Leo unable to think of a decision yet, laid his back behind a tree and started contemplating.

The teacher had mentioned this test was meant to suit their rank but he knew he couldn’t fully trust her. No one said they were supposed to stay in one place until three hours passes. For one thing, he knew he was going to be running a lot for the next one hundred and eighty minutes.

He then summoned the system.

Name: [Leo Atlantis]

Noun: [Solstice of Despair — Broken Light]

Recognition: [Sole Witness of the Silent Redact]

Path: [Bastard]

Volume: [Advent]

Rank: [Capricorn]

Tree: [Weapon Will]

Grass: [Intent Mastery]

Mark: [Pride]

Vestige(s): [Yielding Spine], [Shell of Dread], [Ticking Death], [Mirror Fang], [Grinning Mist], [False Saint], [Starved Choir], [Widow’s Thread], [Black Parade], [Glass Monarch], [Hollow Lantern], [Kingless Throne]

Asides from [Yielding Spine] and [Shell of Dread], the remaining Vestiges had been gifted to him by Yariel, Jean, and Elara before he resumed at the academy. Because apparently royal families believed love was best expressed through highly dangerous supernatural objects.

They had also given him a lot of other things but he was still not interested in checking them knowing most of them might be pills required to strengthen his Core and cultivation process.

He had also not studied his new Vestiges well. The last time he summoned the system, he only glanced through it without fully understanding them. With a grunt, he summoned the [Yielding Spine].

After summoning it, he paused for a while as if wanting something to happen. Seconds passed but nothing happened but as he was about to sigh, a dreadful whisper like that of an old witch assaulted his head.

"Young man, you really think I won’t talk?" Yielding Spine said.

For one thing, Leo assumed he recognized the voice of the damned sword but couldn’t exactly pinpoint where. It was as if the voice was drowned in madness and corruption this hindering him from recognizing the owner.

He rolled his eyes. "I know you’d, old geezer."

The voice gasped. "Old geezer? Me?—"

Then as if pausing abruptly, it didn’t say anything. Leo raised an eyebrow and shook the sword.

"Hey, are you still there?"

He then thought about the Characteristic that was attained to letting the sword speak. It wasn’t meant to speak casually but whisper bitter truths and since he was still at a Capricorn, there was a limit to what the sword can say.

"If that’s right, then I’ll be happy." With a grin, he started moving deep into the forest.

He exactly didn’t know which side was deep, the right or left, since they both looked almost the same so he just moved to his right hoping to come across a reliable classmate.

After moving a certain distance, he stopped. There was no sight of a single being around him. No monsters, no students, not even the sound of movement anywhere nearby. The deeper he moved into the forest, the stranger the environment became. The black trees looked almost identical to one another, their branches twisting together high above like giant claws covering the bloodred sky completely. The only difference he noticed was the air getting thinner as he moved deeper.

Leo slowly frowned.

The teacher had called this a survival test suited for Capricorn Rank students, yet the forest did not feel like a place meant for beginners at all. If anything, it felt like the type of place designed to slowly break a person’s nerves before killing them. He could already understand why Yin Li and Lucien looked so tense before the test started. They probably knew what Survival’s Guide classes truly involved.

Yielding Spine suddenly released a low chuckle inside his head.

"Young man... do you know what the worst type of enemy is?"

Leo rolled his eyes while continuing forward carefully. "An old talking sword?"

The sword laughed again though the sound carried something unpleasant beneath it.

"Nooo. The worst enemy is silence. When even the beasts stop making noise, it usually means something worse is nearby."

Leo’s expression slightly changed after hearing that.

Now that he thought about it properly, the forest was indeed too quiet. No insects. No wind. No distant growls. Nothing. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own footsteps brushing against dead leaves and dry soil beneath him.

His instincts immediately sharpened.

Without slowing down, Leo quietly summoned [Grinning Mist] with his free hand. Thin dark smoke slowly leaked out around black rings that coalesced on his fingers before spreading lightly around his surroundings. He did not fully trust the Vestige yet but at this point he preferred being cautious over acting brave like some suicidal main character humans enjoyed reading about.

The [Grinning Mist] was an Aquarius Rank tool and one of it’s Characteristics was [Cloak Mist] which meant to emit smoke that covers his presence.

"I thought you job was to make my life hell and here you are, helping me."

The [Yielding Spine] didn’t reply immediately causing a wierd silence between them. Concluding it had disappeared again, Leo continued walking as the almost invisible smoke cloaked him.

It was an Aquarius tool so there were no guarantee the effect worked on all ranks or was even that potent so Leo was still at alert.

"Really? I guess I am helping you?" Then the voice abruptly stopped again.

’This voice sounds extremely familiar.’

The [Yielding Spine] itself was a strange and mysterious weapon. He had no idea how he had got it in the first place. And there are alot things that were still unknown to him about the sword.

The sword suddenly started laughing again. Its laughter was feminine, dry and ominous. Leo frowned, trying his best to ignore th sudden laughter.

As he continued moving deeper into the forest, the black mist between the trees became thicker. At some point, even the red sky above became difficult to see clearly.

Then Leo stopped walking again. This time, it was because he heard something. The sound came from somewhere behind him.

Leo immediately turned around but saw nothing there except rows of black trees standing silently in the darkness. Still, the feeling of being watched remained.

Yielding Spine stopped laughing completely.

"...Above."

The moment the sword whispered that single word, Leo instantly looked upward.

Something pale was crouching on one of the thick branches directly above him.

Leo’s pupils narrowed slightly.

The creature looked humanoid but its proportions were completely wrong. Its limbs were too long, its body unnaturally thin, while its skin looked grey like rotten ash. Long black veins spread across its neck and arms while its fingers dug deeply into the tree branch beneath it.

The worst part however was its face. It had no visible eyes. Only a stretched smile wide enough to nearly split apart its entire face.

The creature tilted its head slowly as if noticing Leo staring at it. Then it smiled wider.

"...Well," Leo muttered quietly while tightening his grip around Yielding Spine. "That definitely doesn’t look friendly."

The creature suddenly dropped from the tree.