Su Cheng was gradually finding it impossible to understand all this.
Not to mention that the time she and Lin Yun arrived at the academy was definitely not on the same day, the incident in the original novel where Lin Yun peeked at the prince bathing actually happened after the school term started.
So it definitely shouldn't be today.
Just what kind of irresistible force was influencing this?
Furthermore...
The plot obviously wasn't a hundred percent unchangeable; she herself had already changed a lot of things.
How could this still happen?
Several thoughts flashed through her mind before she was brought back to her senses by the bright, dazzling firelight shining in the air.
This room, full of damp moisture, was inherently the most unsuitable place to release fire magic.
Water elemental spirits would gather in high density, while fire elemental spirits repelled such an environment.
If it were an ordinary low-level mage who could quickly cast fire magic out in the corridor, they might not even be able to complete the most basic spark spell in here.
Even if they wanted to extract the fire elements from their own bodies, there was a chance those elemental spirits would resist the action.
However.
The man in front of her not only didn't use an incantation, but he also condensed a flaming sword in an instant.
The golden-red arc of light cut through the thick mist. Thousands of streams of fire intertwined and coiled, their colors rich and brilliant, their edges glowing with a solar prominence-like searing white.
Wherever the fire blade swept past, the water droplets on the stone bricks dried up rapidly, even leaving behind blackened scorch marks.
The air in the bathroom seemed to distort because of it.
"...Wait!"
Su Cheng hurriedly raised her hands and turned her head slightly away.
"Sorry to bother you! But if you just check, you should know that I don't have the ability to cast spatial spells. I didn't appear here on purpose. Of course, you might think I had someone else teleport me over..."
She knew that the experts in the original novel, especially those entangled with the protagonist, nine times out of ten had special identities.
But no matter what this prince's situation was, just by virtue of being a member of the empire's royal family, he could get away with killing an innocent citizen; any random excuse would do.
Even if the law didn't allow for blatant indiscriminate killing, in reality, unless it was someone extremely powerful, who would dare to sue them? They would probably be dealt with by assassins before the trial even started.
Not to mention that right now, it looked like she had broken into his bathroom.
So, before knowing her identity, the other party really might slaughter her.
Su Cheng raised her hand, "I can prove..."
The moment the mark on her palm appeared, there was a splash of water in the bathtub, followed by a large shadow rushing toward her face.
The scorching fire blade struck right in front of her at the same time.
"A God's Favored?!"
The red-haired man roared almost simultaneously.
Su Cheng saw a dazzling expanse of pale skin. That brilliant hair color and the matching flames both whipped out dazzling afterimages in the air.
A wave of heat rushed at her face.
She subconsciously retreated, her back hitting the cold, slippery stone wall. Before she could bounce back, she was pinned down.
Su Cheng: "..."
From this angle, she was directly facing that broad, solid chest, able to clearly see the undulation of the muscles and every drop of water flowing through the crevices.
They were standing extremely close.
The red-haired man moved extremely fast. While she was speaking, he had thrown on a bathrobe with lightning speed, casually tying the belt, though still revealing a patch of skin.
He seemed to have some reservations and didn't want to touch her too much. Right now, he just clamped both her wrists with one hand, pressing them above her head.
"Who sent you here?!"
The prince said in an icy voice.
Su Cheng: "..."
Theoretically speaking, her current situation was a bit better than Lin Yun getting her ribs broken and her head stepped on.
But she was innocent!
She hadn't inquired about the prince's whereabouts and then taken the initiative to sneak in.
Su Cheng tilted her head up. "There was a guy in the corridor holding a crystal ball. That thing suddenly exploded and blew me in here. As long as the other two people aren't dead, they can both testify for me. Plus, this happened inside the school, so I bet the instructors will probably sense it too..."
The red-haired man leaned forward slightly, the fiery blade tumbling with flames in his hand already closing in on her throat.
Su Cheng only felt the temperature suddenly rise, as if countless needles were piercing her skin, followed by the burning pain of moisture being drawn out; her blood seemed to be drying up.
Amidst this terrible feeling, she smelled a highly aggressive burning scent, mixed with the fragrance of flowers and the freshness of salt, together taking over her sensory world.
Her field of vision was filled with pale, gleaming muscles. The collar of the bathrobe opened wider as he bent over, its edges darkened by the dampness of water droplets.
"Whose Favored are you?"
A tightly muscled calf pressed against her kneecap, forcefully pinning her.
Su Cheng suddenly realized that things were not as she had thought.
The reason for his anger.
Or rather, he might have misunderstood something.
"The power you were just trying to use—what did you want to do?!"
The man's voice seemed to suppress some kind of fury, squeezing out a low growl that was almost a roar from deep within his throat.
"I wanted to prove that I'm innocent," Su Cheng roared back. "I saw you bathing, and I understand you're angry, but even according to imperial law, even if I came in on purpose, it would be compensation, not the death penalty. Not to mention I didn't. You attacking me like this—if I wasn't giving you face, I could blast you from here all the way to the royal palace, believe it or not?"
Of course, that was just talk. If she really did that, she could forget about living a peaceful life in the imperial capital.
"Hah," the red-haired man pulled up the corners of his mouth. "So it's a running dog of the Blood Tome Butcher..."
Before he finished speaking, the closed bathroom door suddenly burst open.
"Your Highness, Your Highness!"
Another red-haired young man quickly walked in. "This person is innocent! I am a witness. The two of us were blown away together by an out-of-control displacement crystal!"
He rapidly finished this string of words.
Two mages also quickly walked into the bathroom. Judging by their attire, they were clearly instructors from the College of Mysteries.
"Your Royal Highness! This was just an accident, and Her Excellency Su Cheng is also a victim. The perpetrator will compensate you and both of them..."
"So," the prince let go of her hands, "this was purely a coincidence?"
The fire blade in his palm extinguished.
"Yes!" That instructor also breathed a sigh of relief. "Her Excellency Su Cheng is just a new student, and this is Prince Peier..."
"Yes," Su Cheng silently shifted two steps to the side. "Your Highness, that's how it is. I am also a victim. Please believe that I didn't want to..."
"You didn't want to do this?"
Peier sneered, using his hand to sweep up his damp bangs, fully revealing his somewhat wild, handsome face. "So you weren't staring at me either?"
"No," Su Cheng said expressionlessly. "Actually, if we're talking about muscle lines and build, I prefer my... I have a friend around me who fits my aesthetic better. He wanders around all day not wearing his clothes properly. If I wanted to look, I could just look at him. You see, during our contact, apart from me being made very uncomfortable by your flames, did I show any other reactions?"
The instructors were all dumbfounded, and the guide hesitated to speak, ultimately shutting his mouth silently.
"You!"
Peier seemed even angrier, the fury in his eyes almost erupting.
A question mark appeared above Su Cheng's head. "...Of course, you're not bad either."
The Prince gritted his teeth, veins almost popping out on his neck, looking as if he wanted to swallow her whole and chew her to pieces.
Su Cheng: "???"
No matter what she said, it was wrong. He was really hard to please.
Su Cheng couldn't be bothered to explain anymore. "...Anyway, you heard it, I am the victim."
After saying that, she slipped away and ran out.
Outside, the entire corridor was lined with ornate wooden doors, spaced far apart from each other. They were most likely all sorts of bathrooms.
Su Cheng sprinted for a while before making her way out of the maze-like bathroom area, arriving at a bustling courtyard.
Many people in bathrobes were walking about. Those who were close linked arms or held hands, chatting and laughing as they headed toward the open-air hot springs nestled among the artificial rockeries.
Looking up at the towering main tower that reached into the clouds, she realized this was just one of the many floating annex buildings, most likely a bathing area constructed with magic.
"My god," the guide came up from behind and patted her on the shoulder. "You really have a lot of nerve—"
He gave a thumbs-up as he spoke. "But beautifully done! You did nothing wrong! Come with me, I'll take you back."
They used the teleportation crystal once more, winding their way back to the dormitory area in the lower tower.
Su Cheng followed him for a short while and entered an elegantly furnished lounge.
The floor here was covered with a soft carpet, and several small bookcases lined the walls, stuffed with various reference books and storybooks.
A row of crystal balls was displayed on top of the cabinets, containing miniature scenes of valley towns in different seasons, with snowflakes or leaves gently falling inside them.
The bay window seat next to the bed was quite wide and topped with soft cushions. Someone was leaning there reading a book, holding a bubbling cup of honey tea.
Even though he was just holding the cup, the tea inside was rolling and bubbling as if it were boiling on a stove, emitting a gurgling sound.
"...Magnus," the person looked up. "What kind of new student requires you to personally escort them?"
The guide smiled. "A lot of people haven't come back yet, I'm just helping out."
The lounge had two other exits, each connecting to a hallway.
They entered one of them. Both sides of the corridor were lined with heavy oak doors, each bearing a delicate hanging tag with a name written on it.
One of the doors had no tag. The guide raised his hand and knocked on the door, a golden halo flowing from his fingertips.
Ripples of golden light instantly spread across the wooden door. With a clicking sound, the door slowly opened, revealing the room inside.
"This is it."
For a single room, it wasn't small, roughly thirty square meters.
A four-poster bed with blue curtains stood in the corner. Next to it was a long walnut desk, upon which a quill, an ink bottle, and a stack of blank scrolls were neatly arranged.
Beside the desk were two huge cabinets; one was empty, and the other was stuffed with various items.
There were transparent glass bottles of various shapes, or colored crystal bottles, containing colorful spices and crystal core powder, along with neatly stacked blank draft paper and notebooks.
On top of the cabinet sat a delicate small bronze incense burner, containing some purple-blue flower and leaf powder.
This was Heart-Clearing Grass.
One of the commonly used auxiliary items for low-level mages during meditation.
This stuff wasn't cheap either; mages from average families had to buy it by the gram.
Su Cheng wasn't surprised by the condition of the room. The tuition and accommodation fees here were very expensive, so it was only natural that the living conditions were good.
Next to the bed was a huge arched window, with soft pillows resting on the stone bay window sill.
Outside the window, one could just happen to see a floating courtyard, faintly visible amidst the ethereal mist. The courtyard was lush with vegetation, the flowerbeds were colorful, and someone was sitting on a bench reading.
The guide took out a blank wooden tag and a small bottle of golden ink from the drawer. "Write your name on this, and no one will be able to easily open your door. By the way, you aren't hurt, are you?"
"Thank you, no," Su Cheng tilted her head and looked at him. "What about you? Where did you get teleported to?"
"...I fell into a hot spring and almost landed on someone."
He looked a bit annoyed. "Those idiots, they don't have the skills themselves, yet they insist on touching things beyond their capabilities—"
"What was that?"
"A displacement crystal," the guide replied. "It's a rare ore from another plane. Under normal circumstances, processed crystals, although unstable, wouldn't affect others. But some people always try to input magic to interfere with them. Sometimes, the internal energy becomes chaotic and it just explodes, which could blow up some low-level mages. Other times, it just tosses people somewhere, like it did just now."
Su Cheng nodded. "Since there's no one else around right now, can I ask you that question from earlier?"
The guide slightly raised his eyebrows. "What is it?"
"Did you come specifically to pick me up?" Su Cheng asked. "Did someone, like a teacher from the admissions team, send you a message saying there was someone like me and ask you to get me?"
Although they were thousands of miles apart, she believed that the people from the College of Mysteries definitely had some convenient methods of communication.
"Haha," the guide chuckled. "If you paid attention to the internal affairs of the Church, you would know that His Grace, Archbishop White, is currently enjoying great momentum. Word is that he will be promoted upon his return to the Holy City. Since you were personally invited by him to the temple, you must have some special abilities—"
"I can guess a few scenarios, but I'm not sure which one it is," he paused as he spoke. "So when they mentioned it, I was a bit curious and wanted to come see you. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to boss me around."
Su Cheng figured as much. However, the fact that the other party spoke so bluntly actually made her like him a bit more.
"You still have a few days to think about course selection. You can wander around the school more if you want; many courses allow auditing anyway."
The guide thought for a moment. "If you need anything, you can come find me. I live upstairs. The location is about the same as your room, just count three doors to the right."
After saying that, he left.
Su Cheng originally wanted to tidy up the room, but found it was quite clean with practically no dust. She assumed it was the result of some sort of magical maintenance.
She inspected all the items in the room, made a rough list, and pondered over what else she needed to purchase before going out to hang up her name tag.
While she was hanging the tag, the door next door opened.
The neighbor from the room on the left walked out. He was a tall and thin young man with reddish-brown curly hair and a few freckles on his face.
The man was holding two beautiful iron boxes in his arms, and he beamed with joy the moment he saw her.
"Hello!" The neighbor happily reached out a hand. "I'm Rowan Ferguson, I live next to you. A new student from the College of Blades!"
Su Cheng shook hands with him. "Hello—"
Rowan.
Wasn't Lin Yun's neighbor also named this?
He was also a very rare male supporting character in the original novel who had a good relationship with the male lead.
The rest of the male supporting characters with any screen time were basically villains, targets to be slapped in the face, or suckers whose partners were stolen by the male lead.
...However, judging from certain plots in the original work, this neighbor brother was purely a sucker who just gave the male lead money.
Lin Yun didn't quite like him at first, secretly complaining that he had gotten into the academy through the back door.
Su Cheng had a very deep impression of this detail, because Lin Yun himself had cheated to pass the test, so she didn't understand why he felt the need to gossip about others.
"What's wrong?" The red-haired youth blinked. "Is there something amiss?"
Su Cheng snapped out of her daze. "No, I just suddenly remembered that the person who brought me here earlier also had the surname Ferguson."
"Oh? Magnus brought you here?" Rowan smiled. "That's my cousin. His mother is my dad's cousin, but we aren't very close."
She added with some surprise, "I can't believe he was actually willing to receive new students..."
Su Cheng fell into deep thought. "Are there any other new students in this corridor besides you and me?"
"I don't think so?" Rowan said uncertainly. "The rooms here are prepared for mages, so the people living here are all from the Court of Mysteries or the Court of Blades."
Only after finishing her sentence did she remember the boxes in her arms. "Oh, these are for you. Mung bean cakes and salted egg yolk pastries. Do you prefer sweet or savory? Or are you fine with both?"
Su Cheng tried to politely decline, but still ended up with two boxes of pastries shoved into her hands. She couldn't help but wonder what she should give her neighbor in return next time.
"You arrived quite early. Are we from the same hometown by any chance?" Rowan asked enthusiastically. "Where are you from?"
Her hometown was Light-Grazing City, the largest city in the south-central part of the empire. It wasn't too far from the imperial capital, taking only three or four days to reach by an ordinary horse.
"My father knows people from the academy. We came to the imperial capital before they set off, and I passed the test..."
The red-haired youth paused. "Wait, does that sound a bit like getting in through the back door?"
Su Cheng shrugged. "You just skipped a step in the process and didn't go to Golden Amber City. It's not like they lowered the standards to let you pass. Besides, the Court of Blades should always have spare quotas. Even if it's full, you guys would just duel for it, right?"
Rowan laughed. "Not necessarily a duel. If the entrance test scores are similar, then a duel is needed. If there's a clear gap, they'll just screen out the one who falls short."
She sighed as she spoke. "It's true that the Court of Blades has always had a lot of spots, which is why they allow this sort of thing. I was actually quite looking forward to a duel."
Rowan showed a look of regret, then turned her gaze to her with a bit of eager anticipation. "Did you duel with anyone?"
Su Cheng shook her head slightly. "It's a long story—"
Then her voice paused.
Su Cheng's gaze fell on the red-haired youth's neck, spotting a strangely shaped pendant dangling from the latter's collar.
It looked like a cross, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a battle axe and a war hammer crossed together.
The two handles were welded together, intertwined with intricate patterns.
"Hmm? Are you looking at this?" Rowan reached up and tugged at the necklace. "This is our family heirloom. Only the heir can wear it—"
She raised her chin, a hint of pride showing on her face. "This is the crest of the God of War."
Su Cheng: "...So you are all his believers? Or followers?"
This deity was also a main god in the God of Light's faction. Because in the original novel, Lin Yun practically stood with the God of Darkness, his relationship with this deity was not good.
Or rather, it was terrible.
"His?" Rowan looked at her with a strange expression. "When has the God of War ever manifested in a male form?"
Su Cheng: "Sorry, I just said that casually. I don't know much about these deities. So Her manifestations are always in a female form?"
Rowan thought for a moment. "At least all historical records say so."
Su Cheng: "..."
There was a part of the plot in the original novel that readers complained was too repetitive, lacking in variety, making them feel the author had run out of tricks.
Soon after, the author dropped a massive bombshell.
The male lead messed up and got caught once. However, the person punishing him wasn't, as usual, a newly introduced or previously encountered female character.
Several male villains nearly gang-raped the male lead, even going so far as almost reaching the final step. The comment section for those chapters absolutely exploded.
One of those male villains was the God of War.
Su Cheng thought about it carefully. Her relationship with the Church was quite good, she hadn't become a blessed one of the God of Lust, and she hadn't done anything to harm the interests of the God of Light's faction.
Logically speaking, as long as she didn't do what Lin Yun did and didn't take the same stance as him, she shouldn't end up in that kind of situation, right?
Rowan asked her what her plans were next. Su Cheng stated that she just wanted to familiarize herself with the academy, and she had to go back to the town later.
"There's a really good bakery in town!"
The red-haired youth enthusiastically recommended. "Have you had breakfast? The academy doesn't have a lot of variety in its meals..."
As she spoke, she linked her arm with Su Cheng's and pulled her back to the lounge. After waiting for a few minutes, an hourglass above a bookcase quietly flipped over.
On the long table in the center, the circuits of a magic array suddenly appeared. A white light flashed by, and then it was covered by dozens of dining plates.
Those plates were covered with transparent lids, allowing a clear view of the food inside.
Golden fried eggs, shiny sausages, roasted tomatoes with split skins and mushrooms, thick-cut toast drizzled with jam, cold-cut ham and cheese next to a bread basket, and a small jug of maple syrup.
As well as a few large crystal pitchers, which looked like they contained milk, juice, and mead.
Several people came out of the adjacent corridor one after another. Some sat at the table and started eating, while others simply grabbed two plates and returned to their rooms.
Su Cheng: "...This is what you call 'not a lot'? I think it's pretty decent."
Rowan looked rather uninterested. "Really? I got a bit sick of it after only three days."
Su Cheng casually grabbed a piece of bread to gnaw on. Suddenly, two more people came in from outside, chatting and laughing as they sat down at the dining table.
"Did you hear?" one of them said to the people in the lounge. "Someone ran into Prince Peier while he was taking a bath because of a teleportation accident!"
"Cough," another person who was eating almost choked on their milk. "Really? How did this lucky person manage that? Can they teach me? I want to have a romantic encounter like that too!"
Su Cheng: "............"
