翁公和媛媛在厨房里猛烈进出

"You\'ll see."

"Is it really that hard to answer a question?"

"Do you have no patience?"

Sighing, I tried to use my eyes to peer through the darkness and see the end of the path, only to realize that we weren\'t actually taking a path.

"... we\'re not lost, are we?"

Smirking, Ruby didn\'t answer my question but instead fastened her pace, taking seemingly random turns every 20 steps.

Realizing that the ground below me was actually tilting uphill instead of being flat, I looked up and realized that she was leading me up one of the tallest hills in the forest.

Reaching the peak of the hill, Ruby abruptly sat down before immediately opening the gift basket, letting all the sweets spill out.

Taking a seat across from her, I grabbed one of the orange-looking beverages that resembled Fanta from Earth and admired the view of the forest.

The sound of birds chirping while flying through the sky, the green vines stretching all the way from the top of the tree to the bottom, and the moonlight shining down on certain spots of the forest created a perfect balance of light and dark.

Snapping me out of my thoughts, Ruby\'s voice spoke from my left.

"What are planning for the school festival?"

Ah, yes, the school festival. Unlike the previous events, I was not required to do anything, as the primary reason this event was held was to introduce Ren\'s father to Liam, which Lily would have no qualms with.

Featuring a variety of events, the school held the festival to prove to the world that Celestial Academy was the best, as the top students from other schools in the human realm would compete against ours.

After this week\'s break, the competing students from the other academies would temporarily join our class, but besides a few disputes among students, there was nothing special about it.

There were also the djinn infiltrators who would sneak about, but they would do nothing besides try to recruit a couple of students.

Well, with all the changes made to the plot, I can\'t be too sure about the future, so I wasn\'t planning to drop my guard completely, especially when one of the variables was sitting right next to me and eating.

Responding to Ruby, I said.

"Nothing much, what about you?"

Since I wasn\'t among the school\'s top students, I was not required to participate in any of the festival\'s events, but Ruby, on the other hand, was forced to sign up for at least one event.

While it sounds bad that the academy requires its top students to compete in an event, it was actually a good opportunity. All the influential people in the realm would attend, so if you did fairly well, you could possibly receive an offer.

One such case is Liam, who wins multiple events, leading him to gain the recognition of Ren\'s father.

"hmm, I haven\'t decided on an event yet. Are you planning to go to the tryouts?"

If you were outside the top 10, there was still a possibility that could compete if you did well enough in the team tryouts, but the tryouts were insanely intense as the academy wanted to filter out the unworthy students.

Vehemently shaking my head, I basked in the sweet beverage that somehow tasted exactly like Fanta before grabbing another candy, which resembled Kitkats from my world.

..wait?

Looking at the entire gift basket, I noticed that every single treat in there resembled a snack from my own world, with there being root beer, skittles, and even starburst.

Was this Lily\'s doing? Creating a candy company would be a decent way to make money...

Feeling the sugar high from all the treats I had eaten, I stood up and aimlessly walked around the small clearing we were sitting in.

Eating a candy that resembled a Hershey\'s chocolate bar, Ruby silently stared at the ocean through the gaps in the trees.

If I had to say the main reason why Ruby and I got along so well is that we both had secrets that we refused to share with anyone else in the world.

So, silent times like this were common, as neither of us wanted to talk too much, inadvertently revealing our secrets.

The other times we talked, our words were full of sarcasm and jokes, as neither of us wanted to be honest or real with each other.

That\'s why I didn\'t spend too much time around Ruby, as getting too close to her would cause me to drop my guard and be less cautious when speaking.

In all honesty, I think that we both knew that this relationship was a ticking timebomb as a relationship built on lies, deceit, and fake lives would never last for long; however, the time before the bomb exploded would be fun, at least.

Before the training camp, I had forced myself to believe that all the relationships I was making were fake and would end whenever I returned to Earth, so I really didn\'t care too much about what happened.

Now that I had a different perspective, I could more clearly examine my relationships with people around me and realize that basically every relationship I had contained some kind of problem.

Han and Jin only hung out with me because they knew the original Ren and my relationship with Ruby could end at any time. Raven was only there because I had the power of the mana contract over him, and in the first place, I only met him because of my knowledge from the book.

Everyone else in the world hated or had no opinion of me.

I had spent maybe 2 months in this world, but besides my power, I had nothing at all to show for it...

Ignoring this problem had been so much easier when I had been determined to get back to Earth as these people would all disappear soon enough, so what was the point in having a good relationship with them?

With the doubts about my return to Earth creeping in, I guess I had started to see the people around me as more than book characters—actual human beings with souls.

Ending the silence, I waved my hands and said.

"Well, I\'ll see you later then; thanks for the treat."

Standing up, Ruby grabbed the remainder of the gift basket while I departed from the clearing and made my way back to my dorm building.

On the way back, I saw a crowd of students gathering at the entrance, which was weird for this time. Curious, I made my way to the back of the crowd before using my eyes to peer through the gaps and see what everyone was so interested in.

[Midterm Grades]

[#1: Liam]

[#2: Kevin]

[#3: Alya]

[#4: Lily]

...

...

[#9: Irene]

[#10: Scarlett]

...

...

...

[#199: Ren]

Well, good enough, I guess.

The next week of break passed slowly. Realizing that all relationships were meaningless or built on lies, I was less inclined to hang out with the people around me, leading me to seclude myself.

It\'s ironic that when I started to recognize that the people around me were actually people with souls, I hung out with them less than when I saw them as book characters...

Ignoring the text messages on my phone, I dedicated all of my time to training as that was the only thing that brought me some solace and distracted me from everything.

That training allowed me to take the next step in mastering the Eclipse blade as I realized that I hadn\'t yet mastered the third movement.

The third movement allowed me to create a Shadow Cage and, as I later learned, to manipulate my Corruption of the Night as a whole.

Combining Corruption of The Night with the mana in my body, I could create actual physical objects like daggers, swords, and even a bow.

I didn\'t yet have enough Corruption of the Night to create a bow and an arrow simultaneously, though, so that was useless for now.

The quality of the daggers I created with Corruption of the Night far surpassed that of my normal daggers; however, creating them would require a lot of mana and use a lot of Corruption.

That also led me to the realization that, just as I could gain Corruption, it could also be lost when I manifested items or Shadow Cages when using it.

I was glad to realize that elemental slashes didn\'t make me lose Corruption of the Night, though.

Finishing up my fight with an AI bot, I slumped down against the wall and checked my stat\'s menu.

===Menu===

User : Ren Montclair

[Class: Proficient Assassin: (Level 3: 2%) ]

-> Stealth : C

-> Moderate Dagger Mastery : 7%

-> Arts: Eclipse Blade [3/5]

[Stats]

-> Rating : D {Dream not yet completed}

-> Strength : E+

-> Agility : D+

-> Stamina : E+

-> Magic Power : D+

-> Luck: G-S {Conditional}

-> Intelligence : E

-> Charm : G+

[Traits]

-> Passive: Dragon\'s Will [1 / ?]

---> Dragon Eyes : Your eyesight is enhanced.

[Skills]

-> [[E] Dash] : Not requiring any mana usage, the skill allows the user to move 10 meters from their current location in any direction with a cooldown period of 7 seconds. The skill does not instantly move the user but temporarily increases the user\'s speed until they move 10 meters.

=======

That "Dragon\'s Will [1 / ?]" was really starting to piss me off, but what could I do about it? Go ask an extinct creature, a dragon, how to advance?

I was by no means in a hurry to complete my next dream due to my memories of the last one, so I had also put that on hold. With my death on the line in these dreams, I decided to advance my power a bit more before attempting that.

Checking the calendar, I realized that classes would be starting tomorrow, and the festival was less than a week away.

Sighing, I left my training hall and headed back to my dorm room to sleep.

I knew that secluding myself forever would be impossible and stupid, but wasn\'t that a normal reaction for someone suddenly transferred to another world?

What was the next step for me? Was I still being hell-bent on going back to Earth, or had that obsession decreased a bit?

Did I want to build new relationships and advance my current ones, or just give up?

There was only one question I could confidently answer: Do I want to continue maintaining the plot, or should I just let Lily do what she wants?

I wanted to maintain the plot and keep the world from being destroyed.

Lying down on my bed, the thought suddenly came to me.

"... Is this what people call a mid-life crisis?"

No, I\'m too young for that, aren\'t I?