“Wayne Miller, just now when Eric Johnson was cursing me as useless and suppressing me, where were you to uphold justice? If it were Eric Johnson openly humiliating me right now, I bet you’d just stand by and clap your hands in delight!”

William Harris couldn’t help but retort coldly.

Wayne Miller and the other martial students have always been in cahoots with Eric Johnson; Wayne Miller jumping out at this moment is clearly to take revenge for Eric Johnson.

“I don’t care about anything else. Right now, you must kneel and apologize to Eric Johnson, admit you were wrong! Otherwise, after class, you’ll be sorry.”

Wayne Miller snorted, his voice harsh.

Even though he’s just Eric Johnson’s lackey, his status in the class is far above William Harris’s, so how could he tolerate William Harris’s provocation? A beating after class would be enough to leave William Harris half dead.

“No need to wait until after class. Before you get the chance to make me suffer, I’ll make you look bad right now!”

William Harris originally didn’t want to stir up more trouble, but at this moment he was also enraged.

He was always at the bottom of the class, a cowardly little martial student, everyone daring to mock and ridicule him without restraint.

Why should he have to endure all this humiliation!?

From now on, he would never let anyone trample over him again.

William Harris glanced at Wayne Miller’s fingers, a mocking look on his face:

“Wayne Miller, there’s still a bit of yellow powder under your right fingernail. You must have been forging a heavy sword and used sulfur ore.

This mineral only has a very faint neurotoxic effect, not obvious, so weapon forgers don’t classify it as a toxic mineral. They just require forgers to thoroughly clean their hands after using it.

Otherwise, after months or years of accumulation, it will erode the nerves in your fingers, causing you to lose sensitive touch.

You clearly didn’t take the forging instructor’s words seriously. The yellowish tint on your right fingers shows the toxin has already penetrated the skin, reaching the nerve endings, weakening your tactile sense by at least twenty percent.

For someone aspiring to become a weapon forger, this is a fatal blow! Do you think the Forgers’ Guild would accept someone with damaged finger nerves as an apprentice?”

Chapter 4: The Sorrow of the Martial Students

“W-what? There’s a faint neurotoxin in sulfur ore?”

Wayne Miller was stunned when he heard this, looking at his hands in terror.

Sure enough, the skin on his fingers was slightly yellow.

This was indeed caused by sulfur ore, but he had never known the mineral had even a faint toxicity, so he never paid attention.

And lately, he’d felt something was off with his hands, his grip unsteady and inaccurate.

Could this be chronic nerve poisoning?

Wayne Miller’s face instantly drained of color.

It’s over!

If the forging department examiners found out, he’d definitely get a terrible evaluation. And the Forgers’ Guild would never accept an apprentice with damaged finger nerves.

This could mean that after graduating from the junior Southern Chen Martial Academy, he’d become just an ordinary person, with no hope of rising any higher.

Before William Harris said all this, he’d always thought he was certain to become a forging apprentice.

But now, his fate had collapsed in an instant.

“Crack!”

“It’s over! Everything’s over for me, no, it can’t be, this isn’t real!”

Wayne Miller panicked, collapsing onto his seat, then falling to the floor, suddenly bursting into loud sobs, snot and tears streaming down his face, his mental defenses completely shattered—he was even more miserable than Eric Johnson.

“This…”

“Wayne Miller is finished…”

All the martial students in the class were dumbfounded, the room falling into dead silence.

They only knew that every time they used sulfur ore for forging, the academy’s forging instructor would always tell them to wash their hands carefully.

But they never knew that this mineral actually contained a faint neurotoxin.

The boys all looked at Wayne Miller with sympathetic eyes, feeling a pang of sorrow.

Wayne Miller had become the second unlucky one, after Eric Johnson, to be instantly crushed by William Harris.

They looked at William Harris in even greater fear. William Harris’s destructive power was terrifying—just a few words had ruined the futures of two classmates.

Many were shocked, but secretly relieved that most of them didn’t plan to specialize in forging.

Sandra Cooper saw both Eric Johnson and Wayne Miller break down one after another, and couldn’t help but feel pity. She pointed at William Harris and accused, “William Harris, how could you do this!”

“What did I do?”

William Harris took a deep breath, suppressing his anger, his expression turning incomparably cold as he looked at Sandra Cooper. “Too cruel, or too heartless? Is that what you’re dissatisfied with?”

“You’ve changed! You’ve become so sharp and mean, you’re nothing like the William Harris I used to know. How could you attack them like this! They’ve been our closest classmates for three years—don’t you care at all about that? You’d ruin them like this?!”

Sandra Cooper looked at William Harris with deep disappointment.

That strange look stung William Harris.

William Harris said coldly, “Yes, I have changed. I’ve realized what reality really is. I’ve seen clearly what my place is in your hearts these past three years. You all are close friends, but I’m just a passerby.”