Chapter 761 Beginning TestNing and the rest continued on to the side of the building. They weren't allowed into the main building but were rather taken a long way around to the side of the building that was considered 'front'.
There they were made to stick together with a bunch of 15-year-old kids who all had yellow hair and were already at Rank 4.
There were about 50 of them here, but that alone was a big number in Ning's mind. However, when he really thought about it, the western hemisphere of Nulwurn was denser in spiritual energy, so everyone grew in rank quite quickly.
'Maybe it's actually low. There should have been more,' Ning thought. 'Although, getting yellow hair isn't the easiest job, and given that they take in students every month, that should be it.'
Saphandra nudged him from the side. "Do we really have to take the test? We still have time. Let's just ask that Vice Headmaster guy get us in," she said.
"Do you want to? I plan on taking the entrance exam. That's why I came here in the first place," Ning said.
"I… I just think it's annoying that we have to go through all of this," Saphandra said. "Especially since we will have to reveal our hair in a bit."
Ning wasn't concerned about it as much since there were already a few people with green and blue hair in the mix. However, Saphandra would instantly be the center of attention and which she found very annoying.
She liked it much better when her hair was just green.
'Dammit,' she thought when she remembered that. She didn't want to remember those memories, but they floated up anyhow.
"Alright, I'll do it," She said in the end. She was already used to having violet hair now. There were no more going reasons to get away from it."
Ning looked toward Trevain and asked, "are you okay?"
Trevain was too shocked at where he was to organize his thoughts.
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"You know, my father would always force me and my brothers to improve our summon, improve in rank and advance my bond strength. He beat me and my brothers when we couldn't do it."
"Unfortunately, I remained bad at it all, never improving, while my brothers went on to be great at it and were never beaten anymore."
"Actually, now that I think about it, I feel like I was beaten harder than any of us. Sometimes I thought he couldn't reconcile with my mother's passing and wanted to take the anger out on me."
"So, when I was reaching 15 years, and I knew I couldn't improve at all, I ran away from my house and went to the Ranadar city."
"I would never have thought that that point in my life, which I thought would be my lowest, would actually be the highlight of it."
Trevain slowly took off his hat. The hat he had been wearing ever since he had run away from home all those years ago.
He had been wearing the hat for one reason exactly. It was to hide the fact that he was bald.
He had been shaving his own head ever since he had run away from his home, to never remember the symbol for the trash he used to be.
However, after he had found the Oysters and then started eating those fishes every day, he was swiftly improving in rank to an extreme level.
Still, he remained bald the entire time. His hair was what reminded him of his family, and he didn't want that.
The last time he shaved his head was nearly a month ago. He was supposed to do it every week, but after his father had found him, he had forgotten that.
However, now that he had stood against his father and overcome the feeling of failure he had been, he had stopped shaving his head.
Short blue hair stood on its end as the hat he had been wearing pulled on it as it came out. He felt the breeze on his head after a long time and felt the coolness come to him.
"You'll need it to grow longer before you look any good with it," Ning said from the side with a chuckle.
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"It will," Trevain said and smiled a bit himself.
The doors of the buildings opened and everyone was let inside.
Ning and the rest walked in while looking around at the massive school and immediately heard sounds of shouting and beastly cries.
There were battles happening somewhere far away, most likely duels between students. Students were running around doing various things.
Ning and the rest were taken to a location at the corner where they were all made to take off any hats they wore and stand in a line.
Ning wasn't wearing any, to begin with, and the rest who took it off. Saphandra grumbled a bit, but she still took it off.
And as one would expect, all eyes fell on her.
Everyone's first thought was to assume that she had dyed her hair. In fact, even the teachers that were going to test them immediately moved toward her.
"Miss, have you dyed your hair? Please wash it away if you have," they asked. It was hard to believe she would have violet hair, after all the only people they had ever seen have it were the Headmasters of the 5 schools.
"This is my real color," she said in an annoyed tone.
"Would you mind if we test it?" they asked. The teachers themselves had blue hair so they really wanted to find out if what they were seeing was true.
Saphandra grumbled under her breath and pulled off a strand of hair from her head. She handed it over to the teachers, who immediately had a student go test it.
They had the perfect preparation for this sort of moment.
"Please wait to the side while we test your hair. The rest of you can start coming one by one," the teachers said.
And so the test began.
Chapter 762 Trevain's BattleThe test was rather weird in Ning's eyes.
He had assumed that they would have to go up and maybe fight the teachers or some beasts or what not, but it was more subtle than that, and Ning actually liked it this way.
Every time an examinee walked up to the stage, the teachers would ask the person what they were good at so they could test the person on that particular aspect.
This way, even if one wasn't very good at fighting or wasn't very knowledgeable about some subject, they could still get into the academy.
Once they were in, they could learn about these subjects and then try to branch out into other fields if they later wanted to.
One of the kids went up and told the teacher that he was good at fighting with beasts. So the teacher made him summon a beast and had it fight against them.
The teacher who fought him herself was someone who was an expert at fighting with beasts, so when she fought against him, she understood what was good about the young man and what was bad.
Another girl told the teachers that she was very good with beasts, could recognize them, and knew a lot about them including their traits, abilities, and a whole lot of other things.
One of the teachers brought a few beasts that they had tamed and made the girl explain everything she could about them.
After 5 minutes of listening to her explain everything she knew, they nodded and took what she knew into account.
Such went on for a while before Trevain went up.
"What are you good at?" the teacher asked.
Trevain had been thinking about this for a while, so he answered immediately. "Solo battles."
When the teachers heard that, they called out the teacher for testing people who could fight with summoned skills and traits, rather than summoned beasts.
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"Summon what you can, and we will start," the teacher said.
The other teachers were also testing him already. But their tests focused more on what his potential was.
They saw his hair, and his rank, so they knew a general level of his competitiveness and judged him based on that.
Trevain closed his eyes and reached into the stars that were the beasts and called out a specific one to lend him its powers.
Crystalline scales grew on his body while a long crystal emerged from one of his hand and a giant flat on his other one.
Once they were out, Trevain held the long crystal as if it were a sword and the flat one as if it were a shield.
As soon as the fight began, he dashed forward.
Despite how much he hated his father, despite how much his father hurt him, he had in the end managed to place some things into him.
One of those was the skill to use swords and shields in a battle.
The teacher held his arm to the side, which almost looked jelly-like when they moved in curves.
As soon as they did, the wind in the platform instantly started moving around as per the teacher's intentions.
The teacher brought his hands to the sky and dropped them down. At the same time, two visible blades of air flew towards Trevain.
Trevain's first thought was to dodge it entirely, but the blades were way too far to get out of the way. Instead, he used the shield to block one of the blades and struck the other with his sword.
The clash made a massive sound and Trevain felt his sword and shield crack. But they were mere creations of his crystals, so he created them again.
The teacher himself dashed ahead this time around and sent a gust of air his way.
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Trevain moved to the side and slashed his sword from far away. Even as he did that, the crystal on his sword grew more crystals that started pelleting the teacher.
The teachers created a barrier with air which stopped most of the crystals, but a few still entered and lightly hit him. Trevain had made sure to not have the crystals be extremely sharp, so the teacher wouldn't have been hurt even if he was hit more strongly.
The teacher was a little surprised and amused. He had been holding his powers back for the sake of testing, so seeing a potential student manage to bypass his defense was not bad.
But given Trevain's age, he would have to do better than this.
Trevain was propelled forward by the violent creations of crystals beneath his feet. He arrived right in front of the teacher and slashed at him.
The teacher, as nimble as he was, easily dodged the attacks and sent some more blades of wind from the side.
This time around, Trevain threw his sword with the force of the crystalline beast's strength he had summoned as well.
The sword struck the blades and the deafening sound of the clash wasn't able to keep him away from jumping onto the unprepared teacher and attacking him.
The teacher saw him at the last moment and moved his hands. A gust of air created a wind barrier around him like last time, that ground on Trevain's crystalline body.
The sword in his hand was so close to hitting the teacher, but it didn't manage to do so.
The teacher violently expanded the wind barrier and Trevain found himself flying directly up in the air.
Trevain fell through the air in an arc as he came down to the ground at a rather fast speed. If he hit the ground just as it was, he would be hurt.
So, he created lots and lots of crystalline chunks on his sword. He then swung the sword as hard as he could and the crystalline chunks flew off of the sword, carrying much of the momentum with it.
This wouldn't normally do anything, but Trevain was rather strong at the moment, so he managed to slow down his fall and land without any problems.
He got ready to fight again, but the teacher shook his head. "The fight is over. Go back."
Chapter 763 Ning's ChoiceAs soon as Trevain left the testing ground, a student came running back and gave the teachers something.
Ning looked closely and saw that it was violet hair. He smiled knowing what was going to happen next.
"Uhh… miss, can you come up here please," the teachers called Saphandra, who went up to them.
The group of people that stood away from them saw them talk to each other for a bit before Saphandra nodded and walked back.
Ning smiled at her and nodded. "See? That was easy, wasn't it?" he asked.
"All because of my own talent," She said with a small snicker.
"Next," the teacher said and Ning walked up.
"What are you proficient at?" the teachers asked. They could see his hair, and the eye skill they were using to check out his spiritual energy could tell them that he had a very high rank. So, they were rather curious as to whether he was going to fight or not.
If he did, who was he going to fight with?
"Summoning circles," Ning said without hesitations. While fighting was fun, these people didn't have what it took to give him that fun.
Also, he didn't want to defeat a teacher when he was supposed to be here to learn from them.
"Summoning Circle?" they were a little taken aback. Summoning circles weren't something many learned about. For one thing, they were incredibly hard to learn about because of how many different things there were to learn from them.
On the other hand, the taboo aspect of it made it hard for just about anyone to learn it too.
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It wasn't that no one learned it or anything. There were plenty that learned Summoning circles in the school alone, but most of them learned after entering the school, not before it.
"Okay," the teachers said. Be it as it was, the teachers weren't going to tell him to say something different.
"Call teacher Verina please," the teacher said and sent a student running away. Until that teacher arrived, Ning couldn't have his test taken.
So, he stepped to the side and let the other students come up and get tested.
It took nearly 15 minutes before a teacher walked up to them. It was an old woman with gray hair that she had tied in a bun, but some strands still fell down her side.
A pair of spectacles lay on her face, while her crooked nose held it strong. The woman didn't bend while walking, but anyone who saw her could tell that she was a little too old to be teaching.
Ning wouldn't be surprised if she was nearly 70 years old.
"What is it?" she asked. "I was in the middle of my teaching."
The old woman grumbled a bit as she walked up to the teachers.
"Madam Verina, we have a new student who says he had knowledge of Summoning Circles, and we need you to confirm it for us please," the teachers there said.
As soon as the old woman heard that, her expression lowered a bit. She looked to the side, and her eyes fell on Saphandra and stopped there for a moment before it started moving again.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Come on up," the teachers said and Ning walked onto the testing area.
As soon as he walked in, the old woman looked at him and slowly judged him by appearance. He still looked around 18 to 20 years old, so he was 5 years older than the normal age of students that joined them. Despite that, the old woman did not find it a point of criticism in her eyes.
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In fact, such a young man learning Summoning Circles was something she was more than happy to learn about.
"You are the one who knows a bit about the Summoning Circle eh? Can you tell me why you started learning about them?" she asked.
'Why I learned?' Ning was a little surprised. He had thought he would just get tested, but he didn't have to give some back story on why he learned it.
What did he even say in this situation? The truth was he only learned it because it was something he could learn. There was nothing more to it than that.
However, he couldn't say that. He didn't want to have to ask the old man to have them join the school.
So, he would lie.
But then there were teachers here who were certainly summoning skills to catch lies. If they caught him, who knew if they would just turn him down without even hearing anything more?
So, while he still had to lie, he needed it to also be the truth.
"A long time ago, I saw a weak person summon something out of this world from a summoning circle she had drawn herself. I didn't understand what was happening at the time, but the thing she summoned was so strong, that I don't think I've ever seen something like that before," Ning said.
"So, when I did learn that it had to do with summoning circles, I started looking into it, learning how such a weak girl as her, who only had yellow hair, was capable of summoning something so strong."
"And that led me to find different books on the matter and learn it," Ning said. "It hasn't been very long in my eyes, but I've been very fascinated with it even in the short time."
"Someone summoned using the summoning circle?" the old woman asked curiously. "Do you know who it was or what happened to her?"
Ning shook his head. "I don't know who she was exactly, but she died not long after in an accident."
"I see," the old woman said. "I would love to meet someone who could summon something so extraordinary." She nodded to herself for a while before looking back at Ning.
"You said you know a lot, didn't you?" she asked, and Ning nodded. "Good. Then let me test you."
Chapter 764 Drawing Circles"Please go ahead," Ning said.
The old woman nodded and called over a few students that were on duty today. She asked them to line up and told them something in secret.
Then, she walked over to Ning and told him to turn around.
Ning nodded and turned around. As he did, she saw multiple shines of light coming from behind him. The disciples had been made to summon a beast.
Ning wanted to see them, but the woman was right behind him and so he couldn't see anything exactly.
"Okay, you can turn around," she said and Ning turned to see 5 different types of beasts on the testing area.
The first beast was a giant red furry mastiff with a fiery mane and canines that came down like tusks. It was nearly as tall as the person who summoned it.
The second beast was a small rat. That was it, it was just a rat and nothing else. Aside from being a rat, it had no other features.
The third beast was a translucent jellyfish-like creature that floated in the air. It was a slightly pinkish hue to it and had many, many tendrils coming down from it just like a jellyfish. Unlike Jellyfishes, however, this one was nearly 2 meters tall and a meter and a half wide.
The fourth beast was a smooth snake with a white body and black and orange dots all over it. It looked like a water snake from what Ning could see, but he would have to check it closer to find out.
The fifth and final beast for the test was a giant silver beetle nearly twice the size of the summoner and the largest beast of them all here.
'That reminds me of Aegis,' Ning thought. 'I wonder how he's doing.'
"Here," the old woman Verina came from the side and handed him a giant stack of paper and a pen along with it.
He looked at her with a confused face and the woman started explaining.
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"You said you know a lot about Summoning circles, right?" she asked.
Ning nodded. That was how he wanted to enter after all.
"Then your test is to draw the summoning circles of all of these beasts here," she said.
Ning looked at the beasts and then back to the old woman. "You want me to draw summoning circles for all of them?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
He looked towards the beast again and asked, "You do know that drawing it accurately is impossible for the most part, right?"
"I'm aware," she said. "You still have to do the best you can."
Ning frowned. It would be hard without any information. Should he start using his analysis? But that defeated the purpose of learning about summoning circles.
"Can I at least ask a few questions to the summoners? That at least should be allowed right?" he asked.
"Allowed? That's the whole point of it, isn't it?" the old woman said. "You weren't thinking that I would make you draw the circles with zero information right?"
"Oh, uh… actually that was exactly what I was thinking," he said as his frown disappeared. "This will be easy then."
Ning walked onto the first summoner, a young man, and looked at the mastiff. Before even asking any questions, he drew the outer band of the summoning circle that denoted the rank of the beast.
"What rank is it?" he asked the young man.
"Rank 5," he said rather proudly.
Ning drew the symbols that went into the band of the circle that denoted the Rank 5 of the beast.
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"Between Elemental, Physical, Mental, in a total of 10, how would you ratio it?" Ning asked.
"Uh…" the student had to think for a moment and said, "0 for mental, 4 for elemental, and 6 for physical."
Ning nodded but didn't immediately draw anything. "What skills can it use, and what elements besides fire?" he asked.
"He's also capable of using a little bit of wind, but it's mostly mixed in with fire anyway," the student said and started explaining all the skill the beast had.
Inside the band, Ning drew another smaller circle that gave him another ring to work with. In that ring, in what was about 40% of the entire ring, he drew a symbols for fire and wind, as well as symbols that denoted all types of skills.
For the physical part, he needed more information. These would be the physical information of the beast.
Ning looked at the beast and started drawing symbols for everything he could see. 4 limbs, 1 tail, 2 eyes, 1 nose, 1 mouth, 2 ears, and millions of hair.
He wasn't done yet. He remembered everything that would be inside a dog, such as the heart, brain, liver, and everything else, and started drawing symbols for that too.
There were things he couldn't just guess and had to check, such as how many teeth the dog had, or if the dog had male reproductive organs or female ones.
Finally, once he was done with the physical aspects of the beast, he went into the last remaining massive circle in the middle that asked for a bit more… invisible information.
First of all, Ning drew the symbols for what he could guess on his own. He wrote the symbol for 'Dog', and the symbol for the species of a dog it was.
Then, it was time for some of the more blocked off information of the circle that not just anyone could know.
"How old is he? If possible, please let me know in days," Ning said. The day depended on the planet the beast was born on, but that didn't matter at the moment since both planets moved around the sun at the exact same rate.
"About 12 and a half years? I think," the summoner said. Even the summoner wasn't sure, but Ning had to use what little information he had.
He drew the symbol for the age of the dog and then a single piece of information remained, something that the summoner wouldn't know, and neither would Ning, so he had to wing this part.
He took a 50-50 chance on the fact that the dog in front of him did in fact not have a soul at all.
Chapter 765 AssistantOnce Ning drew the final symbol for the soul, he was done with the first beast in the test.
He checked if he had made some mistakes here and there and confirmed some things he had just assumed about such as the organs of the beast and then turned over the page.
However, just as he did, the old woman came and grabbed it from his hands.
"Ma'am?" Ning looked at her curiously, but the old woman wasn't paying any attention to him at all.
She looked at it all and pointed to something, "why did you draw this?" she asked.
"This? That's the symbol to represent a beast's kidneys," Ning said.
"And this?" she asked.
"That's his age, written in days," Ning said once again.
"Is this stomach?" she asked.
"Close, it's the intestine," Ning said.
"You asked something about the Elemental, Physical,… and what was it? Mental ratio? Is that this?" she asked while pointing at the 2nd layer of the circle.
"Yes, that is it," Ning said. "Although, there are no mental capabilities for the beast from what I hear, so I only have this elemental area and this physical area."
The woman was fascinated by all of this. While she understood a lot of it, there were still so many summoning circles that were documented from so many different types of beasts that it was just impossible to understand what meant what.
She understood about 60% of what Ning made and had a guess on what 10% of the rest were, but the remaining 30% she was completely oblivious about.
She was really surprised at how much he knew, and how much passion he must have put into it all. She asked a few different things, ending up with the black, empty circle at the center of it all.
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"What is this?" she asked. "I've seen this or the filled-up circles, but I have never learned what this is."
"That's soul," Ning said.
"Soul?" the woman looked confused. "What's a soul?"
"Uhh…" Ning thought for a moment. 'Did these people not have a concept of soul?'
"Do you know what reincarnation is?" he asked.
"Hmm, that just sounds like being born again," the old woman said. The words she heard coming out of Ning's mouth perfectly explained to her what he was asking her, even though there was no actual word for reincarnation in this world.
"Yes, and if you were to get born again, there has to be something connecting you to the previous you, right? That's soul. It's a lot to explain right now, but the most basic thing you need to know is that a beast with a soul is usually very intelligent."
"That is not to say that beasts without souls can't show some modicum of intelligence at all," he said.
"Okay, okay. I think I get it a little," the old woman nodded. She turned to look at the young man that had summoned the mastiff and gave him the order to unsummon it.
The young man nodded and unsummoned the mastiff. As the mastiff disappeared, the summoning circle for the beast appeared underneath it, and both Ning and the old woman Verina compared it.
The outer band of the circle that represented the Rank and spiritual energy of the beast was perfect.
The 2nd band of the circle had to do with the capabilities of the beast in all 3 aspects, and that was where Ning made some mistakes.
The elemental ability of the beast was more towards 50% than 40%, and it also had the slightest piece of mental prowess, but that was for reasons Ning only learned a little later.
In the final circle, Ning was wrong on the age of the beast which was an obvious mistake to make. What other mistake that surprised NIng was the fact that the beast had a soul.
'No wonder it had some mental prowess,' Ning thought to himself.
"Such accuracy," the old woman said in surprise. "You must tell me where you learned it all."
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"Uh… here and there. Mostly just by myself while summoning a hundred different beasts," Ning said.
"You learned it all by yourself? You must be a genius," the woman said. "Come on, do some more. Do some more."
The woman took Ning to the rest of the students who were standing there with their beasts and Ning started drawing the summoning circles with the woman by her side.
At her request, he explained everything he was doing from asking questions to making symbols. After he finished one, he and the old woman watched the summoning circle flash again while the beast was unsummoned.
After all of those beasts were gone, the old woman kept murmuring 'incredible' under her breath.
"You can't be a student with such a mind. You must work on the Summoning Circle more."
"How about this, young man? Work as my assistant in my research. You will not only have a higher status than a student, but also a higher level of freedom."
"Not only that, you will get paid too, instead of having to pay the school," the old woman said.
"Assistant?" Ning frowned a little. Why was it that whenever he tried to join some sort of academy, he always ended up getting preferential treatment?
Sometimes it was him being a teacher, sometimes it was him being enrolled with a full scholarship, and now it was him being enrolled as an assistant.
"You are a teacher, right? not just a researcher?" Ning asked.
"Yes, I am," she said. "One of the oldest ones at that, and as such I garner a high amount of respect from everyone."
"If I were to be your assistant, will I have to help you while you teach as well?" he asked.
"A little, but not necessarily. You will be there for the summoning circle research," the woman said.
"I see," Ning said. "Then I agree. I'm willing to be your assistant."
He didn't come here to study anyway, so there was no point in being anything else.
Chapter 766 TourNing and Saphandra passed the entrance exam without even having to wait for the results to show up.
Ning was now under the old woman Verina, while Saphandra… none of the teachers really knew what to do with her.
The old woman wanted Ning to come with her immediately, but Ning told her he could only start tomorrow.
The old woman grumbled for a bit, but accepted it in the end and left.
Ning waited for the result and only 5 of the 50 different people passed, with Trevain being one of them. With his blue hair and his high rank, it was obvious he would pass.
Once done, the 7 of them were alongside the teachers to one of the buildings to the side where they were all enrolled in the school and given their identifications.
Alongside that, they were also given places where they would be staying outside of the school and what course they would be taking for now.
Once done, they were led to roaming the school by a few students who showed them the various facilities in this massive school.
There was vastly more open ground than buildings here and everyone could see various beasts fighting here.
There were many different students doing their own things, being taught by teachers that were learned in that aspect of summoning.
One of the teachers taught them fighting mechanics, showing them which beast was good against which beast.
Another teacher taught students how to formulate the best words for bond for any type of given scenario.
Another teacher taught beast taming and how one could get close to a beast without summoning them.
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Another taught what beasts had what skills and what strength.
The other theoretical subjects were taught inside classes and not in the open, so Ning and the rest couldn't see any of them, but they were let know where it was.
As they kept on walking, a student arrived from the side and tried to grab onto Trevain while he was busy looking at the different aspects of the school.
Ning's hand moved before anything and grabbed the hand that came in before it could grab Trevain.
That little act distracted Trevain from the surroundings and back towards the hand. He turned to check who the hand belonged to and was surprised.
"B-brother Lanley?" he asked in surprise when he saw the green-haired youth who didn't look much different from Lucius.
Lanley, the first son of the duke, was about 25 years old by now, and he stared at Ning with a face full of anger.
"Let go of me," he said with viciousness in his voice.
The students that were giving the tour didn't know what to do. They were students just like Lanley, but Lanley had not only the status of being a Duke's son but also that he was one of the stronger and well-known students of the academy.
He wasn't in the elite group, but amongst those that were below them, he was one of the most well-known individuals, and perhaps the best fighter of the bunch.
"Only if you promise to be civil and not get so handsy," Ning said with a small smile.
The young man didn't say anything and simply used his left hand to punch Ning as hard as he could. In the split second, he had summoned the physical strength of a rather strong beast and was going to use it.
The punch landed on Ning's right cheek and caused a deafening boom that made the students and new entrants around him have to cover their ears to protect themselves.
"Argh!!" the sounds of pain came from the parties involved as expected, but they were surprised to hear which one of the party it was that was crying.
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Lanley fell to the floor in pain as his left hand broke from the attack and was now bleeding from rubbed-off skin.
Ning slowly bent down and tapped the young man's hand with one finger, and it suddenly healed.
The young man stopped hurting, but the phantom pain still hurt him a little. He opened his watery eyes to see that he was fine and that he wasn't hurt.
Then, he turned around to see Ning crouched right on top of him as he held the same smile as before.
"There's a saying in my homeland. If someone slaps you on one cheek, you should turn your other cheeks to them as well. Do you wish to punch me on my left cheek too?" he asked.
Fear grew in Lanley's heart as he realized that this was most likely the person in his father's message. The message had general information about what transpired back at home and why he was no longer going to be able to enter the Forbidden Realm.
Lanley had been waiting in anticipation for the day he acquired one of the spots from the Vice Headmaster, but now it had all gone down the drain.
His father had partially put the blame on Trevain, but also said it was in majority because of a person named Ning who was very, very, very, strong.
Lanley got no more information than that, but what was happening now alone was enough to let him know that this person was most likely Ning.
"Brother Lanley, why are you attacking all of a sudden?" Trevain asked from the side.
"You bastard! I lost the opportunity of my life because of you. I will make you pay for this," Lanley shouted.
"Can you?" Trevain's eyes grew cold. "I'm not afraid of you anymore you know? Also, attacking a newly enrolled student right after they entered, that should have some punishment right?"
"Hey, what are you doing? Go call a teacher or someone. Get that piece of trash out of here," Saphandra said to the students who were giving the tour.
The teachers came quickly and dragged Lanley off to get punished while Trevain stood there with absolutely no remorse.
"Let's go back," he said and left first.
Ning shrugged and followed him along with Saphandra to go to their appointed houses outside the school.
Chapter 767 Questions for the Vice HeadmasterAbout 5 minutes of walking distance away from the eastern gate of the First Bond school lay a dorm room for students with no family members to live with.
If they did, they could ask for a house instead, which would be provided to them by the school, but in that case, basic facilities such as food, clothes, and sanitation should have to be taken care of by the students themselves.
Saphandra had her hair in a bun again and was wearing a hat on top of it to hide it. Trevain didn't want to hide his hair color, but his hair itself wasn't that good-looking, so he chose to wear his hat for now as well.
Besides, he was used to wearing hats.
Saphandra found her dorm and walked over there, and Trevain and Ning found their dorm room and went over there.
After resting for a while, they went out to eat something together. To their surprise — which they should have expected already— the food in the canteens around the city was free.
All that would happen was the food the students ate would be put on the school's tab, which they would pay later on their own. So, the students could go to any location in any part of the city, and not worry about having to pay for their food.
After they were done, Saphandra and Trevain left for somewhere while Ning walked to someplace else on his own.
As it was now late afternoon, the school would be over and the person would be available.
Ning stood in front of a rather large house and knocked on the door. A maid walked out of the house and looked at Ning curiously.
"May I help you?" she asked.
"Yes, can you tell your lord that Ning is here?" he asked.
The maid nodded and turned to leave, but just then a voice came from behind Ning.
"Little brother, you're here already?" the voice asked.
Ning turned around and smiled. "Were you guys out?" he asked.
Yelena gave a big smile and nodded. "We were out doing groceries," she said with her mother by her side.
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"Are you looking for him?" the mother asked.
"Yes, is the vice headmaster back?" Ning asked.
"He should," she said and turned to the maid with a curious face.
"Lord Haymond has already returned," the maid said.
"Let's go in. You can talk what you want with him there," she said.
Ning nodded and entered the house.
After treating Yelena, Ning had returned here a few times a week to check up on her and see how the process was for her getting better.
With her mother's help, she was slowly starting to be less child-like and more ladylike. Very soon, her body would catch up to all the years she had missed and grow by an incredible level which she had to be ready for.
In fact, in some places, she was already growing.
Ning found the old man sitting on a chair, drinking some tea. He entered the room and sat opposite him.
"Hmm, you came again?" he asked after seeing Ning.
"Through the front door today," he said.
"Oh," the old man looked in surprise. "I thought you liked just popping into someone's house."
"That seemed easier, but I was already in the city, so there was no point in just popping in. Besides, I wanted to see what the city looked like."
"Hm? Why were you in—"
Ning brought out his student card and showed it off.
"Ohh… was it today? Right, it is today. So you passed?" the old man asked.
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"With flying colors," Ning said. "In fact, look here, I'm not even a student."
The old man took the card with a confused expression, and when he saw the information on it, his eyes nearly popped out.
"What the hell? You are working under sister Verina?" the old man asked. "How?"
"Just happened," Ning said, not bothering to explain anything.
"Well, you must have shown her some sort of skill in summoning circles. She wouldn't have you be an assistant otherwise," the vice headmaster said while sipping his cup of tea.
Ning nodded and kept back the student card.
"So, we did what you told us to do. We got into the school. Now what?" Ning asked.
"Well… now you wait," the old man said. "With a month and a half still left, you can do nothing but wait."
"What about the spots? How does that work?" Ning asked.
"2 weeks from now, the Headmaster will ask for the names of the students who I will choose, along with the other various teachers who have some people they can choose as well."
"Once I give them, the next day over you will be called to check if you are eligible to go to the Forbidden Island or not."
"Don't worry, this is just a small formality thing. Unless you are injured, you will pass right by," the old man said.
"Hmm, seems fine I guess," Ning said. "A month and a half, huh? Well, since I'm here, might as well have some fun at the school."
"Well, do whatever you want, but just don't get my name involved in any of it," the old man said in a tired voice.
"Why do you think I would do anything? Do I look like someone that goes around looking for fights?" Ning asked.
"Not you," the old man said. "But since you will get a spot when others won't, it is likely that they will come to harass you. At that time, don't come asking me for any help. Although, I think it will be the others that will be needing help, won't they?"
"As long as they don't mess with me, I won't mess with them," Ning said with a shrug.
Ning stayed around for a while longer and spoke to the old man about the school and the city before leaving the house around evening.
He went back directly to the dorm and prepared for his school life starting tomorrow.
Chapter 768 First DayNing entered the school along with nearly hundreds of students that walked in as well from all four sides of the school.
Saphandra and Trevain had their own separate class, so Ning couldn't go with them.
Ning arrived at the class that taught summoning circles and entered. There were about 10 different students inside the massive hall.
Ning thought that was quite a low number, but the class wouldn't start for another 15 minutes, so he waited.
A few more students came, but none more than that. In the end, there were only 15 or so total students altogether that were taking this course.
"Hey man, you new?" a young man next to Ning spoke.
"Yes, I just enrolled yesterday," Ning said.
"Why did you choose this subject?" the young man asked.
"Uh… because I am good at this," Ning told the man.
"No one is good at this. It's so hard, and there's barely any reason to learn it even. If its your first day, you should change it. I am already stuck with this for the next 7 months since I already paid my fees, but you should be able to change," the young man said.
Ning chuckled a bit. "Thanks for the warning, but I will be fine," he said and continued waiting.
The old woman Verina walked in without warning and the students scrambled to get back to their seats.
She looked around quickly and noticed Ning.
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"There you are. I was hoping to see you in the faculty, but you didn't arrive at all," the old woman said. "You don't have to take the class. Go do whatever you want for this period."
The students all turned to look at Ning who just shook his head. "It's alright. I have nowhere else I want to be," he said.
"Well, if you say so," she said and started teaching the students partway through where she was in the summoning circle.
Most students that did not join during the biannual opening of the school had to sit from halfway through the syllable and try to understand.
It wasn't like they didn't know the early subjects either way, since they couldn't enter the school without any knowledge of it. So, if the students did enter any time other than the biannual opening, they were happy to sit through some rather confusing times in the classes.
Ning watched Verina try and teach the class about the various symbols that belonged to the elemental skills of the beasts, but none of them were paying any attention.
They were bored, to say the least. Some were even regretting taking the class.
However, they couldn't just leave as they still needed to pass the class and if they didn't, it would cause trouble for them.
Ning understood that but still seeing so many bored students left him feeling bad for the old woman. She was teaching the best she could, and it wasn't wrong info either.
It was just that she was giving too much theoretical info, and these students just weren't grasping the idea of it.
Was there even a way to make this fun though? Ning couldn't think of any.
So, he stayed with the old woman and watched her teach them without break.
After nearly 2 hours of teaching, she finally stopped and told the students to learn a few things on their own before ending the class.
"Come with me," she told Ning, who stood up and walked beside her.
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As they walked, Ning asked, "is the class always this bored?"
"Yes," she said. "You can't help it. Learning about summoning circles is entirely about being able to remember, and that isn't the most fun for most people. There are a few in my other class later on that are more enthusiastic about this, but mostly it's just students who think it will be fun to learn about the circle and find that they have a million things they need to remember."
"That's one of the reasons I'm so surprised with you actually," the old woman Verina said. "You somehow learned so much at only the age of… what are you? 22?"
"Something like that," Ning said.
"If people could really learn and remember what you did in just these few years, they would be very much excited. But it's not very interesting when you have to just sit there and listen, is it?" she said.
Ning thought for a moment and asked, "what about doing outside teaching then? Have the students come out give them a basic model of a summoning circle and tell them to add some things to it. Then, tell them that they have to summon a beast that is as close to it as possible."
"That might work, or it might not. I have tried practical teaching once, a long time ago, but it didn't work as well as I would have liked," she said. "Students ended up summoning something that was completely different from what they were intending to summon and that ended up causing them to think that learning this was useless."
"I lost about 60% of my student base at that time to the incident and was nearly made to choose a new subject to teach because I just didn't have the necessary student for the next few years."
"Only when the students from that time and the following years left did the rumor die down and more people chose to take my class. So I don't think I will ever go with a practical lesson, ever," she finished.
"Well, that's a shame. I think they will at least get less bored, but I can see where you're coming from," Ning said.
The old woman reached a building on the eastern side of the school and entered it. It was a rather large building, so Ning was curious when he got in as well.
When he was finally inside, he realized what the place was.
"Oh, we're in a library?" he asked.
"This is where I do most of my research," the old woman said. "Come, I want you to tell me everything you know."
Chapter 769 ResearchNing entered the library and looked around. But before he could even see any part of the 2-story-tall library properly, the old woman dragged him off to a secluded section of the library and entered a room.
Ning followed and found that he was in a rather giant room that was filled to the brim with books and scrolls.
A bright green-haired girl was working on something at one of the desks in the room and turned around when the two of them entered.
"What are you studying?" the old woman asked.
"Just learning the… symbols for limbs of the… beasts," the girl's answer slowed down as she saw Ning and put on a confused look. "Who's he?"
"Didn't I tell you yesterday I had a new assistant? This is he," the old woman introduced. She went on to take off her coat and brought out some scrolls while the girl kept staring at Ning.
The girl was the same height as Ning, quite beautiful, and looked about the same age as he as well. She wore the uniform of the school, but there was also a golden star on her chest for some reason.
"Isn't he a student?" the girl asked. "Why did you make a student an assistant?"
"He's good, that's why. Now stop asking questions and help me grab that scroll from up there," the old woman said.
The girl was still confused as to why such a young man would be an assistant, but she had no reason to question that at the moment.
She went to help and Ning looked around.
The old woman brought back an arm full of scrolls and books and slammed it on the table.
"Phew, I have so much to ask," the old woman said.
Ning smiled, but his eyes kept moving towards the young lady who was still looking at him curiously.
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"Huh?" the old woman noticed and turned around. "Tessa, stop gawking and come learn something. Sigh, forgive my granddaughter. She didn't expect you to be young."
"No, no, it's alright," Ning said and looked at the young girl. "Your name is Tessa? Hi, I am Ning."
"Hello," the girl nodded slightly and came to sit next to her grandmother.
"Ok, let's see, let's see… ah, this one." The old woman selected a scroll and unfurled it.
She then opened a book and reached a page that had the breakdowns for the summoning circle drawn on that scroll.
Ning saw the name "Stripvine Lynx". It was a Lynx with plant-based powers that would control and use plant-like attacks, but mostly vines.
"Right, help me learn what this is," the old woman said while pointing to the symbol on the circle. "I say this is the backbone, but my granddaughter here thinks this is the spine, even though we also guessed that both of those are these other things. But if it's not either, then we are stumped."
Ning looked at the symbol and said, "That's… neither," Ning said.
"Really?" the old woman asked.
"Nonsense, it had to be either of those two. Given that it is available around ribs, it has to be a body part around that place. We crossed out heart and lungs, so it has to be the backbone or the spine," the girl said.
"It doesn't have to be that," Ning said and pointed to the name of the beast. "Look, it's a Lynx. Can you tell me anything about Lynxes that have to do with ribs?"
"What do you want us to say? That they have ribs?" the girl, Tessa asked.
"No, the numbers," Ning said.
"I… am not sure about that," the old woman said while trying to think but the answer escaped her mind.
"26 right? I think they have 13 sets of ribs. Those are true for cats at least," the girl replied after a bit of thinking.
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Ning smiled. "There you go. That's your answer," he said while pointing to the symbol. "That means 26. It is to say that the animal has 26 ribs."
"This is a number?" the old woman looked at the symbol. "Right, I only know numbers from 1 through 10. I should have known this could be a number too."
She quickly flipped the page and pointed to another symbol. "What about this? Is this a number as well?" she asked.
"That's… a number yes. The number of claws hidden in each paw," Ning said.
The old woman continuously flipped through the pages and arrived at different pages to ask Ning what the symbols were for.
Ning had planned on hiding a bit of information to not have it seem like he knew everything. But seeing the old woman's enthusiasm, he couldn't hide anything.
The grandmother and granddaughter pair reminded him of the time he made potions back in Vilmore and he just couldn't help but give out everything.
After the old woman was done with the Stripvine Lynx's summoning circle, Ning assumed she would open up another one, but instead the woman tossed aside everything from the desk.
"Here," she handed Ning a new, empty book. "Write down the symbols for all the numbers you know. This will help us very much."
Ning was surprised for a bit, but when he thought about it, that was probably much easier for the old woman to start with.
Instead of trying to find information one by one, getting it all at once was much better in her eyes.
Ning thought of asking the system to do the work for him, but the woman then said, "Come, Tessa, we have much to learn."
She then brought two chairs next to him and sat down. Ning felt himself in an awkward position where he couldn't just have the system do the work, so he decided to teach them how it worked.
"I don't know if you know this or not, but for some reason, the summoning circle doesn't use a base 10 system, and instead uses a base 8 system."
"Meaning there are numbers from 0 to 7. As long as you know all these numbers, you can write any number you want. All you have to do is stack them."
Chapter 770 ElitesNing taught the two about the summoning circle's symbols for a while before taking a break. "We should go slowly. You don't need to learn everything in a single day, right?"
"Yes, yes," the old woman nodded. "Alright, go do what you want. I will learn these numbers."
Ning nodded and walked out and so did Tessa.
"Thank you for giving us that information for free. You could have had us buy it, and we would've, but you didn't," she said.
"Oh, I didn't even think about that," Ning said for a second before turning to look at the horrified face of Tessa who had realized that she screwed up.
"Haha, don't worry. I don't want money," he said and entered the actual library.
He looked around, wondering what he should do now when he noticed one other student wearing a gold star on their clothes, just like Tessa was.
"By the way, what's that gold star about? Is that a fashion choice, or is there more to it?" he asked.
"This? This means you are an elite," she said.
"Elite?" Ning got curious. "Do you get any benefits? How many of you are there?"
"There's no inherent advantage to being an Elite, but you do get considered for a lot of things. For example, if a country wants an advisor or help, the school will let you choose first."
"As for the number, I don't know. An elite is chosen based on what you are good at in different subjects. For example, I am good at summoning circles. One can be good at fighting with beasts or fighting without beasts. Or even be an expert on having knowledge about different beasts."
"As long as you can prove that you have what it takes in one of these fields, and are in the top 10, then you become an elite," she said.
"So, how do I go about it? Do I tell a teacher I want to be an elite, or…?" Ning asked.
"If there are places in the top 10, then yes. You go to a teacher and they test you to see if you are eligible. If not, then you directly challenge one of the elites."
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"You can only challenge that person once though, so you have to be careful there, but I don't think you will have to worry about that. There is only me as an elite in the field of summoning circles," she said.
Ning smiled mysteriously. "Who knows, I might want to go for other elites too," he said.
Tessa separated from him and went on to do her own thing, while Ning walked around the library looking at the various different books.
Just then, he heard a commotion coming from outside as many people run throughout the school for some reason.
It wasn't until someone entered the library and told them what was happening that Ning found out.
Someone was challenging an elite.
"Well, that's quite the timing," Ning thought to himself and walked out of the library before following the crowd towards the dueling arenas in the north.
One of those arenas was where the fight was going to happen.
The crowd surrounded it, and Ning appeared amongst them as well.
On one side was a blue-haired young man wearing a golden pin on his chest. Ning heard the name 'Henderson' being called out a lot, which was most likely the young man.
On the other side, it was Saphandra.
Ning couldn't help but laugh when he realized that it was her. 'Why is she fighting an elite already? It is barely the first day,' he thought.
Everyone looked excitedly at the match, and after the teacher saw they were ready, he started the match.
The young man looked angry for some reason, so he dashed forward. However, before he could do anything, Saphandra pushed on him, and he suddenly flew in an arch before slamming down hard on a different arena.
Everyone looked in shock at how fast the match was over.
"What was that?" someone asked in shock.
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The teacher looked in shock too and only looked away from the unconscious elite that was on the other side.
"You… you have won," he told Saphandra who shrugged. She turned around to leave when the teacher stopped her.
Her face scrunched up in a frown as she asked, "what?"
"Eh? You forgot the badge," he said and asked someone to take away the unconscious elite's badge before handing it over to her.
"What's this?" she asked when she saw the gold star.
"It's the symbol to represent you as an elite," the teacher explained while very surprised that Saphandra didn't know it.
"Oh, so this is what he was talking about, huh?" she said and took the badge before leaving.
The crowd parted as she walked away and Ning appeared next to her. "What happened? You fought to be elite?" he asked.
"What? No. I have no idea what that means. That man was annoying, so I just wanted to beat him up without breaking any rules," she said.
Ning looked at the unconscious man that was being taken away. "What did he do?" he asked.
"He tried to ask me to be his girl," Saphandra said, remembering what happened not very long ago.
"He saw your hair?" Ning asked while looking at her hat. She was fully covered, so that shouldn't have been possible.
"No, he just saw a new face and thought he would try his luck, I suppose," she said.
"Then why was he so angry?" Ning asked. "I don't think a simple rejection would have done that."
"Well, he started saying he was an elite and how he was strong and what not. When I rejected him and told him that he was weak, he dared me to fight him. So I did."
"I didn't know I was dueling to become an elite," Saphandra said.
"Hah, and here I just learned of being an elite as well, and somehow you beat me to it," Ning said.
"If you want, you should try your hand at it," she said. "These people are very weak."
Chapter 771 The Headmaster2 weeks passed by and nothing of note happened during these days.
Due to Saphandra's showing of strength, no one came to duel with her and people started leaving her alone.
Trevain mixed in with the people and was treated normally as any new student would.
As for Ning, he continued teaching the old woman and her granddaughter what he knew. By now, he had established quite a good friendship between him and the two and didn't bother trying to go for anything else.
Ning had thought of getting a golden star to become an elite as well, but there wasn't anyone who he wanted to go and challenge all of a sudden, so he let it be.
Besides, how long was he even going to stay in this school for that to matter?
He sat in the secluded room inside the library and wrote something in a book when suddenly the door opened and Tessa walked in hurriedly.
"N-N-Ning, Ning," she hurriedly called out as she entered and looked for him.
"What's wrong?" Ning stopped and looked around a little worried. He had never seen the girl so flustered before.
"Y-y-you! You are selected to go to the Forbidden Island," She said with a look of incredulity.
"Oh, I knew that," Ning said, and turned around to continue with what he was doing. "I'm surprised you found out as well."
"What? You knew?" she asked.
"Yeah," Ning said. "That's the reason I joined this school in the first place."
"How did you do it?" she asked.
"Uh… a little influence here and there," Ning said as he drew some symbols on the paper.
"Stop that," she said and closed the book. "We're having a conversation."
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Ning sighed and turned around. "Why are you so shocked? Are you not going?" he asked.
"Of course not," she said with a shocked expression.
"Oh, I thought you would. Did your grandmother hand over her spot to someone else?" Ning asked.
"No, she never got one in the first place," Tessa said. "I would definitely go otherwise."
"Oh, I'm sorry. That's a shame," Ning said. "Anyway. How did you find out I was selected? Did they make some sort of announcement?"
"Oh, right I nearly forgot," Tessa said. "Come, they are asking for everyone to go to the Headmaster's office."
"Ah, right. I forgot that would happen," Ning stood up to leave. "Thanks for letting me know. Which direction is the Headmaster's office?"
"Uh, out of the library and go left toward the big tree in distance," Tessa said.
"Thanks," Ning said and left.
He followed the directions Tessa said and arrived in front of the massive tree beyond which was the Headmaster's office.
He saw a few elites walk past him and enter, but he just waited for a while. Trevain appeared not long after and Saphandra a bit after her.
Then, the three walked in.
The headmaster was a middle-aged man that seemed to be in his 50s. He was quite short compared to everyone in the room, but that didn't make him any less intimidating.
Not only did he have violet hair flowing down to his shoulders, but there was also something else floating next to him in the wind.
A transparent, blue spirit moved around the room, curiously looking at the people there. It looked like a young mischievous boy as it would poke someone's face and annoy them until they responded.
The poke barely felt like a touch, but enough poking was annoying like a constant itch that wouldn't go away. So, when the people reacted and swatted the spirit away, it would quickly move away, giggling in what sounded like bells and jingles.
"Gale, stop causing trouble," the headmaster said, and the spirit slowly floated back and sat on the headmaster's shoulders.
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The headmaster finally stepped in front of the 25 students and looked at them.
"So, you 25 have been chosen to enter the Forbidden Island. How do you feel?" he asked.
Multiple people started talking at once, and it became hard to distinguish who said what, but the Headmaster simply nodded as if he understood everything.
"I and the other teachers will tell you more about spirits in the upcoming days, but for now I just wanted to check if you are a good choice to go in there or not," the headmaster said.
A circle flashed beneath him, letting everyone know that he had just summoned some sort of skill or quirk from another beast.
Ning saw the circle and knew exactly what the Headmaster was summoning. He had summoned a skill to check the student's spiritual energy and most feel their rank.
His eyes moved amongst everyone and stopped a bit when it fell onto Saphandra. He checked her spiritual energy and saw that she had nothing.
"Young lady, are you summoning something at the moment?" he asked.
"Yes," Saphandra said.
"Can you show me?" he asked.
Saphandra pulled the desk behind the Headmaster a little and pushed it back into place.
"Ah, good. You have all passed. Go and do your preparations. The Forbidden Island will open up in a month, and we will be leaving in 25 days," the headmaster said.
Everyone nodded and turned to leave.
However, just before they left, the Headmaster spoke again. "Of course, you were chosen to do this and it wasn't something you chose. So if in any case, you wish to renege from this and not go to the Forbidden Island, I totally understand you."
"In that case, just bring someone else you will like to go instead of you, and I will authorize the change," the Headmaster said with a smile.
Everyone heard one thing, but they understood what other thing the Headmaster was talking about.
They were going to be challenged now that they had been chosen and they would have to fight people to keep their place on the list.
Ning smiled a little when he understood this too and he thought, 'Haven't had a good fight in a while.'
Chapter 772 Suddenly Elite"Hey," a young woman with blue hair stepped up to Ning and Trevain.
"Hi, what can we do you for?" Ning asked.
"Where's your star?" she asked.
"Ain't got one," Ning replied with a smile, knowing perfectly clear what she was here for.
"Are you not an elite?" she asked.
"Nope," Ning said, not giving Trevain even a chance to speak. "We just joined the school half a month ago."
The woman was shocked. "How did you get the spot then?" she asked.
"Connections, of course," Ning said.
He didn't have to speak any further since the girl left without saying another word. Ning held his smile for a while longer as he watched her leave.
"Why were you so direct?" Trevain asked.
"Oh right, I hope you like fighting. You will get challenged a great many times now," Ning said.
"Uhh… I don't hate it, but won't it be annoying to fight so many people?" Trevain asked.
Ning thought for a moment. "Well… we can just refuse, right? If you don't want to fight just ref—"
"Ning!" Tessa came running towards him.
"Hmm? What's wrong?" he asked as he had never seen her so flustered.
"Come with me, quickly," She shouted.
Ning didn't know what was happening, but seeing that she was in such a hurry, he worried that something must have happened to the old woman.
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"I'll see you later," he told Trevain and ran quickly, leaving Tessa in the dust.
"Madam Verina? Where are you?" he asked, entering the library. The people looked at him, some a little frustrated with his loud voice, but once he left, they forgot about him.
Ning quickly entered the secluded room and saw the old woman there.
"Ah, you're he—"
"Madam Verina, are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked.
"What? No, I'm not hurt. Why would you think I'm hurt?" she asked.
"Tessa, she… she sounded like there was an emergency, so I came running," Ning said while making the system do a check-up on the old woman. Aside from some muscle aches, which were normal for people her age, she was fine.
"That girl… sigh. No, there is no emergency," the old woman said. "But there is an urgency. Why didn't you tell me you were being chosen to be part of the group that went to the Forbidden Island?"
"That… I didn't think that was relevant information to just give out," Ning said. "You would find out either way."
"Sigh, you idiot," the old woman said. "You just placed yourself in the middle of a crossfire without any protection."
"Oh, I know that," Ning said, nearly laughing out loud.
"Here, this should help protect you a bit," the old woman said and handed Ning a golden star.
"Oh, you're making me an elite? I had thought of asking you for this, but didn't really see the point of it back then," Ning said.
"Yes, you don't need testing. Your talent is clear, so you will become an elite with my say," the old woman placed the star on Ning's chest. "Don't lose it."
"Of course not," Ning replied.
Tessa appeared not long after, totally out of her breath as she entered the room.
"Just… just how fast can you… can you run," she spoke in between breaths.
"Just a little faster," Ning said. "I will get out now that I have this star."
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"What? No, hide here and do your job. You will only get targeted if you go out," the old woman chided from the side.
"Yeah, but that's… kind of what I am hoping for," Ning said. "I want people to come challenge me so I can fight them."
"You… is something wrong with your head?" the old woman asked. "Just stay and work for now. Finish the book you were writing."
The old woman Verina pointed to the book he was in the middle of writing when Tessa had walked in. "Ah, right. I should at least finish that."
He sat down on the chair and started writing. There was still a month or so remaining, so he wasn't worried about not getting targeted.
By the time he was done with the book, the day was almost over.
"Well, I guess I'm not fighting today," he thought and walked out of the library.
When he was out, people stared at him and pointed to his chest. The star was quite the attraction around here.
People avoided him as he walked and that saddened Ning a bit. As he walked, he saw sounds of fighting from far away and looked towards the arena.
With a simple zoomed-in vision, he saw Trevain in the middle of his duel against someone.
"Wait, isn't that his brother?" Ning thought and watched.
Lanley was clad in fire, while Trevain was submerged in water.
Lanley jumped and punched forward, sending flame at Trevain like a flamethrower.
Trevain moved his arms and the water coalesced to form a shield against the fire. When the fire was gone, he moved his right arm and sent a wave of water toward his brother.
Lanley flew up, narrowly avoiding the attack. He spun in the air and came down with a rain of fire, which Trevain had to block with a column of water that froze into ice.
5 water arms appeared from the side of the water bubble that submerged Trevain, and each one of them started attacking Lanley from the side.
Lanley was momentarily distracted by the water arms, and Trevain used the opportunity to send water out and created a whirlpool beneath him. The water started swirling around him, and Lanley got dragged in with the water.
Lanley tried to push through with the fire, but before he could do anything, the whirlpool exploded and sent him flying backward. Trevain used the chance to create a giant wave and sent it crashing down on his brother.
Lanley was buried beneath the water and was soon sent out of the stage.
The water around Trevain disappeared and he appeared unharmed, as if he didn't even have to give it his all for this battle.
Chapter 773 Dueling ElitesNing returned back to school the next day over. Trevain was by his side, but he remained silent.
It seemed that after yesterday's fight with his brother, he had become a little solemn about the whole thing.
Ning wanted to ask more about the fight, how it started and all, but Trevain just didn't seem to want to talk about it.
Ning didn't bother him with questions either. After arriving at the school, he found that there was a special atmosphere going around.
First of all, the students were making space for them. Ning could understand if it was just for his own star since most people didn't want to get in the way of the elites, but for some reason, they were moving away from Trevain as well.
He could tell that they were scared of him.
He and Trevain separated soon enough as Ning had to go to the old woman's classroom. During the whole path to the school, he hoped someone would come to challenge him, but it didn't look like anyone was planning to.
'Do they perhaps not know that I am part of the group going away either?' he wondered.
He arrived in the classroom and the people stared at him as well. Someone approached him and asked if he really was part of the group that would go to the Forbidden Island.
"Oh, yeah," Ning said without hiding and watched the students in there start whispering amongst themselves.
The class started not long after, and Ning waited for it to finish. Once it was over, he walked out and went behind the old woman, but someone stopped him in the way.
Saphandra looked concerned and annoyed.
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"What's wrong?" Ning asked when he saw her. It was starting to be more and more frequent that he saw Saphandra so annoyed, but there was always a reason for it. He wondered what it was for today.
"People keep challenging me," she said with a grumble in her voice.
"So? Just say no," Ning said. How was that any reason to come ask him for help? Sure it was annoying, but not concerning for sure.
"I can't, apparently," Saphandra said with a frown.
"Huh? Why not?" Ning asked. As far as he knew, these challenges for the placement in the Forbidden Island weren't formal or official, and it only counted when you agreed to it.
"Well, if they guise it under an elite challenge, they can fight me. I still get a chance to refuse any additional challenge they make on top of that, but it is getting annoying. I don't want to keep fighting all day long for the next whole month," she said.
Ning thought if there was a way out of this situation when he heard a group of students rush towards them.
"There she is," someone pointed at Saphandra, and before even a minute had passed, Ning was surrounded by nearly 50 different students, each with hair from yellow to blue.
"Miss Saphandra, I challenge you to a formal duel of the elites. You have to fight me," a man shouted from amongst them, and suddenly everyone got irritated that they did not get the chance to challenge her first.
The crowd started shouting at the man, but the man was smug with glee now that he had got a chance. All he had to do now was annoy her enough so that she would be angry and dumb enough to accept his bet.
One of the frustrated crowd members turned towards Ning and saw his star. At first, he didn't think anything when he saw the star as Elites hanging out with elites wasn't that big of a deal.
However, when he saw the face, he realized something. He had seen this man yesterday and he had been coming out of the Headmaster's office.
It didn't take long before the man realized that Ning too was one of the candidates. Before anyone had a chance to realize the same thing, he dove in.
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"I challenge you to a formal duel of the elites," the young man said, surprising everyone. When the crowd looked at him, he showed a smug face and said, "That man there is also one of the candidates."
"What?!" the crowd went wild now that they had 2 unknown elites to go after.
Ning half frowned, half smiled when he heard that challenge. He would have accepted the challenge either way, but the young man dared to make it an elite duel.
He decided to have some fun with it. "Do you plan on just dueling to become an elite, or do you want the spot for the Forbidden island as well?" he asked.
The young man's eyes went wide in surprise, but he managed to reign them in. "Ahem, I… I want to challenge you for the spot of candidacy as well," he said. He wasn't expecting anything, but he still have to ask.
"Fine, come," Ning said without hesitation. It wasn't just the young man that was surprised this time around. Every single student that had gathered and was continuing to gather was now extremely jealous of the young man.
"Come. Let's go duel," Ning said and walked off.
The young man who challenged him showed a smug smile as he quickly followed Ning, and the rest of the people split off to go watch either Ning's duel or Saphandra's duel.
Ning's duel obviously had more stakes, so more people went for his duel.
The young man started fantasizing about what he would do if he won. He would surely not accept any challenge for the spot, that was for sure.
He wasn't going to be brain-dead like the guy in front of him.
As he followed, the young man noticed that they weren't going towards the dueling arenas at all.
"Hey, where are you taking me?" he asked angrily, afraid that he was being duped.
"To the library," Ning said. He then stopped and turned around. "Ah, right. I forgot to tell you. Since there are spots open amongst the elites for the summoning circle, you won't even have to fight me. You can just become one. Isn't that fantastic?"
Chapter 774 ChallengeThe young man reluctantly took a summoning circle test, which he so obviously failed. He glared at Ning with anger in his eyes, but beyond that, he wasn't capable of doing anything.
He knew that he had fallen into a trap. He never expected the man in front of him to be so crafty.
"You win," he told Ning and walked away.
The others thought of challenging Ning, but when they realized that there were spots open in the elite list, they knew they could never duel against him.
Without anything to do there, the group dissipated, leaving Ning alone.
Ning watched in disbelief that the people that had come to fight him had left just like that. "Uhh… is no one going to fight me?" he asked, but there was no one left to answer.
In the end, he dejectedly entered the library and got on with his work, while hoping someone would come to challenge him.
In the time he spent inside the room, the outside school had changed. News spread around and soon enough everyone learned that Saphandra was not one to be messed with.
She broke the legs of the last two students that dueled her and the arms of another one that was in the audience.
The teachers themselves had to suspend all duels that included her as so many fights just weren't feasible if she continued to break the limbs of everyone that tried to fight her. There were no rules saying she couldn't do it anyway.
Also, the fact about Ning being a summoning circle elite had spread around so people knew who to avoid.
Ning gladly walked out of the library's room to the school grounds, hoping someone would challenge him, but they only looked at him once and walked away.
After this happening for a few times, he stopped one of the students and asked what was happening.
Only then did he find out that no one was interested in targeting him at all.
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Ning got a little depressed and wondered if he should be the one to start challenging people.
Just then, a man appeared next to him and shouted, "You!"
The students around that location immediately turned to look at the blue-haired young man pointed at Ning.
Ning turned around with a weird look on his face and saw the young man. Surprisingly, he had 2 stars on his chest.
'A two-time elite?' Ning felt happy. Finally, someone had come to challenge him. He stood there and waited for the young man to speak up the words so he could accept them.
"You are the summoning circle elite, aren't you?" the young man asked.
"Yes," Ning said happily.
"Hah! Look at you being proud for being trash," the young man said.
"Wha?" Ning was confused.
"I challenge you to a proper duel between men. Not some elite duel you can hide behind. Do you accept it? Or are you going to prove yourself a coward amongst men?" the man asked.
'Why is he talking so much? Is he trying to rile me up?' Ning wondered. It wasn't really working, but that didn't matter since he was planning on accepting it anyway.
"No, I—"
"Stop!" the young man spoke. "Before you refuse it, know that refusing will be your open admission to being a coward. You will show to these people that you, as an elite, mean nothing because you will forever not amount to anything even if you do end up being successful in the Forbidden Island, you will still be a coward and a useless piece of shit."
"Honestly, I don't even know what's the point in making you an elite. What's the point in having classes for summoning circles? They do nothing," the young man shouted to the crowd, and Ning could see the people agreeing with them.
"You guys agree right? I don't understand why the summoning circle's course even exists. I hear that the old woman barely gets any students if even that much. I think she's just doing it to freely steal away the school's budget. That is a scum behavior."
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"They should seriously just shut that useless course down, and maybe then students can focus on something more important," he said.
"Yeah, yeah!" the crowd started shouting around Ning, and a few even started calling him a coward.
The young man put on a smug smile as he watched Ning. "So, what will it be? Will you try and be a man, or remain a coward?" he asked.
Ning's cold eyes turned towards the young man and he asked, "What're those two stars for?"
"This?" the young man's face got proud. "For Beast and Beastless battles."
"So you got 2 stars and still weren't chosen to become part of the group that is going to the forbidden Island? That speaks volumes about you," Ning said.
The young man's ego was hurt and he put on an annoyed look. "Are you accepting or not? Speak fast," he shouted at Ning.
"You could have kept talking bad about me, and you would have succeeded in your task, but you went ahead and talked bad about an old woman who's trying her hardest to learn and teach you young fools about Summoning Circles."
"There is so much information about the summoning circle that still evades you, and you act like you know everything. You don't deserve her tutelage at all."
Ning shook his head and looked at the young man. "No, I will not accept your challenge."
The young man frowned. The tactic really hadn't worked in the end after all.
"Fucking coward," he told Ning and turned around to leave, and the crowd started dispersing as well, cursing the same back at Ning.
"Stop!" Ning ordered. "You don't get to leave just like that."
"What?" the young man turned around in confusion.
"I challenge you to a duel of elites. For both of your stars," Ning said, surprising everyone that stood there. "You can have my spot for the Forbidden Island if you win."
Chapter 775 Duel"… really?" the young man couldn't fathom the fact that Ning had approached him on his own.
"What's the catch?" the young man asked. "There must be something you want from me."
"No, you don't have anything with you that you can give me. Not even your own dignity," Ning said and turned towards the crowd.
"You all said his words made sense right? How he was correct about summoning circles being useless? Well, let me show you if it is summoning circles that is useless, or you are."
Ning turned away and walked towards the dueling ground. The crowd followed behind, hyped up to see a fight between two elites, but they knew Ning's elite status came from something that had nothing to do with fights, so they weren't looking forward to the result, since that was so obvious.
Before Ning had even reached the arena, many people had already heard about the fact that a fight was going to happen.
Ning didn't have anything to do with that, however, as Daniel Reddington was a well-known name in the First Bond school. He was after all one of the sons of the Dukes of the Taminghall empire.
Ning stood on top of the arena while the teacher started explaining the rules of the match.
The first of the 2 matches was going to be the Beastless fighting. Since they were going to fight two different times, they had to be careful about what to summon and what not to as there was another fight to fight.
Ning didn't listen to the explanation, he didn't need to. He instead looked at the crowd that was beyond excited about the match and smirked.
"Get ready," the teacher said and the young man named Daniel proceeded to summon a few skills onto himself.
When the summoning circle flashed beneath him, Ning smiled. He summoned something too.
The teacher waited for a bit longer to see if they would summon another set of powers, but when they didn't, he started the battle.
Lightning covered Daniel suddenly. He was now clad in armor made by lightning and suddenly he zipped out.
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Lightning trails were left behind as Daniel landed next to Ning and punched out. However, Ning put forth a single palm to stop it.
Lightning coursed through Ning, but he smiled through it.
Daniel's eyes went wide in surprise. He quickly jumped back and sent out a bolt of lightning that once again struck Ning, but he was still unphased.
"How?" he couldn't help but ask.
Ning smirked, but he didn't answer Daniel. Instead, he turned towards the crowd.
"I hear a lot of you think that learning about summoning circles is a waste of time, and how those who study it are idiots. Well, let me show you today why you are the idiots instead," Ning said and finally turned towards Daniel.
"When you summoned your beast skills, its summoning circle flashed beneath you. That was enough to tell me a lot of information I needed to know," Ning said.
"First, you summoned from a Rank 6 beast, meaning with your blue hair, you most likely are able to acquire between 65% and 75% of the original skill's power."
"Next, the beast you summoned had lightning powers, which you chose. You didn't just bring the power, however, you summoned its strength too, and its speed."
"As for lightning powers, you have lightning armor, lightning claw, lightning bolt, shock, lightning teleportation, and lightning movement. Coupled with your superior strength and speed you summoned, that would have been quite strong against just about anybody."
"Unfortunately," Ning spoke. "You were fighting me."
"Knowing what you had summoned, it was easy to counter you. I summoned a beast's elemental resistance to fight against your lightning powers. I summoned its defense to survive your physical attacks, and then I summoned its other set of powers, which I will use to beat you."
Daniel's eyes went wide. He couldn't believe that Ning had exactly figured out just what he had summoned and how much of it he had summoned.
He knew everything down to the name of the different techniques he had.
"H-how did you know?" he shouted back at him.
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"Didn't I just tell you? I read your summoning circle which you deemed was useless and was something that shouldn't be taught anymore in the school," Ning told him.
"You… so what if you found out? You won't be able to beat me anyway," he shouted back at him.
"Why don't you try and find out?" Ning asked.
"You bastard!" Daniel shouted and zipped out immediately, He arrived towards Ning's left, but suddenly, lightning flashed in front of Ning and Daniel arrived behind him.
He kicked Ning as hard as he could on his right, but Ning didn't budge an inch. Ning tried to grab his leg, but Daniel flashed away again.
He appeared back again and shot at Ning with lightning again, and Ning smiled. He teleported too.
Ning appeared behind Daniel, coming out from his shadow. Ning then grabbed Daniel and pulled him into the shadow.
A moment later, Ning appeared from the referee's shadow that fell on the stage and swiped his non-existent sweat from his face.
He looked towards the crowd at a specific place and smiled. The crowd looked confused for a second, but then they heard someone coughing rather loudly from their mix.
"Yo-you! You bastard!" Daniel shouted and teleported next to Ning, but Ning grabbed him by the throat to stop him.
"I don't think you realized it, but going out of bounds is one of the reasons for losing," he said and pulled the young man close to his face.
"You lost."
"I… no, I can't lose," he said in horror. It was only after the referee announced the result that the young man understood he lost.
He not only lost, but he didn't manage to even deal the least bit of damage to the man he had so thoroughly talked bad about just moments before.
He needed to leave.
"Stop!" Ning said Daniel turned around. "Did you forget that we have another battle?"
Chapter 776 BloodThe young man Daniel looked truly frightened. He was so surprised by his thorough loss that he had forgotten about the fact that he had been challenged for both of his stars, one of which he had lost.
The teacher walked up to him and took away the star and gave it to Ning. After that, the teacher changed and another teacher came up to referee the match between the two elites.
Even though Daniel wasn't prepared at all, the teacher got ready to begin the match.
The crowd around the arena watched the man with pity in their eyes as well as some hidden glee at his misery.
The young man stood in front of Ning with a dumb look on his face and only reacted when the teacher told the two to summon their beasts.
He had summoned a weak monster last time around for the exact reason of summoning something better this time around, so even though he didn't have the motivation to fight, he pushed through the reluctance and moved his spiritual energy to summon.
However, just as he was about to go into his little world of darkness to find his monster, he realized that Ning hadn't started summoning yet.
In fact, he was smiling at him with his hands crossed on his chest. Waiting. Waiting for him to summon first.
'That bastard wants to counter summon!' the young man realized. If he wanted to go through with the fight, he definitely needed to do the blindfold summoning that was enforceable in this scenario.
"Teacher, I demand blindfolds for summons," he shouted.
The teacher looked at him briefly and nodded. "Very well," the teacher said.
"No," Ning said from the side. "We don't need it."
"You will have to if either one of you requests for it," the teacher said.
"What if he doesn't want it either?" Ning asked.
"Then we can take it back," the teacher said.
"I'm not going to agree to that. I want a blindfold," the young man said.
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"But what if I summon first?" Ning asked.
"No, I still— wait what?" Daniel looked confused.
"I will summon first and then you will summon. Do you still want to be blindfolded?" Ning asked.
"N-no? If that is true, then no," he said. If he had the chance to counter summon, why would he not take the chance?
"Good," Ning smiled, and then he brought out a knife.
The teacher got alert all of a sudden and Daniel backed off a bit. Who knew what someone with a knife could do during a duel?
Ning smiled and suddenly flipped the knife before catching it by its sharp edge. Immediately, his hand started bleeding and the blood dropped to the floor.
The crowd went silent as they tried to figure out what he was doing, but it was impossible for them to figure it out.
After all, this sort of thing had never happened in this world before, and would most likely never have happened for at least a few hundred years more.
"Student? What are you doing?" the teacher asked.
"Nothing, just teaching everyone the other side of summoning circles," Ning said. Then, using the blood that was flowing out of his body, an unnatural amount to boot, he started drawing a summoning circle.
More and more people had gathered to watch his match by now, and the old woman was there too. She looked at the blood on the ground that Ning had started to form a circle.
She watched him add symbols to the circle, a rank for now and her eyes went wide when she saw that he had drawn the symbol for the 9th rank.
While she tried to understand what he was trying to do, Ning drew more symbols on the ground, symbols that she had no idea about.
Never in her life had she even seen these types of symbols. Not even in old historical books.
She understood some of course. For example, she could tell that the summoning circle he drew was for a beast with powers of fire and earth. Also, based on the circle, she could tell that the beast had to have a very strong physical body.
"What is he doing?" Tessa asked from the side with a worried look on her face.
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"I don't know," the old woman said.
Ning drew up more symbols for another few minutes and finally stopped. "Phew, that should do it," he said as he stored the knife. His hand mysteriously stopped bleeding while he checked the circle to make sure he didn't make any mistakes.
He hadn't.
"What is this?" Daniel asked.
"Can't you see? It's a summoning circle," Ning said.
"Why are you drawing it right now, I mean," the young man said.
Ning smiled as he looked at him. "Didn't I answer that earlier? I'm going to teach everyone here the other side of summoning."
Ning put his arms outward and suddenly the spiritual energy in his body went into the summoning circle.
All of it.
At first, it looked like nothing was going to happen, but then the bloody circle shined white and immediately the symbols on the shining circle changed to one that belonged to a creature.
The new summoning circle became so wide that it covered half the arena.
Suddenly, a hand crawled out of the circle, reaching for the sky, before it slammed down on the solid ground.
The hand looked like claws with red scales on it that seemed to be of that color because it was red hot from the lava that coursed through the splits in the skin.
Another similarly large hand crawled out and smashed the other side of the arena, shocking everyone there.
Then, the creature slowly pushed its way out of the circle.
A burning hot draconic face with a large silver horn on its nose and two glowing red antlers growing on either side of its head popped up from the summoning circle.
Just the head alone was twice as large as Daniel.
Chapter 777 The Draconic BeastThe draconic head was not far away from Daniel, so when it took a deep breath and released it, Daniel could feel the very hot air waft onto him.
In fact, just from the beast's arms and head, the students were already feeling the heat in the surrounding go up by a few degrees.
The teacher too was starting to sweat, but it was hard to tell if it was from the heat or just because the teacher was scared out of his mind by seeing a beast so strong.
The draconic beast pushed itself upward with its two arms. A giant off-white underbelly of the beast showed up as it got out in front of Daniel.
Daniel was scared out of his mind when he saw the lava dripping from its body. The beast was most likely swimming in lava before it was summoned here.
The audience saw the other side of its massive body as the beast climbed out. The draconic beast had no wings, but there were spurs on its back, poking out of its spine like a mountain range.
Another limb popped out from the circle and landed not far away from its other limbs and then finally, the last limb came out as the beast pushed itself out of the circle.
Still, the beast wasn't entirely out. Its large tail, with similar spurs as its spine, had still to come out.
The beast pulled out its long tail that was dozens of meters long and had a round spiked blob at the end that finally emerged from the circle and dropped onto the other arena.
The draconic beast towered over the arena— Nay, it towered over the entire school, reaching heights which no tree or building ever could.
With nearly 30 meters to its height, and maybe even 50 meters when added the tail, the beast Ning had summoned was once a terrifying creature.
The audience ran away in an instant as the lava dropped onto the ground from the beast.
Daniel turned into lightning and fled as well, leaving only Ning and the teacher around.
The teacher could feel the heat too, but he had turned illusory and was not getting damaged from it.
Ning smiled even as lava dripped all around him. "Your turn," he shouted at Daniel who had run far away.
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"No way! You're crazy," he shouted.
"What? Are you giving up? If you're giving up on the match then just say so," Ning said.
"H-hell no! You cheated. This doesn't count," he shouted.
The beast turned its head to look at Ning to ask for the orders it was to get after being summoned. That was one of the requirements for taking away all of his spiritual energy.
Ning smiled and said, "Roar!"
The beast cried.
ROAR~!!
And the draconic roar shook the very island.
Trees dropped leaves all around. Buildings cracked a bit from the sheer intensity of the shout. Birds flew away from the island.
The teacher who was close by immediately fainted and lost his transparency. If not for Ning, he would have been cooked in the heat beneath the beast.
The audience closed their ears to withstand the shout, but the mere fear the roar induced was too much for them to handle.
The mental attack of the roar was enough to send most of them running. Some straight up fell unconscious.
Some got so scared that they peed themselves too.
Daniel looked at the draconic beast in front of him and soiled himself from the sheer fear of having to fight it. Then, he fell unconscious.
Many teachers and elites ran out of the buildings to see what was happening.
The headmaster flew out of his office and instantly used his skill on everything within a 100-meter radius.
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People cried out in fear and horror, and the beast still roared. However, there was just no sound in the surrounding.
The beast itself was surprised when it noticed that. It was intelligent enough to know someone had used some sort of skill to dampen the sound.
The headmaster arrived, ready to fight. But when he saw that it was an arena battle, he frowned. Did he fight here?
"Go back," Ning's voice was the only thing that made any sound, which surprised the headmaster. A person had to have a certain level of power to fight back his noise cancellation and bring out their true voice.
Not even the Rank 10 draconic beast in front of him could do that, but somehow the student could.
Ning had been using his system, but the Headmaster wouldn't know that. The Draconic beast looked back at him and humphed a bit before a massive summoning circle appeared beneath his feet and in an instant, the lava-covered beast disappeared.
Ning looked at the unconscious Daniel and then at the unconscious teacher that was under him. With both of them out of it, the duel could no longer continue at all.
He shook his head and turned around to walk down from the arena. As he did, he looked towards the fearful eyes of the crowd and shouted, "That was my demonstration on summoning circle for you all. Do you still think it is useless and no one should be forced to learn it?"
No one could say anything to answer. Not only were they too scared and shocked to speak, they were also under the Headmaster's spell, stopping them from making any sound.
"Young man, what was that?" he asked.
"A little motivation to send people to learn summoning circles," Ning said. "Don't worry, I had it all under control."
The old woman Verina quickly ran up to him with Tessa behind him and tried to speak, but the sound wouldn't come out of it.
She turned around angrily at the Headmaster, who made a sheepish face and turned off his ability.
"What did you do? How did you summon that beast? Are you okay? Why did you cut your hands?"
The old woman had too many questions and she asked them all at once.
"Let's go back," Ning said. "I will explain it all."
Chapter 778 Arrival3 weeks later.
Ning, Saphandra, and Trevain were on a ship that belonged to the First Bond academy. Along with 22 other students and a few faculty members, they were on their way to the Forbidden Island.
They were already out onto the ocean but were staying inside due to the thunder and lightning that was outside.
The beasts tugged on the ship below and even through the rain and lightning, the ship continued moving on.
The headmaster was inside telling everyone what they should do inside to have a spiritual bond with the spirits.
"Be extremely respectful," the headmaster said. "Even if they look like they have no intelligence, I promise you they do. Not only are most of them fully sentient, but under extreme conditions, some can also even grow to be sapient."
"Gale here is almost sapient. Had he stayed in the Forbidden realm for another 60 or so years, I'm sure he would have been fully sapient," the headmaster said.
Ning nodded as he listened to the headmaster. Spirits were indeed quite intelligent, and as he could see, the headmaster's spirit Gale was pulling pranks on people by blowing on their hair or tugging at their clothes.
That only made him wonder however why the other spirit in the room wasn't so expressive in their ways.
Ever since coming to this world, and in fact, even before then, Ning hadn't really seen little blue play out. In fact, she barely even had any intelligence from what Ning could tell.
He couldn't help but wonder if something was wrong with her. But then again, Saphandra controlled her so much to hide her from the public eyes that it could just be Saphandra's influence that made her act like that.
Gale tugged on his blue hair and Ning was pulled out of his thoughts. He tried to touch the spirit, but his hands went through it as if it were just a soul.
Well, spirits weren't that different in a way. In a way, spirits were just what he was, Energy that gained sentience and then sapience.
The spirits could barely interact physically, so pulling bits of hair and clothes were the most they could do.
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Once the debrief was finished, Ning returned to the cabin he was allocated along with Trevain and stayed there for the rest of the day.
Time passed and the storm died down. A few hours later, a loud sound that for some reason wasn't disturbing at all sounded throughout the entire ship.
"We're here."
Hearing the headmaster's voice, Ning and Trevain walked out onto the deck. Many other students were also walking out and they all lined up by the front.
Not far from them, an island stood with nothing but fog covering it. There were bits of colorful dots all over the island that floated in the air.
Trees could barely be seen through the fog, and there was even some dissonance between the island and the air to its side on the ocean.
Like heat waves out of a fire that distorted the surrounding, the edge of the island distorted the horizon in the back as well, making it look like there was a divide between the island and the outer world.
'That must be the seal around the island,' Ning thought. He wondered if there was a Will of the planet that had manifested, but he knew that a will didn't have to necessarily manifest for there to be seals and such in the world.
Kumia had its own Origin hidden inside a secret realm, which was probably the work of its will as well.
Ning looked to the side and saw about 4 different equally sized ships floating by the beach.
There were writings on the ship to let everyone know who it belonged to.
The ship to the farthest left belonged to Thousand Summons school, one of the 5 great schools of this world, alongside the First Bond school.
This school was situated in the Goldfire empire that was northwest of here.
The 2nd ship from the left belonged to the Crimson Wolf Academy, another one of the 5 schools, which was located in the Swega Republic in the southeast.
The 3rd ship belonged to the Divine Fangs school. It was another one of the 5 schools that was located in the Tristan empire in the south.
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And finally, the 4th ship belonged to the Infinite Beasts school in the southwest.
The First Bond school itself was in the Taminghall empire and was located in the northeast of this location.
The ship pulled up side by side and the many students and teachers that were standing on the desk looked at the other groups.
Ning looked at the different groups and their uniforms. Black, white, red, and green. With him wearing blue, these 5 all looked very unique from each other.
The headmaster nodded toward the other headmasters to his side and looked at the giant barrier in front of him.
Ning looked ahead as well and the visual became much clearer.
The ocean waves would approach the island, but they would never touch it. The barrier kept the water at bay.
The fog on the island was very dense as well, making it so that aside from the very first tree or two, nothing else could be seen at all.
"This is where the gate will open," the headmaster said as he looked at the gathering of the many flying black dots in the fog.
When Ning looked closely, it turned out that it wasn't in the fog, but rather the barrier.
And there were 25 in total.
"Ah, is this what they use to figure out how many spirits there are inside?" Ning spoke softly.
"Must be," Saphandra said from the side. The various students were talking amongst themselves as well. Almost everyone that was here was here for the first time.
"The barrier will open anytime now," the headmaster said. "Once it opens, it will only close once all 125 of you are inside."
"So prepare yourselves. We will disembark anytime now."
Chapter 779 OpenOne by one, the group got off of the ship on the beaches where the water came halfway to their shin. Beyond that, the barrier blocked entry from everyone.
Multiple people immediately summoned abilities to fly, float, or just keep themselves dry.
Some instead embraced the water and let it soak them.
There were also ones like Saphandra who created a pocket around them where the water couldn't enter.
Ning looked around, especially at the students from the Thousand Summons school to see if Taron was around. However, Ning couldn't find him.
He sent Wendy a quick message asking if he didn't get to come at all.
Other than the students, just the headmasters got down.
5 people. 3 men and 2 women. The woman both had long violet hair, not unlike Saphandra's.
The one from the Crimson Wolf school had her hair in a bun, while the one from the Infinite Beasts school had her hair braided down her front.
The headmaster of the Divine Fangs school was bald for the most part, but the sides of his head did have violet hair in addition to gray hair.
The headmaster from the Thousand Summons school on the other hand had long flowing hair, almost showing off to the other headmasters.
They came together, and before they even talked to each other, lights flashed beneath their feet and they looked around, searching for any potential hidden human amidst the group of 125.
Only after finding out that there wasn't anyone other than the necessary amount did they finally stop and started talking to each other.
Ning watched them greet each other by their name and start talking. The First Bond headmaster cast some sort of skill to subdue their sound so no one could listen to their conversation at all.
Ning wanted to listen to them when another ship appeared in the distance. The crowd turned curiously and looked at the ship that approached them.
The 5 headmasters immediately flew away to meet the ship.
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This time, Ning was going to listen to the conversation. "System, pass along what is being talked over there."
The 5 of them arrived on the ship itself and the woman with the braided hair spoke out loud.
"Whose ship is this?"
A man appeared out of the cabin with a head full of gray hair. "Greetings headmasters," the old man said. He recognized the headmasters as they were very well known.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the man with the head full of hair said.
"I… I am the headmaster of Five Gorge Academy. I have a disciple with me that is very talented, and I was hoping he would get to enter the island. It's just 1 student, can you… um, help him get in?" the old man asked.
"Do you think we have a charity going on here old man?" the First Bond school's headmaster spoke. "Return immediately. You are not allowed here."
"Bu—but sir, I came from the Vevar Kingdom. Surely you can manage to give me just one spot right? I hear 125 people can go in this time around. If my disciple can go in, I will forever be in your gratitude," the old man fell to his knees.
"This bastard! Return at once or I will destroy your boat," the bald headmaster said.
"Teacher!" a young man that was barely 15 ran out of the cabin. He had flowing green hair and held a long staff in his hand.
"Get away from my teacher!" he shouted.
The woman with the bun snapped her fingers and the ship suddenly started flying upwards.
The young man slipped and fell on the deck, but the ship kept flying until it hovered about 5 meters high. Then, the boat dropped.
The two men on the deck flew in the air for a split second before gravity pulled them back onto the ground and then slammed on the deck.
"Argh!" the two of them cried out in pain. The old man might even have had one of his bones broken.
Anger flared in Ning and he was about to go help when suddenly a deep sound came from behind him.
The barrier was opening.
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A gap appeared in the barrier where the fog moved away. However, there were 125 different motes of light on top.
When the students realized that the gate was open, they started pushing in, trying to be first as if that mattered.
As they went in, the numbers of light died down quickly.
Saphandra called for Ning, but Ning didn't move. Instead, he wanted to go help. But, seeing as the barrier was open now, once he went in, the old man and his disciple would most likely return.
"Sigh, let's go in," he said. He, Saphandra, and Trevain were the last ones to enter.
The headmasters returned to their boat quickly and watched the students walk in.
Trevain was the third from the last to walk in when there were only 3 lights remaining.
After he was in, it dropped down to 2. After him, Saphandra walked in.
Ning watched the 2 lights flicker to 6.
"Six?" he looked confused.
"What?" The headmasters and teachers were confused as well.
How could there be 5 more spots when there were only 25 spirits in the island? It wasn't like there was suddenly another spirit that formed inside the island right? It couldn't be that coincidental.
His eyes then fell on Saphandra. "Little blue?" he thought. 'That counted?'
The headmasters were already scrambling to find people to enter. Each one of them would choose one of course, but Ning didn't want to let them do that.
He didn't feel they deserved it. So he instantly thought of something and teleported away.
He went to 5 different locations around Nulwurn in a matter of seconds and arrived back on the beach.
The headmasters saw 5 new people on the beach, none of which were ones they approved of, and immediately got angry.
Chapter 780 The Forbidden Island"Those are not all from our school. Don't you dare take those people in student," the First Bond school's headmaster cried out and sent out a massive sound-based attack.
Ning didn't even move as he analyzed the incoming sound wave using his skill and created its exact opposite sound wave to cancel out the attack.
The headmasters looked shocked, and the rest of them began their attacks too.
At the same time, he used Telekinesis to grab onto the 5 behind him and pushed them into the open gate.
Then, before the attacks were launched, Ning jumped into the open gate too. As soon as he was in, the barrier closed and he heard nothing.
The outside world was no longer viewable as the hazy barrier stopped everything.
"Ow! Teacher, why did you throw me?" the little princess, Janice spoke. She was wearing her nightgown and seemed to be half asleep even as she asked the question.
"Wh-wh-what… what's going on?" the other two girls spoke at the same time.
"Ori?" Trevain was surprised to see his little sister inside the barrier too. When had she come?
"Ning! What's happening? Is this your doing? Did you use my summoning circle to summon me?" Tessa asked from the side. She was in the library with her grandmother when she felt a breeze by her side.
Then at the next moment, she was on the beach, surrounded by the ocean and 5 different boats.
"Hmm, did you teleport us here?" the blue, translucent blob that was the slime spoke.
"Slimy!" the princess shouted and went to hug him. Her arms went halfway into his gelatinous body, but he didn't seem to mind that.
"A beast?" Saphandra asked.
"Hey! I'm not a— wait, no. I am a beast. Shit, let me change." The slime brought out the body from his storage space and went into it.
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The people around him, other than the princess and Ning, showed a disgusted look on their face.
"Am I… really on the island?" A voice pulled their thoughts away as they looked at the last person Ning had brought along.
"Who is this?" Saphandra asked, not recognizing the young man from anywhere.
"He was on the ship that the headmasters went to," Ning said. "Go on kid, have fun. You've made it here, so do make the most of it."
"But… but my teacher—"
"He's fine. I healed him before I brought you here," Ning said. "Don't worry about him and just go on, find a spirit and bond with it."
The young man didn't know what to say. He hesitated for a bit before saying, "Thank you." Then he left.
"Teacher, look! That river is red and glowing," Janice spoke, bringing everyone's attention back to where they were.
Ning turned around and looked at the mountain that was in front of him. His eyes went wide in surprise as this was not something he was expecting to see inside what was a small island in his mind.
In front of him was a massive rain forest that stretched until and around the base of a giant mountain with magma spewing out on the top.
It was an active volcano as some of the lava flowed down the side of the mountain. However, seeing as it hadn't burned the forest to the ground, there much have been some sort of natural barrier stopping it from destroying the island.
"One second," Ning said and instantly flew up into the sky.
Saphandra pushed onto the ground and sent herself flying as well. The slime could fly thanks to his system, so he flew into the sky too.
Ning hovered a hundred or so meters in the sky, and astonishment filled him at seeing a sight he thought he would have never seen before on a single island.
The first thing he realized about the island was that it was inside a secret realm. As such, the island was more massive than it appeared from the outside.
"How big is this island?" Ning asked.
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"Oh damn!" Ning thought.
In front of him was a forest with a volcano, but that was one of the many things that were on this island.
Ning could see grassland to the far left, sandy desert on the other side, and snow-capped mountains followed by a fully snowing region to the right.
There were many other mountains along the way that were just covered in trees and many more without any.
A giant lake surrounded the volcano closest to them, and more could be seen throughout the island.
"Wow!" Saphandra said from the side. "My home never looked this beautiful.
"Mine was full of smoke and cloud too. This is something," the slime spoke from the other end.
Ning zoomed in his vision and looked closely at everything. Numerous beasts roamed the land, sea, and sky. And now there were nearly 130 different individuals that had come to disrupt them.
'I hope they don't attack us,' Ning thought. He didn't want to hurt the poor beasts after having invaded their home in a sense.
He looked around for a little longer, and finally went down after Saphandra and the slime had already gone down.
Trevain had already explained the situations to people on the ground, and the little princess was beyond excited to meet spirits, something which she had learned a lot about from Ning himself.
"How is there space for 5 more people here though?" Trevain asked. "I don't understand."
"Oh, that's simple. Saphandra has a spirit herself. So her entering gave way to 5 more people to enter," Ning said.
"What? You have a spirit, miss Saphandra?" Trevain asked.
"Yes," Saphandra said and little blue poked her head out from the side.
"Woah!" everyone was shocked and surprised.
"Wait, wait, wait," Tessa said as her face gave a confused look. "If you already have a spirit bonded to you, why did you come here?"
"Oh, I never thought about that. That's a good question," Ning said and turned toward Saphandra. "Why did you come here again?"
