Chapter 59: Sleepy? Here's a Pillow for You

On the wide desk in the principal’s office of Cassel Academy, Lu Mingfei and Principal Ange were enjoying afternoon tea. In a white bone china cup sat tea shimmering with a golden halo, while on a matching small plate lay a muffin sprinkled with a touch of rose dew.

Being invited by the principal for afternoon tea was an honor more enviable than any scholarship at Cassel Academy. Yet, to Lu Mingfei, the muffin was far more tempting than the prestige.

The affluent families of Cassel Academy truly knew how to indulge themselves. The freshly baked muffin exuded a pleasant warmth, its faint floral fragrance blending harmoniously with its inherent sweetness.

“Eat more slowly,” the principal said kindly, not minding Lu Mingfei’s eager eating. He gently nudged the bone china cup before Lu Mingfei. “Paired with Darjeeling No. 2 black tea, it offers a unique flavor.”

Lu Mingfei wasn’t fond of tea, taking only a tentative sip.

“Do you like my office?” Ange asked.

The principal’s office was not far from the Hall of Heroes. It was an unassuming two-story building, surrounded by trees. From the outside, it looked as simple as a garage, but inside, it was an entirely different world.

The entire room was a library.

The walls were lined with oil paintings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, adorned with complete sets of finely bound volumes and ancient manuscript rubbings. Stairs and platforms clung to the shelves at various heights, allowing one to climb up and down within this vast library.

The first and second floors were connected, with a grand skylight in the central atrium. Frosted glass was embedded in the skylight, still littered with fallen leaves from last autumn, left untouched. The afternoon sunlight streamed in warmly, bathing Lu Mingfei in a comforting glow that made him feel truly alive again.

He nodded. “The environment is quite nice.”

Last night, he had received an email from Principal Ange inviting him to tea this afternoon. Considering that leveraging the local supernatural forces would be far more efficient than working alone, he had come despite feeling unwell.

Yes, he was sick after a long time.

Unlike in his previous life, where his body was repeatedly harmed and his spirit failed to resonate with his bloodline, he was now just a mortal flesh and blood.

Autumn had arrived, and the night before, he and Nono had braved the rain to fight their way from the mountainside to the summit. After enduring the biting mountain wind, his temperature soared to 39 degrees Celsius as soon as he returned to the dormitory. Fingal, who had returned from the Amber Hall unknown to him, had called the medical department to give him an antipyretic injection.

Principal Ange asked gently, “Lu Mingfei, I heard you’ve been ill. Are you feeling better now?”

Lu Mingfei tilted his heavy head. His immune cells were battling the virus within, making his brain feel like it was swirling inside his skull.

“I probably need a few more days to recover.”

Ange nodded thoughtfully.

“May I ask where you were last night?”

Lu Mingfei naturally wouldn’t say he’d gone to the mountain peak, where a pile of uncollected corpses still lay. That problem was better left to Brother Caesar.

“I was in the dormitory. Didn’t the broadcast say that freshmen who haven’t passed the battlefield survival course must stay in their rooms?”

Ange gave him a meaningful look but didn’t expose his lie. Instead, he reminded him, “Next time, respond promptly when your professor calls. Last night, you didn’t answer, which made your professor, Goodrian, quite anxious.”

Lu Mingfei nodded and took the initiative to ask, “Principal, what happened to those invaders last night?”

Ange shook his head in helplessness. “They are like a swarm of rats—hard to catch but always managing to find what they want. Last night, you and Caesar disappeared simultaneously, leaving the Hall of Heroes understaffed. They managed to break into the Academy’s core, the ‘Ice Cellar.’ If I hadn’t been there to repel them, the damage would have been immeasurable.”

The old man’s lies were hardly convincing. As a fellow user of Zero Time, Lu Mingfei knew all too well the nature of word spells. Trying to escape in front of a Zero Time user might be even harder than killing them outright.

Still, Ange didn’t expose Lu Mingfei’s secret, and he didn’t reveal Ange’s. He quietly made a note of it and waited for the principal to continue.

Ange took an elegant sip of his tea.

“The issue of the invaders will be handled by specialists. Let’s discuss something related to you. Lu Mingfei, what happened recently at Norton Hall and Amber Hall?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” Lu Mingfei was unconcerned about his knowledge of mythic magic being leaked or spread; in fact, he was quite eager for it to happen. Of course, this excluded the summoning of Azathoth.

Ange spoke methodically, “You held two gatherings recently, one at Amber Hall and another at Norton Hall, each with a considerable number of attendees. There are many illogical aspects. For example, Norma’s surveillance covers almost every building on campus, yet both your gatherings were not recorded; moreover, every member of the freshman association who attended your first gathering expressed great enthusiasm for the next one on the Night Watcher forum.”

“No recordings?” Lu Mingfei touched his chin, regretting it a little.

If only he had had surveillance footage in his previous life—it would have made recruiting followers so much easier. No need for trickery; just show a successful summoning ritual video.

But it seemed that the Great Yellow Taiyi Immortal didn’t like being recorded. He wondered how other great beings felt about it.

Ange’s tone grew a bit more serious. “Lu Mingfei, as the principal of Cassel Academy, I am responsible for the mental and physical health of every student. At the very least, I need to ensure that no dangerous witchcraft is exchanged or shared during your gatherings.”

Lu Mingfei curled his lips and playfully persuaded, “Principal, why don’t you come to one of our gatherings? They’re quite like the meetings in the movie ‘Dead Poets Society’—just everyone gathering to sing poems and cultivate their souls.”

Cassel Academy was the only local supernatural force Lu Mingfei could access, and apparently, it held a high status within the community. If the head of the school became interested in attending the gatherings, Lu Mingfei would certainly perform the most prestigious summoning ritual to ‘enlighten’ him. Surely, many of his future activities would benefit.

But the worldly-wise Ange seemed to sense some danger and smiled as he waved off the suggestion. “You young people’s gatherings—I, a man over a hundred years old, shall abstain. Besides, you’ve only just enrolled and have limited experience. You know, your recent mental state has been somewhat…”

He paused.

“Some within the administration have doubts about your ‘stability.’ To help you avoid trouble, I have decided to recommend you for the upcoming ‘Bronze’ operation in the Three Gorges.”

“The Three Gorges?”

“Yes. The previous operation there requires further investigation. Afterward, I will vouch for the safety of your gatherings on campus.”

Lu Mingfei was momentarily stunned.

He had been scheming how to coax Ange into sending some of Cassel Academy’s people over, even practicing the incantation for an inducement spell under the table for a good while.

But it seemed the people from his hometown were genuinely good.

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