another student came and swung his sword at him, while another shot bolts of pressurised water straight at his head.

The usual aloof protagonist looked more like a rabid dog now.

Luca augmented his body with mana and tanked the bullets of water while skillfully dodging and weaving through the attacks with the sword.

But it wasn’t enough and a third student got a hit in, sending Luca tumbling the opposite direction and he coughed what looked like blood.

Ronan didn’t remember a scene like this happening in the original novel, but then again, too many things had changed for this to go exactly like the original novel.

Right now the only future knowledge he could rely on were events that would happen no matter how much interfering he would do.

Events planned by far more powerful beings, ones whose decisions couldn’t be influenced by puny powers like himself.

Ronan scoffed internally at that

He watched for three seconds longer.

Then he looked away.

This matter didn’t concern him.

Luca’s survival wasn’t his responsibility, and inserting himself into the protagonist’s struggle would only create questions Ronan couldn’t afford to answer.

He continued deeper into the forest’s edge, detection ward pulsing steadily, eyes scanning—

The system appeared.

Ronan’s eyes widened.

[URGENT QUEST DETECTED]

[Main Quest: Protagonist Preservation]

Status: Mandatory

Description: Luca Underwood has entered a critical convergence point. A hostile encirclement is forming around him, and his defeat will destabilize future progression.

Goal: Assist Luca Underwood in breaking through the encirclement.

Time Limit: 5 minutes

Conditions:

- Luca Underwood must remain conscious.

- Luca Underwood must successfully disengage from the hostile formation.

- You must directly contribute to his escape.

Failure Penalty: A high-grade, malicious parasitic entity will identify you as a viable host.

Reward: Unknown Skill