Second Lead Syndrome (1-187) | ✓

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Author's note: Yes, a bonus update! This is a small celebration for achieving almost 5k reads, and for gaining my mood back to continue writing this story. A small token of my appreciation for everyone, and I wish you all a happy weekend ahead ❤

PS. This chapter is rather short, apologies!

The once chaotic atmosphere has finally died down, and the sun was beginning to set.

Xue stood in front of the two corpses, a red marble, and a blue marble hovering above his palm. His eyes were closed as he absorbed the souls from the corpses, one of them was a fire element user, while the other was a water element user.

Xue would be able to utilise most of his fire element, though it wasn't at its last evolution.

He would be twice as strong as Kai in terms of fire elemental power. Whereas, he would finally be able to use a portion of his water element.

"Hey, what's your name?" Alric asked as the Flaming Lotus in Cecil's hand slowly grew.

"That's right, I haven't introduced myself..." Cecil muttered out, and she managed an amiable smile at Alric. "Cecil Lan, you can call me Cecil."

"Cecil Lan. Th-that's a pretty name."

"Thank you."

"I-I can't thank you enough...for saving me earlier."

"It's fine."

Alric wanted to cry hearing her words. "You almost...died!"

Cecil lowered her eyes, not responding. Alric seemed to want to say something more, but he held back.

A quiet minute passed and Xue finished absorbing the souls.

The corpses in front of him began to crack, like porcelain dolls, the cracks resembled large spiderwebs that spread across their entire body. Eventually, the corpses crumbled to dust, and a small breeze entered via the window, blowing any remnants of the corpses away.

It was like they never existed in the first place.

Xue stared at where they once stood, recalling Veau's face and his eyebrows twitched in anger.

"Alright, the Flaming Lotus is done. You use fire, don't you? Simmer it in hot water for five minutes, and mash it." Cecil instructed Alric patiently, despite her exhaustion.

"Yes, just a bit of fire though. I-I am incapable of fighting with it."

"It's good enough if you can heat the water up to simmer the herb."

Hearing Cecil's lukewarm voice behind him, Xue felt the anger in him dissipating gradually.

"Okay, I'll do it. Cecil, yo-you can trust me." Alric said, trying to sound confident.

Cecil smiled, "I will trust you anyway, Alric."

Alric has stumbled across his life as a wandering merchant, where people accused him of being a cheat or took advantage of him due to this careless nature. He was also not a confident person, and his cowardly personality only makes him run at the first sight of danger.

Most of the people in the trading circle were sagacious and cold-blooded, and he certainly wasn't like them. Neither did he enjoy masquerading as one of them.

He never fit in anywhere.

He was then invited here by the principal, they were close friends since young and Alric was delighted. However, he realised his presence dragged the entire academy into trouble instead. The principal made him hide, swearing to him that he would protect Alric no matter what. Alas, the situation escalated to the point where Alric couldn't bear it.