Mixed Blessing System

"Good!" Lothur smiled and hugged Elke's thin waist just before letting go of her and asking. "By the way, can you tell me where I can buy a mask?"

"A mask?" She readily realized that he was thinking. "Do you want to do something against Alric?"

"Hmm, I think he deserves a lesson for his boldness..." Lothur gave no details about his previous incident, which he was almost sure had been caused by Alric.

"Lothur, he's already at the 2nd Transformation. So you'd better be careful."

"2nd Transformation, huh?" He was surprised to hear that, but that was nothing to him.

The difference between 2nd and 3rd Transformation was not slight, so such a person should not be a problem even considering offensive items and combat techniques.

On the other hand, his advance had been much higher than his opponent's, so he had the surprise factor on his side!

"Don't worry. He's no big deal to me."

She thought about how he had moved earlier and did not doubt his words. "But you can't exaggerate either. He is the son of the patriarch of the Baier family. It won't be good to make that family angry about it."

"Don't worry. I won't do anything crazy... Besides, I have a feeling they won't recognize me." He laughed.

"Oh? All right, then. You don't have to go anywhere. I can give you a mask." She took something from her storage item and handed it to Lothur.

Seeing that porcelain item in her hands, Lothur accepted it, promptly storing it in his own spatial ring.

"Come on. Let's find something to do while the geopolitics class goes on." He said this after noticing that the strength in Elke's legs had returned.

And upon hearing Lothur, that woman readily agreed with him, following him toward one of the cafeterias in Sector-1 as her heart beat hurriedly.

Elke could not believe she was following such a dangerous path, but the thrill in her heart made it worthwhile. Not only that, the idea of being with Lothur was getting more and more attractive to her, little by little putting a smile on her face.

'He seems so different from the rumors...'

'Maybe someone has ruined his reputation on purpose? I can't believe someone like that was called a good-for-nothing!'

...

Sometime later, Lothur and Elke said their goodbyes as each of them went on to settle their affairs at this academy.

In Lothur's case, he found Annaliese to talk more about cultivation, finally asking that woman how cultivators sense the cultivation of others.

Lothur had never worried about this in his few days in this world. However, noticing that Alric had grown stronger without him even realizing it had worried him a bit.

Alric was no big deal, but there could be dangerous people in his way in the future. Therefore, this young man did not want to be in the dark when something like this happened again.

And in talking about it with Annaliese, he discovered that sensing an opponent's cultivation level was not as easy as one might imagine.

The spiritual energy of cultivators, in a sense, was like a type of radiation. However, there were ways to contain this radiation, which basically prevented other individuals from noticing such a thing.

That could be done through special cultivation techniques, unique artifacts, exceptional Physiques, or even certain cultivators' abilities regarding spiritual manipulation.

With this, if a particular cultivator had fulfilled any of these requirements, hiding one's cultivation from those of the same cultivation stage was not so difficult. In this situation, only at specific times, such as the middle of a fight, during cultivation, or when the cultivator himself let his aura be released, could his cultivation be easily accessed.

As for how to do this, well, it was simply through something called spiritual sense, a kind of cultivators' sixth sense.

That was similar to an innate ability of cultivators that grew stronger and developed as the cultivators' level increased.

After finding out about this, Lothur left his sister-in-law and went to a green area of that academy, where he found a quiet place to sit and meditate.

He did not cultivate spiritual energy like other people in this world. Still, since even the Physique depended on spiritual power to function, he was sure he had spiritual energy in his body. And with that, he should also be able to use that ability.

With that in mind, he had begun to meditate in that quiet area, trying to sense the surroundings without opening his eyes.

...

After trying to do this for a while, Lothur finally felt a strange sensation, as if suddenly the darkness had taken on many colorful outlines and shapes.

He still had his eyes closed, but it felt as if colored clouds surrounded his body, while the world looked like a sea of this stuff.

'Is that spiritual energy?' He wondered in surprise.

And just as he thought he had succeeded in using his spiritual sense, he tried to scan the people in his surroundings.

'Incredible!'

'So that's how it is...'

Immediately after that, the system gave signs of life.

[Name: ****]

[Cultivation: level 1]

[STR: 1.7] [CON: 2.2] [DEX: 2.1] [AGI: 1.9]

Lothur saw the stats of one of the people he had looked at when he opened his eyes, someone he did not know.

'Wow!'

'So the system can do something like that too!' He smiled since that was undoubtedly a rather important ability.

After all, he could precisely see his opponents' strengths and weaknesses!

But he soon put that aside when more system messages appeared in front of him.

[+0.5 in PER.]

'Oh?' His eyes widened. 'So Perception is not only related to vision but all the skills related to the senses...'

'Then I should be able to evolve this attribute as I train spiritual sense!'

"Very good!"

"Now I am prepared to face those people!" He stood up, determined to pursue the three people who had beaten him.

He was only highly suspicious of one of them since only Alric had shown his feelings the most. But this Lothur was sure that the black-haired fellow would reveal his associates or minions involved in the trouble.

So, he quickly went on his way in search of those people!

...

In the blink of an eye, a few hours had passed. At this moment, the Morning Star Academy students were already returning to their homes or the local accommodation.

Amidst the departure of these many students, Annaliese was already returning home unaccompanied by Lothur, already knowing he would not return with her.

Lothur had obviously warned her that he had something to take care of, so she would not wait for him in vain.

Hence, Lothur had followed in the footsteps of the black-haired young man, who had not returned to his home but had gone along with two other youths to the local suburbs.

When he noticed the strange path those three took, Lothur found it suspicious, but since it did not go against his plans, he just continued secretly pursuing them.

He wanted to teach that cheeky fellow a good lesson, so going to the distant regions of this city was not exactly a bad thing.

And by doing that for a few minutes, it was not long before the trio stopped next to two children, shouting arrogantly at them.

"You miserable bastards!"

"You sold us wrong information last time, so get ready to pay for that!" A tall, muscular young man said this angrily, prepared to take action against the two brats at any moment.

"Tsk!"

"You must be mistaken! Our network is the best in the city!"

"But if the information was not the most accurate, it means that your target is cautious and knows how to hide information even from his shadow."

"Don't blame us for this person's efficiency!" One of the two said this while showing a confident front, even though he was just an ordinary mortal.

"There's no way we're the problem!"

"Humph!"

"Say what you want. We will take our coins back or end your lives!" Alric said in a harsh tone, still feeling the fury of Lothur's words.

...