My Skills Can Evolve Infinitely in a Game-Like World

Chapter 50: Selene’s Attitude & Library

Black hair. Black eyes.

A soft voice laced with contempt.

The moment it reached Aurelius’ ears, he didn’t even need to raise his head to recognize its owner.

Selene Novaltis.

His classmate and, more importantly, his companion in fighting against the Sunless Sect.

Indeed. When Aurelius looked up, a beautiful face entered his vision.

He was intimately familiar with that face.

It had only been a few hours since he had carried Selene’s wounded body back to her residence before returning to the Sol mansion and falling asleep.

Yet unlike the faint respect and sense of companionship she had shown yesterday, Selene’s face was now filled with disgust and disdain.

She looked at Aurelius as though she were looking at trash.

No. The disgust in her eyes made it seem that she was staring at something even worse.

"What are you waiting for? Idiot!"

"Move out of the way!"

Seeing Aurelius remain silent, standing in front of the entrance and staring at her absent-mindedly, Selene became even more furious.

Before he could say anything, she had shoved him aside, nearly slamming him onto the nearby wall.

Then, ignoring him completely, she walked away with brisk steps, leaving only her back to face him.

Throughout the whole process, the contempt and disgust had remained etched on her face.

Even until her figure disappeared into the rows of buildings, Aurelius had yet to recover.

Moments later, his face broke into a wry smile.

He had almost forgotten his true relationship with this woman.

Or rather, he believed that she must have forgotten about his previous offense by now.

Unfortunately, reality proved otherwise.

When facing him, Selene completely lacked the demeanor of a powerful Awakener, shedding the disguise of a cold Assassin and acting like a wounded girl.

Had he not known any better, Aurelius might have believed that she was just an ordinary person whose feelings had been toyed with.

Aurelius knew better, however.

He strongly suspected that this was a way for Selene to disguise her true identity.

As for the possibility that she had fallen in love with the past him and thus held a grudge, that should have been impossible...

’... Right?’

Aurelius shook his head, soon pushing this matter to the back of his mind.

After Selene disappeared, Aurelius entered the Academy as well and swiftly made his way toward the inner circle.

After asking Mia’s friend and learning that she had not yet returned from her vacation with her father, Aurelius no longer thought about thanking Homer for his earlier help.

He went on with the rest of his matters.

Before long, he found himself in a familiar building.

The Academy’s library.

Compared to his previous visit, the building was far more lively this time.

Dozens of students could be seen on the first floor, and several were leading on the second.

Aurelius failed to recognize any of them, though he was hardly surprised.

The number of times he had visited the academy could be counted in both hands. Besides a few of the more beautiful female students, he knew no one else.

After nodding in acknowledgement, he didn’t try to strike up a conversation but walked straight toward the many bookshelves.

Despite having come here in the past, the books were simply too many, numbering in the thousands.

It took him a while to find what he was looking for.

Soon, several books were stacked in his hands.

Their subject was simple: monster materials and rare plants.

Clearly, although Aurelius claimed not to care about being unable to craft the Mystery Cloak, he had not given up on this endeavor just yet.

His visit to the library was exactly because of that.

’If I wish to gather the required materials, the difficulty of obtaining them is one thing. Not being able to recognize them is another major hurdle...’

With that thought, Aurelius did not waste any more time.

After finding an empty table, he took his seat and began reading through the books.

Fortunately, his increased Intelligence had made his memorization ability soar.

He only needed a brief glance at a page for its contents to be engraved into his memory.

From start to finish, he only needed a couple of minutes to go through an entire book.

His actions quickly attracted some attention.

The students on the second floor glanced at him from the corner of their eyes, seemingly intrigued by his odd behavior.

However, none of them chose to dive any deeper.

There were all kinds of strange people in the Academy. Aurelius’ behavior was hardly the weirdest thing they had witnessed today.

’This guy must have been driven insane by the Academy’s large curriculum. No wonder I didn’t recognize him before...’ one student thought and shook his head with pity.

Such a handsome man had actually gone mad. What a waste of his good looks...

Aurelius neither knew nor cared about the other students’ thoughts.

Soon, he reached the last page and placed the final book onto the table.

Leaning back onto the chair, he closed his eyes, his mind working to digest everything he had just read.

A couple of minutes later, the description of thousands of precious ingredients had been memorized.

A split second later...

"Transmutation has been upgraded to Level 5."

A prompt arrived.

Not only had Transmutation been upgraded, but it had taken a large step toward advancing to Level 6.

Aurelius was only briefly surprised. Soon, he realized the reason.

’Sure enough, theoretical knowledge is as important as practical experience.’

’How can an Alchemist not be familiar with the ingredients they are asked to use? Simply refining Potions and crafting Relics cannot support an Alchemist forever.’

Aurelius shook his head. Rising to his feet, he placed the books back on their respective bookshelf.

He didn’t rush to leave, prepared to search for a few more books to enhance his "database".

But just as he lowered his head, he noticed something swirling around his feet.

Bang!

An explosion suddenly reached his ears, freezing him on the spot. The floor beneath his feet shook violently.

Meanwhile, black mist flowed out of the staircase leading to the third floor, coiling around his boots like shadowy tentacles.