The Broken Halo

Because of how many things Simon had to do, he began to cut down on his sleep.

Sleeping for four hours was a luxury, and there were times where he would not sleep for three, four days all because he had to train and learn new things.

His days were planned, and after attending his classes for over two weeks, he knew what classes to skip and what classes to attend.

If not for his constant interaction with Sunless, Sonya, Sormon, Akaza, and Lilith he would genuinely be living the life of a machine.

In the past, he genuinely believed that he would make no friends in the academy, but life had its way of forcing certain relationships.

His relationship with Sunless, Sonya, Sormon, Akaza, and Lilith was not one where he completely trusted them or even trusted them at all, but he could not deny that they made his academy life a little bit… more interesting and lively… even Sunless.

In these past two months, Simon had gotten stronger in various aspects, and one of them was his cultivation.

Unlike before where he rapidly improved his cultivation in mere days because of Devour, this time around, Simon decided to take it a little bit slow.

He was no longer a Minor Fiend, but a Superior Fiend.

And he was on the verge of becoming a Supreme Fiend.

If not for the fact that he didn’t want to cross the invisible line of the suspicions of the upper echelons of the clan, he would be on the verge of becoming an Archfiend.

The passive state of Devour was an ability many demons, humans, and even gods would want to have.

And combined with Simon’s Seven Stars Blessing that slowly improved his proficiency of Devour, especially its passive state, his absorption rate of demonic energy was slowly increasing.

The higher his cultivation base, the more demonic energy he needed, and this was where money came in.

He had a lot of money compared to majority of his classmates.

But it was barely enough to satisfy his needs and wants.

He needed to rent books on mental techniques and chaos runes.

He needed to buy demonic beasts for the Eternal Mind Zoo technique, and because his sea of consciousness was so sturdy and vast, he could bear the weight of many beast Wills.

Normally, this would have been a great thing, but it cost him a lot of money to purchase beasts.

Fortunately for him, his mental energy was enough to sustain the beast Wills.

Aside from this, he needed money to exchange for hell stones, and he also needed money to use the cultivation tower whenever he wanted to breakthrough or whenever he just wanted some peace and quiet.

Even though Devour increased made him to absorb and refine demonic energy a lot faster, he needed more demonic energy and a higher concentration of it to increase his cultivation by a single percentage.

He needed money to eat.

And he also needed money for so many other little things like purchasing information, going to the clinic after getting beaten blue black by Sormon, buying herbs and certain things to make some poisons, antidotes, and medicine, and so many other little things.

To Simon, it felt like ages ago when it felt like the only things he needed money for was food and a cultivation room.

He came to the realization that embarking on so many paths of power needed a lot of resources and money.

He made a lot of money from selling the sovereign ranked sword, but it was not enough.

Before he knew it, he started going broke, and Simon had to make more money than the little thousand merits he was making from extorting his classmates.

So, he decided to do a few things.

First of all, he decided to gamble on some duels that took place among his classmates and even among the second years.

He would use his experience and skills to figure out the Initiate that would win the battle.

He won most of the times, and the few times that he lost was because of a foolish mistake from the Initiate he bet on or because of something he didn’t predict.

Gambling was not a stable income for him since duels were not an everyday thing, but it alleviated his financial problems to some powerful extent.

Another thing he did was to expand the Iron Fangs.

His classmates and a lot of Initiates and even instructors believed that he was peaceful throughout these two months, but that was far from the truth.

Through the information that was given to him by the slaves, he began to target all the gangs aside from the Vipers Nest, Stone Crushers, Black Thorns, and any other gang that was controlled by a faction.

In the middle of the night, he would go to the headquarters of the gangs with the Iron Fangs, subdue them, poison them, and force them to join the Iron Fangs while selling some of their properties.

After doing this to all the gangs who had no backers, the Iron Fangs began to grow, and the factions began to notice this.

Because he was stronger, and because Akaza was also taking his training more seriously, both of them along with the members of the Iron Fangs were able to subdue many of these gangs with ease.

In the second week of the second month after Simon’s battle with Blackblade, the Iron Fangs and Simon began to extort some of the Second Years.

Simon was very careful with his targets, and with the help of the information of the slaves and the Intelligence Office, he made sure not to touch any faction member.

Doing this was extremely risky for Simon, but he knew the line that should not be crossed, and he made sure not to cross it.

The Iron Fangs were no longer a gang the factions and academy could ignore, and many complaints were laid out against them.

Actions were also taken against them, and some factions acted against Simon and the Iron Fangs.

However… their actions were more subtle.

And this was why many of Simon’s classmates had no idea that there was a silent war going on between Simon and the factions.