Yue managed to calm down thinking about how it would probably be a while before the dream fully came true since Viktor said he planned on cutting his hair when they returned to the academy city. In the prophecy, his hair seemed pretty long so he could only assume it’d take a while until then. He removed his hands when he felt his face cool down a bit and peeked out to meet eyes with Viktor. 

“Why are you so embarrassed?” Viktor asked, smiling as he saw how Yue looked as he wore the necklace.

“I-It’s nothing…” Yue murmured and looked away. 

They mostly just sat around all night, no fog came and not a single sound was heard from the forest. When the sun started to rise, they got up to stretch. Yue sighed a bit, he had to admit, this task had been difficult and he could see how a lot of people would've died if things went wrong.

“We did a good job,” Yue said and smiled a bit, patting Viktor’s back.

“Uwaaah...that’s so awkward you should’ve hugged him instead,” Mai said to Yue through telepathy before Viktor could give a response.

Yue flipped around and glared at the clock tower with bright red cheeks. Viktor chuckled and ruffled Yue’s head with a soft smile as he started to walk back to the inn. 

Yue froze in place and his face became much redder.

“Aww, Little Yue falls for him more every day,” Mai said through telepathy again with a cheeky tone.

Yue huffed and hid his face with his hands as he ran off to go to the inn, he wasn’t even tired but he still went up to his room and laid there for a while. He got up before lunchtime and went off to look through town while he waited for lunch to be served.

He decided to just walk around, looking through the stores in the main area of the village. A few merchants had been called by the village chief since they were now werewolf free and it would benefit the town if more people came to sell and buy. He watched a couple of them set up their little areas.

“I heard from the students that all the wolves in the forest were killed by werewolves.” A merchant murmured as he talked to the village chief. He looked a bit regretful as he said this, pitying the village chief who was around the same age as him.

“Its alright…the wolves will reappear someday and even without them this town will always be Wolfsstadt.” The village chief said with a smile.

The village was named because of the large number of wolves in the forest before the werewolves even appeared. Yue used his eyes to look into the future of the village. He smiled as he saw that the town had exploded in size and had practically become a city that even had a teleportation hub. He was also happy to see that in the forest there was a wolf pack calmly passing by a group of women who were picking herbs. He continued walking around, feeling relieved after seeing that. 

“Let’s go give Frida the letter portal,” Viktor said through telepathy, alerting Yue that he was awake.

“Alright,” Yue said through telepathy as a response and started to walk with a clear goal.

He met up with Viktor on his way to Frida’s house and sighed a bit. He was sad they were leaving tomorrow morning but since he knew the town would be alright he was happy.

“How is your injury doing?” Viktor asked and pointed to Yue’s side.

“Oh it still really hurts if I don’t take pain killers and if I touch it.” Yue murmured and winced, the bruise looked way worse now too but that meant it was healing so he didn’t mind.

“Do you want me to try healing you again?” Viktor asked, stopping in the middle of the street as if he’d do it right then and there.

“No It’s fine, it’ll heal on its own soon enough.” Yue murmured. 

“You’re always so reluctant to let people heal you..” Viktor murmured with a dissatisfied look on his face.

“Sorry, unless it was a mortal wound or something that won’t heal right I’ve been taught to just deal with it.” Yue giggled and kept walking with Viktor.

“Huh? You didn’t seem to have any scars…” Viktor murmured and Yue turned bright red as he noted that Viktor had seen a significant amount of his skin in the past couple weeks because of his injuries.

“There are magic-infused creams that get rid of scars..” Yue murmured, still embarrassed. He probably would’ve had a lot of scars but Lian Bai always made him put all types of healing creams and oils so he wouldn't get a scar. She was fearless on the battlefield but she hated thinking of him getting hurt and scars would just remind her of that.

They arrived at Frida’s house and she was standing in front of her door with a sad look. She became much happier when she saw them but she still seemed down.

“I thought I might not be getting any more lessons..” She said and hugged Yue with a smile.

“Well, we’re not really here for a lesson.” Yue said as he and Viktor moved down so they were closer to her height.

She tilted her head in confusion. She was going to ask what they were doing but Yue made her hold out her hands and Viktor put the letter portal in her hands.

Frida looked at the letter portal in awe, it was shiny and beautiful and she really liked it but she didn’t know what it was.

“It’s a letter portal, you write a letter and seal it and then press on the mana crystal and it’ll send it directly to me,” Viktor explained and smiled.

“Eh? Just to you?” Yue asked he had expected it to be linked to both of them.

“I don’t have the materials to make it linked to both of us, I’ll probably change it at some point but I’ll obviously share the letters with you,” Viktor explained and smiled at Frida’s happy expression.

Yue accepted the response and smiled at Frida. “You should be very proud, you’re Wolfsstadt’s first mage and my first disciple,” Yue said with a joking smile.

“Frida, the mage of Wolf town…” Viktor murmured and smiled as he smiled.

Frida’s eyes glimmered at the sound of that she was filled with a sense of pride. She seriously didn’t want them to leave and she wanted to keep learning from them while they were actually in the town. She pushed back her desire to have them stay and just smiled and had a nice little almost farewell talk with them. She wasn’t sure just how early they were leaving the next day so she made sure to hug them tightly and asked for them to tell Mai she’ll miss her too in case she wasn’t able to say goodbye.

-

The night watch was relaxed and Yue and Viktor were just sitting back near the tree stump while the villagers in charge of the night watch kept a lookout.  They didn’t realize it but they both fell asleep as they didn’t feel any sort of danger. The villagers didn’t notice either.

Yue was embarrassed when he woke up and found that he had been resting his head on Viktor's shoulder. It was almost sunrise and Viktor seemed like he had only awoken recently. Yue quickly moved away and blushed bright red.

“I guess the town really is completely safe now after all.” Viktor murmured, if they had felt so little disturbance that they even fell asleep, that meant nothing in the forest was strong enough to cause harm.

As the sun began to fully rise they walked back to the inn to finish packing up to get ready to leave. The innkeeper prepared a huge breakfast for them and was very sad to see them go. Some of the students had grown a bit attached to the town so they were a bit sad too but others wanted to go back to their dorms as they had gotten sick of one another from sleeping in the same room.

“Ah, vacation time!” Mai said and happily waved around her trunk. She had actually left some of her jewelry for a young woman in town whom she had befriended. The jewelry wasn’t crazy important to her and after getting the magic bracelet from the dungeon she found that a lot of the other things she brought with her seemed to pale in comparison. She was still unsure of what the bracelet did but she kept it with her.

Viktor now carried his trunk and a separate bag with the blue and red mana crystals he got from the werewolves. He left all of the green ones and some red ones in the town so they could sell them for profit for the sake of the town. Other than Mai who had taken a few, none of the other students had been interested in them so he just kept them.

The dungeon items had been labeled as the property of whoever cleared the dungeon so after Mai, Viktor and Yue chose their items and William and Elizabeth chose their items, they had the rest of the students choose anything they’d like and left the rest in the storage ring.

Some students were snow actually struggling to carry their trunks more than when they first arrived and the villagers just kept wanting to send them off with items like tea and goods from the town so compromises had to be made.

“We’ll be eternally grateful for all you’ve done for this village.” The village chief said and once again showed his gratefulness to the students along with the rest of the town.

“It’s no problem…” Yue responded a bit awkwardly and smiled a bit. Frida went up to him and gave him a big hug as she also whispered thank you. She was very sad about them having to leave but she went to hug Viktor and Mai as well, trying not to beg them to stay.

Viktor got on his horse after loading up his and Yue’s trunks. Yue was about to get on as well, the villagers had brought him a step stool so he could get on easily but he didn’t get to use it.

Yue turned bright red as Viktor lifted him onto the horse by his waist like he had the day they arrived. Some of the women from the village were gossiping a little as they watched that but Yue tried his best to ignore them.

When all of the students were on their horses, and they decided they were ready to leave they officially said goodbye to the whole town.

“Goodbye everyone, we’ll try to visit at some point!” Mai exclaimed in German with a smile as she waved and they started to slowly gallop out of town.

Frida looked sad but she waved them off with a brave face. Everyone else waved them off with sad looks as well but they all wished them well and told them they were always welcome as they left.

Yue sighed a bit as the town disappeared in the distance as they rode away. He actually didn’t really mind holding onto Viktor since he wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that they were touching and was just thinking about how time had passed really quickly.

“Dealing with a dungeon during an expedition...that’s probably incredibly rare right?” Yue asked, wondering how the professors would react to hearing about this.

“No one has ever cleared a dungeon while attending the academy as a student,” Viktor said and chuckled.

Yue almost let go and fell off as he felt the vibration of Viktors laugh from his back since he was pressed against him. He was bright red and was only saved by Viktor grabbing one of his hands when he felt them loosen their grip.

“Don’t let go, you’ll fall,” Viktor said in a low tone as he smiled a bit.

“The teachers are going to be shocked and they might not even believe us. We'll have to show them the treasure as proof.” Viktor continued after securing Yue’s hand on his clothes.

“Oh...I-I guess w-we did something crazy…” Yue murmured, he now felt very conscious of how close he was to Viktor.

“You did something crazy, me and Mai only showed up at the end and barely did any damage.” Viktor murmured.

“I wouldn’t have defeated it if you hadn’t shown up. The person it turned into was way stronger than me…” Yue murmured, he had been thinking about how he essentially lost to his younger self in the dungeon and he was incredibly annoyed at his weakness.

“Winning against someone with his powers is still an incredible achievement...although the technique of the real thing is impossible to defeat…” Viktor murmured, he seemed like he was trying to keep himself from adding emotion to his tone.

Yue wanted to ask who the man was but he felt that it was unfair for him to ask something like that whilst hiding practically everything about himself.

“I’m a bit disappointed in myself, I usually have no qualms about butting heads with him but I froze up a bit when I saw him...That guy was taking the image of my father…” Viktor murmured, scolding himself a bit.

Yue wanted to say something but felt that it might be rude.

“You don’t have to hold yourself back, I already know I don’t look anything like him. I’m quite happy about it.”  Viktor said and chuckled a bit, practically reading Yue’s mind. Yue was embarrassed that he was read so easily but he couldn’t help but giggle at Viktor’s goofy expression as he expressed how happy he was to not look like his father.

—

 

Mr. Anderson had an astonished look on his face as he looked at all the treasure from the dungeon that had been kept in the storage ring. He hadn’t believed them at first but now it was clear that it was true.

 

He told them that there was no exact way to deal with the situation since they were the first and just told them to keep their earnings and enjoy their 3-week-long vacation.

Yue and Mai walked to their dorm and noticed how empty the area around the academy was and how solemn everything seemed. When they entered the dorm and heard crying they were both confused. They had come a little later than expected because they had to report about the dungeon and their whole team seemed to have returned to academy later than the rest.

“They’re going to come back just fine, Anika. Don't worry, they’re strong.” Shirley said and tried to comfort the person who was crying. Anika was covering her eyes with her hands as she cried. A few of the other girls were tearing up as they looked at the time but only Anika was crying heavily.

“Is something wrong?” Yue said as he put down his bags and entered the living room. He and

Mai assumed that they hadn’t heard them enter but they didn’t expect that they’d all be in the living room looking depressed.

Cries of joy were heard in the room as everyone turned to look at them. Yue and Mai were startled as everyone went up to them with relieved looks.

“What’s going on..?” Yue asked, he noticed that a few girls weren’t there and he looked around a bit.

“What do you mean ‘what’s going on’?! You came back so late we thought you died!” Shirley exclaimed, looking a little teary-eyed.

“Eh?” Mai and Yue said in unison, shocked that they would reach that conclusion out of nowhere.

“How many people died…?” 

“On average 4 students from every class died, half of the 2nd tier advanced class died…” Shirley explained as she pointed to Anika who was hugging both Mai and Yue tightly.

Anika was in the 2nd tier advanced class and had lost half of her classmates during the expedition. Her class failed their objective and was pulled back to the academy by teachers who labeled it an emergency since so many people died at the same time. 

Yue and Mai didn’t even know what to say, it was like they were living in two different worlds. They had been looking forward to returning and having their vacation but everyone else was dreading the thought of how many people died on the expedition and how many of their friends were left.

“Your expedition was the hardest one according to the teachers...did anyone…” Shirley murmured.

“No one in the 1st tier advanced class died…” Yue mumbled.

All the girls were shocked, they didn’t know how to feel about this. More than half of the classes failed and the 2nd strongest class was almost completely destroyed, but the strongest class was perfectly fine.

Anika didn’t seem to care all that much but it was clear that the other girls were conflicted. They had struggled and watched their classmates die but the 1st tier class was unscathed.  Anika accidentally managed to lighten the mood when she tightened her hold on Yue and caused him to double over a bit in pain.

“Ack...” Yue groaned and moved away a bit.

“Are you okay?!” Anika exclaimed and panicked.

“I’m f-fine…I’m going to go to my room…” Yue murmured, he was panicking a bit because he was suddenly in a lot of pain from his side. He used magic to levitate his trunk up to his room and started to go on his way.

“Is she injured? Did I hurt her?” Anika asked Mai frantically.

“Don’t worry about it, you didn’t know...Yue got hurt a lot during this expedition, she had a giant gash on her back from a werewolf on her back and then she broke a rib or two a couple of days ago.” Mai murmured, cringing at the thought of the injury.

The girls all looked shocked, they had thought their mission had been easy and that they didn’t struggle at all since no one died.

“ She’ll be fine..” Mai said and patted Anika’s back to try and make her feel better.

—

Yue groaned as he locked his door and removed his blazer and shirt. The bruise looked very bad and the pain had worsened a bit. He sighed and looked at his wound.

“Darn ribs..” Yue murmured and lightly touched over his wounds. He had removed the illusion that made his body look female and was a bit annoyed as he looked at his clearly male body.

If he hadn’t been using his illusion magic, Viktor and Mai would’ve immediately noticed.

Yue was underweight so it was quite easy to see his ribs and the fact that he was clearly missing a few stood out like a sore thumb regardless of if you saw him fully shirtless or not.

He looked through his drawer for a medicinal elixir to drink to see if it helped his wound. After drinking some he started to feel better and his wound almost immediately began to look a bit better. He sighed and sat down on his bed, not bothering to put his shirt back on since no one would see anyway. He glanced at his Jian sword and he sighed as he unsheathed and inspected it carefully for any cracks on the blade or any sort of issue with it.

“You better last...I used a perfectly good rib on you…” Yue murmured and sighed as he brought out his materials for sword maintenance. He placed a thick cloth on his desk and placed his sword on it. He opened a small black box and cringed as he usually did toward a small powder ball inside the box.

Usually, the powder inside the tool was regular Uchiko powder in there but his sword was forged using a bodily binding method that was invented by Fei Xiang’s friend who was blacksmith so instead, it was filled with the finely ground pieces of his missing rib. 

Just thinking about it made him remember the pain but he really didn’t regret it. Bodily binding meant that as long as he was alive the sword wouldn’t break regardless of how much damage it took or how much power he infused into it. A lot of people sought after the blacksmith because of this technique but would turn away when told that they would have to have their rib removed whilst they were awake and with no anesthetics. The ground-up rib would be added to the sword whilst forging and needed to be added on with a powder ball for maintenance.

Yue finished his maintenance quickly, he didn't like remembering the procedure in which his rib was removed. It made him gag just thinking about it. 

—

Yue bathed and was in the middle of drying his hair and choosing the hanfu he was going to change into when he heard a knock on his door. He quickly put his illusion back on tightened his robe a bit.

“Who is it?” Yue asked and checked if he looked decent enough.

“It’s me, I brought you food,” Mai called from behind the door. Yue relaxed and let her inside without much hassle.

“Are you okay?” Mai asked as she placed the plate of food down on Yue’s desk. She had changed back into an Ao Dai like she usually wore in the dorms.

“I had some elixirs here so I drank some and feel better now…it will still take a while to heal though…” Yue said and stretched a bit, he still hadn’t unpacked but he was feeling too lazy to start now.

“Are you going back to China during the vacation period?” Mai asked and sat down beside Yue.

“...No, I’m staying here.” Yue murmured, he couldn’t go back even if he wanted to.

“Oh...Everyone is going back to their homes or just around to vacation areas. Aimee is taking Shirley to southern France to meet her family and Carlotta is going to Switzerland with Laura.” Mai explained and started messing with a small jade that Yue had on his desk.

“Are you going home?” Yue asked, wondering if he should actually go on a trip somewhere since everyone would be gone.

“My family is going to the Paris auction so I’m going there,” Mai said and grinned. 

“The Paris auction...Going there might be fun…” Yue murmured and turned to Mai as he ate a bit of the food Mai had brought him.

“You should come with m—Wait! You can go with Viktor!” Mai suggested with a bright smile.

“Huh?!"