Before long, in a certain classroom of the academic district.

  This tiered lecture hall, converted from an old factory workshop, could hold several hundred people—more than enough for this batch of just over a hundred freshmen.

  However, after everyone had settled in, they were stunned to find that a key person was missing from this classroom—Poppy.

  The room was abuzz with chatter and overlapping conversations.

  “Where did Teaching Assistant Poppy go?”

  “Didn’t she say this was the last stop? That there was one more important thing to do? So where is she?”

  “Beats me… You don’t think that guy from the Discipline Hall called her away, do you?”

  Aurora and Betty were also quietly discussing Poppy’s whereabouts.

  Pandora frowned, a hint of confusion in her eyes as well. Poppy had brought them here and clearly stated this was the last stop, where a matter of the utmost importance was to be completed.

  And yet… how could she be the one to leave after they arrived? Was she gone to get something? What could possibly take this long?

  And… Pandora had to force herself not to slap her own face. This place… was absolute hell! The mosquitoes… were everywhere!

  She had just flicked her wrist again, precisely swatting another mosquito that had been attempting to “commit a crime” on her pale neck. A fresh smear of blood on her palm. She didn’t know if the blood belonged to some poor soul from before, but it was meaningless. Because the mosquitoes were just… too numerous!

  A dense, black, swarming mass, like living, moving clouds of black. Even with Pandora’s current reaction speed, it was difficult to fend them all off. Swat one on her arm, and three would land on her neck. Swat one sucking blood from her arm, and another would be poised and ready on her thigh. The incessant buzzing was enough to drive a person insane.

  Was the greenery around the Academy just too ridiculously lush?

  However, strangely, even though the buzzing in her ears was nearly maddening, it seemed she hadn’t developed many welts from the bites. Could it be… the mosquitoes here didn’t drink blood?

  Pandora stopped her futile swatting. Instead of resisting, she chose, rarely, to fall still and observe carefully.

  And then she saw a sight that made her expression turn strange.

  A mosquito, silent as a ghost, landed on her arm, as white and smooth as polished jade. It folded its wings, rubbing its forelegs together, as if preparing for a feast, ready to enjoy a big meal. Then, it plunged downwards, its sharp proboscis sinking without hesitation into her delicate skin.

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  Pandora could almost imagine the faint, piercing sting as it entered her flesh.

  And then...

  Pop?

  A fainter muffled sound, as if only she could hear it.

  The mosquito that had drunk her blood… just… exploded?

  A tiny wisp of blood mist bloomed on her pale arm, forming a small, blood-colored pattern, like a splash of cherry blossom.

  Just then, the classroom door creaked open. Poppy was back. In her hand, she carried a metal chest that looked incredibly heavy. She scanned the classroom, noting that the freshmen, to varying degrees, had all been “bitten” by the mosquitoes. Some, due to a special constitution, seemed to be “mosquito magnets”; their bodies were already covered in welts.

  She nodded in satisfaction. It seemed the conditions for inoculation were met.

  She walked to the front of the lecture hall and set the heavy metal chest on the desk with a loud CLANG. This single sound instantly suppressed all the noise in the classroom. Every eye was involuntarily drawn to her.

  “I brought you here to complete the final task, and the most important one before you become apprentices!” Poppy’s voice, calm and clear, echoed in the classroom.

  “Do you remember the ability of my ‘Smoke Fox’ that I used when we first met? Or the ability displayed by that green-haired man from the Discipline Hall when he dealt with the ‘sinner,’ Dulles?”

  “These great powers, beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, that ordinary people cannot master—we generally refer to them as—”

  “‘Transcendent’.”

  “There are many kinds of Transcendence. The branch our ‘Corpse-Plague Furnace’ masters is called ‘Corpse-Plague Acolyte.’”

  She raised a hand, pointing at the mosquitoes still buzzing all around them. “And the ‘seeds’ of this power… are inside the mosquitoes in this very room.”

  As she spoke, she reached out and, with a precise pinch, snatched a mosquito from mid-air, holding it on her fingertip for all to see.

  “Inside these mosquitoes is one and the same special Plague-Seed, carefully selected by the Academy.”

  “It will bring pain. Torment. It will remake your bodies. This process is not pleasant. But, during this time, it will also infuse your body, reforging your flesh, enhancing your physical fitness, and even… unlocking superhuman abilities.”

  “For example, my ‘Smoke Fox.’”

  As Poppy spoke, she exhaled a mouthful of hookah smoke. The white smoke rapidly condensed and swelled in the air, forming a vicious, massive fox-specter that nearly brushed against the classroom ceiling! Its oppressive presence and its aura of ravenous hunger were soul-shaking!

  But a second later, it vanished without a sound, as if it had never been there.

  “Just like that…”

  Poppy’s gaze slowly swept across every young face, now contorted with a mixture of yearning and desire. She changed tack, as if dropping an ice cube into a wok about to boil over.

  “Having said that, planting the ‘Plague-Seed’ is only the beginning. Merely, a beginning.”

  “To master a power as great as mine, one that can ‘suppress a horde of zombies’… for you all… is a long way off.”

  Her voice returned to that emotionless, matter-of-fact tone of a Teaching Assistant.

  “Even to initially possess this special, superhuman power, you need to at least advance to the second rank. Before that, most of what you’ll gain is a stronger foundation—your constitution, your reaction speed, things like that. You will just be a bit stronger than ordinary people. But even that is enough to create a decisive gap between you and the true ‘common folk.’”

  She narrowed her eyes slightly.

  “So… work hard.”

  “Strive to acquire more, more powerful plagues, to bring more suffering to your feeble bodies. Then, turn that soul-crushing torment into… a power that is uniquely yours.”

  Poppy’s voice was filled with a bewitching magic. Her words pierced directly into the softest, most vulnerable parts of these young hearts, the parts that yearned for change and for strength.