After leaving the Dean’s office, Ize did not return to the dormitory to rest immediately. Instead, he worked tirelessly, inquiring around the surrounding areas of Star Shine Academy for a suitable place to establish an orphanage.
He needed a location that was relatively independent and quiet, easy for him to look after, and wouldn’t attract too much attention.
After some inquiries, he learned that on the edge of the academy district, near a small grove, there was an old, small church.
Because believers were scarce and donations had ceased, and since the person in charge was elderly and in poor health, they were no longer able to maintain it. The church was facing demolition.
Ize went to inspect it immediately.
The church was indeed very old, but the main structure was relatively stable. It included a decent-sized backyard and several simple rooms originally intended for clergy.
Although it was dilapidated, with a little tidying and repair, it would be more than enough to accommodate Link and those six children for the time being, with separate living and activity areas.
“This is the place then!”
Without much hesitation, Ize quickly reached an agreement with the church leadership and the old priest, purchasing the ownership of the land along with the church building.
Next, Ize hired reliable workers and began basic renovations and repairs on the church.
—
The structure was reinforced, the roof patched, the environment cleaned, and necessary furniture and daily necessities were purchased.
During this period, he temporarily settled Link and the children in a few rooms of the church that were still in good condition.
Watching the children look around their new environment with curiosity and a bit of unease, Ize patted Link’s head and said to everyone, “Just make do here for a while. Once the follow-up construction is finished, this place will get better and better. It will become your new home.”
Link said, “Brother Ize, this place is already very good. It’s even better than where we lived before.”
By the time everything was tentatively arranged, enough supplies were purchased for the children to live on for a while, and a plain, reliable-looking woman was hired to temporarily take care of the children’s daily meals, Ize finally dragged his exhausted body back to Star Shine Academy under the heavy blanket of night.
The consecutive days of running around and mental strain left Ize with a bone-deep sense of fatigue.
He only wanted to get back to his room and collapse onto his bed for a good sleep.
However, the moment he pushed open the dormitory door and prepared to throw himself onto the bed, the cold and familiar notification sound rang out in his mind without warning—
[Notification: Real-time affection level of key character ‘Rhea Alsaid’ is being monitored… Current range: 80-101 (Status: Fluctuating at a stable high level)]
Ize’s movements froze instantly, and his mind went blank.
“Eighty… to one hundred and one?”
He muttered to himself, his face written with unbelievable bewilderment.
“How… how is this possible? System, did you make a mistake? Shouldn’t the effects of the ‘Obedience Potion’ have worn off by now?!”
He remembered clearly that today was theoretically the last day of the potion’s effect.
Logically, the uncontrolled emotional fluctuations caused by the drug should have subsided. Rhea’s affection for him should have returned to a “normal” level consistent with their actual relationship.
For instance, as strangers, or at most a bit of camaraderie born from shared experiences. How could it possibly be maintained above the threshold of “explicit liking” or even “deep love,” occasionally even breaking past the maximum?
[Reply to Host: It has been confirmed that the effects of the ‘Obedience Potion’ completely dissipated as of this evening. The affection values currently being monitored are the target character’s true emotional feedback.]
The system’s answer was cold, clear, and devoid of emotion, yet it struck Ize’s heart like a heavy hammer.
The potion… was gone?
Then this affection level, which was over 80 and could even break 100… was Rhea’s own true thoughts?
She… really liked him?
This realization caused him to lose all capacity for thought for a moment.
Fear, confusion, disbelief, and a very faint flicker of excitement that even he hadn’t noticed were intertwined.
The fear originated from Rhea’s identity.
She was the genius of Liyue Academy, the heir to the Alsaid family, and a key character who possessed both “heroine” and “villainess” attributes in the original plot.
Getting involved in such a deep emotional entanglement with such a character meant he could no longer stay behind the scenes as a bystander like before.
He would be completely pulled into the center of the vortex of fate, facing unknown and potentially extremely dangerous plot developments and the attention of various factions. This went completely against the “low-profile” survival rules he strictly followed!
The confusion was because he didn’t understand how all this had happened at all.
There clearly hadn’t been much deep interaction between them; in fact, most of the time was accompanied by testing each other or misunderstandings.
Aside from those few accidental close contacts and the influence of the drug, he really couldn’t think of anything he had done to make a girl as proud and cold as Rhea develop such strong feelings for him.
However, beneath the fear and confusion, a secret “affection” that even Ize himself was reluctant to admit was quietly sprouting.
Recalling Rhea’s determined back as she stood in front of him, thinking of the vulnerability and shyness she occasionally showed that didn’t match her cold exterior, remembering the fire in those cold eyes sparked by him, and that kiss during a moment of emotion…
Ize had to admit that Rhea herself was not entirely without attraction to him.
On the contrary, the contrast he saw in Rhea was something he truly liked…
But… this was too dangerous.
His reason reminded him of the endless trouble and risks that could come from getting close to Rhea.
Yet, that tiny budding affection deep in his heart caused a trace of hesitation and complex emotion amidst his resistance.
That night, Ize lay on the hard bed, tossing and turning. The values prompted by the system echoed in his mind, and images of Rhea’s various expressions surfaced.
Fear and affection pulled at each other, leaving his mind in a mess.
He tried to convince himself with reasons like “The system must have made a mistake” or “Rhea might just be feeling gratitude.”
But that value, stable above 80 and even soaring to 101, was like irrefutable evidence that shattered his self-deception.
It wasn’t until the sky outside the window slightly brightened that Ize was still wide-eyed, his eyes bloodshot.
He discovered for the first time that “being truly liked by someone” could actually bring such a huge shock and trouble to someone like him, who only wanted to “stay hidden.”
It was all because he was too weak. If he were invincible in the world, why would he have so many problems to worry about!
System: “…”
“System, why are you speechless?”
[It’s nothing…]
***
In the Raymond Territory, the former aristocratic mansion had now completely devolved into a den for the blood kin.
The castle, which once symbolized aristocratic glory and prosperity, was now shrouded in a gloomy and eerie atmosphere.
Dark red stains soiled the magnificent tapestries, and the air was filled with a thick, unshakeable scent of blood.
In the empty halls and corridors, vampires with elegant postures but cold, numb eyes could be seen everywhere, gathered in twos and threes for “dinner.”
“No, please, no!”
Some sallow and emaciated peasants were held casually in their hands like dolls. Sharp fangs pierced necks, and along with weak struggling and moans, the warmth of life was rapidly drained away along with the blood.
These were also the last remaining peasants of the Raymond Territory.
When Bart and Kis passed through the damaged gates and returned to this gloomy castle, a male vampire leaning against a pillar with a pale, mocking smile immediately noticed them.
Horn licked the residual blood from the corner of his mouth. His gaze swept over the two empty-handed individuals, and he sneered, “Oh, isn’t this our enthusiastic ‘hunters’ Bart and Kis? What’s the matter? Is the night outside not charming enough, or… did you suddenly turn vegetarian? You actually came back empty-handed.”
Bart’s face instantly darkened. He was already holding back a belly full of fire because he let the “food” escape. Being mocked to his face by Horn now made him even more humiliated and angry. He growled hoarsely, “Horn, shut your damn mouth!”
Kis pulled Bart’s arm, signaling him to calm down, and then took a step forward, looking around at the kin who were watching: “We encountered outsiders, some little brats who know magic.”
“Oh?”
Horn raised an eyebrow, the sarcasm on his face deepening.
“That sounds like even tastier ‘food.’ Isn’t that perfect?”
“You’re supposed to be of the Ten Pillars. Can you not even deal with a group of human children?”
“Bullshit!” Bart couldn’t help but curse. “There was a girl named Sarah among those kids. Her defensive magic wasn’t weak! She even used spatial magic. Just as we were about to succeed, they escaped!”
Horn and the other vampires were somewhat surprised upon hearing this.
A human capable of spatial magic was extremely rare.
However, Kis’s next words caused the atmosphere in the hall to shift slightly.
Her gaze swept over everyone, finally landing on her slender wrist that still throbbed with a faint pain. Her voice carried a trace of dread that even she didn’t fully understand:
“The real trouble wasn’t that little girl using defensive and spatial magic… but one of them, a silver-haired ‘man’.”
She paused for a moment, seemingly organizing her words to describe that eerie feeling:
“He was very strange… his speed wasn’t like a human’s, and his strength was startling. When I fought him… I felt as if the power inside me was being suppressed by something. And… and subconsciously, I didn’t really want to hurt him.”
In the end, she didn’t speak of that sense of closeness originating from the depths of her bloodline that made her feel a sense of grievance.
“Didn’t want to hurt him?”
Horn spoke as if he had heard the world’s biggest joke.
“Kis, you couldn’t have taken a liking to that kid because he was handsome and developed other intentions, right? Hahaha!”
The other vampires also broke out into low laughter.
“Silence, all of you.”
A calm, low, yet undeniably authoritative voice instantly extinguished all the noise and laughter.
A male vampire stepped slowly out from the shadows deep within the castle.
He appeared to be around thirty years old, his face handsome to the point of being demonic.
Just by standing there, the invisible pressure radiating from him caused all the feeding vampires in the hall to involuntarily stop their actions. They bowed their heads respectfully, faces filled with awe.
He was the leader of the vampires occupying the Raymond Territory—Casimir.
Casimir’s gaze calmly swept over Bart and Kis, finally resting on Kis. “Kis, describe the feeling you had just now in detail. Do not leave out any details.”
His voice carried the authority of a superior, making one comply involuntarily.
Under Casimir’s gaze, Kis felt a surge of invisible pressure. She dared not hide anything and described in more detail the eerie feeling of her power being suppressed, her birth of dread, and even her unwillingness to hurt the opponent while fighting Rhea, including the opponent’s extraordinary speed and strength.
After Kis finished her narration, the hall was dead silent.
The faces of the other vampires also showed expressions of uncertainty.
To make a pure-blooded vampire feel this way was no ordinary feat.
A trace of undetectable fluctuation flashed through Casimir’s deep red eyes.
He fell silent for a moment, his fingertips lightly tapping on a dust-covered table beside him, creating a rhythmic clicking sound.
“Power suppression… subconscious protective instinct…”
After a long time, he raised his eyes, his gaze sharp as a knife. He spoke slowly, his voice echoing through the deathly quiet hall:
“If my judgment is not wrong… that silver-haired ‘man’ you encountered is likely not human, nor a common half-breed.”
He paused and said word for word:
“What flows within him might be… the bloodline of the Ancient Vampires. Moreover, a type that is extremely pure and of an exceptionally high tier. Only an absolute suppression from the level of life’s origin could make Kis produce such a strong reaction and… sense of closeness.”
Kis was one of the Ten Pillars created by his blood and the ‘item’ given by that lord.
And he, as a ‘former’ Ancient Vampire, already held a status that wasn’t low.
So at the very least, the purity of the bloodline of the person Kis faced was likely not far from his own.
Casimir’s gaze became deep. He looked out the castle window at the waning moon obscured by dark clouds and murmured to himself, “I didn’t expect that in this era, I would still encounter an Ancient Bloodline…”
He turned to the rest of the vampires and said, “The discussion regarding that silver-haired man ends here. Next, our hunting targets… can turn toward further, more prosperous human towns.”
“After all, the food here has already been finished!”
“It’s also time to help that lord find the location of the Dragon Soul.”