Shang opened his eyes.
'What happened?' he thought with a scrambled mind.
He felt the ground beneath his hands.
'Why am I on the ground?'
Then, the pain hit Shang.
He felt incredible pain coming from his left cheek, and he spit out pieces of blood and bone.
Shang's last memory was of him killing that one student.
So, why was he on the ground now?
Shang slowly sat up and looked at his surroundings.
The surrounding students were looking at him with mixed expressions.
Some of the expressions were filled with disgust.
Some of them were cold.
Some of them were sympathetic.
Then, Shang noticed a big bubble of water levitating around ten meters away from him. The bubble of water was where Shang had just been before waking up here.
He saw a woman with long blue hair in front of the bubble of water, her hands holding a staff with a blue gem on it.
Shang realized that she was probably the Water Mage responsible for healing students.
Shang heard the whispers of some of the students in the surroundings.
They were calling him a maniac.
They were calling him a crazy person.
They were calling him a monster.
Shang didn't react to these whispers.
He had calmed down by now, and a feeling of emptiness had appeared inside his chest.
For a long while, Shang only silently sat on the ground, looking absentmindedly in the distance.
'Did I lose control?' Shang thought.
Everyone around Shang continued whispering, but Shang didn't hear it. To him, the world was silent.
'Did I do the right thing?'
Silence.
'Did I do the right thing?'
…
Shang put his head in his hands.
'I don't know.'
'If I didn't act like this, they would keep coming for me.'
'But I also risked my entire future.'
'I don't know.'
Shang absentmindedly stood up and looked at the bubble of water levitating in the air.
The other students were throwing looks at him with all kinds of emotions. Just like Shang, the students also felt a great variety of emotions and uncertainty.
Most of them believed that Shang was a crazy person, but a couple of them also felt sympathy for him.
The ones that felt sympathy for Shang had been in similar situations in the past.
They knew what he was going through.
Shang slowly walked over to the bubble of water under the judging gazes of all the other students.
After a silent walk, Shang stopped near the bubble, only looking at it absentmindedly.
"Do you regret what you have done?" asked the Water Mage with a neutral voice. Shang couldn't tell what she thought of his actions. Her voice was completely neutral.
Shang didn't immediately answer.
"I don't know," Shang answered honestly.
The Water Mage frowned as she continued looking at the bubble.
"The other two are fine, but this one might not make it," she said. "His brain is too heavily damaged."
Surprisingly, Shang didn't become shocked when he heard these words.
He only felt empty.
It was like all of this had nothing to do with him.
"If he dies, you will be expelled from the academy," the Water Mage said. "Is this what you want?"
Shang didn't answer for several seconds.
"No," he answered.
"Well, it's no longer up to you. It's up to him and me," she said. "At this moment, your future is no longer in your own hands."
"You have attempted to kill him, and if I didn't stop you at the very last moment, he would definitely be dead right now. You would be expelled, and his family would come for revenge. I don't believe that you can flee from a squad of General Stage warriors."
Shang remained silent as he listened to her.
"Were you in control of yourself? Is that what you wanted?" she asked.
Shang didn't answer for a while.
"I don't know," Shang answered. "I don't know if I have been in control or not. At the time, it felt like the right decision."
"Is it the right decision in hindsight?" the Water Mage asked.
Shang only looked at the water bubble.
His mind went back to that night with the bandits.
He had been lenient back then, which made the sacrifices of the beggars meaningless.
He hadn't been ruthless enough back then.
"They wouldn't have stopped coming for me otherwise," Shang said.
"So?" the Water Mage asked.
This word hit Shang.
All the previous words hadn't hit him, but this dismissive "so?" had hit him.
"Are you that weak that you fear that you might be beaten up by some students?" the Water Mage asked.
"Are you that weak that you fear that you will lose against a group of Middle Soldier Stage students?"
Shang felt like his heart was shaking.
"So what if they keep going after you? You can just beat them up whenever someone comes. At some point, they will realize that going after you doesn't help them. They never gain anything and always leave with injuries."
"No one is trying to kill you in here. No one is trying to end your career as a warrior."
"Today, you have decided to kill a student just because you didn't want to be annoyed anymore. You were not in danger. You were not in danger, but you were still willing to kill a fellow student."
"For what?"
When Shang heard that, he looked over at his two beast sacks, which still remained near the street.
"For that?" the Water Mage asked when she noticed Shang looking at his two beast sacks.
"So what if they took it? They are students, and they will be in the academy. You saw their faces, and you could have hunted them until they gave everything back with additional compensation. You know what's in there, and you know how much everything is approximately worth. Just make them buy stuff equivalent to what you have lost."
"However, all of that isn't even necessary since you wouldn't have lost your stuff anyway. You are at the Peak Soldier Stage, and only other Peak Soldier Stage students can stop you, and these students don't care about your meager wealth. These kinds of students are fully focused on reaching the General Stage."
For the first time, the Water Mage actually looked at Shang.
"There was no reason to go that far."
A complex mix of emotions appeared inside Shang's chest.
Was it regret?
Was it anger?
Was it fear?
He wasn't sure.
Maybe it was all of those emotions.
Shang looked at the bubble of water in front of him.
Did his regret matter?
He had already done it.
All the regret in the world didn't matter at this moment.
If the student died, it didn't matter if he felt regret or not.
He would have killed a fellow student, and he would have gotten expelled and hunted.
For a while, Shang only watched the Water Mage work.
"Will he survive?" he asked.
When the Water Mage heard that, a smirk appeared on her face.
"Of course. Who do you think I am?" she asked. "If I weren't confident in saving him, I would have stopped you sooner."
"Actually, I'm already done."
After she said that, the water disappeared, and Shang could see the boy he had nearly killed.
It was that one guy that had told Shang that he had come to hell.
Currently, he wasn't conscious.
When Shang saw that he was still alive, he felt an unimaginable feeling of relief wash over him.
"In my time in the army, I have seen a lot of people like you," the Water Mage said. "Let me give you an important piece of advice."
"Leave the battlefield on the battlefield. Don't bring the battlefield home."
This comment hit Shang again.
Now, Shang actually felt regret.
"Anyway, you're still young," the Water Mage said as she grabbed one of the legs of the student, pulling him behind her. She seemed to be used to pulling students by the leg. "You still have a lot of life in front of you, and you still have a lot of learning to do."
"Remember what you are feeling right now. If you feel consumed by rage again, remember how you have felt at this moment."
"Don't let your past ruin your future."
And after she said that, she pulled the unconscious student into the building.
Shang continued standing at the same spot.
'Don't let your past ruin your future.'
