Heimat der Spirituosen

Kapitel 4

Byte Academy, founded in 3296, has a history of 400 years. The principal has always been that perverted man in a black robe whose name, age, special skills, appearance, hobby of building a perfect (perverted) academy, life story, abilities, and spiritual power are all unknown...

The school covers approximately 300 square kilometers. Behind it is a "Ghost Gate" guarded by snake dens; feel free to explore if you like. Anyone who returns alive can shake hands with the principal; those who don't will be punished… Classes are generally held during the day in that over 100-story teaching building. Each class has a different classroom, so please pay attention to the schedule… Evening internships involve socializing with the night shift students… Huh? Don't know what a night shift is? This is the Ghost Gate; what do you think those things that come out to class at night are? (At this point, everyone's faces turned green.) By the way, internships are mostly safe, but not always. If you're scared, you can make a will. Byte Academy won't take a penny; it will definitely be handed over to your family. (Everyone: We don't care…) Because the death energy here is very heavy, besides ghosts, it will attract other things, such as vampires, monsters, mountain spirits, and mountain spirits. Be careful not to get eaten… Huh? Why don't we set up a barrier? Why do we need to set up such a barrier? (Everyone's faces turned green again) Also, please be careful not to damage any public facilities, because everything is placed for a purpose. If you break the key to the barrier, our witch class teacher will definitely catch you and make you a human sacrifice... (human sacrifice: burial goods, offerings, sacrifices)

Vice Principal Paulina listed more than 300 points of attention. After she finished reading them, Lou Lifan, the only freshman with a relatively good complexion, turned pale green.

No wonder this school is renowned worldwide for its extremely high teaching quality, but not many people come here voluntarily... Almost everyone who comes here has been tricked or deceived by family or friends. There isn't a single person who comes fully aware of the situation they are about to face.

However, no one cried out and threatened to drop out. After all, everyone who came here had spiritual power at a certain level or above. Even if they weren't young and promising "masters," they were still "junior masters." It would be too embarrassing to turn back now. So, even though everyone's face was greener than the next, no one said anything about dropping out and going home.

The opening ceremony passed amidst everyone's grief and indignation, and their own ulterior motives. The afternoon was for cleaning.

The dormitory area had already been cleaned when everyone arrived; even if it's not for others, you should clean it for your own sake. But with such tall teaching buildings and such a vast campus... of course, no one would voluntarily clean it.

Byte Academy has four grades. At the beginning of each school year, the older students don't have to clean, and all the cleaning is assigned to the new students. This year, there are about 1500 new students. Five hundred are assigned to clean the teaching buildings, and the other thousand are assigned to clean various parts of the academy. Cleaning is dirty and tiring, and no one wants to do it honestly, so naturally, they come up with all sorts of tricks. For example, those with shikigami (spirits/ghosts) have an absolute excuse not to work. They can climb trees, cross their legs, and chat. If it weren't for the fact that the shikigami's range of influence isn't too large and their mental strength isn't too strong, they could have let the shikigami do the work themselves while they went back to sleep. Those with wind magic simply need to create a whirlwind to roll up all the dirt on the ground and throw it into the trash can. Those with water magic are responsible for sprinkling water, and if it's a concrete floor, they can just rinse it off...

Poor Luo Tianwu and his three companions couldn't escape their fate and were still assigned to clean the snake dens in the back mountains. But unlike their classmates, they didn't have any practical magic. They couldn't just throw all the snakes in the dens into another dimension... Besides, it was the entrance to the gates of hell, and they couldn't even use water purification, otherwise it would create a disturbance of life and death energy, eventually pulling them into the gates of hell... It could be said that these four were the most unlucky people in the entire academy.

Although Tian Jin's ability was the least practical, she wasn't worried. All she had to do was grab an unlucky freshman—or even someone who wasn't a freshman—and whisper ominously in their ear, "I predict what will happen to you... If you don't listen to me, this and that will happen... So, help me clean up and I'll teach you how to break your fate..." Immediately, that person would obediently work for her.

Lou Lifan and Pei Linhai were naturally assigned to the same group again. The people who grouped them looked at them strangely, with strange smiles, the kind that were ambiguous. Pei Linhai felt a chill run down his spine. Lou Lifan seemed to have no reaction, only glancing at them indifferently from the corner of his eye. Those people were smart enough to see the ferocity hidden beneath that glance, and they quickly finished assigning tasks and ran away.

The two of them were to clean four classrooms in total, agreeing to clean two each. Pei Linhai readily agreed, saying it was no problem. However, after Lou Lifan asked Yu Jia and Pin Jia to help clean his section, he found Pei Linhai still dawdling in his two rooms. He had previously mentioned that his abilities weren't as specialized as others, and his knowledge of shikigami was particularly poor… Lou Lifan assumed his so-called poor skills simply meant he was slow at summoning and lacked proficiency… but he hadn't expected this…

When he and Yu Jiapin entered the room, Pei Linhai was working diligently by himself, while his shikigami… those five chubby, cat-like creatures were sleeping in the sun on the windowsill. They couldn't even fly, and when Lou Lifan and the others came in, they meowed a few times, serving as a sort of alarm. Lou Lifan wondered what his fat cats could possibly do, even if shikigami were allowed to be used while cleaning the dormitory area… fetch him scraps of paper?

He pulled Pei Linhai away from his hard work, a glint of pity appearing in his usually emotionless eyes. He turned and ordered Yu Jia and Pin Jia to help him. The two girls, of course, complained a lot, but there were "laws" governing the relationship between shikigami and their masters, which they couldn't disobey. So, they could only keep muttering and badmouthing Pei Linhai as they worked. For the sake of his own ears, Lou Lifan had no choice but to sheepishly drag Pei Linhai out of the classroom for refuge.

“Your shikigami… is really fierce…” Pei Linhai said with a wry smile. Seeing their owner run away, the five fat cats naturally didn’t want to stay with the two chattering women either, so they quickly jumped off the windowsill and scurried out, rubbing against their owner’s feet.

"They were both very difficult to deal with when they were alive, and their personalities naturally remain the same after they die... But if my personality were the same as that perverted principal, they would probably be a little more obedient."

When the words "perverted principal" were mentioned, Lou Lifan suddenly felt something cool and itchy on his neck... He touched it, but there was nothing there. However, the cool and itchy feeling remained.

Pei Linhai didn't notice his situation and just laughed as he replied, "Like that perverted principal..." He also felt a cool, itchy sensation on his neck, but when he touched it, there was nothing there. "If it were like that perverted principal, those two shikigami might not have willingly become shikigami."

Shikigami, also known as familiars, can be created through a process of sublimation that makes them willingly submit, like Mikapinka. However, if they are unwilling but someone insists on having them, then another method is used—forced spirit summoning. In the end, the created shikigami no longer has its original consciousness and is merely a tool for killing and cursing.

Lou Lifan touched his neck and noticed that Pei Linhai was doing the same thing, so he asked, "You... don't you also feel something's a little strange..."

"That's right..."

The entire school has only about seven or eight thousand students, and with faculty and staff, it's nearly ten thousand. Yet the teaching building alone has 147 floors, with fifteen classrooms on each floor—that's roughly five or six students per classroom. Is that necessary?

"So, this teaching building really wasn't just built for 'people'."

Besides them, there were also students in the "night class" attending classes here. Vice Principal Paulina didn't say anything different about the night class students compared to the evil spirits they had encountered before coming to the school. Judging from the school's generally twisted reasoning, they probably weren't benevolent spirits either. So, the nighttime internship was truly a terrifying ordeal.

“I noticed it the first time I entered the teaching building,” Pei Linhai said. “This building is located 66,666 meters away from the Ghost Gate, facing the Ghost Gate, and forms an irregular hexagonal shape with the male and female dormitories on both sides. This is the best way to summon ghosts…”

What a twisted design...

"Is this some kind of training exercise for the students?" Lou Lifan muttered to himself.

Pei Linhai laughed: "...Of course, it's not impossible...but that kind of principal...never mind. Hmm, but in my opinion, this summoning spell is practically flawless. No matter which of the 'pillars' forming the formation malfunctions, the other 'pillars' will immediately become 'counter-spells,' pulling all the ghosts here back to the Gate of Hell. Who designed this? Such a high-level 'spell'..."

A red-haired girl dressed in a neutral style walked past them and smiled at them. Her sneakers made a soft swishing sound as they hit the ground.

Pei Linhai smiled at her, of course. Lou Lifan, however, frowned.

"Li Fan?"

"wrong……"

"Huh?"

While they were chatting here, other people were also chatting at the doors of other classrooms. They were probably people with shikigami abilities as well. People were running around and playing around in the hallway. It was a lively scene.

If it were the kind of lively scene we just witnessed, it would be impossible to hear the sound of other people's sneakers walking on the ground!

Suddenly, everything went quiet, without them noticing. Until the girl appeared…

When they looked up and around, they were astonished to find that the place was completely empty. Everything was still there, but the people were gone. The five fat cats were nowhere to be seen either. Lou Lifan rushed back to the classroom, where Yu Jia and Ping Jia, who were cleaning, had also disappeared. No matter how hard he tried to search with his intuition, he couldn't find them!

He shoved Pei Linhai, who was following behind him, and ran out of the classroom. The girl who had been smiling at them was gone, even though she had clearly walked towards the dead end of the wall...

"It seems we're...stuck in a maze again..." Pei Linhai said with a helpless smile.

This maze was completely different from the one in the dormitory building. If the previous one still had an element of mischief, this one was a very serious warning that this was not a game.

The previous maze was a completely different space opened up within the original space, a very low-level "technique" that only required tearing it open. But this one is different; all the "laws" of the original space have been applied here. If one is shaken, the other will be shaken in the same way.

It is "that" space, yet it is not. It can be said to be parallel to "that" space, or it can be said to be superimposed on it.

This time they could not "tear it open" as they had last time, because they did not have the power to "tear open" the "space" that had been "naturally formed" by utilizing the "laws".

"Seriously...this is a headache..." Pei Linhai muttered to himself, scratching his head. He suddenly remembered the word they had used to describe the principal earlier—freak...

He was thrown out of the teaching building when he accidentally called the principal a pervert during registration, so will he be the same this time...? He looked at Lou Lifan, who seemed to be thinking about the same thing, his face looking very unpleasant.

“If that’s the case…maybe this entire building is surrounded by his ‘psychic power’…no, the entire academy might be within his psychic range…” Lou Lifan said, “I’m afraid his psychic power is eavesdropping everywhere…”

The average person's mental power can only extend to about 100 meters, and the remaining time at 100% is only a few days at most. If we extrapolate from this, then the spiritual power of that perverted principal... must have reached a terrifying level!

“But don’t think about it too much, getting out of here is the priority,” Pei Linhai said. “Besides, it might not even be him.”

Lou Lifan could only nod.

The building hasn't changed much; apart from the absence of the two of them, almost everything else remains the same.

—Of course, it's only "almost".

They were currently on the seventy-seventh floor. To break through the maze's "eye," they needed to find its location. Only then could they possibly escape. However, the "eye" of a maze was usually very difficult to find, as it was often hidden by the person who cast the spell. Lou Lifan used all his spiritual power to probe for the maze's "eye," but still found nothing.

In that case, I'm afraid I'll have to go find it myself...

Lou Lifan originally wanted Pei Linhai to go up while he went down, searching each floor one by one, which would be more efficient. Unfortunately, Pei Linhai's sensory perception was almost zero; even if he walked right past the "eye" or stepped on it, he probably wouldn't sense it. So he had him follow him, searching each floor one by one.

The staircase in the teaching building is spiral and very wide. At each floor, there is an interface between the staircase and the floor, and they all look exactly the same.

At first, Pei Linhai and Lou Lifan were mentally counting which floor they had reached, but after descending more than ten floors, they began to feel dizzy. Every floor was the same, without signs or special markings; every step was identical, and the view from one step to the next was always the same. Gradually, these same things began to repeat before their eyes, over and over and over and over…

Lou Lifan suddenly lost his footing and tumbled down the slope with only a scream.

"Li Fan!"

The spiral staircase had no obstruction, and people just rolled down it floor by floor. Pei Linhai tried his best to chase after it, but he couldn't keep up with its speed.

"Li Fan! Grab the railing! Li Fan!"

Lou Lifan's consciousness began to fade as he rolled down. He could hear Pei Linhai's shouts, but he didn't understand what he was saying.

He just kept rolling and rolling and rolling... until... he was out of Pei Linhai's sight...

"Li Fan————————————————!"

Lou Lifan felt as if he were immersed in some kind of soft liquid, drifting aimlessly, without up or down, left or right, without time or space...

It seemed like someone was chuckling and chuckling around him, poking his back, his limbs, and even his head.

"Hey, is he dead?"

"No, no, that won't happen!"

"I heard his spiritual power is at least B-level."

"What does it matter! Byte wants us to have fun!"

"I haven't had any toys in ages, I'm going to have some fun today!"

"Look what Byte has prepared for us!"

Wow! That's awesome!

Hahahaha～～～～～～～～～

What...what's going on...where am I...who...is beside me...?

Several small, delicate hands grabbed his clothes and flipped him over. He had no strength left, and he couldn't open his eyes.

"Wow, your skin looks amazing! Let me touch it!"

"Ah! Look what I found! There's even this!"

The rustling sound of clothes...

"Byte is such a good person~~~~"

"Let's hurry! It won't be fun if he wakes up! Hehehehehe~~~~"

Several hands began to work together to remove his shirt, unbuckle his belt, and pull down his pants...

What are you doing?!

Lou Lifan roared inwardly, trying desperately to open his eyes, but failed. It was like being trapped in a nightmare. He wanted to break free, but something was holding him back. He could only lie there helplessly, letting those hands manipulate him… In his desperation and rage, his vision blurred…

He fainted.

Lou Lifan rolled down silently. Pei Linhai only realized what was happening after he had rolled out of his sight and was no longer able to catch up.

What exactly happened? If the "laws" of that world were being fully applied here, then this shouldn't have happened!

While frantically searching his mind for explanations of such events in past documents and other paranormal schools, he continued running relentlessly downstairs, hoping to catch up with Lou Lifan. However, to his disappointment, not only could he not find any information on this subject, but Lou Lifan had also completely vanished without a trace.

Is this really a space created by that perverted principal? Was it really just to get revenge on them for calling him a pervert, sending them here? What exactly is this place? If it's not a "maze," then what could it be...?

What are you... looking for...?

He suddenly stopped and looked back. The beautiful girl with waist-length red hair and androgynous clothing was standing on a flight of stairs more than ten steps above him, tilting her head to look at him.

"Who are you……"

There shouldn't be anyone else in this place besides him and Lou Lifan! He released his spiritual power, trying to probe the girl's "attributes" and find out her identity, but his probe failed. His spiritual power drifted aimlessly over the spot where the girl stood, as if nothing existed there. His spiritual mechanics teacher had once said that spiritual power wasn't an omnipotent detector; if anything came closest to being omnipotent, it was spiritual perception. Spiritual power was extremely susceptible to other influences, such as barriers or distortions in the spiritual field. Therefore, even if spiritual power probed empty space, it absolutely couldn't be concluded that there was no "person" there. If he had spiritual perception, he could make a more complete and sensitive detection, but he didn't.

How tragic!

"My name is Yuanni." The girl stood there, seemingly motionless. But her body did seem to be moving, as she gradually approached him as she spoke.

It was a very strange feeling, as if she were in an elevator and he was standing next to that slowly moving elevator, watching her slowly come down.

"Who are you?" She was still descending, her beautiful eyes fixed on Pei Linhai.

“Pei Linhai, my name is Pei Linhai.”

"Hello, Pei Linhai." She stood at the same level as him, looking up at him. "You're so tall."

"Really?" As he said this, a sudden longing welled up inside him, a desire to touch her hair, and he did just that. A mesmerizing smile appeared on the girl's face, and his heart was instantly captivated.

"Hehehehehe...Alright, alright!"