The next day, Athar remained holed up in his room. As Angelica had suggested, he kept Sarpinash out in the room but did not do anything else to grow the bond stronger between the two. He could tell that he already had a pretty strong bond with Sarpinash, and he figured he could focus more on that in the future. Sarpinash, on the other hand, was happy to enjoy his presence in the outside world and slither on whatever he could find.
The thing Athar worked on was the two Yellow Grade techniques he had selected. Although both the techniques were of Yellow Rank, the Sword Slash was easier to learn than the Phase of Illusion. Thus, the first step he decided to learn was the Sword Slash. The turn of the Phase of Illusion would come later.
He left his room only in the evening for a brief period of time. It was for his scheduled spar with Ryler. He had another intense spar with Ryler, and Athar could feel that these spars were really helping him a lot. Although Athar was still slightly holding back in the spar, he could not take anything away from the brilliance of Ryler.
Ryler was a genius in his own right, and he was not your average nobody. With his silver-grade beast taken into consideration, he was a top-notch talent. Ryler was agile and although Athar had upper hand against him, considering he had been holding back, agility was something on which Ryler rivalled Athar.
After his spar, he went to the dinner area. As Ryler had told him, he kind of expected some drama to happen again in the dining hall but no such thing happened. It was probably because the number of the students in the dining hall was quite less and it seemed that most of the students who had went outside had their fill outside.
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Athar had just returned to his room after dinner when there was a knock on his door. A frown appeared on his face, and he had a good idea who it might be. He guessed that it must be related to the 30% quota that he was supposed to submit to Dervin today.
He straightened his back as he unlocked the door and pulled it slightly open. He peeped through the small opening.
Standing in front of him was a man of average height. He was slightly burly in his appearance and had curly hair. Athar did not recognize him.
"Athar VonCruz?" the man outside the door questioned.
"Yes," Athar replied, raising his eyebrows.
"I want to have a word with you," the man said, as he tried to push the door open. But Athar was quicker. He exited the room before the man could respond and pulled the door shut behind him.
"We can talk outside," Athar added smoothly.
The man gazed at him briefly, as though he was considering Athar's suggestion.
He finally agreed, nodding. "Fine. Follow me."
As already told, all the student dormitories were in D Block, which had four floors. Athar lived on the fourth floor; the fourth floor was for first year students. The third floor was for second year students. The second floor was for third year students. The first floor was for fourth year students. And the ground floor was a type of common room. Well, it was too big to be called a common room.
Now, to house almost 600 students of each year in their separate rooms, one could imagine the sheer size of a single floor.
Every floor was like a web of honeycombs intertwined between different corridors and rooms.
And Athar followed that man toward the isolated part of the floor. This part contained the empty rooms that would be filled by students taking admission in the next six months.
"Athar VonCruz," the man said. "Let me introduce myself first."
"My name is Trux, and I am a second-year student," he added, to which Athar nodded in response. It was his indication for Trux to continue.
"Athar," Trux continued, "I believe you were supposed to go somewhere."
Athar narrowed his eyes, maintaining an expression of confusion on his face. He was trying to convey that he did not understand what Trux was trying to say.
Trux sighed, as if he could see through Athar's play. "Dervin. Does that name ring a bell?"
Hearing this, a slight 'nervousness' crept onto Athar's face as he gave a 'frightened' nod.
"Good that you remember," Trux remarked. "Then may I ask why you did not go to the place where you were supposed to contribute the 30% share of the resources you had received?"
"That…" Athar almost stammered in response.
"What?" Trux snapped. He was losing patience.
"After I received my resources last week, I got too excited and used all of them," Athar said with a slightly sheepish face. "I had nothing left to contribute for my share."
A small smirk appeared on Trux's face as he gazed at Athar.
"You know, Athar VonCruz," Trux said, "usually, when we have such a case, when a student misses their quota... we deal with them in a different manner."
"We do not go to them or approach them in a nice manner, and we do not ask them the reason why they missed their quota," he continued with a grin. "We directly give them a beatdown and make them understand their place. We are not the kind of people to play the kind role."
"But you know what?" he continued. "Dervin put in a good word for you. He said you have an impeccable record of always submitting your quota on time."
"He said that I must find out the reason why you missed your quota and then decide accordingly."
"And you should consider yourself a bit lucky. You are really fortunate," he grinned. "Considering your reason and Dervin's good word, I am going to give you a chance."
"I must thank you, and Dervin, for this," Athar added awkwardly.
"Haha!" Trux chuckled softly. "But you must suffer a punishment."
"Next week, you will submit all five of your beast cores as your quota for these two weeks," Trux announced. "After that, you can resume your usual 30%."
"But that is more than 60% of two weeks…" Athar tried to argue.
Trux narrowed his eyes as he glared at Athar. "When you are given an inch do not ask for a foot. You not getting physical beatdown is already your lucky. Be happy in this."
"Next week, 5 beast cores," he said and did not let Athar add anything. An aura of E Rank burst from Trux's body as he gave a final glare to Athar and walked away.
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[Thank you for reading. Rate, Review and Comment on my novel. Also send the power stones]