NOVGO.NET Chapter 562: Familiar Face (Edited)
Chapter 562: Familiar Face (Edited)
A/N: Changed the last 500 words. Sorry for the placeholder. Also mass release tomorrow so please prepare your votes! (Evil laughter while actually begging on my knees.)
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What Michael didn’t know was that his actions were already being captured by several pairs of eyes in the void.
Aside from the teacher from his chosen academy, most of the others didn’t even realize he was a necromancer. They only saw a handsome, strong-looking youth and wondered where he came from and his class.
Perhaps if Michael had known he was being watched so closely, he might have cared. But since he didn’t, he couldn’t be bothered at all. In truth, even if he had known, the most it would have done was make him a little more low-key. He already knew, even without evidence, that this exam was being supervised.
After destroying the life pillars of the two castles, Michael wasted no time in hurrying back to his own keep.
Finding everything intact upon his return, he allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief.
With three hundred academic points under his name—though he still wasn’t sure whether that amount was considered significant—Michael decided he had already done enough. There was no reason to overexert himself.
Closing his eyes, he leaned back to rest, content to let the exam round run its course to the end.
Not too far from Michael’s keep—but still well outside his current sense-net—three figures cut through the forest.
The one in front wore a red robe. The two behind him were both clad in blue. Their eyes, every so often, slid toward the red-robed youth with something close to awe.
If Michael had been there, he would have recognized that face instantly.
Brian.
His former classmate strode with an expression that hovered between arrogance and indifference, his focus pinned to the invisible spread of his sensing range.
Already, it had stretched nearly five kilometers outward—a staggering feat for a Level 36 Awakener. Even for a mage, whose senses often expanded faster than other classes, it was excessive.
But Brian wasn’t ordinary.
Before his Awakener ceremony, he had already secured two professional paths. When the awakening day came, when others thought he awakened only two classes, Brian had actually awakened three.
Fire Mage. Wind Mage. Knight.
However it was a secret Brian and his father guarded.
To the supernatural world, dual-class Awakeners were already monsters. They leveled slower, but the sheer advantage in versatility and attribute gains outweighed everything.
Brian, however, had gone further. Three classes meant three advancement quests. Three times the stat growth. Three times the foundation others could only dream of.
Every level brought him twelve raw attribute points—four from Fire, four from Wind, two from Knight, and another two from being human. That was before factoring in the natural stat bonuses each class granted.
By delaying certain advancements strategically, he could force explosive stat surges later. If he chose otherwise, he could still crush his peers at the early stages of Rank 1.
Just as Michael had been heavily crippled in the second round the previous day, he wasn’t the only one.
Brian was too.
Soon, Brian and his two followers came across the ruins of not one, but two destroyed castles.
The ground still bore scars of heavy battle—scorched trenches, shattered stone walls. The once-glowing life pillars stood cracked and lifeless.
Brian slowed, his crimson robes brushing against charred bark as his eyes narrowed on the wreckage.
“…Two?” he muttered.
His companions in blue exchanged wary looks. L
“It looks fresh,” one of them said softly, scanning the ground. “Whoever did this might still be nearby.”
Brian’s lips curled in intrigue. His gaze stretched outward, his five-kilometer sensing range the trees of the forest.
“This makes no sense,” the other companion said, shaking his head. “Two castles so close, both destroyed in succession? Even if they fought each other, one side should have survived. How did both collapse?”
Brian didn’t comment..
Like Michael before him, he thought the same thing: two castles this close together should have clashed fiercely, but for both to be erased almost at the same time was… abnormal.
Still, Brian didn’t linger. He turned, the hem of his robe flicking ash from the ground.
“Let’s move. Wasting time on someone else’s actions won’t earn us points.”
Brian’s keep had been from Michael’s.
Where Michael had started with just himself, Brian had been assigned to a castle defended by twenty Awakeners including himself.
But Brian wasn’t like most awakeners that would have been happy with the situation.
The moment he entered, he didn’t negotiate or wait for alliances to form. He acted.
One by one, he broke them. Shields splintered, blades fell, and spells fizzled under the sheer brutality of his triple-class foundation. Within minutes, the keep belonged to him.
Violent, decisive, and undeniable.
In the end, he allowed nineteen of the twenty to live. And out of those, he personally chose two of the strongest—one a spearman, the other a mage—to accompany him on his campaign.
The rest, all seventeen, he left behind to guard the keep.
They submitted, yes—but not without resentment. Watching Brian stride out with only two followers, many thought he was throwing himself toward inevitable disqualification. No one could dominate the battlefield alone, not in this round.
But as they watched themselves accumulate 500 points from lying down, their complaints died on their tongues. The keep buzzed with shock as the number registered.
Five hundred.
It was enough to silence even the most skeptical of them.
They might have called Brian reckless, but none could deny the results.
And unlike Michael—who even now didn’t fully understand what points meant—Brian knew exactly how valuable they were.
In the academy’s economy, money was an afterthought. A fortune worth fifteen million dollars in the real world could barely buy 5 points once converted through official channels. And worse, many things couldn’t be purchased with cash at all. Techniques, restricted skills—these were locked behind the academy’s merit system.
Points were everything.
And Brian would not let them slip through his fingers.
He knew the risks, of course. His arrogance could mark him as a target. But he also knew his own strength—and that was enough.
“You guys are weak and better off guarding this place and not dragging me down,” he had told the seventeen before leaving.
By a twist of fate—and Brian’s relentless beeline—three signatures slid into the far edge of Michael’s sense-net.
Michael’s eyes stayed closed, but his head tilted. Three presences, moving fast, layered like a spearhead. “Another pack of lucky candidates,” he murmured. “Fine. I’ll do you a favor.”
A thought rippled down his senses. Five undead peeled off Castle 37: two Rock-Steel Scorpions and three Goliaths, storming off a certain direction.
Brian slowed as the forest ahead grew unnaturally quiet.
Then the ground trembled.
From the shadows between the trees, a hulking silhouette pushed through.
A Rock-Steel Scorpion undead appeared.
Brian frowned. An undead…
The scorpion shrieked and lunged, its stinger plunging down like a guillotine. The two followers tensed
“Hold,” Brian said, his tone clipped, absolute.
He stepped forward alone. The Knight’s aura rippled across his body, bracing his limbs like iron. The stinger slammed down with a crack that shook the trees—but Brian caught it one-handed, gauntleted bracer groaning under the weight.
A heartbeat later, his other hand ignited. Fire spiraled tight, condensed and furious, coiling along his forearm until it glowed white-hot.
With a twist, he drove the flame upward. The blast cut through the scorpion’s head like paper, molten lines racing across its skull before the entire upper half erupted in shards and slag.
The undead collapsed in a twitching heap, smoke trailing into the canopy.
Brian shook the ash from his hand, gaze already sweeping deeper into the treeline. He didn’t relax.
Because even before the corpse hit the dirt, more shapes stirred.
Branches snapped. Heavy footsteps rumbled closer. Three towering Goliaths crashed through. Behind them skittered another scorpion.
Brian’s companions stiffened, aura flaring.
But Brian’s eyes only narrowed, calm and sharp. Did someone send them?
The flames along his arm reignited, brighter this time, while his aura rolled thicker across his frame.
The three Goliaths bellowed, stone-crusted fists pounding their chests as they charged like living siege weapons.
Rhe second scorpion skittered around their flanks, tail raised high and twitching for the strike.
Brian didn’t move until the first Goliath was nearly on top of him. Then his heel slammed into the dirt, cracking the ground beneath him. His aura flared, surging up his limbs like molten steel.
The Goliath swung a massive fist. Brian met it head-on, his own fist colliding with a thunderous crack. The shockwave blew leaves from the trees, and the undead staggered back, forearm caved in from the clash.
Another came from the side, hammering down both fists. Brian twisted, shoulder-checking with the full weight of his Knight aura. Bones crunched, the giant reeled, bloodless spit flying from its mouth as its ribcage fractured inward.
The third swung a tree-sized club it had wrenched from the ground. Brian ducked low, fire spiraling around his gauntlet, and unleashed an upward strike. The flaming arc sheared through the weapon and caved into the Goliath’s chest, sending the creature flying back into a tree. The trunk snapped in half on impact, burying the undead under a shower of splinters.
“Too weak,” Brian muttered coldly.
The scorpion lunged in that instant, its stinger darting for his back. Without turning, Brian’s fist shot out in a blazing arc. The fire-wreathed blow connected with its armored head, exploding it in a shower of molten shards. The corpse twitched, legs curling as it collapsed into stillness.