Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

......

After a quick dinner, Lu Mingfei opened the laptop that Angers had provided for him, but instead of accessing Norma's database as usual.

He opened the Night Watchers discussion forum on the Kassel College website, registered an account named "Sword Skeleton," and began browsing posts from a while ago.

Sure enough, his profile and his post announcing his intention to join "Freedom Day" were among the most popular.

After a quick look, I'm pretty sure it's Fingel guiding things.

Just then, Fingel pushed open the dormitory door, carrying a stack of A4 papers.

"Junior brother, here are the files on Chu Zihang and Caesar. They are definitely the most complete in the entire campus." He dumped the printed files, which were full of information, onto Lu Mingfei's desk.

Joining Chapter 41

Lu Mingfei opened the file, which was rich in content. In addition to routine information such as names and hometowns, it also contained information that ordinary students could not access, such as transcripts and internship grades. More importantly, it contained an analysis of the two combat styles, pieced together from a mix of information including evaluations from practical training instructors, analysis of practical training video recordings, and praise posts from executive department specialists on the forum.

There are even messages from Caesar's words.

Word of Power: Kamaitachi, Serial Number 59.

The power of words, named after Japanese yokai (supernatural beings), allows the user to command the wind within their domain. The wind, as if enslaved, captures all sounds and submits them to the user. The user's perception of the enemy's location and status is astonishing; when combined with firearms and with ample ammunition, it is enough to alter the course of a small-scale conventional war.

The night he emerged from the Bronze City, Lu Mingfei walked along the muddy riverbank shrouded in torrential rain, releasing a Word of Power with each step, testing all the Dragon Runes Professor Schneider had given him, including the Kamaitachi. Within his domain, the shattering of raindrops, the splashing of mud, even a blade of grass bent by the wind, the air currents flowing over the tough yet twisted fibrous framework, vibrating and humming on the undulating leaf surface—all were vividly present in the world of sound.

Lu Mingfei knew that Kassel College was shrouded in the domain of Words of Power and Discipline, and Caesar could not use Words of Power on campus. But he tried to imagine what kind of person an A-level heir of a prominent mixed-race family would be, who was guided from childhood to feel the power of the dragon blood in his body and grew up with and using such a domain.

A born ruler!

He reigns supreme in his field, a master of life and death, a reaper wielding firearms, or the most composed and ruthless assassin in close combat.

Lu Mingfei had a plan in mind for "teaching" such a person.

He picked up Chu Zihang's ability description again, but it only contained "the golden eyes that never go out" and "a destructive mission style," without any important information like the Word of Power.

Fingel noticed his confusion and kindly explained, "Chu Zihang's Word of Power has not been made public. It may be a special Word of Power or a dangerous Word of Power. If the former is made public, it is easy to be targeted, while the latter requires different levels of control over the person."

Lu Mingfei nodded and tidied up the messy documents on the table. "When do you plan to open the market? I see you're quite well prepared."

Fingel shook his head. "No, junior brother, it's not enough. The people in Kassel are all shrewd and cunning, with dragon blood flowing through their veins. Being too deliberate will scare the fish away. After all, I'm a notorious 'poor guy,' so my bets must have a reasonable justification."

"For example, make everyone think that you've been misled by me, right?" Lu Mingfei smiled. "Your posts are all positive and exaggerated to a certain extent, while you secretly release my negative information. Actually, you don't even need to release it; the members of the two major groups in the comments section will collect it themselves. This way, everyone will think that I'm an incompetent and arrogant person, and your bet will be truly innocent and pure, even infuriating."

"Well, it's just a skill I use to make a living," Fingel said with some pride. "Without this skill, how could I be the Minister of Information?"

Lu Mingfei had a keen eye for detail, but had never been involved in such a matter before, and found it somewhat amusing.

"Then I'll help you." He said, opening the most popular "join the battle" post and tapping his fingers lightly on the keyboard.

In the replies section of the popular post, which had just calmed down, a user with the ID "Sword Skeleton" commented: "With so many questions, are individual participants not allowed? Are you afraid of losing to me and looking bad?"

Soon, people realized that the tone was Lu Mingfei's own.

"Master Lu, is that you?"

"My suggestion is to take some melatonin. It will improve your sleep quality and prevent you from daydreaming."

"@Muramasa @DickTuiduo, reply quickly, don't keep our great Lu waiting."

"Damn, if you get beaten to a pulp, how are you going to stay in the game?"

"It made me laugh in anger."

"Holy crap, is this what young people are like?"

"I want to see rivers of blood!"

It was right after dinner, and the Night Watchers discussion forum was already bustling with activity. The reply section was immediately stirred up by Lu Mingfei's response.

Soon, Caesar and Chu Zihang, who had been notified by their younger brother, both saw the message.

Dick Tudor: "Of course it's allowed. 'Freedom Day' doesn't restrict participants. You can put your bets on the table and have a chance to win big."

Lu Mingfei looked at Fingel, "The bet?"

“Caesar said that ‘A Day of Freedom’ isn’t exciting enough without a wager, so the winner gets to use the Norton Hall in the academy and also the privilege of dating a girl for three months. Caesar’s wager was a Bugatti Veyron, while Chu Zihang’s was his alchemical sword, the Divine Sword Murasame,” Fingel explained.

Lu Mingfei pondered for a moment.

Sword Skeleton: "My bet is a perfect score in an elective course. The winning club members will get a perfect score if they sign up."

The comments section erupted in excitement once again.

"Is this something a student could do?"

"S-level permissions do seem to be different from those below A-level."

"Holy crap, this isn't even a case of connections; it's blatant."

"Who are those people who were criticizing the illegitimate child theory a while ago?"

"If I'm not bragging, I'd also like to join the student council or the Lionheart Society."

Kassel College is a school that trains dragon slayers. Jobs are guaranteed after graduation. GPA is not as important as in ordinary universities, but which of these young mixed-race students who consider themselves elites is not ambitious? They will never give up proving themselves in a competitive environment, and a high GPA is one of the indicators that gives them self-identity.

"A Day of Freedom" is a product of this mentality. The Norton Mansion, besides being a luxurious villa, also represents the identity of the strong and the winners. These things are like gold cast into a crown, attracting young people with dragon blood flowing in their veins more than ordinary gold.

Dick Tudor: "Agreed."

Murasame: "I agree."

The comment section fell silent for a moment, because this seemingly farcical incident had now been officially confirmed, and this year's "Freedom Day" would no longer involve only two groups of gamers.

In this situation, it seems a bit pointless to say sarcastic or vulgar things.

Fingel gave Lu Mingfei a thumbs up, "Junior brother, well done."

Lu Mingfei smiled without saying a word, and handed over his student card. The silver patterns on the black card surface gleamed under the light.

Fingel took it blankly.

"When the market opens, bet 10000 yuan on yourself for me." Lu Mingfei patted his shoulder, put aside the materials Fingel had brought, picked up his alchemy chemistry book, and began to review his notes and the information from the Norma database.

He wanted to fully restore or even upgrade Crimson Sky—through alchemy, which, theoretically, was possible with the power of the Great Rune, the King of Bronze and Fire.

"Junior brother, you're being too greedy. Try to bet less." Fingel said with a bitter face.

Chapter 42 The Sorrow of Blood

On the eve of Freedom Day, fewer students were on campus. Members of the two major clubs gathered at their headquarters to discuss tactics and prepare weapons and ammunition. Bullets carrying Friga bullets were loaded into magazines of various types. In addition, the nurses and doctors at the school hospital were exceptionally busy, packing medical equipment into medical kits and transporting a large number of portable stretchers and emergency equipment to the inpatient hall.

The entire Kassel College was in a tense atmosphere, with students who hadn't joined any clubs avoiding going out as much as possible, knowing that every empty window could become a firing point in a dozen hours.

Lu Mingfei returned from the library as usual.

As night fell, the streets were sparsely populated, and the streetlights were hidden among the lush trees. The light climbed along the branches and leaves, casting dark shadows on the asphalt driveway of the campus that looked like a group of snakes intertwined.

The speedometer that had been lying dormant among the bushes suddenly lit up.

It is a small, monument-like facility built at the request of the Dean of Students, Manstein, specifically designed to detect students who speed on campus. It is normally in standby mode, only reporting speed and lighting up when a high-speed object passes through its speed detection zone, with the speed data being sent directly to Norma.

The moment Lu Mingfei looked at it, the light on it began to flash rapidly, with green speed limit displays and red overspeed warnings appearing simultaneously. The lines on the display screen twisted, forming a chaotic neon pattern.

Meanwhile, the streetlights in the distance went out one by one, as if a monster devouring light was slowly approaching from the darkness. The wind rustled through the darkness between the trees.

Lu Mingfei was not alarmed. Through this scene that resembled a horror movie, the first thing he noticed was that the faint sense of restraint brought by the Word of Power and the Precepts had disappeared.

In other words, this is no longer the real world.

The last light went out and came back on, and a boy appeared in front of Lu Mingfei, wearing a small Kassel College uniform, looking up at him.

"Brother, you're really boring." Looking at Lu Mingfei's face, which seemed to say "It's you after all," Lu Mingze helplessly spread his hands. "With an audience like this, even magicians' enthusiasm will be dampened."

"You've come at the right time." Lu Mingfei calmly opened his satchel, took out his notebook, and muttered some technical terms, "In alchemy, the combination of 'spirit' with other 'elements' must be contained in a pure substance. If, during the smelting process, this carrier..."

“Brother,” Lu Mingze interrupted him, sighing, “Once you possess the complete authority of the King of Bronze and Fire, you will no longer need to worry about these things; they will be at your disposal.”

Lu Mingfei had no choice but to put away his notebook. "Then do you know where Constantine is?"

"That's what I came here to talk about."

Lu Mingze snapped his fingers, and a gust of wind surged in this brief dream, shaking the dense canopy of trees. The swirling air currents caught two fallen, withered leaves. They spiraled and swirled around each other, hovering above Lu Mingze's two fingers.

"Do you know about the Sorrow of Blood?" he asked, gazing at the leaves that were drawn to each other.

Lu Mingfei recalled the knowledge he had seen before.

The so-called "sorrow of blood" refers to another characteristic of hybrids, besides their strength, that distinguishes them from ordinary people.

In the academy's theory, those with dragon blood are not considered true humans. The 'word power' brought by their bloodline alienates hybrids from humans. When hybrids live in human society, this underlying spiritual implication influences their psychology over the years, manifesting as a sense of loneliness.

This "loneliness" is not ethereal; it's like the emotional and psychological problems caused by depression, determined by a pathological physiological basis. The physiological basis of depression may be an imbalance in the secretion of dopamine and serotonin, while for hybrid races, the physiological basis of "blood sorrow" is the dragon's genes, which cannot be alleviated; the loneliness can only be eliminated among their own kind.

Therefore, the descendants of the dragon race will naturally gather together.

"You mean, it's not just mixed-race people who are attracted to each other?" Lu Mingfei asked, "The Dragon King does too?"

Lu Mingze nodded. "Didn't you see Angers' investigation results? Constantine doesn't have the blood and spirit of the Dragon King in his body, which means that the 'Great Rune' you mentioned stripped away the King's authority through an abnormally thorough mechanism that shouldn't exist, leaving only dragon blood below the bloodline limit and a human body. Aren't you curious whether he still has the Sorrow of Blood?"

Lu Mingfei had already read Angers' report. Nothing had been extracted from the blood and bones of Constantine, the former body of the Dragon King, not even to the level of a dangerous hybrid. This at least indicated Constantine's safety and that the Dragon King might have died completely on a spiritual level after losing the "Great Rune."

"So you actually know where 'Norton' is, right?" Lu Mingfei frowned.

Lu Mingze took two steps back. "Brother, I saw aggression in your eyes. It's heartbreaking. In those flawed mixed-race files, you were particularly concerned about the word 'dream.' But one day you will realize that I am the person you are closest to and most trustworthy in this world."

For a moment, Lu Mingfei did have the idea of ​​forcing a confession, but he had calmed down by now. "You'd better not."

"Whether Norton will follow the ancient blood oath and seek out his kind, let's wait patiently until then, brother."

The fallen leaves swayed and fell to the ground, and Lu Mingze's figure vanished in an instant as the shadows of the trees flickered in the wind.

The streetlights returned to normal, and there was no wind at Kassel College at night. Lu Mingfei looked over and saw the speed camera hidden in the corner of the bushes like a dark stone tablet, never lit up.

......

Who will win the "One Day of Freedom" title? The annual guessing game begins!

On the Night Watchers discussion forum, Fingel has already started trading.

Members of the student council and the Lionheart Club will definitely bet on their own to win. Students, teachers, and even graduates from other clubs will also participate, as this will provide both excitement and a sense of participation.

The bets on Caesar and Chu Zihang kept rising, while only a few bettors placed their bets under Lu Mingfei's headshot. Fingel had deliberately used Lu Mingfei's ID photo from high school; the boy's eyes held a blank and melancholic look, and he looked up at the camera with a slightly hunched back, appearing somewhat silly and cute.

Fingel has only placed 100 yuan bet on Lu Mingfei so far, and he will inject more money at the last minute before the betting closes.