In another world, Lu Mingfei is learning card making.

Tuesday, outdoor dueling class.

Although the dueling class is divided into indoor and outdoor parts, the instructor is the same person: Liss El, a professional card player with one-sixteenth Titan blood.

She is also the head of the House of Nobles, because her Titan bloodline comes from the royal family among the Titans—although she is not pure-blooded in a human sense, she is a pure-blooded noble in a bloodline sense!

"Alright, alright, let's run, let's run!" Professor Liz urged the students. "A professional duelist card player must also be top-notch in terms of physical fitness—"

"Every year in the dueling arena, someone collapses from exhaustion. Do you want to be the next one?"

"Run! Speed ​​up!"

The first thing to do in every outdoor dueling class was to run two laps, a 'rule' set by Professor Liz during the first class. Lu Mingfei followed behind Rong En, breathing in sync with him, and their strides and pace were the same.

During the first lap, Lu Mingfei felt fine, but by the second lap, a strange soreness emerged from all over his body—from deep within his muscles, from every joint. This soreness wasn't exactly 'uncomfortable'—

Instead, it made Lu Mingfei feel as if the joints in his body were tree branches that were sprouting.

Lu Mingfei gritted his teeth, pushed off with his feet, and rushed past Rong En in front of him. Rong En turned his head slightly and saw the bulging, twisted veins on his neck.

Rong En raised an eyebrow and began to exert himself, overtaking Lu Mingfei once more and leading Lu Mingfei to run at top speed. After the second lap, the two didn't stop, and naturally began the third lap—

"ah----"

Lu Mingfei finally lost control and let out a shout. On the webpage he wasn't currently looking at, a piece of data was flashing and changing:

体质：8（100/100%）→9（0/100%）

Breaking through that barrier, Lu Mingfei felt his mind go blank. His physical strength, which should have been completely exhausted, miraculously regenerated, and his whole body felt refreshed—the soreness disappeared, the obstruction vanished, and even the air he breathed tasted so sweet.

It was as if he had always perceived the world through a veil, but today, he finally saw the true face of the 'world'.

But then, inhaling and exhaling, Lu Mingfei controlled his pace and slowed down—he had just run three laps at his fastest speed. You have to know that the St. Mary's Academy's track is a large track, and one lap is about 800 meters.

He didn't know if the feeling after this "breakthrough" was just a temporary surge of energy before death. In fact, it was possible that his body's energy had been almost completely depleted, and he would collapse after running a few more steps...

Rong En also noticed Lu Mingfei's actions and sat down with him on the side.

"So, Lu, what's going on?" Rong En leaned closer and pinched his arm. "Why do you suddenly want to pursue me today?"

"You know, there's a sense of breakthrough, right?" Lu Mingfei stretched out his arm for him, "That feeling after a long run, when your body is tired, but not so tired, as if breaking through that limit will allow your body to reach a higher level..."

"Oh, that." Rong En nodded knowingly. "I've heard my dad say that every 'new recruit' has this feeling—because they haven't had professional training before, but once they have professional training and the corresponding supplements, their physical fitness can change rapidly..."

"However, even though their physical fitness has improved, their thinking is still stuck in the past when their bodies were weak. Only through short-term intense training can they adapt to a stronger body."

"So...you mean I was just adapting to a drastic change in my body?" Lu Mingfei asked thoughtfully.

He thought it was like in martial arts novels, where diligent practice over a period of time led to a major breakthrough in either 'internal strength' or 'external strength'—

"In short, this is normal, there's no need to be surprised." Rong En patted his shoulder hard. "But shouting... you don't have to do that in the future."

"Why?" Lu Mingfei asked, puzzled. "Is there some other explanation for this adaptation training? Like, you can't breathe heavily, or you have to hold your breath during training, or something like that..."

"No, look." Rong En turned Lu Mingfei's head towards the classmates, "Your shout has attracted their attention. If you don't want your photo to be in any newspaper, you should avoid doing things like this."

Seeing the various expressions on his classmates' faces, Lu Mingfei gradually lost control of his own expression.

……

There was only one outdoor dueling class on Tuesdays, so Lu Mingfei had free time in the afternoon.

Last week, he had an intense desire to explore this world, so he spent half a day reading books and learning about some classic dueling tournaments; now, his curiosity has been temporarily satisfied, so he doesn't know what to do next.

Go to the library with Lacey? Lu Mingfei knew he couldn't possibly spend an entire afternoon there like her, and besides, there was someone in the library he'd offended last time who might make things difficult for him, which would inevitably drag Lacey down with him...

Go exploring the school with Rong En? Probably not. Lu Mingfei could roughly guess that Rong En would deliberately choose remote places to go, under the guise of exploring secrets—but the problem was that Lu Mingfei wasn't curious about those kinds of places.

Therefore, Lu Mingfei chose a pastime that suited him quite well:

"I remember the story of the Pot Spirit. Last time, we talked about a local tyrant named Matou Tsuruno who wanted to buy the Philosopher's Stone, right?"

Lu Mingfei summoned the spirit of the pot, lay on the bed and flipped through the letters and logs stored in the network, preparing to listen to the spirit of the pot continue to tell stories.

Logically speaking, the head of a household—although Lu Mingfei didn't understand what the Japanese term "house head" meant—should be able to make decisions, right?

The spirit of the pot thought so too, but who knew that the Matou family wasn't actually in charge of this "Matou Tsuruno"—

The one who truly held the reins was his father, Matou Reiken.

To understand the reason behind this, we need to start with the local "extraordinary power": the Matou family possesses an extraordinary power called "magic," which works by relying on bloodlines and array patterns.

The main reason why Matou Tsuruno was able to become the "head of the family" was that Matou Ryokon, who had truly mastered extraordinary power, did not want to deal with the trivial matters of the secular world, which is why Matou Tsuruno got this title.

"Oh~" Lu Mingfei suddenly realized and nodded, saying, "Is it because Matou Tsuruno has ambitions to truly control the Matou family, that he wants to recruit you?"

The spirit of the pot hesitated for a moment, then shook its head.