Author: Cienz

Edited by Thisisnate

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Chapter 10: Failure

The following day after the first class had ended, Lia sat around with her head hung and felt quite down.

She had just heard about the notorious reputation that their current instructor Dina had from a friend within the Martial faction.

What she didn’t know was that the well informed Windle knew and even planned this from the very beginning! He wanted to take Dina's class because she was also the teacher of this year’s elementalist class. Windle lured both her and Teo to join the class with him!

"I wish I knew about this earlier.. -sigh- Why did we have to pick that class?!" Lia felt extremely frustrated and regretful.

Although it had only been 2 days since class had started, she had heard all the rumors about Dina's classes.

Monthly tests and extra lessons if you scored below 90% which caused bullying and harassment from the other students if you held back the class. Sometimes there were even mandatory classes during the weekends! It was all too horrible.

Before enrolling into the academy, their lives were as free as a bird. They had all the time in the world to themselves but now this highly "motivated" instructor might even use up their remaining free time.

"Ugh..." Lia sighed again as she hung her head in despondence

"It's not all bad, cheer up." Teo said as he tried to cheer her up

"That's right, as long as we don't slack off, we should easily get at least a 90%, or perhaps even 100%." Windle chimed in.

"Besides there are three of us! If we work together, I'm sure it'll be even easier" Teo reassured Lia

Lia's eyes grew watery, as she felt touched from the camaraderie her two friends brought her in her time of despair "You guys..." She had a new found hope!

‘I, Lia Char will not get below 90!’, she said inside as she felt hopeful

....

As Lia left Windle and Teo to attend her other elective class, Windle and Teo began to head towards their elementalist class.

As they walked, people along the way were seen furtively whispering things to each others as they blatantly stared at Teo

"Look it’s him! He’s the one right?"

"I'm not sure, but according to the descriptions, it might be him"

....

As they arrived at the predestined elementalist classroom, the low din of the classroom fell silent as everyone turned and stared at the newcomers.

"Look it’s the purist!" someone whispered

The arrogant blonde Kristofer suddenly smiled in disdain.

"Haha look who it is! The most famous man on campus" Kristofer said loudly, not bothering to hide his disdain or ridicule for Teo.

"Is he even allowed to be here? Isn’t he just essentially a non-elementalist? Heh" Ash, the brown haired youth within the group, followed up.

"What a failure!" Erin, the blonde young lady added.

Some laughter erupted among the students but Teo was unaffected, it was like he was in his own little world.

Windle knew what the other kids were implying, but after seeing Teo seemingly unaffected, he also did not show any reaction.

They moved towards the same seat they had last class.

The mockery eventually died down. Only the arrogant group was still laughing, opening mocking Teo. They felt justified as they felt that Teo had stolen the limelight that they were supposed to have but, the it turned out that the heavens were fair and he was just trash.

Seeing Teo looking quite nonplussed, their disdain only increased.

But soon, Dina walked into the center of the circular auditorium.

"Looks like everyone is here. I hope everyone brought their elemental stones. We will begin with feeling the energy from the stones."

"Everyone bring out one elemental stone and place it in your hands."

After everyone had one in their hands, Dina continued "Okay now, close your eyes and try to feel a pulse coming from the stone in your hand."

As Dina saw her students closing their eyes in efforts to sense the elemental energy, she saw that some of the students were already at the Gathering stages. In particular, Zachery, Ash, Kristofer and Erin.

'As expected, they have do possess some skills to be arrogant.' She then looked at Ash from the group and could sense that although he was still in the Sensing stage, he was not too far from the next stage.

Teo closed his eyes and tried to feel the pulse of the elemental stone.

With his eyes closed, he could smell the grass in the surrounding area, he could hear and feel the wind blowing through his hair and skin. Slowly he tried blocking each sense out one by one, in attempts to focus on his pulse, eventually succeeding in blocking out both of his senses of sound and touch.

-Badump- -Badump- -Badump-

Teo could hear his heart beating. Feel his heartbeat through his flesh, feel them through his veins and blood..

The sound and feeling actually started out quite soft but eventually got louder and louder... it became clearer and clearer, as if nothing else existed in the world besides his heart beating.

-Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump-

Suddenly, another pulse appeared...

'This! Is this the pulse of the elemental stone? Is it this easy to feel its pulse?' he thought as his mind wandered.

-Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump-

The second pulse continued, and even got louder and clearer. But Teo suddenly noticed something was off.

He could easily tell source of each heartbeat. One pulse was coming from his heart, while the other was a few inches away from his heart rather than his palm...

-Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump- -Badump-

'Is it the Mr. Cien's pulse?' he wondered.

‘How could this be? And wouldn't listening to an elemental pulse become so much harder with another pulse here?’

He continued to listen. 5 minutes passed... 10 minutes passed... 1 hour passed... Finally nothing... The two pulses were too loud for him to hear anything else.

Teo recalled what happened last night..

.....

"100 questions! Let's see if you can answer any of them." The smile on the old man's face was full of confidence, as if he already won.

"Let's start with an easy one. What symbols are related to using fire elemental energy?"

Teo was speechless, he thought it was a one question, one answer format. He didn't expect that this old man was so shrewd that he wanted a list of answers for 1 question.

Teo began drawing on the ground the 18 different symbols then looked at the old man as he finished.

"Not bad, your memory is pretty good. Next, which set of shapes are compatible with these 4 symbols?"...

"What is the meaning of this shape?"...

"What would you do if this symbol was placed in the lower part of the array?" ...

"What does this symbol do?"...

The questions came unceasingly. Finally, after the 74th question, Teo had only gotten 3 wrong, and 71 correct.

The questions were getting progressively harder and harder. Each question only asking information on the first quarter part of the book. The first quarter of the book consisted of the introduction of the flow of energy and the complete set of shapes and symbols. It even had symbols not known to modern world, such ancient symbols could unlock a whole field of study within the empire.

The old man Cien was getting flustered. He didn't expect that this ten year old youth's memory and comprehension to be at this level. But in reality, only Teo's comprehension was outstanding, as memorization was not his strong suit. The only reason why it seemed like Teo’s memory was top tier was because he repeatedly re-read the each part of the book. Since he could not bring any other books into this world inside the shell, he just kept re-reading it over and over again. His persistence and concentration, paired with his comprehension, allowed him to answer all the difficult questions that Cien had thought of.

"Which pattern would you use if you had to use these specific symbols?" Cien was getting desperate, he needed 18 wrong answers while Teo only needed to answer 9 questions correctly.

"I don't know." Teo said

"HA! Finally I got you!" Cien was ecstatic, after consecutive correct answers he had finally found a question where Teo was clueless with.

"But Mr. Cein, the first quarter of the book does not mention anything about patterns." Teo quickly countered.

When Cien heard this his face fell, as he quickly grabbed the book and flipped through the pages. It was exactly as Teo had said, the section on patterns was on the next section of the book. His face turned red with embarrassment. Teo did not know that the one who wrote this book was Cien himself, and that Mr. Cien had actually forgotten the contents of the book he wrote himself!

After a while Cien calmed himself and turned to Teo and coughed "Good, good. I see you were paying attention. It was an intentional trick question to see what you know! Now let’s move on to the next question."

He quickly directed Teo's attention to the next question but soon the test was over.

The final results was that Teo answered 80 questions correctly and only had 5 wrong answers. Cien lost to Teo.

....

After 4 hours the class ended.

Teo still had no luck in feeling the pulse of the stone.

"Teo how did you do?" Windle asked beside him with a brow full of sweat.

"No luck today, but I'll try again later in my cave. How about you?" Teo replied.

"Actually I could sense the pulse quite strongly. I guess I'm luckier than you." Windle smiled jokingly. He knew the reason why there was a difference in results. It was because he was a specialist with a very high growth rating, while Teo was rated at the end of the other side of the spectrum.

'Mr Cien, do you know a way to easily get through these stages?' Teo mentally sent a message to the old man Cien. Since he had won the test last night, it would be a waste not to take advantage of it.

The old man within the inner world had a face of regret! 'This is gonna be a pain in the ass...' he thought to himself.