“You should try it too, Instructor. Works wonders for dry skin.”

  Ron fell silent. After a long, stunned pause, he just waved a hand, dismissing him.

  “Guess I got found out…” John muttered to himself as he walked out, not the least bit worried. Even if Ron suspected something, there was nothing he could do about it.

  Killing a human was a crime. Killing a spirit? That was practically a medal-worthy feat.

  “Though calling it a low-level wraith… fits pretty well, I guess.”

  John was about to round the corner when he stopped short, turning back. “Instructor Ron—something’s happened in my neighborhood. A paranormal incident.”

  Ron was the real deal, a seasoned professional. If anyone could handle it, he could. John quickly recounted the bloody footprints and the dead man in the apartment.

  “Sounds like a textbook paranormal hit.” Ron nodded, his expression turning serious. “Head back to your class. Leave the rest to us.”

  “Aren’t you going to handle it right away?”

  “I wait for official orders and deployment, same as everyone else.” Ron shook his head. “Processing a paranormal incident isn’t as simple as you think. There’s a whole protocol to follow.”

  John said nothing, unsurprised. Paranormal incidents had a brutal death toll—even someone as strong as Ron risked his life every time he stepped into the fray. This wasn’t something to rush into.

  Professional spirit hunters were already in short supply. Losing even one would be a catastrophic blow.

  John made his way to his new classroom moments later: Intelligence Division Class 1.

  Over four hundred applicants had made the cut for the Intelligence Division at Heishui City No.5 High School, split into eight classes of roughly fifty students each. Combined with the Spirit Class rooms, they filled the entire first floor of the teaching building.

  Class 1 was already packed, every student grinning with excitement, chatting animatedly with their neighbors. Neither the Spirit Class nor the Intelligence Division had ever existed before—they were the first generation of Intelligence Division cadets, trailblazers in a new world.

  John picked a random seat in the back row, a quiet flicker of anticipation in his chest too.

  It wasn’t long before a broad, muscular man stepped through the door. He scanned the room with a sharp, steady gaze, then spoke.

  “Cadets. I’m your homeroom teacher for Intelligence Division Class 1. Name’s Ethan. I’ll be teaching you everything there is to know about spirits.”

  The class burst into applause, warm and eager.

  “Let’s cut the pleasantries. We start now.”

  Ethan picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled a single character on the blackboard: SPIRIT.

  It was just a word, but it hung in the air like a curse, silencing the room in an instant. A faint, cold dread pricked at the back of every student’s neck.

  “What is a spirit?” Ethan asked, his voice low and clear. “As you’ve all learned the hard way, they’re murderous abominations that appeared in our world out of nowhere—and they’re exactly like the ghosts of old folklore.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Fear, terror, bloodshed—those are their hallmarks.”

  He paused, letting the words sink in, then added a bombshell. “But they are not invulnerable. They have weaknesses.”

  Every head snapped up. Spirits had weaknesses?

  “Before I explain, let me ask you this: do you think spirits experience what we humans call emotions? Joy, anger, fear… desire?”

  Confusion flickered across every face. No one had ever dared to ask that question.

  “Yes.”

  The answer came from the back row—John. He spoke without hesitation.

  Every time the ghostly face on his chest devoured a spirit, he’d felt it: the pure, unbridled terror radiating from the vengeful spirit as it died. He knew firsthand.

  Ethan’s brow lifted in surprise, his eyes locking onto John. He nodded, impressed. “This cadet is right. Spirits can feel emotion—shock, confusion, even fear.”

  A murmur rippled through the class. Spirits… could be scared?

  “But unlike humans, they are what we call quasi-creatures.” Ethan’s voice turned grave, cutting through the whispers. “In their natural state, they have no emotional range at all. They are nothing more than killing machines, operating on a set program—hunt, terrify, kill.

  But when something happens to break that program? When they feel anything? They shift into a more ‘living’ state.

  And in that state, they become incredibly vulnerable. Their power plummets.”

  John froze, his eyes widening in surprise. He’d never imagined spirits had a weakness like this.

  “All of you play video games, right? Know what it means to tilt?”

  Every student nodded—tilt was universal slang for losing your cool, for letting your emotions get the better of you mid-game.

  “Think of a spirit’s emotional breakdown the same way. When they feel strong emotion? They tilt. Hard.”

  It was a revelation. The class leaned forward, scribbling furiously in their notebooks, committing the words to memory. A quiet wave of relief washed over them—this was the kind of life-saving knowledge they’d joined the Intelligence Division for. Knowledge no regular person would ever learn.

  “Not all emotions have the same effect, though. Our experiments show fear is the most powerful tilt trigger of all. When a spirit is scared, its power drops to a fraction of its normal strength.”

  John nodded to himself, a small smile tugging at his lips. He knew this better than anyone.

  The ghostly face never devoured a spirit easily at first—but as the spirit’s terror grew, the process got faster, easier. Now he knew why.

  Fear was a spirit’s greatest weakness.

  “Instructor—what about other emotions?” John spoke up suddenly, a curious glint in his eyes. He leaned forward, his voice earnest. “Like excitement. If we face a vengeful spirit, could we beg for our lives? Make it excited, then ambush it while it’s distracted?”

  Silence.

  Every single student in the room turned to stare at John, their eyes wide.

  You’re a genius. A fucking mad genius, but a genius.

  Ethan blinked, clearly caught off guard by the sheer audacity of the question. He stared at John for a long moment, then said, slowly, “That’s… a rather unique line of thinking.”

  A snort of amusement escaped him before he could stop it. “Unfortunately, excitement is the exception to the rule. It doesn’t tilt them—it empowers them. Makes them even stronger.”

  “Hmm.” John muttered to himself, a little disappointed his plan had been shot down.

  “To sum up: aside from excitement, nearly every other strong emotion is a negative state for a spirit. It weakens them. The stronger the emotion, the bigger the drop in power.”

  The class scribbled the words down, their notebooks filled with notes now.

  “How to make them tilt? That’s up to your quick thinking in the field.” Ethan smiled, a faint, dangerous glint in his eyes. “We’ve covered their weaknesses. Now let’s talk about the single most important thing you’ll ever learn: how spirits kill.”

  The room went deathly quiet. Every student sat up straight, their hearts racing.

  The weakness lesson had been important.

  This? This was a matter of life and death.

  Killing a spirit was a bonus. All they cared about was surviving one.

  “Fear is a spirit’s greatest weakness… but it’s also their favorite thing in the world.”

  Ethan turned to the blackboard, erasing the word SPIRIT and scrawling a new one in bold, red chalk: FEAR.

  Not a single student dared to look away. They hung on his every word, pencils flying.

  “A spirit will almost never attack a human on sight. First, it uses its unique ability to stir up the fear in a person’s heart—to dig into their deepest, darkest nightmares and drag them into the light. And when that fear is at its peak? When the human is paralyzed by terror? That’s when the spirit strikes. Kills them instantly.”

  He paused, letting the horror of the words sink in, then revealed the final, chilling truth. “Our research tells us why they do this. Spirits kill to devour human fear. It’s how they grow. How they evolve.”

  John’s pen froze mid-note. He looked up, his voice sharp with alarm. “Spirits can evolve?”

  The world was already drowning in paranormal incidents, spiraling out of control. If vengeful spirits could grow stronger, evolve into something worse…

  The thought was terrifying.

  This was straight out of an apocalypse novel.