"You are not welcome here! Scram or else!"

John’s investigation began in the heart of the Military Department’s teaching building. It was already late afternoon, the golden hour when most lectures were drawing to a close, and the halls began to get crowded as students left classes to chat or take a short break.

In his hand, he held a list of fifteen candidates painstakingly compiled by Cissel and Elena. Despite the short timeframe the girls had to investigate, the list was surprisingly detailed.

They hadn’t just provided names; they had documented the academic year of each target, their family lineages, and a collection of gossip that shed light on their personalities.

According to Elena, no male student in the academy could resist the allure of her beauty once she decided to turn it on. Just a few minutes of casual conversation had been enough to make several loose-lipped students spill a mountain of secrets about the targets the girls had been eyeing.

John recalled with a faint smirk how Luke had acted visibly annoyed for an entire day after hearing about Elena’s methods. It had taken a serious promise from Elena, relayed through Cissel, that she wouldn’t use that particular information-gathering method again to restore the peace between the two.

John moved between the classrooms, his presence largely ignored by the hurried steps of students getting out of the classes. As he walked, he didn’t just use his eyes. He activated Frame Recognition and Wireframe Sight.

The thick walls became transparent in front of his abilities, and the students inside the rooms were reduced to glowing silhouettes of code.

The teaching building housed the first five years of the Military Department, including John’s own third-year.

Thanks to Nikolas, John and his friends, and now Ben, had been granted an official leave of absence under the pretence of constructing their club base. John was now using that privilege to act as a silent auditor of the recruits’ potential.

"Fifteen candidates," John muttered under his breath, scrolling through the files. "Four in the seventh year, five in the sixth, three in the fourth, one in my own class... And one each from the first and second years."

The data was promising. Every single person on the list came from a background that wasn’t well known to be related to Paragons. Some were from fallen houses, families that had lost their old glory and were now clinging to their last shreds of dignity, much like Luke’s family once had.

Others were complete wildcards like Ben, possessing no ties to the Paragons at all, making them perfect candidates for the RBM Club’s inner circle. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Since the students in the first five years were still occupied with their final lectures, with few only leaving their classes and the majority sticking inside, John decided to pivot. He made his way toward the Sparring Building, where the elite sixth and seventh-year students had their combat classes.

’I’ll just take a general look today,’ John planned. ’I need to scan for anyone hiding their strength. Dual abilities are always a warning flag, and I need to be absolutely sure none of them is a hidden cyborg.’

The last point was the most troubling for John. Since returning to this world, he had been operating under the assumption that he would encounter a significant number of cyborgs among the students. And yet, after days of scanning, he hadn’t spotted a single one. It was a statistical anomaly that he never expected.

He had checked the junior years thoroughly, and none possessed the distinctive code structure of a cyborg. John couldn’t tell if this was a result of what he experienced, perhaps forcing Mark to cease his dirty scheme for fear of another John showing up, or if something else was at play.

’Maybe by setting Mark free, I broke the bridge the Big Mind used to send others here,’ John considered. But he knew his understanding of the machine world was still superficial.

If Mark were a program, there would surely be other versions of him. One version going rogue wouldn’t necessarily stop the machines from abducting more humans and replacing them with cyborgs, letting them infiltrate the game.

Lost in these thoughts, John finally reached the Sparring Building. Even from the heavy, sound-dampened exterior, he could hear the muffled roars of effort and the sharp, explosive cracks of strikes echoing from multiple directions.

"They don’t take classes in the same areas?" John had expected one or two large halls to be occupied and active, but his senses immediately detected at least six different combat zones active at once.

Curiosity piqued, he headed toward the nearest hall. As he approached the wide, double doors to observe the seventh-year sparring session, he found his path suddenly obstructed.

Five students, all of them significantly broader and taller than John, stepped out from the hall with a sudden opening of the doors. Their uniforms bore the insignia of the Seventh Year Class President’s club, the Black Ares Club.

One student in particular, a hulking youth with a scar across his chin, took a deliberate step forward. He crossed his massive arms over his chest, blocking the entrance entirely.

"I see the leader of the Backup Team comes to check on the Formal Team training session. Yet, unluckily for you, we don’t intend to let our secrets out, and won’t let some lucky weaklings like you try to snatch the honour from us."

John was momentarily startled, not by the arrogance of the words, but by the sheer density of the special codes appearing in his vision. Just one look at these five, and he could easily tell they weren’t normal.

Every single one of them possessed at least fifty special code clusters. More surprisingly, though, two of them, including the hulking speaker, possessed faint blue code clusters.

John had never seen blue codes in anyone aside from the teachers. Even his own friends, despite their harrowing growth in the pocket trial, didn’t have such a higher-grade colour yet.

This group was objectively strong. And yet, this didn’t faze John. In his eyes, their strength was their indictment. Because they were this powerful, he knew they almost certainly belonged to the Paragon-affiliated families. And that made him eye them as enemies from the very start.