After a long moment of silence, Dylan finally mustered up his consciousness to ask, "What do you mean by your father's martial arts?"
Breathing in and breathing out, Yelena finally managed to calm her raging heart down a little bit and replied, "I mean what I said. The weapon art which that redhead used belongs to my father."
"Like… you mean your father created that technique? That spear art where he used a swordsman stance?"
Yelena gulped and closed her eyes. She didn't speak a word and only nodded her head.
After a second or two, she clarified, "Well, in truth, it's a secret weapon art belonging to our Morningstar house. I don't know how someone outside of our family came into its possession."
"Is it possible that he just stole the technique manual from you guys?" Dylan inquired.
"Not possible," Yelena shook her head and began explaining. "Not a single manual is present for that technique. My father has it in his head."
Dylan looked at Yelena with a frown. "You mean the only way to pass it down is for your father to teach it to someone?"
"Yes, but that's the thing," Yelena took in a deep breath. "He hasn't taught it to anyone else aside from me."
"You? But you aren't a spear user?"
Yelena had tried to pick up a spear many times but she could never be as good with it as she was with a sword.
How can Dylan not know this? After all, he had diligently fulfilled the job of being her dueling partner– or should he say practice dummy.
Yelena calmly shook her head again and replied, "Doesn't matter. That technique can work with any long-blade weapon."
Dawnbreaker – that's the name of the weapon art, which is only exclusive to the Morningstars.
Although Yelena was never able to master it completely, she could still recognize the very first form of her family's secret weapon art - Light Breaker.
However, she had no fond memories of learning it from her father. In fact, the experience was hellish for her.
Yelena could still vividly remember the days when she used to peek at her father training with the weapon art in the garden behind their family mansion.
She was curious back then. Despite being told that it was not allowed to disturb their father during his training time, she, much like her brothers, would sometimes secretly watch him train.
And whenever they got caught, Yelena and Adel would have to run laps around the city as punishment for disturbing their father.
Interestingly, only Yelena and Adel received punishments while Lucas never did.
Perhaps it was because Lucas was originally the one set to inherit [Dawnbreaker] from their father.
But following his disownment, Yelena was chosen to inherit the technique instead.
Although Adel's mana core rank potential was higher than hers and he was officially announced as the next head of the house, their father deemed him unworthy of learning [Dawnbreaker].
It still irked Yelena to this day that she was the last choice of their family to inherit their secret weapon art.
But oh well, this wasn't the time to think about those things. Right now, finding the identity of the red-headed boy takes priority over everything.
"Anyway, who is that redhead?"
"I… Uh– I don't know."
Yelena looked at Dylan absurdly.
"What do you mean you don't know? We can see him. Run the facial identification system on him and tell me his identity."
"Yelena, I've been trying that for as long as we've been talking. The facial recognition system is failing. It's almost like he's not in the academy's records."
Yelena narrowed her eyes at those words. But of course, being a genius in her own right, it didn't take her even a full second to come to a conclusion.
"Someone is using illusion magic to alter their physical appearance."
"Illusion magic? These first-years should not be capable of that yet."
"I know. Which only means that they are using a relic."
But how?
First-year cadets haven't gone outside the Academy City yet. And they also shouldn't have enough Merits to buy a relic like that within the academy grounds.
So then… how could someone have gotten their hands on a relic capable of casting illusion?
"Tsk," clicking her tongue while stroking her chin, Yelena decided to let go of those thoughts.
Right now, she should focus on finding the boy's identity so she could inquire him about all these things later.
'Could it be...'
For a second, Yelena thought about the possibility of the redhead being Lucas. After all, aside from Adel and her, he was the only person who ever witnessed that weapon art.
'No... No, it couldn't be.'
But she quickly dismissed that possibility. Learning it solely by watching it once or twice is impossible. And not to mention, Lucas is a bowman now.
He once used to learn spearmanship when they were kids, but to Yelena's knowledge it's been ages since he picked up a spear.
"Do me a favor and run a scan on his smart bracelet to identify its model number. From there, we can find out his identity."
Every smart bracelet provided by the academy has a unique model number engraved in it. If you can find out the model number, you can find out its owner's identity.
"Yelena, I'm trying that too. This is not working either. Athena is not allowing me to run a scan on his bracelet!"
"Tsk, they have thought of this too, huh? He and the hacker must've planned for this ahead of time."
Yelena wasn't far off.
The hacker and the redhead did plan this ahead of time. What she didn't know was that both of those were the same person – her own brother, Lucas Morningstar.
"Fine! We'll eliminate everyone as suspects one by one."
"What do you mean?"
"I want you to one by one switch POVs to every single person present in the virtual world right now."
As soon as Yelena issued her command, she tapped her smart bracelet and a blue holographic screen instantly appeared in front of her.
On the screen, a list of names was displayed, consisting of every cadet who was currently alive in the virtual world.
Yelena had devised a simple plan: she would locate the position of each and every individual in the virtual world and cross off their names in her list one by one.
If there was still someone whose name remained uncrossed, then that person must be the redhead in disguise.
Nodding, Dylan began switching POVs from person to person, spectating them all one after another. As he did so, Yelena also began crossing off their names in her list.
However, just when Yelena thought her plan was working, from one of the cadets' POVs, she saw a great amount of mana gathering around Nero.
"Not good," Dylan commented. "It seems like that first-year is single-handedly going to end the war soon. Woah, is that his Gift?"
"Can we stop their ejection after the war concludes?" Yelena asked.
"Nah," Dylan shook his head. "I don't think we can. I still haven't regained access to Athena's mainframe."
"Tsk," Yelena clicked her tongue. "Then we have no choice. We have to work fast. Only 20 cadets are remaining to be verified anyway."
With that, they increased their speed.
Switching POVs from person to person, crossing off their names, and repeating the process.
From 20 to 18 to 15, the number of suspects quickly started decreasing.
However…
–KABOOOOM—!!!
Right around when only 12 or so cadets were remaining, Nero unleashed a single fire explosion spell so big that it would've been impossible for a boy his age to perform.
And with that…
"Noooo!!!"
"Dammit!"
The war concluded. And soon the cadets automatically started being ejected out of the virtual reality.
†
As soon as the contribution rankings were shared, darkness took over my vision.
As I opened my eyes and the world came back into view, I realized I was still inside the very same VR pod that I had used to enter virtual reality.
"Ooof."
That was epic!
Everything felt so real in there! The touch, the sense of smell, the sense of vision!
It was so realistic that even now, after being out, I can't distinguish what I experienced there from reality.
With a wild grin plastered on my face, I gripped the edge of the VR pod and hoisted myself up using my hands for support.
It was only after I stepped out of the pod did I notice that not everyone had enjoyed the experience we had in the virtual as much as I did.
As I emerged, I was greeted by a sea of faces displaying a variety of emotions, including shock, anger, admiration, fear, regret, irritation, and a myriad of other feelings.
The target of their looks wasn't me fortunately– it was Nero Dekrauf.
This is exactly what happened in the novel after Nero exposed his Blessing during the mock war.
Up until this point, he was only rumored to be strong. But after now, he will be regarded as an untouchable monster.
"Tsk."
This sight once again served as a reminder for me how I wasn't able to change one of the major events of the novel.
But it's fine. The story was only starting. I'll have many more chances to bend the plot according to what I deem fit in the future.
And now that the first arc– the Mock War is over and the plot has started to move forward, I can finally start to execute my own plan.
It's about time I start to get stronger.
"Hah," sighing, I looked around my surroundings once again. As I did so, a grin formed on my lips.
Quinn and Grace were glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred in their eyes.
Although the necromancer remained still, Grace started walking toward the vice president of the Cadet Council– Yelena Morningstar.
Huh, it seems like Nero wasn't the only one getting all the attention.
