Inside the bag, there were almost ten crystals. Three green crystals for Strength, two blue crystals for Agility, two red crystals for Vitality, two purple crystals for Intelligence, and one milky white crystal for Mana.

With this harvest, Nikolai will rise from being a normal human to the realm of superhumans. However, he had no Fate Points remaining to use the crystals to their utmost potential.

‘I guess I need to steal more fate.’ Nikolai hid the crystals in the locked box beneath his bed. At the moment, he had no other place to hide them from his roommates.

As he was about to leave the room, his roommates arrived. They were wearing leather armor and had weapons strapped on their waist.

“Those direwolves were a pain in the ass.” Ro Za said with a tired face. “We shouldn’t have hunted a day before school.”

“It’s exactly why we hunted; the mid-term exams are next week,” Lan answered with a stern face.

“If we want to rank in the top 30, we need to work harder,” Nar said and his eyes met with Nikolai’s. “Not that it concerns you.” He sneered.

His roommates glanced at Nikolai and went about their business. Nikolai, however, didn’t reply and simply took his bag and left the room.

He couldn’t keep picking up fights every time someone insulted him. This wouldn’t work out in the long run. If he did that, things wouldn’t be that different from his past life. If he had very few friends in the past, then he would have too many enemies in his current life.

The midterm exams were sooner than he remembers, probably because he failed miserably at them too. These exams would determine who would compete for the Lost Garden’s slots by the end of the year.

He would need to be from the top thirty students of his year. Given that there were several classes for each year, Nikolai’s quest is a difficult one.

Furthermore, he only had one week to prepare himself. He needs to get enough fate points for his crystals before that happens. With the mana crystal he obtained, he can use his Limit-Break Technique to get an advantage against the other students.

‘One week.’ Nikolai’s brain raced as he tried to think of achievements to steal or people to kill.

***

The week went by with Nikolai avoiding Julian and his lackey. In the meantime, he concocted a plan to obtain fate points without needing to hurt others.

At first, he thought about hunting with Valkyrie but she wouldn’t let him in before he raised his stats. Even though he didn’t like her, her future potential was too high for him to ignore her.

Ideally, he would want to make her submit to him and become his follower before she reached that stage. After all, she would be the next ruler of this country, one of the Lords.

That’s why his alternative plan was a lot riskier than he would have liked. During his later years, when he worked in the guild, there was a certain incident that left regrets in his heart.

As soon as the night took over the city, Nikolai took the cloak he bought and threw it over his body. He headed toward the lower districts, known as the slums.

Poor people roamed these places. As soon as they saw Nikolai, they started begging for a few coppers. In then, Nikolai saw himself a few months after the war. He took out a few coppers and gave them to the beggars, making them tear in joy before he disappeared into an alley.

The route was familiar, but they were different circumstances. He took a case when he was in the guild for a sick criminal living in these parts. The details of that incident were still fresh in his mind, as it made him sick to the core.

The house was on the edge of the city, lit by lanterns and flickering lightbulbs. Nikolai found a comfortable spot to observe the house. It took an hour for the house’s door to open.

He watched as the man left the house and locked it behind him. He then looked around with his beady eyes behind a pair of round glasses.

With a hat covering his bald head, the man tottered away holding a leather bag. He limped away as Nikolai held back from shooting the man right there.

‘I can’t beat him at the moment.’ Nikolai reminded himself as he covered his face using a bandana and slipped out of the alley. He walked toward the house that was sandwiched by two abandoned buildings.

Going through the front door was too dangerous. In his investigation, he found a secret exit that he could use to enter the house.

Nikolai looked around and made sure no one was looking. He found a manhole that led to the underground sewage system. The stench made him frown as he descended.

The sewage was pitch black except for a few cobblestones that lit up in the dark. The water flowed beside him carrying a stench that made Nikolai nauseous. He walked through the sewage as he heard sounds from somewhere.

He ignored them and headed until he was under the man’s house. He took out the flashlight he brought and started looking through the bricks.

As he pushed one of the bricks, it sank as a mechanism was activated. The bricks started moving back and then to the side to reveal an entrance. Behind it was stairs of a few steps that led to a wooden door.

Nikolai went up the stairs and tried to open the door but it was locked. He looked through his memories and remembered what the enchanter said about this door.

‘It’s a locked door that would open if you say a password.’ The enchanter said as Nikolai was recording his statement. ‘Even the password is sick, this bastard.’

‘What’s the password?’ Nikolai asked and the enchanter told him after shaking his head.

“Soft Skin,” Nikolai said and the door was unlocked. He turned the doorknob and it opened.

As he entered the house, an eerie smell of herbs whiffed to his nose. It was dark inside and every room had shelves filled with containers of liquid.

‘He pretended to be a doctor,’ Nikolai remembered. There was a lot of equipment that he didn’t know the use of. He also didn’t want to imagine what they were used for.

He went through the rooms slowly and straight to the basement where the children were imprisoned.