Daru sighed and fixed his hair as he stood up from his slumber capsule, the faintest of smiles on his face.

He was undoubtedly in a good mood.

The moment he closed the lid of his machine, he heard the goon squad talking.

Daru and almost everyone in Class 70 turned to look.

They saw Zach laughing, fist-bumping, and high-fiving his friends with a smug smile on his face.

"Damn it, don't forget us when you make it big someday, Zach!"

"Hahaha, relax. We just defeated the Vyrrkans in the Crystal Hollows. Lynn and the others did most of the work. Right, Lynn?" Zach suddenly asked, turning to the fairy in the room with strange familiarity.

At least in the eyes of his underlings and the two other B-rankers.

Silver Serpent and Lionbreaker's eyes widened for a moment, their heart skipping a beat as they observed Lynn and Zach's reactions.

Was there something going on that they didn't know?!

But then, Sylphina only snorted in response before leaving the room.

The B-ranker duo breathed a sigh of relief and followed their queen.

Some of their classmates, who had good interactions with the goon squad in the past, courageously approached and confirmed what happened.

Zach was in a good mood, and Lynn's snobby response didn't ruin it one bit.

He knew she was just being secretive.

If anything, it was he who overstepped, overly proud of a moment of great contribution earlier today, which caused him to forget their agreement momentarily.

He'll be extra careful not to do that again.

The merry, triumphant atmosphere continued, intensifying as one of their classmates who had already left the room came rushing back.

"T-Taiya had defeated the S-ranker Veshari!"

Class 70 exploded into livelier commotion. Two out of three battles won!

The pillars of their academy are doing it.

First, Alopecion and his party, then Taiya. The only one that was left was the SS-ranker Aetherborn.

They talked, and talked, delaying lunch.

Daru had already left when another young man came rushing in with fiery news.

The Aetherborn had been defeated, and Skylar was in a bad mood, having travelled all that way for nothing.

The academy apparently promised him compensation for the time lost.

As for who the government-sent bladeborn was, no one had an idea.

With all the problems in the Crystal Hollows taken care of, peace returned, and the novices of Cluster 4's Southern Bladeborn Academy would be able to hunt swordspawns without the fear of being ambushed by random enemies.

While there were bound to be more enemy bladeborns sent to their continent, no threat like Ra Mehn appeared again.

SS-rankers were extremely rare. They were simply unlucky to have to deal with one.

The maps near the starter cities of the other classes weren't even feeling the effects of the chaotic event, as no enemy bladeborn had been transported to their leveling grounds.

***

**

Nothing special happened in the next two and a half weeks.

Aside from the day Daru went out with Cody and Elune to sell their loot, giving life to the despairing young manager of Starter Yield Traders, Max, who thought that Daru was not planning to come back to his shabby shop ever again, the days passed normally.

Everyone would attend a two-hour lecture in the morning, grind levels and loot in the Myriad Sword Realm for five hours, have lunch, attend afternoon swordsmanship classes, then repeat the next day.

Except on Sundays, when everyone would have more free time.

Daru had leveled up a total of five times only.

The required experience points to get to the next level were simply becoming higher and higher.

Snapping his fingers, Daru checked his status window, mainly the physical attributes section:

==

Strength: 76 (+20)

Dexterity: 75 (+20)

Agility: 73 (+20)

Stamina: 55(+20)

Vitality: 55 (+30)

Perception: 93 (+20)

Luck: 0 (+65)

==

Aside from the twenty-five attribute points he had already allocated, he also obtained one dexterity and one strength from [Tainted Enforcer].

He was able to enhance his sword with two more Demon Essences as a result.

==

Status: Dormant - 21 / 500 Oni or Demon Essence (First Awakening)

==

Only five were left in his inventory.

The moment he closed the status window, a massive notification appeared in the strange skies:

[The Event: "Chaos, Novice Invasion!" has ended.]

[Inter-continental Invasion Teleportation Traps have been removed.]

Outside the realm, the leaders were relieved.

Daru, on the other hand, was a bit sad.

Who knew when he would encounter bladeborns from the other races again?

Unfortunately, he could only exit the realm for now, as his five hours for today were up.

The commotion about their academy's victory had somewhat died down, replaced by a new topic: the class representative selection tournament.

Today, the class representatives of each class will be decided.

But Daru wasn't interested in casual chatter, only the tournament itself.

He immediately left the classroom after standing up from his slumber capsule and headed to the nearest academy canteen to have lunch.

He just sold a lot of items with Cody and Elune yesterday, so he was planning to order more high-quality lean meat and vegetables today — the ones he couldn't order in the previous week.

He now had around a little less than 600 Neo-dollars in his possession.

While he was still quite far away from being able to purchase a hoverboard for himself, at least he wouldn't have to worry about overspending on meals.

Daru had a real hearty lunch today.

Steak, fish, vegetables, rice, and even a special protein-rich dessert.

He ordered them all.

Then, after resting for a bit in his dormitory room and preparing, he headed to the Sixth Training Field, arriving thirty minutes earlier to warm up.

Iris didn't train with him today and stayed on her side of the dojo.

Daru respected her decision, thinking that this might be her way of focusing on the upcoming class-representative selection tournament.

He proceeded to strike a dummy at the usual spot.

When he took a quick water break, he noticed that there were quite a number of outsiders lingering in teams outside the fences of their training field.

Some even brought a whole setup of high-quality cameras.

Daru knew that they were scouts from the government and the guilds in the Myriad Sword Realm and were here to spot and document hidden talents, so they could offer them contracts if they were worthy.

But most were probably here to watch the high rankers and the single top ranker in action—Edelweiss.

He was certainly annoyed by their presence.

However, what could he do?

This was simply how the world works.

He just hoped his life would remain relatively peaceful after today.

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