Chapter 180: rumors

Stepping into his suite Al decided to check the dining room to see if Arabella was still there. He hid behind the wall and peeped.

The room was still the same way that he left it, with Arabella still seated there on her chair with her head on the table.

But it looked like she had passed out on the table.

['She's still there, but she's asleep.'] Al informed.

['That's good, we won't have to finish dinner with her or give her a reply.'] Alex was happy with how everything turned out tonight.

Al stepped out of the place that he was peeping from and went closer to the dining table.

['What are you doing Al?'] Alex questioned.

['Just thought that I should take her to one of the rooms so that she could get a comfortable place to sleep.'] Al answered.

['Nah, let her be. I don't want it looking like I have feelings for her. Just let her be.'] Alex opposed Al's intentions.

"And I thought that I was the player amongst us." He whispered and left for his room. Al moved so quietly that his footsteps couldn't be heard. He didn't want Camron to know that he was back.

When he was in his room he shut the door and went directly to his bed. Before laying on it he switched back with Alex.

Alex immediately dropped on the fluffy bed. He laid on his stomach and thought to himself; ['Tomorrow is the day, but first, we've got to attend class. I have no excuse not to anymore.'] Not long later, he went to sleep.

…

Early in the morning, Alex woke up. The alarm from his skin crawler was what woke him up. He prepared the necessary and got ready for the day.

As he came out of his room, the first person he saw was Camron, just not the Camron with the friendly mood that Alex was used to.

He saw a pissed-off Camron that refused to greet him or say hello to him, he just had a scowl on his face. The two of them just stared at each other.

Alex's face was without any emotions but his mind was busy.

['Why is he looking at me like that? did I do anything wrong? Is there something on me?'] Alex thought.

['After what you did to his sister, I would have been surprised if he wasn't pissed at you.'] Al said playfully.

['What I did? What did I do? I did nothing wrong?'] Alex stated in his defense.

['We were having a nice talk, you Al, teased her, she confessed and then we got a call, left, then when we came back and she was already asleep. And then we left her to enjoy her sleep.'] He mentioned the sequence of how things went down last night.

['Sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself that what you did was right. Good luck doing that.'] Al ended the discussion.

Alex decided to break the ice. He cleared his throat and said; "Are you heading to class now?" He waited for a few seconds but received no reply from Camron.

Camron turned and left for the exit of the suite.

['Well, that was awkward.'] Al muttered.

"I'll take that as a yes." Alex sighed and followed behind Camron. They left the guest inn and went to class together.

Along the way, Alex could notice a lot of eyes on him. When he looked around, people were staring at him and whispering.

['Now I'm curious, is there something on me?'] He thought.

['No, they are probably looking at you because of the rumors about your so-called ability to find treasures.'] Xander pointed out.

Alex had forgotten about that. Now that he knew why they were staring at him, he couldn't care anymore for what they did, just as long as they don't disturb him.

Upon arrival in their class, Alex drew the attention of everyone there to himself. The whole lecture room went silent as they stepped in.

Alex ignored them and continued to follow the angry Camron up until they got a seat at the front of the class, for themselves.

A few seconds later the class became noisy. Alex could hear his name being mentioned by different people.

"Is that him?" One of the students in the class asked his friend. "Yeah, he's the one. Because of him, everyone in his team was able to break through to the disaster cultivation realm. The rumors about him being able to find treasures whenever he feels like are true. I wish I was on his team." Another student replied. They were both males.

"Isn't he the one that got punished by Mr. Vincent?" A girl whispered to her friend.

"Yes, he got a thousand merit points deducted from him on the first week after the resumption. No one wanted to be in his team at that time. Now a lot of people are probably regretting it. If they were in his team, they would have become blue badge students in no time." The girl's friend replied.

"It seems like you guys do not know of his other feats, there are other rumors about this Alexander guy. There's one going around that he is a lightning elemental user." A guy that was interested in Alex, interjected into the two girls that were talking about Alex.

-Gasp!!

They gasped in surprise, "Is that really true?" One of the girls asked.

"I swear on it, it is true." The guy replied.

"Just because you swear on it doesn't mean that it is true." One of the girls argued.

"I know that it is true because I took the same entrance exam with him, I was one of the last people to come out of the cave. You have heard of what happened to the last set of people that came out of the cave during the entrance exam, right?"

"Yes," The girls chorused.

"I too was hit by the terrifying rain of pink lightning. The pain I got from that, was unexplainable like my blood was being drained. And after I was lucky enough to regain myself and escape being part of the people that failed, it was said, with proof – that he was the last person to come out of the cave unhurt. And when he was coming out, those that were present there said that he was surrounded by pink lightning that didn't seem to cause him any harm." The guy finished explaining.

"Wow, there is someone with a rare ability in our academy." The two girls looked at Alex.

Alex who had been listening to them talk about him, had his hand on the table and his chin resting on top of his hand with his eyes closed.

"Not one, but two." The guy that was singing Alex's praise corrected.

"See that guy seating next to him, the captain of the Seraphim team. His name is Camron Avanti, he is a darkness elemental user." The guy revealed to the girls.

-Gasp!!

Once again the girls were stunned.

"Two rare elemental users in one team, that's wild." One of the students in the class exclaimed.

The guy that was singing Alex's praise didn't know that the whole class was listening to him, he seemed to know a lot about Alex, more than they did.

Camron had been listening to what they had been saying but paid no attention to them. He was still angry at what Alex did.

'If only they knew that we have 4 rare elemental users in our team, I wonder how they flip.' Camron thought to himself.

"Yes, it's very wild." The guy singing Alex's praises smiled. He liked that everyone was paying attention to him now. To him, it meant that Alex and Camron had no choice but to listen to what he was saying even if they choose to act like they weren't listening to the conversation that the people in the class were having.

"Most of you weren't present in the first combat and tactics class, but I was. Have any of you here ever heard Mr. Tsukishima giving a compliment to any student?" The guy asked.

"No," The students around replied.

"Then a lot of you do not know that Mr. Tsukishima praised Alexander, and not only that, he awarded him with a thousand merit points, nullifying the one that was deducted from him by Mr. Vincent. He fought with two people at once, with their cultivation sealed. And he beat them without breaking a sweat." The guy smirked and took a glance at Alex.

He wanted to see if his sweet-talking was going to earn him at least a little facial expression from Alex.

"That's not something some of us here cannot do." One of the students chipped in.

"That my friend is true, what he did isn't what you should be focusing on, it is the fact that he was praised and complimented by Mr. Tsukishima." The guy singing Alex's praises pointed out.

Alex breathed out and it was audible enough for the people in the class to hear. They thought that he was fed up with listening to them talk about him so everyone there kept quiet.

And Alex himself didn't know what he had caused with just the way he exhaled, his eyes were still closed.

['I just remembered when there was a rumor back on Mars that I was a cyborg. One that the solar system has never seen before. One with technology, enough to wipe out all eight functioning planets in the solar system.'] Alex thought.

['Yeah, and some idiots decided to try and hunt us down because they believed that stupid rumor. They thought that if they could catch us and study the so-called technology that was used to make us, they would be able to topple the balance of power in the solar system… ahh, the good old days.'] Al sighed.