An Extra's POV: My Three Fiancees Hate Me

A few more minutes later, the carriages were filled. Riven's carriage had another party sitting there; they were mostly made up of men that looked like they drank nails and pins for breakfast.

There was a lady with silky white hair who kept her head down. She was petite and looked innocent. Beside her was a man with short hair as well, maybe her brother. He was in full armor and calm.

The way the others treated him was with respect, so Riven figured that he was the leader of their group. Regardless of all that, they minded their business and kept their eyes straight.

Riven sat beside Sofia, while Jack and Noel sat opposite them. Riven made sure that Sofia was on the inside, to keep her away from the strangers, especially since she disliked men so deeply, she could destroy the entire carriage if they spoke to her.

"So, rank one, tell me, what level are you at? I'm only a second-circle battle mage and I'm already solidifying my spirit zone and getting ready to push for the third circle," Jack said casually. He kept his voice calm as he spoke so that those around wouldn't hear. After all, they were trying to keep a low profile.

Yet somehow, the lady with white hair raised her head slightly when he said that, but not in a suspicious way.

Rumble.

The carriage started moving before Riven could respond, which meant the journey had begun. He turned his head to look at the departing city before facing Jack.

"I'm at the second circle. I don't think I'll be looking for the third for a while. I think I'd rather solidify myself first," Riven said.

"Solidify yourself? What concept is that? Isn't it just pushing your zone to the max and then breaking through?" Jack asked.

Sofia looked at him, her eyes heavy with disdain—the same one she had for Riven when they first met. "The fact you think it's that easy scares me," she said.

Jack looked at her with a confused expression. "What? Isn't that the entire concept we were taught? Or is there more to it?" he asked.

"Understanding mana and the spirit zone is a very delicate topic," she said and placed her hands under her chin. "Just pushing it every time you break through is setting yourself up for disaster.

That way, you'll only be building on the foundation created by the first circle of the spirit zone. But that foundation can't continue to hold you up past the sixth or seventh circle.

You'll crumble like a stack of wood because you decided to build extremely fast without solidifying the second segment and making it capable of holding the weight that would be placed on it," she explained in detail. She turned her head slowly to look at Jack.

"You might not be someone I like even in the slightest, but you are a member of the golden set, and that means you have a certain reputation to keep up.

And that's why we can't allow you to rush up and shatter your foundation. If you do, future breakthroughs become harder, and you start seeing extreme bottlenecks," she explained.

Jack listened to everything she said. He was silent for a bit, wanting to speak, but then she continued.

"When you look at the knights, mages, adventurers, and many mercenaries that exist, they hardly get past the third circle. And even with that third circle, they can't defeat someone from a good academy who has reached the second circle.

Because in an effort to rise to the top of the ranks, they stack on drugs and other methods to grow faster. The methods are heavily unsustainable, and soon they damage their ability to grow even more, forever stuck at one certain point," she explained.

Jack took a deep breath. He was a pigheaded individual and hardly took advice, but he knew Sofia. Sofia despised men and would rather kill you than speak to you.

Yet she took out her time here to explain everything in detail to him. He would be dumb not to listen. He took a deep breath. "Thank you. I'll do my best to progress the right way," he said.

She looked away from him, not saying anything else. Riven looked at Jack. "But that doesn't mean you can't move fast, Jack, just fast in the right way. You just have to put more effort into it," Riven said.

"Of course, after all, I don't want you guys to end up defeating me," Jack said, looking pretty fired up.

They went silent for a bit after that, and then Noel raised a concern.

"The second years seem to have laid off after what happened."

"I guess that's true. Certain parts of Lance's issues tie him to the second years, and if they didn't lay off, it would have been very bad for them," Riven said.

"But do you really think that's the end? The academy is a mysterious place with a lot of unknown and unnatural things," Noel said.

"Has it ended? No. Are they plotting something? Most definitely. Will it probably have something to do with Lance again? We have to wait and see," Riven said.

"Oh yeah, about Lance. A few days back, he got an invite from the student council," Jack said.

"Wait, what?" Riven asked in shock.

"Yes, the council, the strongest ten students of the academy," Jack said.

"That can't be anything good," Sofia said.

"Why not?" Jack asked.

"A first-year guy called by the fourth and third years is already an issue, but the council? Something big is brewing under the academy," she said.

'Could this be it? Could this be the reason why I received that message from the system? Could this be the impending danger?' Riven wondered. Even to this day, his mind refused to leave that issue, and it had been gnawing at him ever since.

'Tsk, whatever it is, I'll be ready for it when the time comes,' he decided in his mind