Chapter 75: First, Clear Up the Misunderstanding

The West Tower dormitory, a designated safe zone for apprentices, still felt like a dangerous place for someone who had once been a servant. Walking through the dormitory at night, Saul often experienced a lingering unease.

However, the floors where mentors resided lacked that eerie, ominous atmosphere.

Not in the slightest.

Was it because official wizards had far greater control over their powers, or had all the dangers become so well-concealed that they were imperceptible?

Saul arrived at the end of the corridor and looked up the sloping passageway.

Mentor Kat lived on the seventeenth floor.

He rarely appeared in the laboratory or the morgue—was he, like Mentor Rum, treating his dormitory as a real laboratory?

As for the floors above the eighteenth, they were entirely the private domain of the Tower Master.

It was said that Tower Master Gorsa was a Second Level Wizard, though an extraordinarily powerful one—so close to the Third Level that it was terrifying.

No one had ever described exactly how strong he was, only that all five mentors followed his orders without question.

A Second-Tier Wizard was an existence completely beyond Saul’s reach at present.

Remembering the spirt attached to him, Saul set aside his ambitions for now and quickened his pace to leave the area.

When he reached the second laboratory on the fourteenth floor, he noticed the door was already open.

Saul walked to the entrance and peeked inside.

The laboratory was much smaller than Mentor Kat’s, with no rows of cabinets for storing materials. Instead, there were many workbenches.

The most eye-catching feature in the room was a high-backed metal chair with dual armrests. Several thick ropes dangled beneath it.

Directly opposite the chair was another workbench, behind which stood a man.

He had a head of curly brown hair and wore a Second-Tier Apprentice badge on his chest. With an expressionless face, he was burning something in a brazier.

A thin, wispy smoke rose from the brazier, sometimes dispersing, sometimes coalescing, before finally dissipating into the ceiling.

Not wanting to interrupt a possible experiment, Saul remained silent.

If he startled the man, causing a mistake in his work, and was then blamed for it, that would be troublesome.

Saul simply stood at the doorway, waiting for the man to notice him before stepping inside.

Unexpectedly, as soon as Saul stopped moving, the man inside spoke.

"Why aren’t you coming in? I left the door open for you."

"Senior Nick?" Saul asked tentatively.

Nick looked up, the wisps of smoke curling around his face. "You remember me?"

"…" Saul didn’t remember him at all. He had only just heard his name from Mentor Rum.

"Oh, I see. You’ve already forgotten." Nick lowered his head again, showing no sign of displeasure.

As if not being remembered was perfectly normal.

"Come in, close the door. I’ll explain the rules of this place to you."

Saul followed his instructions, stepping inside and standing next to Nick.

Nick appeared to be around eighteen or nineteen years old, but his composed demeanor made him seem more like a thirty-year-old man, even more mature than Senior Byron.

"I heard you work in the morgue?"

"Yes, Senior," Saul responded.

Nick nodded. "The morgue deals mostly with the dead, but here, we work more often with the living."

Nick turned to look at Saul. "I specialize in observing emotions. The wizardry I study is also closely tied to emotions."

Senior Nick openly revealing his specialty right away?

Saul’s mind raced. This must be crucial for the experiment. That’s why Nick mentioned it in advance.

Manipulating emotions?

That didn’t sound particularly dangerous.

Did it have any offensive capability? Would it make people laugh to death or cry themselves to death?

Wait!

Saul suddenly looked up at Nick.

He remembered who Nick was!

His journal recorded all kinds of bizarre deaths he had experienced, and one of them was laughing to death.

Nick had been the senior sitting next to Sid during the apprentice test!

So when Saul "laughed to death," it was actually Nick’s doing?

Was he one of Sid’s hidden weapons?

Nick continued his introduction expressionlessly, unaware that Saul was already preparing to grab something from his pocket.

"…Our experiments here mainly focus on observing the emotions of spirit bodies. The mentor assigned me to lead this research. He said you’re good at directly perceiving spirits, so he asked you to assist in our experiments… Your emotions are fluctuating. Is there a problem?"

Nick extinguished the flames, and the thin smoke gradually dispersed, leaving nothing behind in the brazier.

"You were the senior who tested us that day?" Saul discreetly moved his left hand forward while his right hand gripped a small vial in his pocket.

"Yes." Nick stowed away the brazier and retrieved two earmuffs from beneath the workbench. He hung one around his neck and handed the other to Saul.

"Sid and I usually worked as a team, so when he took on the task of testing new apprentices, I went along with him."

Saul accepted the earmuffs but didn’t put them on.

Nick was Sid’s friend?

His right thumb pressed against the vial’s body.

"Mentor Rum has already decided not to pursue Sid’s case," Saul stated, hoping Nick was rational enough not to start a fight in the laboratory.

But Nick was even more rational than Saul had expected.

He set down the experimental instruments he was arranging and turned around.

"You’re still quite tense… Fine. To prevent Sid from becoming an obstacle in our future work, I suppose I should explain what happened back then."

His expression remained calm, showing no sign of grief for Sid’s death.

"You don’t need to be hostile toward me. In a way, I actually saved your life."

Saul still clutched the earmuffs, staring at Nick.

"That day, Sid was acting strangely. He usually had a bad temper and a sharp tongue, but suddenly killing a new apprentice caught me off guard."

Nick recounted the events in a neutral tone.

"You should know that one of the Tower’s rules is that everything within it belongs to the Tower Master. Causing unnecessary losses could lead to punishment."

"So I was surprised. If Sid really hated that chubby kid, he could’ve just expelled him to become a servant or secretly killed him later. Why strike so publicly?"

"It was only much later—after I heard you had killed Sid—that I realized his motive. Killing that boy was likely just a pretext for later killing you. Since you were only a reserve apprentice at the time, I didn’t really care whether you lived or died."

"In fact, Sid even tried to persuade me to kill you while you were unconscious, arguing that since you hadn’t officially passed the test or been demoted to servant status, you weren’t yet the Tower Master’s property—meaning we wouldn’t be punished."

Nick lowered his gaze. "I almost believed him, not realizing you had been a servant. But fortunately, I’m a rational person."

He nodded slightly, as if proud of his own restraint.

So when Saul "laughed to death," it really was because of Nick!

Saul gritted his teeth.

Even though Sid was already dead, knowing how much effort he had put into eliminating him still made Saul furious—he wished he could kill him all over again!

During the test, because Saul’s journal had assured him of his talent, he had avoided testing his lowest magical ability first and instead measured the other two. After receiving confirmation of high mental aptitude, he had fainted.

Perhaps out of a desire to spare talent or out of concern for potential repercussions, Nick had ultimately let Saul live.

Nick had deemed Saul valuable enough to survive, ruining Sid’s plans.

If Sid had wanted to kill Saul afterward, he would have needed to be far more discreet and accept a much higher risk.

Saul remained silent for a moment before imitating Nick’s action of hanging the earmuffs around his neck.

"Thank you, Senior. If not for you, I might have failed the test and either died or been demoted back to a servant, left to be bullied."

Nick idly stroked his chin. "Actually, the test doesn’t strictly require all three aptitudes to meet the standard. As long as someone is deemed worthy of training, they can pass. So don’t underestimate yourself. Just remember—I was the one who decided you were valuable enough to live."

Saul nodded emphatically. He would never forget that.

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