Seeing Hazel make a name for herself; Arthur was relieved. It made him assured that his name wouldn't be given to any of the families by Hazel, as she would be protected by the Tanera royal family. Even still, Arthur never said anything about ending the trial to the two, only to Miko. Erin and Jin were unconscious when he activated the circle, so all the remained were the eyewitnesses of the group like Layla and Marco.
There was still a possibility of being found out, but it was currently slim. Arthur sighed in relief and the articles to read about something else. It was the Runes Apprentice Cup. This was a worldwide competition that any Runes Apprentice could take part in, only skill determining their success and failure.
He didn't care much about the rewards like artifacts, potions, skills, or guilds' sponsorships. He only cared about the fact that the top twenty of the cups would receive a scholarship to any college they want from the association, with the requirement that the person was admitted to the college later. The college also offered special criteria for these twenty persons, requiring them a lower score in the exam.
Contestants needed to be younger than 20 years old and to be registered in the association as an apprentice. They would also need to provide an artifact of their making or something they took a part in to verify their skills.
Arthur felt his blood boil with excitement. He read the World's Abilities Council list of abilities that were released to the public. It was a measure to guide the public toward the correct way of improving their abilities. Arthur searched the list for an ability similar to his, there was none.
Runes were his trump card. Being able to alter the world was his ability that he would use to change the world. His world, to be precise.
"Brother!" Oren barges in a way that made Arthur suspect his brother was trained in the military for this sort of break-in. His brother's face was shades of red and pale, looking like his heart would leap out of his throat the next moment.
"What's wrong?" Arthur furrowed his brows as a grim expression veiled his face. Seeming to find his response appropriate, Oren gulped with a similar expression and nodded. He took a few steps toward Arthur and sat down in front of him. As if he was holding an ancient relic of the gods, he presented his phone to Arthur who picked it up with a similar wary expression.
[Wanna hang out next Sunday? >.<]
It was the single message Arthur read in the chat. His head blanked as his expression slowly turned to one of annoyance after he read the name. Selena Nightroad. He lifted his head and looked at Oren who nodded to him as if he was implying that Arthur could go ahead and defuse the bomb.
Slowly, Arthur placed down the phone and raised his hand again. Before his brother could react, Arthur struck his head with a chopping motion like he was splitting an onion. Of course, he controlled his strength so that it would only hurt a little.
"Ouch! Bro, what are you doing?!"
"Shut up and turn around, don't tell anyone what we're about to do." Arthur took out some cores as he decided it was time to strengthen his brother, hoping it would make him grow a spine.
***
Being absent for two days didn't seem like it would affect Arthur's grades, but it would certainly affect his college entrance exam if he lacked the necessary knowledge.
They didn't live in barbaric times, even strong awakeners need to have minimal knowledge about dungeons, dungeons properties, ranks, monsters, monsters' weaknesses, potions, and other information that would help immensely in clearing the dungeons and fighting the monsters from the other world.
Some fields needed people to develop. There were the mechas, magic engineering, magic arts, biomagic engineering, dimensional summoning, dungeons prediction, magic spaceships, and other fields that were still in development.
Their world was prospering. Yet it was being fought back by the internal struggle for supremacy as it fights against the invasions of monsters and mythical creatures. However, Arthur had nothing to do with these for now.
'…Maybe I do.' Arthur thought while looking at their homeroom teacher, explaining things Arthur was too distracted to notice. Miss Rachel, the young and ambitious teacher, had handwriting that was almost as beautiful as she was. Almost, being the keyword. The matter of whether any of the male students or the females even, paid attention to what she said more than her face.
He remembered Si's words after they talked about his Legacy. The abrupt end of the trial caused a domino effect. As if waiting for this chance for a long time, every nation was mobilizing its force as if they were expecting something.
Arthur knew there was something they were hiding from him, but he didn't ask just yet. He didn't want to keep asking for things without offering them his value while acting skeptical of anything they said.
He was, indeed, skeptical of anything these days. You can never trust someone anymore, he felt. They can always have a different side, or a reason, that would make them backstab you.
It wasn't that he has grown cynical of every living person, he just understood that others might have reasons he didn't know of.
Arthur had his reasons, too.
Even if others' reasons explain their action, they don't excuse them. Men like Arthur, as far as he knew about himself, didn't want to live a life of immoral glory at the expense of others. The end never justifies the means.
The bell rang, ending their class. Arthur picked himself up from his seat and headed toward his clubroom. Unknown to him, he has distanced himself from the other students after he came back from the trial.
Most of the students were more than happy to keep away from him after the incident with Kody. Of course, there were always exceptional people from the common masses. People like Markus and Amelia, who had called out to him before he was able to leave the class.
"We're planning to study together, later on, want to join?" Markus asked as if studying together was a normal occurrence between a transfer student, combat top student, and theory top student. His anticipation proved that he couldn't see that their group would be like a three-wheels wagon, with each wheel being a different size from the others.
"Uh, I don't think I'm the best choice for that?" Reluctance was evident in Arthur's voice, but Markus waved it off like Arthur was being shy. He was not. Amelia, on the side of Markus, didn't say anything to object and simply drank her strawberry milk while looking at Arthur with a complicated gaze.
"We need to stick together, I bet there's a lot you missed out on theory!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Arthur grunted at the implication that he wasn't educated. Markus whistled it away and threw the ball to Amelia's field.
"Amelia also thinks we should help each other, right?" Markus's eyes were darting everywhere as he laughed nervously. Shifting his gaze from Markus to Amelia, Arthur looked for answers. He only got a short nod. Sighing, he agreed to meet them after school and headed toward his club.
It took five minutes of leisure walking for Arthur to reach his club, only to find Ori talking politely to a girl with a unique sash. He could see he was trying to laugh to ease the conversation, it didn't work very well as the girl was stone-faced. After telling him something about budgets, she went away.
"What was that about?"
"Uh, hi Arthur." Ori paused as he scratched his cheek, embarrassed. "Small problems because of what we bought."
"What we bought?"
"Yeah, you have been absent so… You sure take a lot of days off, come in quick and see."
As they walked in, Arthur found the clubroom to be a mess. Metallic cords on the ground, a one-meter metallic frame of what looked like a stick-person drawn by an elementary student in the middle, and many other materials like potions on the desks. There other things like bags and all, making the clubroom, that was fairly big last week, to look cramped.
"Now, let's start building our golem!" Ori said.