Chapter 263
"Simon Wilbury, sole son of Baroness Wilbury and Major Wilbury," Soran said.
‘If his mother is a baroness, it means that she''s a True Mage,’ Shang thought with furrowed brows. ‘Military titles are normally
only given to warriors, and, as far as | know, a major is also usually at the Commander Stage.’
‘They would definitely have the funds tomission a Cleaner.’
"Can you tell me more?" Shang asked.
"As the sole heir, Simon Wilbury was supposed to be a True Mage and lead the Wilbury household,” Soran said.
“However, he was born without an Affinity."
“Without an Affinity?" Shang asked with raised eyebrows.
Being born without an Affinity was possible, but it was rare.
Soran nodded. "Being born without an Affinity makes it very difficult to be a Mage. While it is possible to train in Element
Neutral Magic, these kinds of Spells only be prevalent near the very top of the Adept Realm. Even if someone wants to
specialize in Element Neutral Magic, they would still need to gain experience with some Elements."
"If someone wants to purely advance on the path of Magic, they need to master the maniption of Mana. Something like that
requires practice.”
“But since the Element Neutral Spells are either extremely easy, like Mana Shield or Mana Step, or extremely hard, like Mind
Read and Mana Force, it is very difficult for someone to be a True Mage by only relying on Element Neutral Spells."
"Getting started isn''t an issue. Bing a True Mage after bing a Peak Adept isn''t an issue."
“But everything between is an issue."
"Imagine you are building a very big andplex contraption, but you only know what parts you need and how to create the
mostplex part of the contraption."
"You have all the parts, and you have the core, but you don''t know how to build everything.”
"That''s the situation these kinds of people are in."
Soran leaned back in his chair. "Of course, there is a way to still seed."
Shang looked at Soran. "The warrior path, right?”
Soran nodded. "By strengthening your body, your mind gets strengthened regardless, and as long as you don''t have a warrior''s
body, the strengthening also wouldn''t be that much weaker."
"Simon Wilbury would have only needed to reach the Early Commander Stage. At that point, his mind should have be
powerful enough to train in the moreplex Element Neutral Spells."
"So, of course, his parents sent him to the Warrior''s Academy. From what I''ve heard whilepiling his file, it was his father that
taught him nearly everything Simon knew about fighting.”
“And he was really good at it," Soran said.
Shang only looked at Soran.
"On the very first day, Simon was fighting for first ce in not only his ss but the entire Grade."
Shang nodded.
That truly was impressive.
"Sadly, after losing to an even more talented warrior, Simon lost all his drive. It was like he no longer cared about being in first
ce, which resulted in his eventual decline."
“A couple of yearster, Simon was still very strong, but he wasn''t even in the top 5 of his Grade anymore. The other students
simply worked much harder."
“Another issue was also that he only very rarely went hunting, and he earned most of his Contribution Points by stealing
resources from other students."
“As you know, we don''t forbid stealing resources. That''s mainly to give the students a safe ce to learn about these things.
Some students learn how to steal, which will help them in the future when they need resources. Other students learn how to
protect themselves from thieves. You would much rather learn this lesson by only losing a couple of days’ worth of Contribution
Points instead of some very valuable ore you nearly gave your life to obtain.”
“And Simon Wilbury could be viewed as a sort of ‘teacher’ that taught how to protect yourself from people coveting your things,”
Soran exined.
“He was pretty sessful in his banditry."
"That was until he ran into you," Soran said.
Soran took out Simon''s file again and pointed at a ce on the first page that was about halfway down.
“Everything | told you was only in the first half of the first page," Soran said, "and the reason why this file is so long is entirely
rted to the changes in Simon''s life after you two met."
Just by looking at the length of the file, Shang could imagine that this day hadpletely changed Simon''s life.
“What happened after that?" Shang asked.
Soran pushed the file away again and looked at Shang.
“His physical wounds had been healed in a matter of minutes. Our Water Mage is very good at healing."
“But for the next week, it was basically impossible for anyone to have a normal conversation with Simon."
“At first nce, he appeared normal, but whenever he talked to anyone, he would talk very fast, stumble over his words, and his
voice would be very high.”
"In short, he fell into a minor panic as soon as another human interacted with him."
Soran leaned his head on one of his fists as his eyes looked at the file lying on the table.
“Mervin took special care of Simon, and he tried to get Simon limated to human society again.”
“And it worked. Just one monthter, Simon was normal again."
“However, two things were not the same."
"First, when Simon was supposed to spar, he wouldmit a great number of mistakes due to nervousness."
"Second, even though Simon hadn''t hunted much in the past, from that moment on, he has never hunted again."
Soran pointed at the file again. "70% of this file are reports and evaluations from different teachers regarding Simon''s abnormal
mindset and his problems at the academy."
“Of course, things only got worse. The other students noticed how weak Simon was, and they made fun of him for not even
having the courage to spar with them. They called him weak-willed, pathetic, and a disgrace to every warrior."
“After several months of all of this, Simon finally had enough andshed out. His rage exploded forth, and he pulled out his
weapon.”
"He tried to kill another student, but the student evaded the attack and kicked Simon to the ground."
"While Simon had been dealing with these things, the other students had continued training, and Simon couldn''t even be
counted as average by this point."
"A teacher arrived shortly after, and Simon was expelled. Drawing your weapon on another student without them drawing theirs
first is forbidden."
Soran pushed four of the five pages of the file to the side.Content rights by N?velDr//ama.Org.
"That happened a bit more than a year ago," Soran said. "From what I''ve heard, he returned to his parents, and they put him
through therapy and intense training. They were doing their best to push Simon forward until he was outstanding again.”
“And five monthster..."
"They found his corpse hanging from a noose inside his room," Soran said.
Silence.
Shang took a deep breath.
Shang had somewhat made peace with this entire incident, but he still had some regrets.
After all, he viewed Simon as a kid.
"He died around seven months ago,” Soran said as he looked at Shang. "And you said that the Cleaner mentioned that he has
been searching for you for about six months, right?"