Chapter 108

After some back and forth, Winnie finally managed to force the money onto Shikondell.

Although Shikondell accepted the money, the girl insisted that it was a loan and she would definitely pay it back in the future.

Well, reaching a compromise was already quite good. Winnie didn’t expect anything more.

Everything was just to accumulate virtue points. As for genuinely helping Shikondell?

Hah, that didn’t exist. He wasn’t some benevolent saintess! How could he possibly help others sincerely? Hoho, everything was just for his own benefit!

For a villain like him, Shikondell was just a virtue package placed right in front of him!

That’s right, prepare yourself, little moon elf princess! From now on, I, the royal capital’s evil young master, will keep helping you to squeeze out your virtue and drain your value!

“But speaking of which, why did your friend say that I intended to harm you?” Winnie put on a puzzled expression and looked at Shikondell. “What exactly did she mean by that? I don’t understand.”

Since he was putting on an act, he might as well go all the way.

“No, it’s nothing… Winnie, don’t mind her. She’s always been a bit odd, acting recklessly without thinking, though her heart is in the right place,” Shikondell quickly explained.

Oh? So she knows her that well?

Winnie confirmed his suspicion in his heart.

Shikondell and Millian must have known each other since childhood. Thinking about it, it made sense, one was the little princess of the moon elves, and the other was the second princess of the golden elves. It was only natural for them to be close.

Winnie didn’t know what had happened between the moon elves and the golden elves, but the two races were bound by blood. Elves were united, and it wasn’t strange for there to be many connections between them.

In fact, in this world modeled after an otome game, Winnie had reason to suspect that one of them might have feelings for the other.

But that was just speculation. Winnie wasn’t that nosy and wouldn’t pry into matters that didn’t concern him.

Millian’s earlier overreaction had given Winnie some insight into her personality.

How to put it? She was overly naive, a bit of a “dumb,” and seemed to have a touch of tsundere attributes??

Such a reckless and naive kid, upon seeing her childhood friend being bullied, would naturally jump to conclusions and charge in.

Add to that the elves’ deep-seated prejudice against humans, and the fact that the moon elf lands had been occupied by tribes, which further strained relations between the two races.

In a sense, some of the elves’ impressions of humans weren’t entirely unfounded. For instance, the enslavement of the moon elves by the tribes, or the rampant poachers around the elven forests who captured elves for profit.

These were the reasons why elves looked down on and were hostile toward humans.

“I’m sorry, Winnie. Millian said some really harsh things earlier. I hope you won’t take them to heart,” Shikondell bowed apologetically to Winnie.

“Huh? What harsh things? Did she?” Winnie scratched his ear. Aside from calling him monkey, which he couldn’t accept, he didn’t recall anything else. In fact, the only word he remembered was “monkey.” The rest didn’t even register.

“She also said you were notorious…”

“Oh, that? I thought it was something serious. It’s fine, she was just stating facts. I’m used to it,” Winnie said nonchalantly.

“Eh??” Shikondell was incredulous. To her, those words were quite vicious.

“But she said such cruel things…”

“Cruel? Aside from calling me monkey, which I can’t accept, I didn’t really pay attention to the rest. Compared to the vile insults I’ve heard before, her words were too mild,” Winnie shrugged.

When it came to verbal abuse, elves were no match for humans, especially compared to an abstract troll king like Winnie. Their insults were almost too civilized.

“Before?? Winnie, have you always been subjected to such insults in the royal capital?” Shikondell’s beautiful sapphire eyes widened in shock.

“Huh? You didn’t know? I thought you would have heard of my infamous reputation as the fake descendant of the goddess, even all the way in the elven lands,” Winnie chuckled.

“Descendant of the goddess??” Shikondell murmured, then suddenly covered her mouth. “Right! Your surname is Varelis!”

“Your reaction time is way too slow! You’re just realizing this now?” Winnie teased.

“They actually call you a fake?? That’s so cruel… Winnie, you’re so kind,” Shikondell pouted, her watery eyes on the verge of tears. Her strong empathy made her feel indignant and upset.

“Me? Kind?” Winnie raised an eyebrow. This elf girl was just too naive.

“Yes! Winnie, you’re such a kind person, completely deserving of the title of saintess! Ah, no… I mean, saint, saint…” Shikondell quickly corrected herself upon remembering Winnie’s gender, but she couldn’t think of the male equivalent of a saintess.

As far as she knew, the Varelis family had never had male descendants until recent centuries.

“Alright, alright, I’m not interested in being a saintess or a saint. Besides, my family was expelled by the church. There’s no saintess anymore, so no matter what they say, it can’t hurt me,” Winnie shrugged.

“So, Winnie, you’re also…” Shikondell murmured absentmindedly.

“? What do you mean, me too?” Winnie was puzzled.

“Nothing, Winnie, thank you.” Shikondell shook her head, then looked at him seriously.

“I should learn from you. Despite your troubles, you remain so positive and never let it get you down.”

“That’s why I said you’re dumb,” Winnie glanced at Shikondell. “If I cared about rumors and gossip as much as you do, I’d have hanged myself somewhere long ago. Would you still be seeing me now?”

“Hehe,” Shikondell giggled.

“Alright, go pay your tuition before you get expelled from the academy and ruin everything… Not that I’m helping you, I just feel sorry for you and thought I’d remind you.”

“Okay!”

Winnie was in a good mood today. He had harvested virtue from two heroines, and his virtue points had skyrocketed to 2334. Now he could go on a shopping spree.

Winnie’s goal was clear. The practical entrance exam had made him acutely aware of his shortcomings.

His high ranking this time was entirely due to Vanessa’s brute strength, coupled with the fact that most freshmen were still at a low level and lacked powerful magical abilities.

Once everyone’s levels increased, magic would become increasingly important. If magic dominated everyone’s combat capabilities, Vanessa’s pure physical attacks wouldn’t allow her to dominate the battlefield anymore.

Therefore, he urgently needed offensive magic.

But here was the problem: [Saint Envoy] was a four-star soul armament, but it was essentially a healing-type soul. It did have offensive magic, but certainly not as much as other four-star soul armaments. The number of offensive spells available at the apprentice level was even more limited.

Winnie opened the virtue system to check his status. He had expected some progress and insights over the past few days, but he was still only a beginner apprentice.

Wait, why hadn’t his level increased at all after all that fighting??

Winnie suddenly noticed a plus sign next to his level in the status bar.

Huh?

Could it be that his level could only be increased using virtue points??

Winnie clicked on the plus sign, and a line of text appeared.

“Current skill points are sufficient. Virtue can be used to increase level.”

Seriously??

Others could level up through combat and enlightenment, but he needed virtue points just to level up? And he also needed to unlock certain skill trees.

It seemed his decision to take risks and harvest virtue from the heroines was the right one. Otherwise, he might have been stuck at the apprentice level forever.

If he didn’t harvest virtue from these heroines, when would he ever escape this predicament? High risk, high reward indeed.

[200 virtue points required to advance from Beginner apprentice to intermediate apprentice.]

That’s not too much.

Winnie clicked to level up, and instantly his level went from Beginner apprentice to intermediate apprentice. Instant delivery.

[400 virtue points required to advance from intermediate apprentice to advanced apprentice.]

[1000 virtue points required to advance from advanced apprentice to Beginner Artisan.]

Winnie kept clicking. He was rich now anyway.

With just a few “dings,” his level went from beginner apprentice to beginner Artisan, costing him a total of 1600 virtue points.

“Current virtue points: 734.”

“Advancing to Beginner Artisan unlocks additional effects for [Armour Fortress], granting corrosion resistance and poison resistance.”

After impact resistance, poison resistance was next.

Now, [Armour Fortress] should have changed again, whether it was the male or female version.

This was a special effect only available with 100% soul compatibility.

Winnie opened the virtue tree and found that many more skill points had become available.

After some deliberation, he finally found an offensive spell called [Charged Light Strike].

“Applies a one-time light attribute blessing to your weapon, delivering a heavy blow to the opponent.”

Winnie looked at this rare offensive spell for Artisans. Whether he liked it or not, he had to choose it.

There were other offensive spells available at the mage level, but they were too expensive, costing at least 800 virtue points. After advancing to Artisan, Winnie didn’t have enough virtue left.

He hoped this spell would be useful.

“700 virtue points deducted.”

“Current virtue points: 134.”

Offensive spells were indeed expensive, far more so than healing spells.

After purchasing [Charged Light Strike], Winnie was eager to try out this hard-earned offensive spell. But since it was Vanessa who could use [Saint Envoy], not Winnie himself, he could only watch and wait.

He couldn’t summon Vanessa just to test a spell, could he?

Winnie glanced at the virtue points required to advance from Beginner Artisan to intermediate Artisan: 1200. And with his current skill tree, he wasn’t ready to level up yet.

He opened the virtue tree to look at the other offensive spells available at the Artisan level. One called [Holy Radiance] caught his attention.

“Summons a phantom of the goddess to blind all enemies in the area and trap them in light cages. After three seconds, the cages explode, dealing massive light elemental damage. (Note: This spell can only be learned by those with Extraordinary light elemental affinity.)”

Then why even mention it??

Do you think Extraordinary light elemental affinity grows on trees??

Light and dark elemental affinities were common, and most people had a decent level of both. The number of people with [Good] light elemental affinity ranked in the top three among all elements.

But at [Excellent] level, the numbers dropped sharply, plummeting. The number of people with [Excellent] light elemental affinity was near the bottom, second only to ice elemental affinity.

At [Extraordinary] level, the number of light elemental affinities was even fewer than ice elemental affinities. Light and dark [Extraordinary] affinities were the rarest of all elements, by a significant margin.

Thus, those with [Extraordinary] light elemental affinity were said to be blessed by the goddess.

It was a great honor.

Aesphyra was undoubtedly one blessed by the goddess, and light wasn’t even her strongest element.

Winnie was now fairly certain that Vanessa’s elemental affinity was separate from his own.

But even so, he couldn’t be sure if Vanessa’s light elemental affinity had reached [Extraordinary] level.

No one could say for sure. If Vanessa fell short and her light elemental affinity wasn’t [Extraordinary], wouldn’t he have wasted 1000 virtue points?

Now was precisely when he needed virtue points the most. Spending so much on a spell he couldn’t use would be a waste. How could he survive like that??

Speaking of which, could he get his hands on one of those elemental affinity testing orbs? He wanted to test Vanessa’s affinity to confirm his suspicions.

So he opened the virtue shop. The free items hadn’t refreshed since last time, which was disappointing. The shop also didn’t sell items like elemental affinity testing tools.

After some thought, Winnie concluded that the chances of Vanessa having [Extraordinary] light elemental affinity were extremely low.

Even though he had awakened his bloodline, he still firmly believed he was an NPC character. Would an NPC character have [Extraordinary] light elemental affinity?

No way! That would be stealing the spotlight from the protagonist!

So Winnie pouted and closed the virtue shop.

Forget it, these things were beyond his reach. Better not look anymore. He should prepare for tomorrow’s opening ceremony instead.

At that moment, Shikondell finished cooking in the kitchen.

The food was surprisingly decent, not great, but not bad either. For a beginner, she had done quite well.