Lian sat through class as usual. By lunch break, he grabbed something to eat and started heading back.
That's when he noticed them.
Kair and his group.
They had cornered a thin, nervous-looking student. The guy kept insisting he didn't have enough credits, but Kair didn't look convinced.
"I'm only asking for ten percent of your monthly credits," Kair said, voice calm but firm. "Did I ask for more?"
Kair wasn't stupid about it. He didn't shake down the whole class — that kind of volume would get you dragged to the principal's office. He kept his list small and he also don't extort girls as he had his own principles. He only extorted few people who were scared of him, and few others who's secrets Kair got hold of and using it as blackmail.
Lian watched for a moment, then looked away.
I almost forgot, today is the first of the month, time does fly really fast.
All students received monthly academy credits, which could be spent on food, books, runes, and other resources.
Most used them on runes, ether crystals, or anything that helped them get stronger.
The amount varied by class. The Class A students received the highest allocation, and it decreased with each lower class. By the time it reached Class D, the amount was barely enough to be useful.
At one point, even Lian considered extorting his classmates.
He dropped the idea.
Not out of sympathy, but taking from one rich target is always better than squeezing ten broke ones.
These credits determined your access to academy resources. Higher grades meant more credits and better access to resources, ranging from basic supplies or components to full sequence 2 runes.
That alone made Class A worth it.
--
And right now once again Lian is facing the biggest problem he faced since he came to this world.
He is flat broke.
The patent he had licensed wouldn't hit his bank account anytime soon. It would take few months just to move into production, then more time for distribution, marketing, and actual sales.
Even after that, the money had to go through approvals, budgeting, and allocations before it reached him.
Even the advance he received from signing the licensing deal was already gone.
Every bit of it had gone into building the invisibility rune.
He had to modify it multiple times, and each attempt cost money. Components burned out. Ether lines had to be redrawn. A single mistake in the spell or a bad connection between modules meant starting over.
Each mistake burned through more money.
Now, he had nothing left.
The practical combat exams were just a month away.
And Lian still needed to build an offensive rune strong enough to overpower students who had already reached Sequence-2
He needed money for that.
And to get that money, Lian had already put together a plan.
Extortion.
He had a few targets lined up. One of them was a girl from Class D. Unlike Kair, Lian didn't operate on morals or boundaries.
He had seen her outside the academy once, dressed in expensive clothes and accessories. She was at a movie theatre, laughing with friends, the same movie Lian and his group had gone to that day.
Back then, he hadn't thought much of it.
But over the past week, he had marked her as a target and started digging into her background.
The results were… unexpected.
Her family wasn't particularly wealthy. Her father worked as a chef in a high-end restaurant, but that alone didn't explain her lifestyle.
Which meant one of two things.
Either she had her own source of income… or there might be someone else who's giving her money.
Either way, it didn't matter.
If she could spend like that, he could take a cut.
Lian decided to follow her and see if he could find anything useful.
For the past week, he had been shadowing her using the invisibility rune, slipping in and out of range a few times each day. Listening in on conversations. Watching her behavior. Noting patterns.
After a while, he let out a quiet sigh.
This is such a headache… It feels like I'm some jobless obsessed fan who's stalking his favourite celebrity.
He never preferred this kind of approach. It was slow, inefficient, and relied too much on time. In his previous world, he would've just pulled everything from their digital records or simply by hacking into their social media accounts.
But here?
Most students didn't even carry phones.
So this was the only option.
A full week passed, and he still hadn't found anything directly useful.
But it wasn't a complete waste.
It gave him time to study her—her behaviour, reactions, the small unconscious patterns people couldn't fake.
Lian called it a "character fingerprint."
He'd picked up the concept from declassified psychological profiling documents from intelligence agencies.
He didn't remember the original term so came up with this simple name.
In short—by observing subtle, unconscious behaviour, you could predict how a person thinks, reacts, and makes decisions.
Well, he had heard her mention working a part-time job to her friends once. He noticed the slight hesitation and stutter.
Yeah… "part-time job."
He didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out that she was meeting someone—someone with money—and using the job as a cover.
He'd seen this pattern too many times before. Back in his previous world, people ran double lives like it was a side quest. Some even had actual partners while doing it.
He didn't even need to hack her phone.
He could tell just by looking.
--
That weekend, Lian was following her while being invisible, until she got into a bus.
Lian clicked his tongue.
This is going to take a while.
He summoned back the rune, threw on a cap, and sat in the back row like a normal passenger.
He kept his head low, watching.
When she got off, he followed at a distance.
She walked for a few minutes.
Then a car pulled up.
And she got in.
A car. Of course. He had maybe thirty seconds before it disappeared around the corner.
Chasing behind a car in plain sight wasn't exactly subtle. Anyone with a rear view mirror would notice.
He activated the invisibility rune and took off.
Before this, he had already picked up a Quickstep rune using his student credits—a pair of shoes that slightly boosted speed and reduced fatigue just enough to keep up.
Still, it wasn't easy.
Luckily, About ten minutes later, the car slowed and pulled over near a casino.
Lian exhaled.
Finally.
He still had around five minutes of invisibility left. He easily slipped past the bouncers at the entrance and walked behind them.
Inside, the place was loud.
Music. Laughter. People drinking and dancing, moving under flashing lights.
A mess of noise and motion.
I guess this isn't a casino. Looks like a club… or a pub. Whatever.
It was dim enough that faces blurred under the lights.
Lian dropped the invisibility for a moment and scanned the room.
He spotted her quickly.
She was on the dance floor, moving with a man in his early thirties.
Lian stood there for a minute watching it all.
Everyone around him are dancing, drinking, or high out of their minds while Lian was just standing still like an NPC.
Yeah… no. I'm not built for this shit.
Lian reactivated the invisibility rune.
He moved through the crowd and got closer and then took few photos with his camera. The lighting was bad, faces unclear.
Then they left the floor and headed into a side room after some time.
Lian followed.
Inside, He got some clear pictures of them together with Drinks, pills and even few drugs.
He took few more photos.
He lingered for a bit, watching for anything more useful, but the cost was adding up. The rune was draining ether fast, and he was already burning through crystals.
On top of that, he hated loud and crowded places like this. So he decided to leave and extort her the next day.
Lian left the club with evidence in hand.