Soulless Soul

Chapter 29: New Allies

The foundational lesson ended soon afterward. As the massive crowd of freshman Commons filed out of Professor Winter’s dimly lit, book-stuffed classroom, the ambient chatter immediately shifted toward the upcoming, highly anticipated expedition into the unknown world of the Dungeon Realm.

Some of the upper-district students were noticeably excited, their eyes gleaming at the prospect of fame and glory. Others were completely pale, their hands trembling slightly as they clutched their standard-issue clipboards.

Sky simply stuffed his hands deep into his uniform pockets and walked calmly toward the eastern training wing. After listening intently to Professor Winter’s detailed philosophical explanation, he understood exactly how critical their very first practical dungeon deployment would be.

It wasn’t a formal, high-stakes Dungeon Run. No one’s absolute Rank or Class would magically increase upon completion but can if you have some luck. This was, first and foremost, a dangerous field assessment to test whether they could successfully survive against flesh-and-blood dungeon creatures. As he rounded a sharp stone corner leading into the auxiliary workshop corridor, a loud, metallic clang suddenly echoed down the hallway.

"Ah!"

A sharp, panicked cry immediately followed the impact. Several mechanical components, copper gears, and small wiring harnesses scattered frantically across the highly polished floorboards.

A small, custom-built drone, no larger than two human hands pressed together, bounced once against the marble before crashing violently into the stone wall. One of its delicate carbon-fiber propellers snapped clean off, rolling right to the tip of Sky’s heavy boot.

Sky stopped in his tracks and looked up.

Chloe stood completely frozen a few paces away. Her collapsible white cane was resting uselessly against the wall behind her, while her empty, slender hands frantically searched the cold air in front of her.

"My drone..." she whispered, her milky white, vacant eyes wide with distress. She immediately knelt down onto the hard floor, her fingers carefully feeling across the cold tiles to track the pieces. Sky didn’t hesitate. He immediately crouched down directly beside her, his sharp eyes pinning the location of every stray screw. "Hold on," he said, his voice level. "Don’t move around too much or you’ll step on the pins. I’ll help you pick them up."

"Thank you..." Chloe said, letting out a soft sigh of relief. A gentle, deeply grateful smile appeared on her face despite the clear disappointment bleeding into her tone. Sky began methodically collecting the scattered, delicate components from the ground. "So this is the specific mechanical drone you’ve been working on lately?" Chloe nodded her head quickly, her purple hair swaying with the movement. "Mhm. It took me nearly a week of continuous tinkering to assemble the core flight board."

Sky picked up the chassis, inspecting it with a critical eye. "You built this entire thing by hand? From raw scraps?"

"Yes."

Sky loo ked down at the broken machine with a sudden flash of genuine surprise. Even with one propeller snapped off, the internal circuitry layout was surprisingly sophisticated, showcasing a level of intricate design that few regular freshmen could ever hope to replicate. "I still don’t fully understand the true nature of my Soul Core," Chloe admitted quietly, her voice dropping into a vulnerable whisper as her fingers traced a stray copper plate. "The Array calls it the Engineer... but because I am completely blind, I can’t read my floating digital status Array at all. So... I just keep manually making things, putting components together, and hoping I’m getting closer to understanding its hidden traits."

Sky handed her one of the recovered, intact sensor modules, his pragmatic mind calculating the sheer difficulty of her existence. "That’s... actually incredibly impressive. Most people with their sight intact can’t even calibrate a basic power cell."

Before Chloe could form a proper answer to his compliment, a set of slow, incredibly calm footsteps approached them from behind. The air in the narrow corridor immediately grew distinctly cold.

Vesper.

The silver-haired girl stopped a mere few meters away, her posture as rigid and elegant as a statue. Her piercing, ash-gray eyes immediately landed on the broken drone held firmly in Sky’s hands. Then, her gaze shifted down to Chloe kneeling on the floor. For a brief, terrifying moment... her expression cooled dramatically, and the ambient temperature plummeted.

"...Did you destroy it?" Vesper demanded, her voice like cracking winter ice as she stared directly at Sky.

Sky blinked, entirely taken aback by the sudden accusation. "What?" Before he could even begin to defend himself or explain the context, Chloe quickly shook her head, her hands waving in the air to intervene. "No! No, Vesper!" She smiled softly, her voice warm. "It wasn’t Sky at all."

Vesper remained perfectly silent, though her hand subtly drifted away from her weapon hilt.

"Someone from the upper classes accidentally bumped into me while I was walking down the main hall," Chloe explained thoroughly, adjusting her uniform skirt. "The drone simply slipped from my hands and broke. Sky just happened to be passing by, and he came over to help me pick everything up."

A brief, heavy silence followed her words. Vesper looked at Sky for several long seconds, her analytical gray eyes scanning his face for any sign of hidden mockery or malice. Finding nothing but his usual cynical indifference, she slowly lowered her defensive gaze slightly

.

"...I completely misunderstood the situation," she stated flatly. Then, after a short pause, she spoke again, her voice softening by a fraction. "I’m sorry, Skies." Sky scratched the back of his head with an awkward, dry laugh, letting out the breath he had been holding.

"It’s fine. Don’t worry about it."

"I judged the situation far too quickly," Vesper noted, crossing her arms over her neat uniform.

"It happens to the best of us," Sky replied, stepping back.

Chloe let out a bright, melodic giggle that bounced off the stone walls. "I guess silly misunderstandings happen to everyone, even to the number one student on the leaderboard."

The suffocating tension in the corridor instantly disappeared, evaporating into the air. For the very first time since arriving at the high-tech fortress of New Seoul, the three of them stood together without a shred of awkwardness or hostility. They were an unlikely trio: the legendary legacy descendant, the blind craftsman, and the bottom-ranked slum survivor.

Over the following days of the preparation cycle, that single, brief encounter in the workshop hall slowly grew into an unexpected, tight-knit friendship.

Every single afternoon after the official classes concluded, they bypassed the crowded training rings and headed to their private room to train together as a unit.

Sky focused intensely on improving his passive [Danger Sense], repeatedly forcing himself into highly volatile situations where raw instinct mattered significantly more than conscious thought. Vesper would relentlessly push him, her rapid-fire strikes forcing his nervous system to adapt to extreme speed.

Simultaneously, his tactical control over his Active Attribute, [Clones], improved by leaps and bounds. While the heavy energy constraints meant he could still only manage to create exactly three duplicates before exhausting the vast majority of his spiritual soul pool, the act of issuing complex mental commands became entirely natural. Coordinating multi-directional, synchronized attacks alongside his clones slowly became second nature to him, forging him into a lethal, unpredictable fighter.

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