Passing to the elevator, the group reached the Institution. Naturally, the entire place was quite active as people were trying to figure out what they were about to do. The main hall was filled with students.
“Wow…” Arthur muttered as he looked around him. “They look like headless chickens.”
“Naturally, things are about to change, again,” Isla replied. “I’m surprised they are not even more agitated than this.”
Isla knew very well that the academy had just pulled the lever on a move that would turn this entire academy into a battlefield, literally and figuratively. They waited exactly two weeks before they quickly slammed this new idea into their faces without any warnings.
‘Let’s see how they will explain this to these students. The reaction won’t be that easy.’ The girl squinted her eyes.
“Isla, let’s go,” Arthur said as he grabbed her hand. “I’m eager to see what the professor is going to say.”
The girl looked at him before she let him guide her through the countless students around them. Even though Arthur clearly had her arm in his hand, she didn’t find it off-putting at all. In fact, she found herself naturally following him without thinking twice, purely by instinct.
This was not the first time this happened and yet, Isla didn’t mind it at all. Her entire life, she was always the one to move ahead, to lead, to take things into her own hands and nobody else could keep up with her. Even her friends, they always waited for her to decide, to choose, to lead, and to be the changing factor.
That was until a certain boy named ‘Arthur’ flipped that idea upside down. He immediately barged into her life, reaching the top and showing her things she never even thought were possible. He was different, in everything. A complete and utter demon in the battle, and the gentlest, purest soul she had ever met outside of it.
The sheer contrast between the two states made her think that Arthur was not a single person, he was two, and each one appears whenever it needs to appear.
“We’re here, Isla.”
Before the girl could even realize that she had fallen deep in thought, she noticed that they were standing in front of their class. Blinking slowly, she stared at Arthur. Experience more tales on empire
“Are you ok?” He asked as he released her arm. When he did that, Isla immediately lost the feeling of his hand and for some reason, in that split second, she didn’t like it at all. Lifting her hand slightly, she instinctively wanted to reach for his arm again, but then she quickly snapped out of it and returned her arm to the spot where it was.
“Did something happen?” Arthur asked worriedly. Rarely did he see Isla look dazed and for some reason, he felt that it had something to do with him.
“I was thinking about what’s going to happen in the future.” She shook her head. “Let’s get inside.”
“… Sure.” Arthur didn’t try to push her any further and simply walked inside. He sat down on his seat and Isla stood next to him.
“Whatever the professor is going to say now, it might create some chaos. We should stick together. I have already told the others that they must not move alone.” She said.
“Mm, I know.” He replied. “I have a feeling we won’t even have the opportunity to think much.”
Arthur’s instincts were usually accurate and this time, he didn’t feel like they were going to miss either.
Slowly, the stream of students walked into the classroom as they discussed the new course of events. Eventually, the clock ticked, announcing the start of the lessons and their professor walked in, as calm as ever.
“Good morning, everyone.” He said. “I won’t take too much of our lesson’s time to give this new announcement.”
‘Here we go.’ Arthur thought to himself.
Immediately, everyone adjusted their seats to focus on Theodore.
“As all of you might’ve already noticed, a new icon has been added to your devices. This is a new system we have been working on and we called it simply ‘Duels’. Since Divinity Online is a competitive game on the highest level, we figured that students were eager to test their strengths and improve against other students. We have already realized that it was a necessity to add this as soon as possible and so we chose this time to add it.”
‘Ok, so it was exactly what we expected. This was quite a sudden addition, though. You could’ve told us beforehand.’ Arthur shook his head.
“The app has two sections, ‘Duels’ and ‘Rankings’. To use it, you must be in front of your opponent and both of you tap ‘Duel’. Then, you can link your devices together. After that happens, you two will enter the capsule and have a battle inside the game and that could be whether as your default characters or your main game characters, that is up to you.”
‘Ooooh! I can use my main character?!’ Arthur raised an eyebrow. That news was completely unexpected but also great for Arthur. If he is allowed to use that then there is simply no one who can rival him.
“Now, after you two have a battle, the ranking system will calculate the score and based on that score, the points will be added to the rankings. The more points you harvest winning duels, the more your ranking will increase.”
At that moment, one of the students lifted their hand.
“Yes?”
“Don’t we already have a ranking system, professor?” They asked curiously.
“We do and this one isn’t different. In fact, this ranking won’t be alone. By the end of each month, we will collect this data and see how the students performed. If you won a good number of duels then those points will be added to your main ranking and will help you improve your ranking to avoid being regressed or kicked out.”
‘Interesting… So they seriously want students to fight to harvest points. If it’s going to affect our current rankings then nobody is going to hesitate from dueling.’
The class started boiling again as they whispered to one another. The new information was extremely crucial.
“But, there is one more thing,” Theodore said. “Since today is the first day of the Duel, we decided to make it special. During the next 12 hours and for a limited time, the points you can gain from winning a duel are doubled.”
“Wait, what?”
Like a bombshell, Theodore dropped the news on them coldly. Nobody expected to hear that.
“This is called ‘Duels Day’ and it will become a common thing that happens randomly every single week. This is the best opportunity to get as many points as you can.”
“…”
Slowly, Arthur turned to look at Isla who coincidentally was looking at him too. The two read each other through the eyes and they were able to communicate their thoughts with ease.
‘Fuck, they’re really pushing for all the students to just battle it out. The rewards are too attractive for anyone to miss out on them.’ Arthur rubbed his fingers together.
“Well, if that’s the case, then who am I to say no?”
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3