Ning 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.
"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.
"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?"
