SSS Awakening: Rebirth of the Strongest Vampire God novel Chapter 365

Chapter 365: What is going on here?

Damon smiled. Anyone whom this idiot criticized was basically above average and had the ability to become at least a Master in the future. Recruiting these people in bulk would only net him profits in the long run. He could potentially start a huge company and forge industry unlike anything this world had seen.

Why settle for three when he could recruit dozens? With enough smiths under his command, Damon wouldn’t just supply his army, he could dominate the market.

Weapons, armor, enchanted alloys, even experimental blueprints that the fraud tore apart, he could gather them all, cultivate them under his banner, and mass-produce greatness. An industrial monopoly under the Blood Hall’s crest.

And the beauty of it was simple. These so-called failures had already been branded useless by the academy. No one would fight Damon for them, not even their peers. They would cling to him with desperate loyalty once he offered them what they had always been denied, recognition.

Damon’s grin widened in the shadows. "This bastard just saved me years of searching," he thought, crimson eyes gleaming.

He needed to think bigger. Damon then had another idea.

Sylvara still had that cosmic vessel blue plan. These guys could even help build something like that if they had La Rocha’s guidance. After all, he needed to make La Rocha do better than role-playing as a butler. He was not yet fully using his talents.

Damon’s mind swirled with various thoughts as he silently stood and waited for the lecture to get over.

The lecture droned on for quite some time. The guy barked at another student, ridiculing the angle of their forge hammer strike, calling it "the effort of a donkey pretending to be a smith."

The boy’s hands shook, his knuckles raw from repeated blows, but Damon’s sharp gaze caught the flaw that wasn’t in the strike. It was in the cheap, poorly balanced hammer the academy had issued him.

Another diamond in the rough. Another one being buried alive. The fraud was making his job easy. By the time the lecture ended, Damon already had a mental list of nearly a dozen students worth pulling aside.

When the lecture finally ended and the students began to disperse, Damon didn’t move immediately. He wanted the room to clear. Then, when the three beaten-down apprentices shuffled out with their heads low, he stepped from the wall, he stepped from the wall, walking towards them.

The students froze, eyes widening. They were quite young, and when they saw a hooded and fully covered figure approach them and they started to panic.

Damon smiled lazily, crimson eyes locking on the three he had come for, though his words carried to everyone within earshot. "Tell me," he said softly, "how does it feel to be failures... when you’re the only ones in this room worth recruiting?"

The three apprentices froze, their wide eyes darting from Damon’s hood to the faint glow of his crimson gaze beneath it. Around them, a few lingering students stopped in their tracks, whispering nervously.

One of the three stammered, "W-we... we’re not—"

"You’re not failures," Damon said, cutting him off. "You’re unpolished gems buried in mud. And mud only clings when people like him, " his head tilted casually toward the lecture stage, "decide to smear it on you until you drown in it."

The apprentices’ hearts pounded in their chests, hearing Damon’s passionate speech. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

After saying his little speech, Damon remained silent. He did not speak further. The three in front of him as well fidgeted nervously. After a long while, a girl with ash tangled in her hair, swallowed hard and whispered, "You’d really... give us that chance?"

Damon chuckled. "I don’t give chances. I forge them. I’ll break the chains that bind you here, and what you do with your fire after that... is up to you. But remember, steel that refuses the hammer stays brittle. If you come with me, you will be tempered, reforged, and made into legends. If you stay, you will rust, forgotten."

Damon’s words rang true. Even the few other students who hadn’t been singled out by Damon stood frozen, their hearts drumming. More and more students started gathering around and whispering and talking.

Hearing all the commotion, the master smith, who had already walked out of the class once again strolled towards the lecture room.

"What is going on here?" the man’s voice boomed with indignation. His gaze swept the room, narrowing when he noticed the cluster of students still lingering instead of dispersing.

"Who is creating this ruckus? The academy halls are to be treated with the utmost respect and devotion." His eyes finally landed on Damon. "Who the hell are you?"

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