How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

The tense stretch of studying finally came to a pause. This week, Vinny really couldn’t be called anything but miserable. He had to absorb a bunch of new courses, accept Isatia’s make-up tutoring, learn all the parts he’d fallen behind on, and on top of that patch up all the homework he hadn’t done this week. It was honestly brutal.

In short, Vinny had been living in a half-human half-ghost state. You could tell just from the fact he didn’t even have time to play cards. By rights, the key to the day is the morning—after a full night’s sleep, your energy should be at its peak in the morning. But this whole week, Vinny still looked sleepy every single morning, forcing himself to go to school, forcing himself to sit through heavenly scripture he couldn’t understand at all.

Luckily, thanks to Isatia’s absurdly high teaching level, Vinny quickly grasped the essentials. Added to the teacher answering his questions, he slowly started keeping up with the class pace and actually getting things into his head.

He spent this week crazily making up homework, to the point dark circles showed up under his eyes. Thank god it was only one week like this. If it kept going, Vinny felt like his mind would collapse sooner or later.

If an entire semester was done like this every day, he’d rather go back into the Secret Realm (Marsmo) and fight Kantesius three hundred more rounds.

For Vinny, that crappy, devilish week was finally over. He’d caught up with the overall class progress. He was just about to sleep in for a whole day, then spend the afternoon hugging his card box and playing with his card buddies, when—before one wave even settled, another rose.

The academy was holding an Exotic-Beast Hunt. Every student had to participate, and it would be counted into their overall grade for the semester.

This time there were no separate brackets. Whether lower year or upper year, everyone hunted in the same bracket. The rules were simple: inside the Secret Realm, whoever killed more exotic beasts got more points.

Normally, with lower years having generally weaker practical skill and lower realms, they couldn’t earn very high scores. That was totally normal.

But the grouping this time was a little special. In the past it was random groups, or an ELO-style grouping by strength. This time, though, it was grouped by dorm.

In a way, that was also kind of ELO, because the top few in the year all lived alone. No roommates meant no teammates.

Meanwhile, the lower ranks all had roommates. The top fifty had two roommates.

As for those ranked even lower—the ones in single dorm rooms—they were grouped with two students from neighboring rooms. A group was three people total, which was basically a perk for them.

Before that, Carillian Academy also organized the Semester Realm Test. This was something that had to be done at the start of every semester, to test and record what realm the students of this year had reached, so the academy could arrange more practical drills and team formations later.

He’d just barely crawled out of Devil Week, and now the next week was even busier and messier. Vinny was pissed, especially because today was the weekend!

This was supposed to be his sleep-in day, okay? The academy really knew how to pick times. Regular classes never took up weekends, but when it came to tests, they just had to choose students’ rest days.

Other students didn’t need this one day. But Vinny wasn’t like them, all right??

Did anyone even understand how hard his week had been? A full week of bad sleep—waking up and immediately studying, opening his eyes and immediately memorizing, then making up homework at night. He didn’t even have time to breathe.

And now, after finally paying off that debt and feeling light again, his weekend got hijacked for a test of this boring realm.

Damn it, what the hell. Do they really need to test? Didn’t he already know what realm he was in??

Vinny stood ahead of Shicodale in line, arms crossed, face full of impatience, yawning nonstop.

“Vinny, didn’t you sleep well last night?” Shicodale asked from behind him.

“Didn’t sleep well? Who would ever think they slept too much?” Vinny smacked his lips. “It’s like money. Who would ever think they have too much money??”

If it weren’t for this stupid test, he would’ve slept all the way to afternoon and made up every hour he’d lost this week.

“By the way, Vinny, what realm are you at now?” Shicodale asked curiously.

“Nothing to be curious about. You’ll know in a minute.” Vinny glanced toward the hall and the line up front, only wanting this to end fast so he could go back and sleep.

It was early morning. Why the hell did they have to line up to test? Bored out of their minds.

The test method was to step onto the magic array up front. Under the array were eight symbols, corresponding to eight realms. However many symbols lit up was your realm, and by looking at the color in the center, you could tell what stage you were at within that realm.

Vinny flicked a look at the students testing ahead. This was the first-year testing point, so as for realms...

Maybe Vinny had set his expectations for first years too high from the start.

“Leo, realm: low-tier Sorcerer-class.”

“Ferro, realm: mid-tier Sorcerer-class.”

“Cland, realm: high-tier Apprentice.”

Wait, there were actually Apprentice-class people who got into Carillian Academy??

That honestly surprised Vinny.

Was it because he’d been playing nothing but high-end games, so his bar for realms had gotten too high??

Listening on, Vinny realized most first years were stuck at Sorcerer-class, with some high-tier Apprentices mixed in. Mid-tier Sorcerer-class was already the best result in the bunch.

If Vinny remembered right, Carillian Academy didn’t require a realm for first years—you just had to get into the top five hundred. By second year, the minimum standard was low-tier Sorcerer-class.

Meaning, getting into Carillian Academy didn’t mean you were safe. Those students who still hadn’t even broken through to Sorcerer-class had to hurry. If they didn’t reach Sorcerer-class this semester, next semester they’d lose the hard-won admission and be advised to withdraw.

No wonder once they learned their realm, they stepped off the platform looking worried.

If they got kicked out of Carillian Academy, they wouldn’t even know how to explain it when they went home.

Very quickly, Vinny saw a familiar person step onto the array. Instinctively, he covered Shicodale’s eyes.

“H-Huh? Vinny, what are you doing?” Shicodale didn’t understand.

“Big show-off segment up front. Kids shouldn’t watch if they can avoid it,” Vinny said with a straight face.

And that silver figure walking toward the test platform was, obviously, Aesphyra.

The moment Aesphyra stepped up, she drew a ton of eyes. It wasn’t just her looks—everyone also wanted to know what realm the year’s number one, a true genius, had reached on the Spirit Soul path.

When Aesphyra stood on the platform, even the mentors who were sitting a bit loosely straightened up.

Yeah. This one he really had to sit up for.

He stared seriously at the magic array under Aesphyra’s feet and called the start.

As the array lit up and spilled color, runes under her feet lit one after another. In the end, they easily broke past the Magus marker.

“Hissss!” The students watching were dumbstruck, all sucking in a cold breath.

The mentors at the table stroked their beards, nodding again and again, admiration in their eyes. As expected of a heaven-blessed girl with top-tier talent across all elements and a fire-element breakthrough.

In fact, Carillian Academy had long since marked Aesphyra as a key cultivation target. They believed that with her talent, her future achievements would be extraordinary—maybe even peak-level. Even in the entire history of Carillian Academy, she could end up unmatched.

And then they looked at the array color, only to realize Aesphyra wasn’t an ordinary Magus.

It was gold. That meant the highest tier.

“High-tier Magus!” the mentor in charge of recording the test blurted out in shock.

“Only been enrolled half a year and she’s already high-tier Magus?!” Not just the mentors—every student down below was stunned too.

They knew there was a gap between them and Aesphyra, but they hadn’t realized it was this huge.

High-tier Magus. Plenty of upper years still couldn’t reach this realm. A lot of people got stuck at Magus and never made it past.

Graduation from Carillian Academy required high-tier Magus. In other words, Aesphyra had already walked the whole road they would spend years walking—maybe never even finish.

Everyone was shocked, but Vinny clicked his tongue in wonder from below.

This wasn’t even Aesphyra’s limit.

Vinny guessed this girl was definitely holding back. Like, she was probably one toe away from Master realm, but for the sake of keeping a low profile, she deliberately didn’t push through, suppressing herself at Magus so everyone would think she was “just” high-tier Magus. In reality, she’d already basically stepped into Master.

And Vinny’s guess wasn’t wrong. Some sharp, experienced mentors could tell too. They didn’t expose it, and their appreciation for Aesphyra only rose higher.

Good. Not showing off. Steady. If a student like this didn’t reach the top of the Spirit Soul path someday, then who could?

Aesphyra stepped off the platform. The test was over, so she could head back.

She ignored all the different looks the students threw at her, walked against the flow of the crowd—

And, unsurprisingly, stopped right beside Vinny.

“Vinny, wake up yet?~” Aesphyra tilted her head and smiled.

What the hell kind of line was that?

Vinny almost wanted to snap back right there, but with so many people around, he couldn’t be bothered to fight her.

“I’m not awake. Who are you talking to right now??” he said irritably.

“Pff. Maybe because your brain is harder to fill than other people’s?” Aesphyra teased.

“Fill your head! You’re done testing, so hurry up and leave. Don’t block the way! What are you doing in front of me—want me to praise you again??” Vinny rolled his eyes at her.

“Then can you praise me a little?~”

“No. You’re really gonna push your luck, huh?” Vinny glanced at her black-stocking-wrapped jade legs.

“Go, go, go. Seeing you annoys me.” Vinny squeezed forward, trying to ignore her, but the male students in front clearly didn’t want him too close. Their attention was all on Aesphyra. The moment she stopped to talk to some guy, that guy was wrong no matter what he said or did.

A bunch of face-dogs.

Vinny couldn’t help sneering inwardly.

But Aesphyra had no intention of leaving. She just found a spot nearby, crossed her legs, folded her arms, and stared at Vinny.

...Why isn’t she leaving? Don’t tell me she’s staying here to watch him embarrass himself?

Heh. If that’s what she wants, she’s gonna be disappointed.

After that, the students who went up behind Aesphyra were all awkward. The one before them tested as high-tier Magus—if they walked up and got “high-tier Apprentice,” wouldn’t that be humiliating?

Even if nobody would compare them to Aesphyra.

Soon, Vinny saw another familiar face step up.

Isatia.

Her result was also high-tier Magus.

Yeah, another wave of gasps from the back, especially from their class. Who would’ve thought a tiny little class had two high-tier Magus in it?

But thinking about it, it made sense. These two had locked down year rank one and two.

After Isatia came down, she glanced at Vinny, then at Aesphyra still sitting there and not leaving.

Then another familiar person went up.

Yup. That golden-haired goblin girl, Milian.

Her result came out as high-tier Sorcerer-class.

That was already extremely high among first years.

But still.

When Milian passed him, she made a face like always. Vinny just chuckled.

Milian glared at him with gem-bright eyes, puffing out her cheeks, looking totally unconvinced.

After that, everyone in front of him finished testing, and it was his turn.

“Next, Vinny Facilis.”

Hearing his name, Vinny walked up calmly and stood in the center of the magic array.

A lot of people were curious what realm Vinny was in. Before, they wouldn’t have cared. But after he showed that insane combat power, they were dying to know his realm now.

One by one, the symbols on the array lit up. In the end, they stopped at Sorcerer-class—

Yet the array didn’t dim. Instead, it kept blazing brighter and brighter.

“Also Magus?!” Whether it was mentors or students watching below, everyone went wide-eyed.

“Junior Magus...?” The mentor muttered. “That makes three Magus.”

Neither Isatia nor Aesphyra had left. They both noticed Vinny’s result, and neither looked surprised.

Only Milian—the golden-haired goblin girl—looked like her jaw was about to hit the floor.

That annoying stinky blue-haired human was already Magus??

[Virtue +70]

[Current Virtue: 4754]

[Virtue +30]

[Current Virtue: 4784]

Too bad other people’s emotional swings couldn’t give Vinny Virtue. Otherwise, Vinny felt like he’d be making a killing right now.

“That Vinny... he’s Magus too?!”

“No way?? Then aren’t we...?”