As Leo stepped out of Faye’s room, his hair slightly tousled and a subtle smirk lingering on his face, the last thing he expected was to run into Professor David.
The professor was headed towards his dorm room after finishing his lecture, his expression neutral—until his gaze landed on Leo.
"Skyshard?"
David’s voice carried a note of surprise, his eyes flickering from Leo’s disheveled appearance to the door he had just stepped out of.
Leo could almost see the gears turning in the professor’s mind, piecing together an entirely incorrect scenario.
However, he met his gaze nonetheless.
"Professor." Leo said, as he walked past him, entirely ignoring the tension hanging in the air.
But as he brushed past, he could swear he heard David curse under his breath.
Leo didn’t need to read minds to know what the professor was thinking.
The man had clearly jumped to the worst conclusion possible—assuming that a teacher had offered him sexual ’favors’ in exchange for being acquainted with his Monarch-level talent.
It was ridiculous. Unfounded.
But Leo had neither the time nor the patience to care.
With only 12 minutes before his next class, his focus was elsewhere.
*******
Returning to the Practical Combat Arena, Leo walked with a renewed sense of confidence about himself.
Although his conversation with Faye had not gone entirely as he hoped it would— in some ways, it had turned out better than he ever could have imagined.
He now knew that his memory loss was something voluntary and not something imposed forcibly upon him, and although there was a possibility that Faye was lying and making things up, something about her demeanor and how she talked about his past self, made Leo trust him.
Today, having talked to her, Leo found out about his goal in this academy and his reason for coming here, and that alone felt much better than the confused state he found himself in up until yesterday.
Up-till yesterday, he had no clue why he was here, or who put him here, or what was his end-game.
And although many of these questions still remain unanswered, at least now he knew his short-term goals.
1)He had to get stronger and somehow top the first year rankings.
2)He had to be selected for the academy team representing them in the circuits and participate in that competition.
3)He had to shine at the circuits and hopefully help Rodova overturn Geneva’s rank, as it would be an achievement big enough to be noticed by the universe’s best Assassin Guild - The Black Serpents.
Which eventually brought him to his final goal for having joined this academy….which was finding a way into the Black Serpents.
For now, he had no clue as to why he needed to join the Black Serpents, or why the only route to joining them had to go through the Rodova Military Academy, however, just having the knowledge of what he was supposed to do, felt enough for now.
***********
(Meanwhile, within the teacher’s dorm room, Muiyan Faye)
Muiyan Faye, a.k.a Mu Fan, slumped against the wall devoid of all strength after Leo left her room.
She had kept her act together, and behaved all tough around him till she eventually pushed him out, however, the truth was she was absolutely exhausted.
The mana required for the memory transfer was not something just anyone could handle.
The process was actually supposed to take place in a specialized machine that was powered by several high purity mana crystals, however, Mu Fan did it by hand for the sake of Leo.
’Stupid boy got all beat up today by Su Yang…. Why does he pick fights he can’t win? Doesn’t he understand that his body is precious?’ Faye thought, as he cursed Leo’s poor decision making under her breath.
Today, she had given him a sense of purpose and a goal to work towards, and while she had not given him all the answers he seeked, she had pointed him in the right direction.
"You must enroll into the Black Serpents, Skyshard, For if you don’t, there is no hope for you to become the next Timeless Assassin" Faye murmured, as she weakly recalled the reason behind all this trouble.
The reason behind Leo enrolling into Rodova Military Academy.
The carefully crafted plan, aimed at seamlessly helping him achieve what no-one else before him had.
The reason was quite embarrassing for the Evil Cult, for they were supposed to be the guardians of the ways of the Timeless Assassin, the protector of his legacy, however, it was because of their inadequacies that Leo had to take this difficult path today.
The Evil Cult was meant to be the guardian of the Timeless Assassin’s legacy, the preserver of his techniques, the gatekeeper of the knowledge that allowed a warrior to ascend beyond mortality. And yet, they had failed.
Their last hope—the strongest Dragon candidate they had ever nurtured, a warrior who had once stood on the precipice of greatness—had fallen. Killed not fighting a war of justice, nor by an unforeseen catastrophe, but by the Guild Master of the Black Serpents.
That battle had been a turning point. Not only had the Evil Cult lost their most promising candidate, but the Black Serpents had taken from his corpse something invaluable—something that should have never left the hands of the Cult.
A Divine Rank Skill Scroll.
A relic of the original Timeless Assassin, containing one of his core techniques, a move so crucial that without it, no successor could ever hope to become the next Timeless Assassin.
It was a fatal bottleneck, a wall that could not be bypassed. No matter how much talent the next Dragon possessed, no matter how deep their understanding of the Timeless Assassin’s arts, they would never reach the pinnacle without that skill in their arsenal.
And now, that scroll sat behind the most impenetrable defenses in the universe.
The Black Serpent Guild was not just a collection of elite assassins—it was the universe’s premier assassin guild, an organization that had solidified its place at the very top of the underworld hierarchy, by having deep ties to all six great clans and the universal government.
Their vaults were legendary, rumored to be guarded by an ever-changing security protocol, layers of spatial locks, and a force of assassins that had never known failure.
And while over the years, the Evil Cult had launched dozens of attempts to retrieve what was stolen, every mission they launched had inevitably ended in disaster.
Each infiltration team was wiped out.
Every direct assault was crushed as the cult simply found no way in.
Not through force.
Not through stealth.
Not through any method they had used before.
Which meant that if they wanted to retrieve the skill scroll— if they wanted to see a new Timeless Assassin to rise again— they needed a new approach.
One that would allow their agent to walk freely within the guild’s walls. One that would not raise suspicion. One that would let them strike from within.
But that was easier said than done.
In a world where background checks ran deep, where major organizations conducted psychological evaluations and lie detection procedures on every new recruit, infiltrating the Black Serpents was impossible for anyone with even the slightest connection to the Evil Cult.
Even a single hidden memory of the mission could be fatal, as no one could join that organisation with fabricated pasts or forged documents as the guild’s security measures would expose them long before they ever got close to the armory.
Which left them with only one possible entry point.
The grassroots level.
Unlike other recruitment methods, the Inter-School Circuits were one of the few ways the Black Serpents scouted new talent without prior affiliation checks as they expected the reputed academies to have already done that bit.
Hence, those who dominated the circuits, those who stood out among the most promising young assassins in the universe, were offered a chance to join.
Making it the only way to join without triggering suspicion.
And that was why Leo Skyshard had come to Rodova Military Academy.
That was why he had erased his own memories.
A clear background. A blank slate. No affiliations. No ties to the Evil Cult. A perfect candidate.
This wasn’t just about gaining strength. This was about building a cover story. About proving himself as an exceptional talent while operating within the Righteous Alliance framework. About ascending the ranks of the academy without any traces of his true allegiance.
Only after cementing himself as one of the best would he receive an invitation.
Only after earning his way into the Black Serpents would he finally get his chance.
Once inside, he would steal back what was rightfully his.
And when that day came, when the scroll was back in their hands, he would return to the Evil Cult as their next Dragon.
The next candidate to become the Timeless Assassin.
But until that day arrived…
He could never know the full truth.
For in this game of shadows, ignorance was both his greatest shield and his deadliest curse.