Kelvin's performance was indeed top notch. He managed to amplify the reluctance and heartache in his eyes as he slowly pushed it towards Ragnar. Coldness spread from Ragnar's gaze, turning his eyes into a deadly abyss. ‘Hmph! You want to treat me like a charity case and use me to clean up your image? You're truly relentless.’“Brother,” Ragnar said sweetly. “You really shouldn't do this. Your cultivation is more important. I can't drag you down with me. One of us should at least make it in.”Kelvin pushed it to him. “Just take it. I can manage on my own. If you end up still unable to scale through this time, father will be really pissed off. Just make sure you work hard and cultivate with all your strength. You must absolutely never give up.”Ragnar scoffed. Refusing at this point would only fuel Kelvin's suspicion. He accepted it with shaky hands, eyes shining with fake wonder and gratefulness. “Can I really have this?”‘Idiot!’ Kelvin muttered in his mind. Outwardly, he gave Ragnar

Emerald Lake LodgeThane noticed the heaviness on Ragnar’s face. He didn’t look as excited as the rest of them. The smile on his face stuttered, then finally dissipated. The previous EFD, Ragnar had been the most excited out of all of them. He recalled Kenneth Craig, Ragnar’s birth father, abusing him over the phone because of Kelvin. He wasn’t loved at home. Of course, going home held no appeal for him. Thane slowly walked to Ragnar and placed a palm on his shoulder. “Just come with me. My grandfather will be returning soon from the Abyssal Zone battlefield. We could receive some pointers from him.” He paused briefly. “If you don’t like the idea of going to Grandpa’s military base, we can go to a resort or somewhere else. You don’t have to go home and face them all alone.”Ryujin, who was packing up, froze for a second, his gaze snapping to Thane. “General Rothmere is coming back?” Vonn’s face lit up. Thane shrugged. General Rothmere, Thane’s grandfather, was a legend who had

Ragnar's eyes couldn't leave her face, half reminiscing, half regretful. The girl before him had molten gold eyes, and dark blonde hair, tall with a perfect hourglass figure. Not too big, not too small. “Nika, you're here too.” He managed to force the words out, the sound croaky and parched. The girl flashed him a bright smile. “What? Your conscience is biting you after seeing me?”[Recall that on the day Ragnar returned to life and saw himself in the school court, holding flowers and kneeling before Aria who was humiliating him, with her friends and Kevin by her side, there was a girl watching from behind the walls. The golden-eyed girl watching back then with her attendant, devastated at the level Ragnar had descended to, and ordering her maid not to report anything related to Ragnar to her again was Nika. Nika Ansel, the young heiress of Flower court, which was the number four most powerful organization on Eadom, just below Vireille’s Sea God's Hall.]Ragnar smiled sadly. Truly h

Twenty minutes after Nika and the other two left, Ragnar settled the bill and left with Vireille. Nika had already departed in the first car, taking a series of complicated routes to evade being monitored. It was merely a matter of checking North Eadom’s satellite to find where she was, but she still chose to move like that. With Flower Court’s connections in North Eadom, she would definitely be notified if anyone tried to hack into the satellite positioning system to trail her. Ragnar and Vireille followed, taking an adjacent route. After some time, Ragnar pulled the car into a property close to Moonstone Fishing Headquarters. He had bought the apartment to facilitate his stay during the reconstruction that was sure to happen in the near future. He entered the underground tunnel network, moving directly into the parking lot beneath the building. The monitoring systems around the area had already been disabled. “Where’s this place?” Vireille asked, looking around her. Ra

OBSIDIAN COURTKelvin lay on his bed, scrolling through his spirit phone. Although it wasn’t as expensive as Ragnar’s customized K2 series, it was still very expensive nonetheless. Notifications popped up on the screen. It was the schedule for the school tournament, slated to begin in five days, just hours after the expiration of the EFD. [Note: EFD stands for External Free Day. A term boarding academies use when they give students chances to leave the school while the academic sessions are still ongoing. EFD is different from breaks. It’s just a gift from the academy for students to unwind, not part of the standard country-approved curriculum and vacation.] Kelvin sighed for the umpteenth time and dropped his phone. “What’s wrong with that trash? Why is he not absorbing energy? I already gave him something so precious, why is his lazy ass still not moving?” His brows were tightly furrowed. He thought that after giving him the earth crystal, he would cultivate relentlessly and