After surviving the multifaceted and chaotic first week of school, from the second week onward, the university students quickly returned to the monotonous yet orderly life of last semester.

The fifteen-hour daily courses left Nicholas feeling exhausted every time he opened his eyes, with heaps of heavy extracurricular assignments piling on him, to the point where a lunch break had become a distant and unfamiliar concept.

Until Thursday.

On a sunny afternoon, Nicholas finally unknowingly fell asleep on his desk.

Thursday afternoons were when he taught the Talisman Studies class as a teaching assistant at Edge Academy.

Since taking on the teaching assistant role, Nicholas had a slight hidden anxiety, worried that the students, many older than he was, might be unruly. For this reason, he prepared a contingency plan: if anyone acted up in class, he would ask any five students to form a hunting team, and then through a one-versus-five battle victory, win everyone’s respect.

He had enough confidence to deal with the Edge students, mainly from the North District Wizards. He was familiar enough with a few he needed to pay attention to, like Dylan, Carmen, and Iseni.

When Xiao Xiao shook him awake from his dream, Nicholas was in the midst of battling his students in his dream—he had enhanced himself with the Armor Horse Charm, Diamond Charm, Featherweight Talisman, and Gan Lin Talisman, recklessly throwing around Soft Leg, Chaos, Bind, Flash, and other talisman papers at the temporary hunting team formed by Edge students who had already established a pentagram defense formation.

Yellow talismans poured down like a torrential rain, and he single-handedly overwhelmed the five students to the point they couldn’t catch their breath. Cheers from those watching the battle rang out one after another, especially Jiang Yu’s smile, which stood out bright and clear in the crowd, easily dispelling the gloom hovering over his heart.

"You dared to sleep without your nightmare doll?"

This was the first thing Xiao Xiao said after shaking Nicholas awake, then he sneered and threw over a warm towel: "...Though I don’t know what you dreamed of, you better wipe the drool off your face first, it’s gross."

Confused and dazed, Nicholas took the towel, still not fully awake.

But he immediately saw Dylan standing meticulously dressed in front of the dressing mirror, carefully polishing his two pristine little fangs with a small brush.

"What time is it?!" He jumped up in panic, drenched in cold sweat.

He thought he had accidentally overslept.

Because the Blood Werewolf’s usual wake-up time was at dusk, calculating based on that, undoubtedly, he had overslept, missing two classes this afternoon: one for Talisman Studies at Edge Academy, another was ’Art of Body Transformation’ taught by Professor Old Yao post time conversion.

It was hard to say which consequence of missing these two classes was worse.

"You scared Mr. Zha out of his wits." Xin Fat Man chuckled as he buckled his belt, squeezing next to Dylan to use the dressing mirror.

"Ah? Oh!"

Only then did the Blood Werewolf realize something, looked at the gradually awakening Nicholas, shrugged: "Sorry...I’m going to a social gathering, so I’m getting out of the coffin a bit early today. No time for class tonight, have to compromise, the day witches are way better than the ghosts and zombies at night, both in quantity and quality."

He now utterly loathed the word ’zombies’.

Dylan returned to school on Sunday night.

After escaping from a marriage forced by his family, he began actively attending various social gatherings hoping to find a suitable Dao partner before his family settled the matter, thus sealing the deal.

Logically, for someone like him—handsome, from a wealthy clan—it shouldn’t be hard to find a suitable girlfriend. Unfortunately, student Dylan insisted on finding a ’Dao partner’—not necessarily equally matched in family status, but someone who shares his direction while walking together. This was quite a high standard, so after nearly a week back at school, his Dao partner plan hadn’t made any progress.

The hot towel opened Nicholas’s facial pores, and a cool sensation flooded into his body from all directions, quickly waking him up.

He lowered his head, discreetly using the towel’s corner to wipe the damp marks left on the "Runeology Textbook" by the drool he’d just left under his arm, making them considerably lighter.

"You plan to bring this to the social gathering?"

Beside him came Xin Fat Man’s curious voice.

Nicholas raised his head, saw the Fat Wizard pointing at the black ribbon on Dylan’s arm—since returning on Monday, Dylan, like other students at Starry Sky Academy, was wearing this ribbon to commemorate the deceased.

"Don’t you think it’s cool?"

The Blood Werewolf was applying sunscreen to his face, flexing his biceps: "Like how many witches like to tie a black ribbon around their necks or thighs...everyone in our class thinks this black ribbon is quite cool."

What a strange comparison.

"Except for the deceased, nobody thinks it’s cool." Xin Fat Man said bluntly: "Jiuyou Academy’s witches might find it novel, Starry Sky Academy’s witches will wear a ribbon like you, Atlas witches might invoke a couple of prayers for the dead..."

Speaking, the Fat Wizard supported his belly, fixed his belt, looked in the dressing mirror, and nodded satisfied with his image.

"And Alpha witches?" Dylan waited for a while but didn’t hear the follow-up, so he couldn’t help but ask.

"Alpha?" Xin Fat Man glanced at him and chuckled: "What normal Alpha witches would be interested in the Starry Sky Barbarians? Do you think you’re Blue Bird?"

That statement made even Xiao Xiao crack a smile.

Blue Bird was the most handsome hunter in the Absolution Hunting Team. Nicholas still remembered when he first met him on the plane, he almost mistook him for a witch.

"How many days do you guys wear this ribbon?" Nicholas chuckled, trying to prevent an impending verbal conflict in the dormitory.

"Seven days."

The Blood Werewolf glared at the Fat Wizard fiercely, continued adjusting his collar in the mirror: "Those who had a closer relationship might wear it for forty-nine days, for those like us who barely knew the person, usually a week is enough to take it off."

Hearing the word ’classmate,’ Nicholas suddenly realized he was indeed a classmate of the deceased veteran from Starry Sky Academy, both had taken today’s Art of Body Transformation class, though never meeting in person initially led to him subconsciously forgetting this status.

"Do I need to wear a black ribbon?" He briefly described his situation—being a teaching assistant made him particularly attentive to these details.

"You don’t need to."

Dylan pursed his lips, decisively: "First, this tradition is popular at Starry Sky Academy, you wearing a black ribbon as a Jiuyou person, it just looks mismatched; secondly, you’ve never met, what kind of classmate...relatively speaking, Nicholas has more necessity for ’wearing a black ribbon’ than you. He was a proper Starry Sky Academy student for a year back then."