Noah spoke without moving his eyes from the Kesier rune.
"It's not that, I just don't have time for other people."
His mental sphere was enlarging at an incredible speed, Noah didn't want to waste any of his time inside the Sulfur domain on socializing.
"What about Murray, Norman, and Scott?"
Daniel asked but those names meant nothing to Noah.
"I don't know who they are."
"The three seniors in front of the entrance door."
Noah shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, them. They allowed me to pass."
One of Daniel's eyebrows arched when he heard Noah's words.
"All they want is to please me. They will never allow anyone inside unless I say so."
Noah didn't move at all, his gaze was always on the rune as he answered.
"So, you do know that your followers are mindless idiots."
Daniel chuckled softly.
"Idiots? Maybe. Mindless? Not at all. It's the nature of humans to stick with the strongest person or the one with the best future prospects. You might not know but I'm the only cultivator of the light element that has been seen in decades."
Noah shrugged his shoulders again.
"Is it something that amazing? Being of a rare element will only diminish the number of techniques available for you."
Daniel continued to chuckle.
"If you have enough money though, that's not a problem. I can have the same number of techniques as other cultivators but of greater might due to my element."
"You sure brag a lot."
Daniel was momentarily silenced by Noah's statement.
An awkward silence occupied the room and only the flickering of the azure flame could be heard from time to time.
Daniel resumed speaking.
"Do you understand that I will become someone important in the future?"
Noah replied plainly.
"There are a lot of important people in the world, should I care about all of them?"
"Well, yes! If you are powerful and you have the right amount of connections and man-power, you are invincible in this world!"
Noah's mind wavered a bit.
He still maintained his eyes on the rune but he spared some thought for Daniel's words.
'A group formed by powerful people is surely stronger than one single person. However, what if someone was so powerful that numbers couldn't make him stagger? At that point, being in a group will only slow you down.'
"Listen, if you really want to keep talking, you better take out some merit points to prolong my staying in this building."
At those words, Daniel shut up.
The hour passed slowly.
Daniel had to exit the building as he had exhausted his "Breath", he had been inside of the Sulfur realm for almost two hours after all.
Noah spent all his time focused on enlarging the mental sphere.
When his time was over, his token sent him a warning.
'If I choose to remain overtime, my merit points will be expended. There is also a feature like this.'
He thought, inspecting the academy token.
'Well, my solid "Breath" is almost completely depleted and I don't think that a prolonged training in this environment is ultimately beneficial to my sea of consciousness. I will simply come here again after one week of normal training.'
He had still eighty merit points, he could afford another hour inside the area whenever he wanted.
Noah exited the building and found out that only the guard remained in front of the entrance.
"They all went away. That Daniel helped them."
Lionel spoke and Noah nodded at him.
He then returned to his accommodation and rested before waking up at night to cultivate again.
Ivor stood most of the time in the empty room, he would go outside of the academy ground only to refill his stash of wine.
However, he respected Noah's dedication and never bothered him unless he was studying the researches of the Elemental forging method.
His attitude made the cohabitation smoother.
As the sun rose, Noah stopped his meditation and was about to rest again when he heard someone knocking on the entrance door.
He went to open it and found Thaddeus standing in front of his lodging with a wide smile on his face.
"I see that you got yourself a better accommodation."
Noah hastily bowed and replied.
"Oh, the students in the academy are too nice. A senior actually willingly gave it to me after I saved him in one of my missions."
Thaddeus nodded while looking at the interiors of the house.
"I believe that he must have felt really grateful to you. And tell me, was that before or after you broke his limbs?"
"…"
Noah raised his head and saw that Thaddeus was looking at him with his usual sly smile.
"Am I in trouble?"
Thaddeus shook his head, laughing softly.
"Not at all! In my opinion, you did the right thing. Lately, the heirs of the noble families were growing up as weaklings, it seems that such an extensive period of peace has softened their character too much. With you here, they might focus more on their battle prowess so you have my complete approval in case you wanted to act a bit more wildly."
Noah was at loss for words.
'Does he want me to be some sort of trainer for their poor battle proficiency? Being the bad guy so that they will value more the qualities useful in battle?'
However, he simply rolled his eyes and spoke in a soft voice.
"There should be some better lodging than this one…"
Thaddeus laughed again at his words.
Silence reined after their last exchange of words and Noah could not help but speak again.
"Professor, did you come here only to let me know that you were paying attention to my behavior?"
Thaddeus seemed to remember something and began to speak.
"Right! No, I actually wanted to make you an offer. I'm putting together a small team of young students to complete a special mission. There will be merit points and Credits as a reward, I felt that you might have wanted to join."
Noah's eyes lit up but he first asked about some of his doubts.
"Why come here though? Could you not put the mission on the board?"
Thaddeus lowered his voice before resuming speaking.
"It's actually a confidential mission. I went looking for students with high battle proficiency and with less affiliation to noble families. You, of course, fit these criteria perfectly."