Lan Qi’s footsteps drifted like a wandering breeze, his figure in the dim corridor light appearing hazy—like a messenger emerging from the black depths of the hall.
Unlike the vast majority of demon students, Lan Qi’s demonic traits were entirely white, rendering him elegant and harmless-looking, resembling some kind of healer or support-type special demon.
Yet in the eyes of the “lucky” demon student Bacher, who had been caught by Lan Qi and Huperion, that pure white radiance of hell was nothing but eerie, unnatural, and deeply unsettling.
Because as the victim, Bacher knew all too well what insane, twisted deeds this white demon had committed back in the exam hall!
“Why were you running?”
Lan Qi stood at Bacher’s side, his gentle voice like a breeze brushing the surface of a lake—yet carrying with it a solemnity that could not be shaken.
You’ve got the face to ask me that?!
The instant Bacher heard Lan Qi’s question, an uncontrollable spark of rage flickered in his eyes. His clenched teeth ground against each other with faint creaks.
If not for this bastard, he could have passed two peaceful hours, completed an exam, and earned at least one credit coin!
But now—he was forced to wander this perilous corridor, threatened by death at every turn.Yet the anger just rising in his heart was swiftly smothered, trampled beneath fear and his desperate will to live.
If he wanted to survive, as a mere second-tier student, no matter how much backbone he might claim, he could never afford to provoke the two standing before him.
It was precisely this clarity and survival instinct that had let him live until now—enough even to escape under the very eyelids of two demon examiners.
“If you don’t have credit coins, and the Dean catches you wandering the corridor during class hours, you’ll be killed on the spot!”
Bacher blurted out in a rush, eyes darting nervously toward both sides of the hall. His tone carried desperation, as though begging Lan Qi to let him go, to let him hurry into a classroom.
Lan Qi watched his panic. Though the explanation left him half-confused, he understood at least why the other demon students preferred diving into deadly classrooms rather than loitering in the corridors.
“Is this what you’re talking about?”
From his pocket, Lan Qi drew several coins, glimmering black-gold, and dangled them before Bacher’s eyes.
The coins were about half an inch in diameter, exquisitely forged, heavy and solid in the hand.
Their deep black sheen caught the faint corridor light, glowing with a molten red glimmer like magma in the pit of hell. At the center of each coin was the academy’s crest, encircled by a dense ring of runes written in the demonic script—rendering them impossible to counterfeit.
Lan Qi figured these must be the very “credit coins” Bacher had spoken of. Instead of asking directly, he phrased it as a guess.
“?!”
Bacher’s eyes widened in disbelief—how did Lan Qi have so many credit coins?
Still, he bobbed his head vigorously.
Lan Qi smiled faintly. He understood.
These coins were exactly what they had scooped up earlier when leaving the exam hall, looted from demon student corpses. Most of them had been efficiently plundered by Huperion, who had transformed into a stealthy thief to maximize her haul.
“Tell me everything you know about this school. For each coin, I’ll give you one. A fair trade, don’t you think?”
Lan Qi first tossed a coin to Huperion, securing her safety, then raised another, its glow refracted across his eyes, as he looked at Bacher.
“O-of course!”
Bacher nodded frantically, seizing the deal without hesitation.
Among demons, trades were usually honored—and this Bacher even carried a touch of noble bearing, likely a scion of some aristocratic demon family. For such demons, upholding the honor of their house lent additional weight to their word.
“Then start talking. To save time, begin with the rules and the most important parts. If I tell you to skip something, skip it.”
Lan Qi flipped the promised coin between his fingers as he spoke.
This way, Bacher wouldn’t realize that Lan Qi was utterly ignorant of the academy’s rules. Instead, Lan Qi could simply let him confess on his own.
“Alright.”
Bacher’s eyes stayed glued to the coin as he rushed his words, ever fearful that the Dean might appear at any moment.
“Passing a classroom course earns credit coins. Surviving in the school at all other times requires spending large amounts of them.
“Classrooms—there are all kinds, with different teaching styles or exam formats. But they’re always places where you gamble your life to learn.
“Then there are the functional areas, like the library, dining hall, or infirmary. Those places usually aren’t dangerous—but they cost coins.
“The school only operates at night, twelve hours each day. There are five classes, each two hours long, with four thirty-minute breaks between. Only during those thirty-minute breaks are the classroom corridors connected to the functional-area corridors.
“Every morning at 6 a.m., students must pay at least five credit coins to the school, in exchange for five graduation points. Accumulate 4,800 graduation points, and you can graduate from this Purgatory Corridor Academy, earning an official demon-world diploma…”
Lan Qi listened, nodding repeatedly.
He was beginning to grasp the basics of the school’s operation.
Though the Purgatory Corridor Academy appeared entirely indoors, in truth it was a vast network of interwoven corridors. At fixed intervals, the layout would shift, making it difficult even for veteran students to quickly find their way.
The classrooms that awarded coins had doorplates marked with symbols indicating their difficulty. The minimum was 1, the maximum 3. The difficulty level also determined the guaranteed reward.
For example, the previous exam hall had been difficulty 1—passing guaranteed at least one coin, with the possibility of extra rewards for outstanding performance.
“Like the exam hall—it’s passable at 50 points, but anyone who somehow scores 90, an absurdly high mark, will receive additional rewards.”
Bacher continued without pause.
As for the legendary perfect score of 100—Bacher couldn’t even imagine what kind of hidden prize that would trigger. No student had ever achieved it.
As for Lan Qi, who had simply destroyed the exam hall—he could never have received any official reward from the teachers, no matter how things ended.
But as Bacher thought about it more carefully, he instantly realized where Lan Qi’s pile of illicit coins had come from!
This freshman’s “corpse-looting” method of making money… was so much faster than honest exams!
“So—what about difficulty 2 and difficulty 3 classrooms? What do you think of them?”
For the first time, Lan Qi interrupted to ask a question.
He was calculating. If he took five classes a day, all difficulty 1, ignoring extra rewards, he’d earn only five coins.
After paying the daily mandatory five coins, he’d be back at zero again the next day, endlessly grinding just to break even.
That was the life of a wage slave. The life of students like Bacher.
But only those bold enough to attempt difficulty 2 classrooms could reliably earn more than five coins a day. Those students could build a surplus, skip classes occasionally, or even afford luxuries in the functional areas.