Chapter 141: The Status of a Scholar

After the crowd dispersed, Warren left first. His family was having honey-roasted chicken for dinner tonight.

The corridor slowly emptied, the sound of footsteps fading away.

Just as Richard finished tying his shoelace and stood up, Coleman stepped out from around the corner.

His right hand was wrapped in a wet towel acting as a cold compress.

They met in the middle of the corridor and stopped.

Coleman spoke first.

"Can we talk?"

"Sure."

Coleman glanced at both ends of the corridor to confirm no one else was around.

"Not here. Let's go outside."

They exited through the gymnasium's back door and walked east across the campus, following the path along the edge of the field.

Coleman unwrapped the wet towel from his right hand and flexed his fingers.

The swelling around his knuckles had gone down a bit, but bruises were slowly surfacing.

"Is your hand all right?" Richard asked.

"It's fine. Didn't hurt the bone much." Coleman draped the towel over the back of a bench.

"Just a soft tissue contusion. It'll heal in two or three days."

"I'm Coleman," he formally introduced himself.

"Richard."

"I know your name." Coleman leveled his gray eyes at him. "The whole school does."

Richard didn't reply, waiting for him to continue.

"The school I previously attended was St. George Military Academy, in Sheffield."

His gaze dropped to his swollen right hand.

"On the surface, it was a military academy that supplied recruits for the army and police force. But in reality..."

He looked up at Richard.

"It's a preparatory training institution for Hunters."

Hearing this, Richard understood why Coleman seemed to have a foundation in Hunter training, yet didn't give off the slightest sensation of ether.

"The school's training is divided into two systems," Coleman continued.

"The overt system is conventional military training: physical conditioning, tactics, weapon operations, and wilderness survival."

"The hidden system is introductory Hunter training: ice water immersion, hyperventilation, muscle lashing, and ether circuit activation."

"When students enroll, they all undergo a screening."

"Those who pass enter the hidden system and receive Hunter-oriented training."

"Those who fail stay in the overt system and follow the path of ordinary soldiers."

Coleman's voice was flat; the experience was already years behind him.

"I passed the screening when I enrolled and entered the hidden system."

"Starting at age fourteen, I woke up at five every morning. Fifteen minutes in ice water, three sets of hyperventilation, followed by three hours of combat training."

"Afternoons were for regular military classes, and evenings were for specialized circuit activation training."

He turned his right hand over, palm facing up.

"Without a supernatural item, activating a circuit requires repeated stimulation in a high-concentration ether environment, forcing the dormant circuit to awaken under stress."

"Some people had their circuits activated by the second month. Some needed a year, others two."

"And some people..."

He closed his hand.

"Never manage to activate it."

Richard had already guessed the outcome.

"I stayed at St. George for over two years," Coleman said, lowering his head.

"In those two years, out of thirty-seven people in my class, nineteen successfully activated their circuits."

"Of the remaining eighteen, I was the last one to be eliminated."

"Near the end of the second year, the instructor told me my circuit structure had a congenital defect."

"The key nodes of the circuit were fractured. No matter how much they were stimulated, they couldn't connect."

Coleman placed his hand back on his knee.

"After I was eliminated, the school gave me two choices."

"One was to stay in the overt system, finish the military prep courses, and enter the regular army after graduation."

"The second was to transfer to a normal school and finish my education as an ordinary student."

"I chose the second."

"Why?" Richard asked.

Coleman thought for a moment.

"If I stayed at St. George, I'd have to watch the classmates who successfully activated their circuits keep moving forward every day, while I could only join the regular army as a common grunt..."

He sighed.

"So you transferred to Greenwood," Richard realized.

"Right."

Coleman's gaze settled back on Richard.

"After transferring, I thought I was completely cut off from the world behind the veil."

"St. George's rules are incredibly strict. Eliminated students are forbidden from revealing any information about what lies behind the veil."

"Violators face legal consequences, and in severe cases, they might even have the relevant memories erased."

Coleman's pace slowed.

"After arriving at Greenwood, I quickly noticed Mr. Hutton."

Richard's eyebrows twitched slightly.

"In St. George's hidden system, every class also had a guide, though we all just called them instructors."

"The instructors were responsible for supervising the progress of circuit activation and providing necessary guidance and protection."

"Although I can't clearly sense ether, I could vaguely sense something on Mr. Hutton that felt similar to our instructors."

Coleman's sharp judgment took Richard somewhat by surprise.

"You knew Mr. Hutton was a guide within the school."

"Yes." Coleman nodded. "But I didn't know who he was guiding."

His gaze lingered on Richard's face for a moment.

"Until recently."

"I noticed that when you were lifting dumbbells at the combat club, your breathing rhythm was completely different from a normal person's."

"When normal people do strength training, their breathing is passive, following their movements."

"They exhale on exertion and inhale on the release. The rhythm changes with their level of fatigue—the more tired they get, the messier it becomes."

"Your breathing was actively controlled from start to finish. No matter which set you were on, no matter how tired you got, the rhythm never varied."

Coleman's observation was incredibly precise.

"Even though we practiced the Path of Blood Ignition, we gained some understanding of the Golden Path."

"So when I saw you breathing with that rhythm in the club, I recognized it immediately."

Richard leaned against the back of the bench, his gaze falling on the bare branches of the elm tree overhead.

"You proposed we spar today," Richard said, withdrawing his gaze from the branches, "just to verify your guess?"

"Yes." Coleman didn't deny it.

"If you were a Newcomer who had already stepped beyond the veil... your reaction speed, Perception, and even physical strength would be fundamentally different from an ordinary person's."

Coleman looked down at his swollen right knuckles.

"The result was obvious."

Richard couldn't help but chuckle.

"Aren't you afraid of violating your non-disclosure agreement by telling me all this?"

Coleman's expression didn't change.

"The agreement states that I cannot reveal the existence of what lies behind the veil to 'uninformed ordinary people.'"

"You aren't an ordinary person, and you aren't uninformed."

"So strictly speaking, I haven't broken the agreement."

The guy's way of speaking was very straightforward.

He didn't hide behind riddles; he laid all his cards face-up on the table.

"So..." Coleman asked again. "Which path are you taking?"

"Scholar," Richard replied.

Revealing his chosen direction wasn't some unspeakable secret.

At that word, Coleman noticeably stiffened.

"...Do you know how many Scholars I saw in my two-plus years at St. George?"

"How many?"

"Only two."

Coleman looked at him with envy, and even a faint trace of jealousy.

"Once was during the school's annual evaluation. An old professor came over from Imperial Capital University for an inspection."

"He was hunched over and leaned on a cane. He looked no different from any old man you'd see on the street."

"But when he walked into the auditorium, all the instructors stood up."

"Including our chief instructor—a Hunter at the Minor Adept rank who had served for twenty years and killed more evil creatures than the number of people we'd ever met."

"In front of that old professor, he was as respectful as a student."

Coleman's description gave Richard a clearer understanding of the power structure behind the veil.

"And the second time?"

"The second time was the day I was eliminated."

Coleman's right hand clenched on his knee.

"The person in charge of evaluating my circuit's condition was a Scholar."

"He used some sort of testing apparatus and took about ten minutes to reach a conclusion."

"Ten minutes."

Coleman didn't look at him, seemingly lost in memory.

"I suffered for over two years at St. George. Every morning I soaked in ice water, and I was beaten to the point of coughing up blood by the instructors."

"Over two years of hard work, wiped out by that Scholar in ten minutes."

He shook his head.

"That Scholar's judgment was correct. There really was a problem with my circuit, and continuing to train wouldn't have yielded any results."

"I'm just..."

He looked at Richard.

"Envious."

"Envious that you get to walk this path."

Richard didn't know what to say.

His starting point was completely different from Coleman's.

Coleman had struggled through the Hunter preparatory system since he was fourteen, pouring out nearly three years of blood and sweat, only to bow out in regret due to a congenital deficiency.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hutton had approached Richard of his own accord, guiding him toward the Scholar path from the very beginning.

"Are you..." Richard carefully weighed his words, "completely out of options now?"

"With the circuit?" Coleman shook his head. "That Scholar made it very clear. It's a congenital fracture; there are currently no methods to repair it."

He stood up and retrieved the wet towel draped over the bench, folding it neatly.

"There's one more thing."

Richard looked up.

"Yeah?"

"Logically speaking, people on the Scholar path shouldn't need to practice these things."

Coleman turned back, his gaze lingering on Richard's shoulders and arms for a moment.

His gray eyes held only pure curiosity.

"In my two-plus years at St. George, I only ever saw those two Scholars."

"From the way they walked, it looked like they couldn't even lift their own suitcases."

"But in St. George's entire system, not a single person dared to underestimate them."

Saying this, Coleman chuckled.

"The day that old professor visited, the chief instructor personally served him tea."

"I still remember that scene to this day."

"A man who could snap a vampire's neck barehanded, holding a teacup, not even daring to walk too fast."

He looked at Richard.

"Logically, people on your path don't need to let their fists do the talking."

"So why did you join the combat club?"

Richard thought for a moment.

A quote from Mr. Hutton surfaced in his mind, fitting perfectly here.

"My guide once said something to me."

"What was it?"

"Sometimes, a Scholar also needs to use their fists to protect their desk."

Coleman chewed over the phrase.

"...Protect their desk?"

"Right."

Coleman nodded thoughtfully.

"Sounds interesting."

He didn't press further, likely never expecting a complete answer from Richard in the first place.

Outside, the gas lamps in the distance around the field were lit one by one.

"The day I left St. George, my instructor saw me off in his office."

"He said, 'Congratulations on your graduation.'"

Coleman smiled bitterly.

"'Going out to live the life of an ordinary person is the best choice.'"

"'Those who can avoid walking this path are the lucky ones left behind by God.'"

"When I withdrew, I couldn't understand it."

His gaze fell in the direction of the school gates.

"I felt like I had been stripped of something."

"Over two years of training, endurance, and pain, all rendered void by someone's ten-minute evaluation."

"During that time, I had the same dream every single night."

"I dreamed that my circuit was fixed, and I returned to St. George to continue training."

"In the dream, I was incredibly happy."

"But after waking up, for about half a minute, I would just lie in bed, staring blankly."

"I couldn't figure out if I should be happy or disappointed."

Coleman stuffed the wet towel back into his pocket.

"Now, I've figured it out."

"I should be happy. Happy that my name won't be hung up on that thick list of casualties."

He walked off toward the school gates.

"See you next semester. Call me anytime you want to spar."