Lith’s dorm, Sky Island.
Lith collapsed on his bed and stuffed his head into the pillow. He rolled around a bit and while thinking to himself:
‘Argh… Just why did I even bother to ask Miss Emilia what I already knew about. It was no different than attending those boring botany lessons. Sigh…’
The conversation, which was more of a lecture than actual conversation, lasted for an hour. Emilia explained many things to Lith ranging from the culture to the many different places present in the Angel Continent. Lith knew about them already since his sister had him learn about them, so it felt torturous to him when he heard it once again.
Thankfully, he decided to end the conversation as early as possible and came back to his room. A few minutes later, he fell asleep.
…
Next day at 5:00 pm.
Park, Abalax Sky Island.
A group of four students were sitting around in a circle on the well-trimmed grass present in the park. All were in their academy uniforms and looking at their blue ties, one could tell that they were first years.
“Sheng and Ji, this is the guy I was talking about.” A dragon teen introduced a teen from the giant race to his two friends.
“Hi, I am Sheng Wu from class A-3.” A werewolf teen said to the giant teen and extended his hands forward and shook hands with the giant teen.
“I am Gunther from class A-5, nice to meet you.” The giant teen said with a smile.
The giant teen looked just like any other ordinary teen, with the only difference being his size. He was four meters tall and was neither too lean nor too fat.
The people from the Giant race usually resembled those from the Human race, except for being twice, thrice, and sometimes even a hundred times their average size of 170 cm. Had it not been for their size, there wouldn’t be any difference between them and the humans.
Gunther wasn’t any exception to such a thing and was twice the size of the teen sitting along with him. He had blonde hair and brown eyes and seemed to be a good-looking teen.
“Gunther. Nice to meet you too.” Gunther shook the guy’s hand and greeted him with the same smile.
“Alright, now that we all know each other, let’s get started with our plans for the upcoming Survival Tournament.” The dragon teen said after the three were done knowing each other’s introduction.
“Hey, shouldn’t you introduce yourself too?” Ji said hitting the dragon teen’s shoulder.
“Why would I? You three know me already. It’s not like something has changed.” The dragon teen replied.
“Me and Sheng greeted the guy, only you didn’t. C’mon, do it.” Ji said with a smile and joked around.
“Ji, I literally brought him to you. I know him. And can you stop with your jokes? They aren’t funny. We three are here because we are low on merit points and could be demoted from our classes anytime soon. Maybe even fail this year and get expelled from the school. The Survival Tournament is our last chance.” The dragon teen said seriously to Ji.
“Tsk. What a bore.” Ji clicked his tongue. “So anyway, Gunther, this boring guy is Ojas Qia, same class as he and from the… Uh… something, something, tribe of the dragons.” Ji introduced Ojas to Gunther despite being seriously told to not joke around.
Gunther smiled hearing it and didn’t respond to him. Ojas rubbed his temples and hoped that Ji stopped talking and listened seriously.
Noticing the lack of response from both sides, Ji clicked his tongue and sat quietly. Sheng on the other hand had no reaction or response to this little banter going on around him. He seemed indifferent to it.
The atmosphere around Ojas became silent and he sighed in relief. Finally, it seemed that everyone was serious now and he could talk and discuss about the Survival Tournament. Ojas cleared his throat and asked:
“I think we all know who the biggest threats are, right?”
The three nodded their heads. It was obvious to them who the biggest threat was. Ojas nodded noticing their affirmation and slightly pointed towards three students sitting on a bench around two hundred or so meters away.
“Those three have a ninety-nine percent chance of winning as compared to us. But a good thing is, we don’t need to aim for winning the tournament. As long as we are in the top 10, our grades will be saved and we will not be expelled or failed.” Ojas said, giving a little hope to Sheng and Ji.
“You say as if it’s very easy to be in the top 10, Ojas.” Sheng replied in a neutral tone.
Ojas could tell where he was coming from and nodding his head in understanding, he said, “I know what you’re thinking of. But don’t worry about it. We have Gunther over here with us, we’ll be fine. He is doing much better than us despite being in A-5 and he doesn’t need to be in the top 10 like us. I asked him for help and he’s here for that, just as I said to you two.”
Sheng and Ji nodded their heads while Gunther listened quietly.
Ojas then started formulating the plans for the Survival Tournament along with the three; the plan being about things he would do to beat his peers down. It was a challenging task to compete with so many other students and almost a pipe dream to be in the top 10.
But, Ojas, Sheng, and Ji had little confidence in their own selves since they were in the 3rd class and in the top 600 among the total of 10,000 students and 50 classes present.
As for Gunther, he was just there to support these three at the request of Ojas. Although he was in class A-5, he had enough merit points to get promoted to class A-3 or A-2 but the month hasn’t ended yet and students were only promoted or demoted on the 1st of each month. Thus Gunther had to wait a bit.
The four students were discussing their plans openly in a public park without even putting up a sound barrier. Their talks were naturally heard by the sparse people present in the park. Though others listened to it, they didn’t care about it since it wasn’t their event.
Lith, Ralph, and Dennis had good auditory senses and could listen to the talks of Ojas and his friends. They had already noticed that the four were talking about them but chose to not call them out for it.
Dennis, sitting on one end of the bench, looked at Ralph, sitting in the middle, and Lith, sitting on the other end, and said, “those three are talking about us.”
“Wow. I didn’t know.” Ralph said indifferently while he sipped on a chocolate milkshake and watched the fishes in the pond present in front of him.
Hearing the sarcastic reply from Ralph, Dennis’s eyebrow twitched and he said, “you’re welcome.”
Lith didn’t bother to look or reply to Dennis either and was busy throwing fish food, a few at a time, into the pond.
“So anyway, are you two not going to make any plans or discuss anything about the Survival Tournament?” Dennis asked seriously this time.
Ralph slightly turned his head and said, “I would’ve discussed it but there’s nothing much that we know about the event. Except for the other students, we basically have no other information. The event is kept a surprise for some reason. Those people over there are assessing the strength and weaknesses of other students and are trying their best to formulate a plan to eliminate them. We don’t need to do it since we have already fought with almost everyone in our batch in the entrance exam.”
“There’s also no point discussing it among ourselves since we will be going solo in the tournament. Make your own plans and keep them to yourself.” Lith added, without turning to Ralph and Dennis while throwing fish food in the pond.
Ralph and Dennis nodded their heads. Though they were good friends with each other, during tournaments or other tests, the three were always solo and weren’t in a team. They didn’t decide on it themselves, they had no plans to go solo, but the academy made them.
Lith alone was overpowered enough, the academy knew about it. Ralph and Dennis were in the tier below him in terms of prowess and there was no one else that could match them. These three would therefore become an overkill team and the tests or tournaments would end even before they began.
The academy, taking consideration of the other students, thus took measures and gave a handicap to these three in every test and tournament. This made the three to almost be equal to the other students, but the academy also ensured to reward handsomely to the three so that it wasn’t unfair to them.
The three knew about it and it didn’t take Lith even a second to think and know that the same type of thing would happen in the Survival Tournament too. Thus he reminded the other two about it, in case they were forgetting about it.
“What His Highness said is right. There’s really no point discussing it.” Dennis said nodding his head.
Ralph glared at Dennis while aggressively sipping on the chocolate milkshake. He gave such a long and nice explanation but this guy totally ignored him and instead listened to Lith who was only adding to what he said. It seems his words had no value at all.
Dennis noticed Ralph’s reaction to his comment and feeling successful in provoking him slightly, he gave an innocent smile to him.
Looking at Dennis’s stupid smile, Ralph glared daggers at him. If he could kill him by his glare then Dennis would’ve died thrice already.
Dennis could feel that Ralph’s glaring at him had gotten more aggressive than before. He felt happy knowing that Ralph was suffering, even if it was only slightly. Keeping the innocent smile on his face, he now raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes, forming a crescent moon shape.
Noticing Dennis’s stupid face, Ralph was angry and almost crushed the plastic cup in which his milkshake was present. He, however, controlled himself at the last second since he didn’t want to waste his valuable chocolate milkshake due to this stupid guy’s provocation.
Lith ignored the two’s banter and hummed a song while happily throwing food at the fish and watching them feed on it.
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