Soul-Suckers are greedy and despicable creatures. They suck away all happy memories, then infuse terrifying memories in the form of nightmares, causing people to die of despair in their sleep.
Professor Nini's lesson topic was designed to let the students experience the confusion and loss of having their memories absorbed by a Soul-Sucker in advance. This way, they could recover their senses immediately and avoid falling into a continuous stupor.
When absorbing memories, Soul-Suckers are defenseless, fragile as paper, and can be easily killed.
Therefore, no matter how hideous it looks, as long as one steadies their mind, there is no need to fear.
But knowing is one thing; being able to do it is another.
The vast majority of students were still extremely repulsed by this experience.
However, this was a necessary experience before exploring the dungeon, a rigid requirement of the Magical Beast Studies class.
...
Professor Nini scanned the classroom and finally rested her gaze on Robert's face, saying joyfully, "I remember you, Robert Broheim. You said in the last class that you wanted to experience it!"
"Classic slander!" Robert immediately shook his head in denial.
But the single-threaded Nini did not notice this. She raised her voice as much as possible: "Then let Broheim experience it first!"
Virt nudged Robert's arm, encouraging him, "Go on, Robert, there's nothing to be afraid of."
Robert said in shock, "That's not what you said last week!"
Virt smiled shyly. "Is that so? Maybe I just hadn't adapted at the time. With Professor Nini here, nothing will go wrong."
Robert: "But this one is even bigger than the one you faced!"
Virt: "It's just a bit bulkier. Just like being tall, short, fat, or thin—being fatter doesn't mean it's more powerful."
Robert: "..."
Under the gaze of those around him, Robert ultimately braced himself and walked onto the podium, kicking off this Magical Beast Studies class.
Professor Nini actually didn't have much of an impression of this boy who understood the origin of "Magical Beasts."
She grabbed the Soul-Sucker's tail, held it upside down and shook it, then circled its tail with her other hand and stroked it forcefully from the tail to the tip of its mouth.
The originally expanded and terrifying Soul-Sucker was instantly smoothed into a cylinder.
Although it quickly puffed up again, that comical appearance had already struck a chord in people's hearts, making them less afraid.
Robert walked up to the Soul-Sucker, swallowed his saliva, and said forcefully, "Let's start!"
Professor Nini gave the Soul-Sucker a shake and held onto only the tip of its tail.
The Soul-Sucker immediately bared its fangs and brandished its claws, pouncing toward Robert.
Robert stared hard at its eye sockets, but suddenly his expression stagnated, and he froze in place.
Immediately after, gray bubbles slowly floated out from his face.
The bubbles grew larger and larger.
Robert's face gradually turned pale.
Suddenly, he let out a loud "Ah!" and a trace of blood-red light flashed in his eyes!
A scent of blood leaked out along with it.
The Soul-Sucker's movements abruptly stopped.
Professor Nini looked over in confusion, raising her hand to scratch her head.
Robert snapped back to reality from the Soul-Sucker's absorption, and then abruptly threw a punch!
Pfft!
The Soul-Sucker's stomach, which had swelled up, was instantly smashed flat. The memory bubbles it had sucked into its mouth were vomited out and drilled back into Robert's brain.
Robert regained his clarity, some unfamiliar memories flowing through his mind.
He stood there, bewildered, not understanding what had happened.
"Robert Broheim, excellent!"
But Professor Nini was already clapping happily.
Some students in the classroom looked at him with new respect.
Even after returning to his seat, Robert couldn't truly react.
He sat there in a daze until Virt nudged his arm and laughed, "You really have a way, Robert."
Only then did Robert come back to his senses, responding, "Just average, just average."
...
Regardless, Robert's performance did indeed play a leading role.
Especially the students of Knight House, who felt they couldn't be weaker than Robert; they all summoned their courage to walk onto the podium.
Human screams and Soul-Sucker howls rose and fell one after another.
The occasional ridicule mixed in made the atmosphere even more lively.
As for those with little interest in this, such as Dark Demon, they quietly went about their own business.
In the blink of an eye, the class was nearing its end.
Professor Nini counted the names on the roll book, feeling very excited as she watched her teaching tasks gradually being completed.
"Just one last person left!"
She looked up toward the golden-haired youth at the very back of the classroom.
This youth had given her great help during the first class last week, and she had always been grateful.
"Dark Demon!"
"Hmm?"
Dark looked up at the sound and noticed there were no students left on the podium.
"Is it my turn already?"
He put down his pen and stood up.
In fact, he was somewhat curious about the Soul-Sucker's ability.
Although books recorded that the Soul-Sucker only absorbed memories, memories themselves could be said to be triggers for emotions. People could feel joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness from memories, causing their emotions to change because of them.
In the research regarding the [Major Sin] series of Magic Guide Cards, emotions and memories were both elements that could be linked.
Only by mastering as much related knowledge as possible could one accumulate strength to break through bottlenecks and develop a refining array that belonged to oneself.
...
Half a minute later.
Dark walked onto the podium.
The poor Soul-Sucker was being held by the tail by Professor Nini, floating around like a balloon.
Although its features were still terrifying.
But after looking at it for a long time, it actually seemed a bit comical.
Seeing another human child approaching, the Soul-Sucker's grain-sized brain immediately drove it to pounce tirelessly.
"If I were on Earth, my legs would probably be weak from fear by now, right?"
Dark blinked, surprisingly finding that he felt no fear whatsoever.
The Soul-Sucker's face rapidly enlarged in his eyes, but just as it was about to stick to him, it came to a sudden halt.
Professor Nini held its tail firmly, like holding a dog leash, preventing it from touching the student no matter what.
They were extremely close; wisps of black gas overflowed from the three holes on the Soul-Sucker's face, emitting a faint, rotting stench.
Dark looked calm, standing with his hands behind his back: "Come on, suck me!"
"Awoo!"
The Soul-Sucker opened its mouth abruptly to inhale. The black holes in its eyes and mouth rotated inward, and the suction force erupted suddenly!
Dark narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling the bangs of his hair being sucked up.
But aside from that, there was nothing.
"Didn't they say memories would be sucked out?"
He opened his eyes and looked up in great confusion, staring big eyes against small eyes with the Soul-Sucker.
"Why don't you suck?"
"I am sucking!"
"Can you be faster?"
"I'm really sucking!"
The Soul-Sucker felt humiliated.
The Soul-Sucker sucked with all its might.
The Soul-Sucker sucked desperately.
The Soul-Sucker held its breath until it became a round ball.
The Soul-Sucker's suction power increased to the limit!
Amidst the Soul-Sucker's angry roars.
A tiny, transparent tentacle finally floated out from Dark's face.
The reason it was so difficult was not due to other causes, but simply because his mental strength had been preliminarily strengthened after practicing the [Nether God Art].
Skills like the Soul-Sucker's "Soul Suck" were related to the strength of one's mental power.
The stronger the opponent's mental power, the harder it was to absorb.
Regardless, after unremitting efforts, the Soul-Sucker finally succeeded!
It looked at the wisp of a tentacle floating out from Dark's face, tears welling up in its eyes!
But immediately after.
It merely "licked" it.
The Soul-Sucker's body instantly froze, and then its body, swollen like a ball, suddenly began to twitch.
Its tiny brain core couldn't understand what had happened at all. The internal ecology of its body fell into complete disorder in this extremely short time.
Its face turned upward, and a massive amount of fine, thread-like tentacles surged out from its eye sockets and mouth, spreading continuously upward.
It looked as if something inside its body was pushing outward, stretching the surface of its body until it was uneven and bumpy.
"What's going on?"
"What happened?"
"It's not going to explode again, is it?"
The Soul-Sucker's abnormality instantly caused cries of alarm among the students.
The classroom immediately fell into a commotion.
The people sitting in the front row even hurriedly picked up books or similar items to cover their faces, seemingly thinking that this would block the wind from the explosion.
...
"Aroo, aroo, aroo!"
The Soul-Sucker's howling was miserable and helpless.
Professor Nini lifted it up with a bewildered look to examine it carefully, then reached out a finger and flicked its belly twice.
But naturally, she couldn't see anything.
Dark looked at the Soul-Sucker's changes in astonishment, unable to figure out exactly what was happening for a moment.
However, as the Soul-Sucker's body expanded like a balloon, everyone guessed its final end.
It was going to explode again!
Professor Nini instantly panicked and hurriedly grabbed the Soul-Sucker and ran outside.
The last explosion had luckily only blown out a gust of wind, but this explosion looked even more bizarre.
She didn't want to be fired because of a teaching accident—this was an opportunity she had obtained with great difficulty!
Thud, thud, thud!
Professor Nini squeezed out of the classroom's front door with flying steps.
The curious students subconsciously stood up.
But not long after, a loud noise suddenly came from outside the classroom.
Boom!
A massive explosion echoed in the empty corridor.
Dark, worried that something might have happened to Professor Nini, hurriedly rushed out, but that massive yet "petite" figure was standing firmly not far away.
She turned around; aside from the fur around her face being a bit messy, she was unharmed.
Truly worthy of being a Behemoth mixed-blood!
...
"It looks like it's the same as last week; the Soul-Sucker couldn't handle the pressure and exploded from anger!"
Professor Nini returned to the classroom, rubbing her head, attempting to cutely muddle through.
"Professor, please take more safety measures next time," Emma in the front row said worriedly.
"Ehehe." Professor Nini's eyes darted around as she changed the subject. "Anyway, class is about to end. Today's homework is to choose a relatively common monster in the dungeon for analysis. Hand it in before noon next Wednesday. I will select one monster from them as the teaching content for next week. So everyone had better choose something you like. Hmm, note that it must be common! And too powerful won't do!"
The students looked at each other, immediately realizing this was an opportunity.
Common monsters in the dungeon weren't all hideous and terrifying like the Soul-Sucker.
Although rare, there were indeed a few types that were cute, pretty, and harmless!
For example...
"Mushroom Bear!"
Diana shouted out abruptly.
Rose hurriedly pulled her down.
Sitting in the back, Dark couldn't help but laugh as he watched.
The Mushroom Bear was a cub with a mushroom on its head. If one only looked at the illustrated handbook, it was as cute as a teddy bear.
But in reality, the Mushroom Bear could release very troublesome mushroom spores and was a very dangerous monster in the dungeon.
But boys and girls of this age were indeed prone to looking only at appearances.
Girls liked cute monsters, while boys probably leaned more toward cool monsters.
Like Doron, who was clamoring about dragons and whatnot...
If Professor Nini really heard that, she might just cry.
...
Ding-ling-ling!
The dismissal bell rang right on time.
Dark packed up his books and called Diana and Rose to leave the classroom.
Friday afternoon was the time when Traveler Street was open, but today they needed to go to the Dueling Club to apply for tomorrow morning's Rookie Tournament.
This didn't mean much to Dark, as his credit quota was currently in a surplus state.
But for the other six people, it was a good opportunity to earn credits.
If one attended classes normally, each class guaranteed 10 credits. There were 14 classes a week this semester, yielding 140 credits.
But if one participated in the Rookie Tournament, the registration fee was 50% off, requiring only 50 credits. Winning one match earned a net profit of 150 credits, equivalent to listening attentively in class for a week!
The only problem was that the difficulty of winning was relatively high.
After all, those participating in the Rookie Tournament were basically second-year students.
So it was best to act according to one's ability.
After the meal.
The three followed the map on their Sorting Cards and found the Dueling Club's office classroom on the upper floors of the castle.
The Dueling Club's office classroom had five external windows, corresponding to grades two through six respectively.
And first-year students were naturally included in the second year.
Basically, anyone wanting to participate in duel matches needed to come here to apply.
But sometimes, the Dueling Club would actively send invitations to people, usually with extra rewards.
The staff member working at Window No. 1 this afternoon was a young lady who didn't look very old; she was obviously a student working part-time.
Dark waited in line for about ten minutes before it was successfully his turn.
He reported his name, filled out a simple form, paid 50 credits, and obtained a Player Card.
Only those holding a Player Card could enter the internal facilities of the Dueling Arena.
The short-haired young lady handed the Player Card to him and said softly, "The competition time for the Rookie Tournament is from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM on Saturday. Before midnight tonight, the club will send a duel notice via the Sorting Card. At that time, you will be able to see your match schedule and duel opponent."
Dark asked in confusion, "Do we have to wait that long?"
The young lady nodded. "The club arranges the schedule based on the situation of all participating players after registration ends, so the time is relatively late."
Dark took the Player Card and looked at it, accepting this explanation.
As he turned to leave, a member inside the office classroom suddenly turned his head to glance at him, his gaze obscure and hidden.
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