Genius Seventh Prince Chapter 178: I Couldn't Care Less

Clenching his teeth, he wished he could strangle her but managed to hold himself back.

"In case you have not noticed, for all intents and purposes, I am blind! So I don't know where it is, obviously! The Kiryn is not making any noise either which is one of its specialties. Is it still moving towards us?"

"Why in the world are you still blindfolded?! Take the d*mn thing off already and help defeat this thing!"

"Is it moving towards us? Please answer the question!"

"No! It's just watching us from atop the trees. But it looks like it could pounce any ti now. So take off the f*cking blindfold and fight!" Far past holding to her etiquette training, Cherell could not prevent the curses from running out of her mouth.

"I refuse to fail because you are stupid and ignorant! We just need to work together, okay?" Greyson's angered reached a peak as he snapped at her before calming down. He still needed her help, so he could only ignore her mistakes and focus on what could be done in the present. He could easily solve the situation without the blindfold, but he really felt that failing the test this way was so dissatisfying. Why did the Duke have to pair him with this awful woman? From what he has heard, Cherell was one of the oldest of the representatives and was already in her late-30s. She had lived more than double the ti he had, but she could only act like soone half his age. Did she not live her life in vain?! He could only wonder how in the world she managed to live this long and reach her level.

"You!..." Cherell strongly wished to refute him, but she couldn't help but hold her tongue. She truly was the cause of the situations, so what more could she possibly say?

"Now, listen to . Do you have so sort of scented perfu on you? Or just anything that would release a strong sll?" Greyson just had to hope that she had a space magic tool. She obviously was not carrying anything with her.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes!"

"Give it to !" He quickly commanded.

"But... this was a limited..."

"Are you really quibbling at this point?!" Greyson growled.

Unwilling, Cherell pouted and brought out a vial of perfu. She walked over and placed it into Greyson's hand.

"Alright, now go far away and hide sowhere. I can't pay attention to protecting you, so protect yourself."

"What are you going to do?" Cherell couldn't help but ask.

"Sothing really dumb and risky. It would be right up your alley." He laughed dryly in response.

Cherell response was slightly delayed before she stomped her feet and quickly ran. Who was she kidding? She was not going to even stay around to watch. This was her chance to escape. She did not actually care what would happen to Greyson. Although she was not fast, she still managed to get further and further away.

The Kiryn continued skulking around watching their actions. Though she could not completely understand, she knew that the female was running. She contemplated chasing after her, but she soon caught a familiar scent that caused her eyes to turn red in rage.

Greyson had summoned that sa arrow from before that still slled of the blood of the young Kiryn. He knew that this would definitely anger the adult one around him sowhere. He needed it to confront him head-on. Kiryns were generally cautious beasts and did not attack with full force. They instead stayed hidden and tried to end the fight with one hard hit. Partly, because they liked to play with their prey, and partly because their forte was stealth. He could not continue to fight blind if he continued to be unable to sll or hear the Kiryn as it moved.

He could feel the silence around him that caused goosebumps from tension arise on his skin. Readying himself, he activated his dragon bloodline. The pure white scales appeared throughout his skin across his whole body. His body was taut at the ready to react. Just when he felt impatient, he felt a cold breath near his back. Before he could even shiver, he twisted his body and threw the perfu in his hand. At the sa ti, he felt a sharp claw rake against his left arm and torso. The scales cracked under the pressure and his body shot sideways into the trees. Trunk snapping under his weight, Greyson spit out a little blood as he felt an injury to his ribs. Although the scales broke most of the impact, it was inevitable that taking a direct hit would still cause damage. However, instead of frowning, Greyson laughed in relief.

Plan success!

Now, he could sniff out the pungent sll of perfu. While he could not identify exactly what sll it ca from, it was sweet and fruity and stood out imnsely in this forest. It seed like such a small vial, yet it carried such a strong fragrance. He thought his plan would only result in a faint sll that could stand as a marker, but it was better than he imagined.

While he was celebrating, he could hear a low growl and roar. Even more than him, the Kiryn was probably extrely bothered by the new sll on its body. Magic beasts in general usually had strong senses of sll, but the Kiryns were stealthy hunters. They were especially sensitive to their own scent and the scent of prey.

Not wanting to give the Kiryn a chance to recover from its surprise, Greyson quickly gather lightning and fire mana in his palm and shot out an attack in the direction he could sll. Their was an explosion and a pained yelp. He did not let up and continue to attack with all that he could pull together quickly. Too large of an attack would take too much ti to gather mana for and allow the Kiryn to escape. Plus, the more it moved around, the more the scent would spread to its surroundings. Then, Greyson would get confused by the overwhelming sll from all sides.

When he finally did not hear any more noise, Greyson finally stopped his rain of attacks. He gasped for breath as he had exerted himself to cast that many spells in rapid sequence.

"Cherell! Cherell, where are you? Did I defeat it? Can you see?" Shouting out loudly, Greyson tried to get her to approach once again. She had hid, but she should still be close enough to hear him, right? However, to his surprise, silence was his only answer. Furrowing his brows, he tried to shout to her again, but once again received no response.

"Did she actually f*cking run away?!" Although his opinion of Cherell was already low, she truly managed to make him reevaluate her. Was he not fighting the Kiryn so that they could both pass? He did not even ask her to help him, yet she actually dared to run away to leave him alone!

*ROAR!*

In the midst of his distraction, he could barely react in ti. Follow a final roar, the Kiryn charged with a fierce ice claw spell. Greyson managed to get a weak wood shield up using the trees around him. However, it only took off so of the edge. He put up both his arms in front of his chest to block, so they took the brunt of the attack. He felt the scales split and crack and the sharp claws ripped through his arms and cut into his lower abdon. Puking up a mouthful of blood, Greyson grit his teeth and grunted in pain. It seed the Kiryn had been fatally injured, though, and fell on top of Greyson without moving. Sensing that the Kiryn on top of him was not breathing, Greyson sighed in relief.

The weight on top of him was truly unbearable. Inhaling short breaths, he could not get his chest to rise to far underneath the Kiryn. He did not have any strength in his arms at this point, so he could not push it off of him. Trying to calm himself down, Greyson decided he did not have any other choice but to recover in this position. Closing his eyes, he started bring in light elent spirits around into his body turning into a stream of mana. His cuts and broken bones healed slowly. As the day started to darken, he was still stuck in the sa position waiting for his wounds to recuperate. Another day had been wasted and he had yet to reach their goal. At this point, Greyson had resigned himself to the fact that he would probably end up failing. He swore that the next ti he saw Cherell he would beat her into the ground, girl or not. He was barely keeping his thoughts from planning to kill her.

Shivering and teeth chattering from the snow lting and seeping into his clothes, Greyson could feel his exhaustion. Under normal circumstances, the cold would have no effect on him, but he was so hurt now that his mana and dragon bloodline could not protect him. Both were working in tandem to fix his injuries.

After a couple more hours, Greyson could feel the strength return to his arms. Pushing with both his arms and legs, he huffed with effort as the Kiryn slowly lifted off of him. With one final effort, the beast's body fell to the side at long last. Imdiate relief filled his body as he inhaled deeply filling his lungs. He kept lying there exhausted. All his mana had gone to healing his arms, that he did not have any left in store. Even the ditation did not help him restore mana but instead went straight to healing as well. Shivering, he brought his aching body into a sitting position and began to ditate once again.

The minute the mana began to flow through his veins, his body began to heat up once again. A sigh of comfort escaped his mouth. In the midst of his recovery, he finally heard the snow crunching near him as soone walked closer.

"You're alive? You managed to defeat it? Ugh... why do you sll as if you dumped my perfu on you?" When he heard that familiar voice, Greyson could not help but grind his teeth in anger. However, he was still weak, so he focused on recovering. He did not even deign to answer her at this point.

"Hello? Are you alive? I know you are because I can feel the mana gathering." Cherell continued to both him.

"I have to wonder if I'm truly the blindfolded one. Clearly, I'm injured. So just shut up and wait for ." Greyson had no patience or politeness left in him.

His words seed to work for once, as he no longer heard her annoying voice buzzing around his ears.

Their silence continued until the sun began to set and the sky grew dark. Both of them were silent as they both knew that they only had one morning left to try to pass the test.

"Are we going to try to hunt in the morning?" Cherell finally broke the silence.

"Yes, we are getting up at the break of dawn and working until the very last mont. You better work hard if you don't want to be punished by the Duke."

...

And they did just that. However, it was to no avail. They only managed to kill and catch six at the end. Greyson's face did not change expression the entire ti. Cherell could not tell if he was angry or not, but she still felt afraid of his brooding.

The two finally made it back to the edge of the forest where the rest of the representatives were waiting.

"Greyson, you look terrible, just what happened?" Aphina spoke out in shock.

Truly, Greyson changed his clothes, but not all the bruises had healed yet. He did not want to waste his mana on healing flesh wounds. He just needed to be able to hunt.

"A lot." He just sighed.

"Well, you all can take off the blindfolds now." The Duke announced.

As if finally freed, the four of them ripped off the blindfolds. The first thing Greyson did was glare dagger at Cherell.

"I already know the results, but I shall announce them here. All groups have passed except from the Greyson-Cherell pair!"

The seven other pairs of eyes all turned to look at Greyson and Cherell. Aphina and Braiden held a special amount of pity in their eyes.

"I accept whatever penalty. You can even add on an additional punishnt." Greyson cooly responded.

"Additional punishnt for what?" Aphina interrupted in confusion.

However, Greyson did not answer her. Instead, he turned towards Cherell and imdiately acted. Before Cherell could respond, he sent her flying with a flaming kick to the torso. She screeched in pain and spit up blood.

"What... are you doing?!" She managed to squeeze out amidst the pain.

"What I have been dying to do since the beginning!" He sneered before sending another fireball at her. He limited himself to the fire elent because he didn't want to kill her. Only the fire elent would do less damage even if he hit her directly.

"You only know how to bully won, you brute!"

"Please, then I could say that you only know how to rely on children, you imbecile. A blind one at that. Plus, if you are really going to join us in the competition, you need to know how to fight and not just hide behind the stronger ones. Who knows if the enemies will care if you're a woman or not? I know I sure don't care. Usually, they only go easy on the pretty ones, so you are pretty much dood anyway." As if he was finally exhaling the fire he was holding inside, Greyson could feel the anger dissipate. He beat her down into the ground again with one last fireball before stopping. He turned to the Duke, instead.

"Instructor, if you wish to punish for attacking a teammate, I will accept it." He could not care less about punishnt or penalties. He was just happy to finally teach her a lesson.

The Duke looked at him for a mont with his brow raised with a hint of smile visible.

"Well then I will now announce your punishnts:

Cherell, you will go to the criminal fighting arena. You must fight 5 death row criminals of the sa level as you.

Greyson, you will have extra training with every day at the crack of dawn."

The mont he finished, everyone grew silent. The other representatives couldn't help but wonder: what exactly had Cherell done to piss off the Instructor so badly?