Malakai stood up from his seat and left the hall without wasting a single second.
He could feel the stares of most of the class trailing behind him, but the most intense were the veins’.
He ignored them and stepped outside, the cold morning air brushing against his face like ice.
The air inside that hall had felt suffocating.
And although he had admitted to himself that he’d lost control… getting his emotions back under control was easier said than done.
If anything, it was harder than some of the life and death battles he’d fought in the past.
But with the wind cutting against his skin, he finally felt… refreshed. Plus, reciting the sanguine creed in his head made him feel better.
Malakai moved out of the way and leaned against the outer wall of the building, allowing the other students to exit the hall behind him.
‘The next class should be Combat Conditioning.’
He had just spent the last hour in the Blood Meditation and Vita Breathing discipline.
It was exactly as the name implied, a discipline designed to help youths refine their control over vita and blood.
They were required to master the movement of vita through their bodies, and likewise, understand blood: how it functioned, its importance, how it was produced, how it was pumped.
All of it.
But that was knowledge Malakai had long mastered.
He couldn’t even remember the number of books he had consumed on the human body while growing up.
Some time into the lesson, after the initial tension had died down, Instructor Livia had quietly approached him to test what he knew, especially since it was his first day in class.
She had been surprised. Pleasantly so.
Malakai answered every question without hesitation, and it didn’t stop there, his control over both vita and blood was already incredibly refined.
It became obvious to her that she didn’t need to give him any special attention.
In fact, he likely knew more than most of the youths in that class.
‘I’ll follow them after a few seconds.’
Grinner had only brought him to the location of the first discipline, he had no idea where the other sessions were held.
So for now, he decided to follow the rest of the students.
Many threw glances his way as they stepped out of the hall… before scurrying away.
“See you in the next class… Ninth Vein,” Julius said, flashing him a faint smile as he passed by, flanked by a group of students who bowed their heads toward Malakai… but only out of obligation.
Even the blind could see it, there wasn’t a single trace of genuine respect in their posture.
Not while Julius stood beside them.
Still, Malakai didn’t acknowledge any of them, not even Julius.
Several of the students clenched their fists, clearly irritated by his cold behavior, but none of them dared speak.
Julius, however, only smiled faintly.
He stepped closer, leaned toward Malakai, and whispered:
“Breaking you again is going to be so much fun.” His earlier friendly expression had twisted into something darker.
But even then, Malakai didn’t so much as glance at him. He didn’t speak nor did he acknowledge his existence.
“Heh.”
Julius let out a short chuckle before turning away with that same fake smile, his entourage trailing after him like shadows.
‘Are you okay?’
Valentine’s hesitant voice sounded softly in Malakai’s mind as the group left.
‘I’m fine.’ Malakai responded coldly.
Valentine paused.
“Are you sure? I th—”
But before he could finish, Malakai cut him off sharply.
‘I’m not in the mood for your lectures.’ His voice was colder now.
‘What do you want to say? That I should’ve let it slide? I won’t. People are different, and the earlier you accept that I’m not you, the better we’ll get along. You’ve not gone through what I’ve been through, Valentine. You don’t get to dictate what I do and what I don’t.’
His tone dropped even colder.
‘If it were up to me… I would’ve sliced his throat the instant he mentioned them.’
Valentine went silent, unable to find any words for a moment.
Then finally, he sighed and spoke quietly,
‘I’m sorry, Malakai.’
Malakai narrowed his eyes slightly.
‘For what?’
Valentine hesitated, then said,
“You’re right. I haven’t been through what you’ve been through. I just realized that now. I have no right to tell you what to do.”
His voice grew softer, almost unsure.
“My only hope is that you don’t become like the ones you despise. That you don’t end up inflicting the same pain you had to endure… on people who don’t deserve it.”
Malakai fell silent, his gaze distant.
He understood where Valentine was coming from.
He, more than anyone, knew the depth of the pain others had caused him and to imagine inflicting that same suffering onto another… it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
But still, he responded quietly,
“You don’t have to worry.”
His eyes grew cold, locking onto Julius’s distant figure.
“If I’m inflicting pain on anyone… then they probably deserve it.”
Malakai didn’t wait for a response.
He pushed off the wall and silently trailed behind the other students as they made their way to the next class.
The group carried him further west from the main building.
In under a minute, Malakai’s sharp gaze scanned across a wide open field. The ground was covered in well trimmed grass, and multiple instructors stood scattered across it, hands clasped behind their backs.
He stopped just at the edge, observing the scene quietly.
‘They’re splitting into teams of two.’
The students split off naturally, pairing into twos as though it had been predetermined, before standing together in a large circle that loosely surrounded the instructors gathered at the center.
Even the veins, Julius, Aurelia, and Maximus, had teamed up.
‘They must have formed teams during the earlier class,’ Malakai noted, before simply moving to an open spot in the circle, standing alone.
As he did, the other youths threw confused glances his way, whispering among themselves.
But seeing that none of the instructors objected to Malakai’s presence, their expressions quickly shifted into shock.