Vinny didn’t know how Shicodale had found out that Milian had looked for him these past few days, but this wasn’t anything important in the first place—it was an embarrassment.

He couldn’t exactly repeat what Milian had said to him word for word, could he? The dramatic effect was way too strong.

People who didn’t know him would think he was daydreaming. A Golden Elf princess coming over to him and asking to date him—what kind of fantasy plot was that? If he said it out loud, he’d only get waves of eye-rolls and sneers.

Even if Shicodale would believe him, Vinny didn’t think there was any need to talk about it.

“Oh, oh.” Shicodale nodded. “A few days ago, I saw Milian stop you, student Vinny. It looked like she had something to say to you.”

So that was it—Shicodale had seen it that day after combat class, when Milian called out to him?

“Yes. That’s right. But she only said some irrelevant, nonsensical things. No need to care.” Vinny said.

“Oh.” Shicodale nodded obediently, looking thoughtful, but didn’t ask further.

If Vinny wanted to tell him, then Vinny would tell him. Since Vinny said it wasn’t worth caring about—and didn’t tell him—then he wouldn’t ask.

“Student Dale, even though this practical assessment is still a first-year assessment and shouldn’t be too hard, you still have to be careful, understood?” Vinny reminded him. “Always keep your guard up.”

“Mhm! Student Vinny, I understand.” Shicodale nodded.

Vinny glanced at Shicodale. Shicodale had definitely taken his words to heart—whether he fully understood them was another matter. But half of that warning was really meant for Black Shicodale to hear.

After the practical assessment began, the academy gave students three days to receive their assigned assessment task. After that, they could bring their task report and take a unicorn carriage to their mission location to undergo the assessment.

Earlier, a card player had even claimed to have “inside news” that this practical assessment was done in pairs. Someone else said it was in groups of three, and one of the three would be a second-year upperclassman or upperclasswoman. Vinny felt that if they kept guessing, the difficulty would get reset to zero—dozens of people forming a team and steamrolling it together.

Obviously, those were baseless rumors and speculation. No one even knew what corner the “source” crawled out from. It wasn’t reliable.

Most students chose the first day to pick up their task. After all, it was a problem they had to face sooner or later. Waiting one more day was just more torment. It was like there was a chest ahead you had to open, with unknown fortune or disaster inside—since you had to open it eventually, you might as well open it quickly.

And picking up your task early also gave you two extra days to complete the assessment, adding some breathing room. That was why the vast majority of students rushed to pick up tasks on the first day. Atmosphere was contagious. Watching everyone else pick up their tasks and leave while you stayed idle in the dorm was a perfect way to trigger a sense of crisis.

Vinny wasn’t panicking at all. He was an Intermediate Magus now. Even among first-years, that realm already surpassed most second-years. Beyond that, he had two [Magic Tool] weapons and one [Divine Armament] weapon. And if all else failed, he still had the Blessing Angel form to back him up. Completing a mere first-year assessment was ridiculously easy.

Vinny was starting to understand the fate heroines’ sense of ease. As long as your strength was far ahead of schedule, the academic worries that stressed everyone else just weren’t worth mentioning. Little problems, that was all.

He wondered if Mirexia and Isatia had departed yet. With their strength, it didn’t matter when they left. Based on what he knew about Mirexia, she would probably only depart on the last day, after finishing every task the Student Council assigned her.

And there was also that Aesphyra.

But he didn’t need to worry about any of them. Fate heroines had levels too. Among them, Aesphyra, Isatia, and Mirexia were the kind of powerful fate heroines who had both strength and luck. Their realms were all higher than his.

Of course, powerful fate heroines weren’t limited to those three. Jiulixue and Selivlin—those two old things who’d lived for around a hundred years—were definitely the highest-realm fate heroines right now. But with one of them, he’d never even met her and her favorability toward him was already negative. The other was outright his enemy. He’d tricked her twice—if she found out both times were the same person, the moment he showed his face, he’d get instantly killed.

Better not to run into her. Absolutely.

Still... this time, it shouldn’t be possible for him to hit the “jackpot” again, right??

To be honest, Vinny was numb lately. Ever since the midterm exam last semester—back during the Bronze Blood incident—he’d been unlucky nonstop. He’d never gotten a change one’s luck. Time after time, he’d narrowly escaped disaster, nearly losing his freedom, even his life.

Sure enough, Carillian Academy was a place where luck converged, because it gathered too many fate heroines. At the same time, it was also a place where countless karmic threads tangled together—a place of extreme danger.

The ones competing here were all fate heroines favored by great luck. As a contestant with nothing particularly remarkable except the Virtue System, Vinny had struggled with everything he had just to make sure he didn’t get kicked to death like a stray dog by the roadside.

But he’d already been unlucky for so long. Even if fate refused to give him a change one’s luck this time... could it at least stop making him unlucky??

With his current strength, as long as fate didn’t “force the plot,” this practical assessment would be stable beyond stable. But if it kept messing with him, then he’d have trouble again.

Vinny and Shicodale arrived at the Teaching Hall. The hall was built with a transparent deep-blue material as its base, and in the center floated a massive blue mage stone.

There were still plenty of students lingering here, waiting to pick up tasks, but compared to the previous two days, there were far fewer now.

Vinny remembered how the card players had even cooked up a “rule” for the practical assessment: that tasks might be arranged in advance, but they could also be completely random—and if you went earlier, your odds of drawing an easy task would be higher.

That was purely self-deception. According to probability, if the tasks were truly random, then no matter when you went, the difficulty would still be random. They said it mostly to comfort themselves—going early for a “good omen.”

What was funny was that the card players didn’t work hard at cultivation or training their strength in ordinary times, but they really believed in this kind of mysticism. The day task pickup opened, they got up before dawn and rushed in together to claim their tasks.

Vinny didn’t know what tasks they’d gotten. He could only hope everyone stayed safe and came back smoothly.

If someone repeated the year, they wouldn’t be able to play cards together anymore. At Carillian Academy, repeating a year once required notifying your family. The second time, you’d be advised to withdraw.

Vinny and Shicodale joined the line to pick up their tasks. Looking at the staff behind several service windows, Vinny felt like he’d gone back to his previous life, standing in line to handle paperwork.

While waiting, he also looked around to see if there were any familiar faces in the hall.

There weren’t.

Not a single one.

The people he knew well, his little circle, the fate heroines, his classmates, even the armor-class students and the card players—none of them were here.

Mm. Milian, that little idiot, wasn’t here either.

Looks like most people had picked up tasks in the first two days.

Soon, it was their turn.

Shicodale presented his student card and student information. The front-desk staff wrote quickly on a reimbursement form with practiced motions, then stuck a label with Shicodale’s name onto the red wax seal of a thick kraft-paper file envelope and handed it to him.

“The mission details and the practical report form are all inside. This semester’s practical task is different from last semester’s, so please be careful. Finally, I wish you success, student Dale.” The staff member said.

“Mhm, thank you.” Shicodale accepted the file envelope and stepped aside.

Now it was Vinny’s turn.

“Vinny Facilis, is it?” The staff member took Vinny’s student card and glanced at the name.

“Yes.” Vinny nodded.

“Is it really you?”

“You think it doesn’t look like me?” Vinny rubbed his jaw. “In this whole school, there’s only one guy this handsome. No one could pretend to be me, right?”

“......” The staff member’s mouth twitched, but they didn’t say anything, continuing the work without stopping. Just like before, they affixed a label with Vinny’s name to the wax seal of a file envelope and handed it to him.

“I’ve heard of you, student Facilis. You’re one of the only three Magus in first year, but I still have to remind you—be careful and cautious. This is a Carillian Academy assessment task.” The staff member added.

It seemed the academy had instructed them to tell every first-year who came to pick up tasks to stay cautious and not take it lightly.

“Alright. I understand.” Vinny accepted the file envelope, nodded, and left the Teaching Hall together with Shicodale, who had been waiting nearby.

Both of them were curious about their tasks, but neither opened the file envelope on the road. They returned to the dorm instead.

Shicodale looked a little nervous. Sitting on the sofa, he carefully tore open the label and red wax seal on his file envelope.

Vinny’s movements were much more casual. He tore off the label and wax seal, then pulled out the practical report and mission details and began reading.

Mm. How should he put it?

Vinny had a bad feeling, because just from taking out this thick file envelope, he already felt something was off.

No way.

Don’t tell him he won again??

In contrast, the mission details Shicodale took out were much shorter. Not that short, of course, but one look was enough to see it had several fewer pages than Vinny’s.

Vinny flipped open his own mission details and read carefully.

Practical assessment location: Gaflei Fort.

Specific position and information: a castle ruin at the boundary between the outskirts of Lieking City, a border province of the Tyrel Empire, and the Forest of Wisdom.

Assessment mission personnel: solo.

Primary completion objective: eliminate the bandit group entrenched within the castle.

Secondary objective: determine their primary purpose for staying there.

Estimated mission difficulty: one and a half stars. (Only human bandits inside. Mostly imperial citizens. Based on traces of their methods, their realms are all very low. Many are even ordinary people without a Soulcaster, with no magical aptitude.)

Note: Estimated difficulty is for reference only and does not represent actual difficulty. If there is any deviation, the examinee must judge independently.

Other notes: This bandit group commits countless crimes locally. They repeatedly slaughter travelers and villagers with cruel methods, destroy villages, and act with extreme brutality. Under local law, there is no need to consider methods or capture. Whether for justice or personal safety, they should be killed immediately. Do not show mercy.

Warnings: This bandit group is not ordinary wilderness thieves. They are well trained and extremely agile and sensitive, and they always disappear before the soldiers sent to suppress them can assault the fort. It is suspected that there are secret passages and mechanisms within the fort. Therefore, a multi-person operation is not recommended, to avoid alerting them—if the bandits catch wind of it, they may flee in advance.

Detailed intelligence on the location: Gaflei Fort was constructed in the mid-period of the Tyrelis Ancient Empire. Around the time the Tyrelis Ancient Empire fell, it was occupied by invading demon race forces. Afterward, it suffered repeated warfare and magical erosion and became ruins.

Long before Gaflei Fort was built, it was rumored that this place served as a hideout for Demon Pillars followers. It was said there was an altar of the Demon Pillars inside, along with demonic tools bestowed by the Demon Pillars. However, the era is far too distant, and the truth of these claims can no longer be verified.

Vinny kept reading several more pages. The rest was mostly the bandits’ “record”—what date, where they killed how many people, what methods they used, what they robbed.

As he read, Vinny started to feel something was strange.

These bandits really were vicious and evil—but it was like they had to perform some kind of twisted “art” every time. Every killing had to be done in an extremely cruel way, and they always stripped all supplies and money clean.

But if their goal was just money and supplies... was that really necessary??

Or were they simply a group of murderous maniacs who killed for pleasure, that’s all?

On top of that, the file stated that not a single victim’s body had been left intact.

Vinny flipped further. After that, it was basically historical information about Gaflei Fort—what materials it was built from, what considerations guided its construction back then, who the ruling lord had been, and what rumors existed about this location before Gaflei Fort.

So... this time, was it really just dealing with a group of crazed killers?

Sure, the bandits’ methods and record sounded terrifying, and the mission was solo—but “terrifying” was always relative.

To ordinary villagers and travelers, or even to a single patrol squad of soldiers, these bandits were demons. Meeting them would be eight lifetimes of terrible luck.

But to Carillian Academy students, they were just a bunch of murderers who were a little stronger than ordinary people—at most, more violent and cruel.

Compared to Demon Pillars followers, the demon race, the King of Marsmo, the Church’s hounds... which one of those could these mere brutal killers possibly be mentioned alongside?

Against the enemies Vinny had met before, this group felt like a speed bump. He could roll right over them and probably not even feel it.

No wonder the mission difficulty was only one and a half stars.

Vinny felt that if their behavior weren’t so strange, this practical assessment would probably be only one star—without even the extra half.

How should he put it?

After receiving the practical assessment file, Vinny felt that unless something unexpected happened, these bandits were likely the weakest enemies he’d ever run into.

Forget him—send any Carillian Academy student, and it would be a slaughter.

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