The first few days in the academy were more of a rollercoaster than Ashton had assumed. His plans of keeping to himself and maintaining a low profile were blown into smithereens. As much as he hated the attention on him, he had become the talk of the academy. 

But it was not all that bad. As the rumours of him knocking out a second-year spread around, he was met with less and less hostile gazes around him. As for the loss he was taking by not attending the physical training, well, it wasn’t much. 

He could easily compensate for the exp he could have gained within those two hours, by training with Duncan for 4-5 hours. It was a waste of time, but it was the best thing he could have done, considering the curfew in the city was still active. 

However, there was one thing he was worried about more. It had been a while since he had feasted on blood and flesh. As a result, the vampire and the undead genes within his body were on a rampage. 

Even though his levels were in harmony, it didn’t mean he could ignore the nutrition needed for the genes. But since the curfew was still active and hunting inside the academy wasn’t an option either, getting his needs met was a challenge. 

Thankfully, he had Rose on his side. Well, technically, she wasn’t on his side but on the side of money. She was well adapted to the art of hunting in Contingent and knew exactly where to hunt in times of curfew. 

The only problem was, Ashton needed to consume fresh flesh. Which meant that he had to consume the flesh of someone who was killed no longer than 3 hours ago. After that, even if he consumed their flesh, he wouldn’t be able to quell his hunger. 

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case with blood so he could store some of it in his inventory and drink it when he could. Sadly, there was a limit to how much blood he could store in the inventory. a meagre amount of 100ml.

But as she was a money monger more than anything else, she had not shown any of those spots to him. Instead, she charged him money, a lot of money, to bring him prey in his times of extreme need.

As much of a trouble as it was, there was nothing Ashton could have done about it. Although he wanted to go out there and hunt on his own, it was better to let the professionals do the dirty work for him. That way, even if she got caught, he wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences. 

But as the slaves always had their eyes on him, he had to be subtle about doing things. Thankfully, he had already thought of a plan to get rid of their suspicion. If a student was having dinner with a professor, it should have been alright, right?

If they reported it to the mistress, and the mistress asked him about it, he could simply say that he was trying to get on the professor’s good side. So that what happened to him before would never happen again. It was a believable excuse so he did not have to worry about them suspecting him.

“Good evening, Professor.” Ashton was on a call with Rose, “Are we still on for a ‘formal’ dinner?”

“Of course. Come over whenever you please.” Rose’s voice echoed from the other side. 

“Alright. See you in a bit, Professor.” Ashton disconnected and turned towards Daniella, Duncan’s pregnant wife and the mistress’s second slave, “Daniella, I’m leaving for dinner with Professor Rose. Don’t prepare a meal for me.”

“Of course, master. Have a great meal.” Daniella bowed as a few strands of her brown hair fell on her face. 

“How many times do I have to tell you? Call me by my name. I’m no master, just a kid. Is that alright?”

“Yes, Ashton.” She mumbled as he left, “Let’s inform the mistress, he went to see her again.”

***

Back in Rose’s room…

“Here’s your 1000 blue units.”

“And here’s your 500 grams of werewolf meat. Bon Appetit!”

“You just had to do that, didn’t you?” Ashtn shook his head in disgust.

Even though he had consumed raw meat before, it didn’t mean he did not feel disgusted every time he did that. After all, how could someone get used to eating others like that? This was the reason why he wanted to go out and hunt by himself. 

While on a hunt, the adrenaline he would feel within his body would fuel his hunger for flesh even more. That was the reason why he did not feel disgusted to eat someone right after defeating them. However, being served a plateful of raw meat like that and being told that it belonged to someone alive made things a bit… awkward.

‘They do the same to humans all the time… Count this as revenge…’ 

Well, thankfully, he had a trick to make the disgusting feeling go away. These creatures had treated humans as dairy products for them, So what he was doing was nothing less than what they had been doing to the humans.  Drinking blood on the other hand was not as bad. In fact, Ashton quite enjoyed drinking blood.

“You know, you have a walking blood farm along with you.” Rose stated, “Your slaves can take care of your needs for blood.”

“And you could stop dressing so skimpily,” Ashton pointed at her almost see-through attire, “if anyone saw you like that, they’d think you’re trying to seduce a student.”

“Is it working?” She replied with a very suggestive look. 

“Nope.” Ashton shrugged his shoulders, “By the way, why do you even need that much money? I mean, it’s not like you to stash the money without using it.”

“Who said I’m not using the money?” Rose said that and slid a weird-looking skill page towards him, “It was all needed to get this.”

“This is-“

“Don’t think much about it.. It’s just an investment, and I’ll be expecting some results soon.” She winked as Ashton realised what the skill card was for, “Let’s get you in a fight tomorrow, shall we?”