Unsurprisingly, we didn't get any new recruits the next day. Okay, that was an exaggeration. About three more first year students showed up near the end of the second day, begging us to let them join.
The reason was pretty obvious. They had been rejected by the other societies, mostly because they were viewed as having no potential or talent, and thus not worthy of membership. In this way, our Ultimate Outcast Society literally became a society for the outcasts…the castaways, the exiled, and the rejects.
Dong Fang Yue Chu didn't seem to care about that, however, and was only too happy to accept the new members. To him, as long as we met the quota and had the minimum of five members, our club wouldn't be disbanded. That was more than enough reason for him to accept anyone who wanted to join us.
"We're safe!" he exclaimed in joy. I forced a smile, not feeling as much enthusiasm. While I had no reason to reject the new members, I was a little worried about the future of our society. I wasn't looking down on our new members, and I was sure they could prove the others wrong, but I was under no illusion as to what a difficult task that was.
Honestly speaking, I couldn't handle that. We needed to find a proper mentor, someone who could help us teach the new members how to fight. Hell, I needed a mentor as well…on the other hand, I had my Dad, so I wasn't that worried about myself.
"All students…the society exhibition has ended. All students are dismissed. Societies, please pack up your booths and make sure to clean up the area."
"You heard them." getting into his role as the president, Dong Fang Yue Chu was happily directing our new first year students and getting them to dismantle and pack the booths. Of course I helped as well.
It would set a bad precedent to slack off and leave the jobs to the first year students. As their senior and a founding member of our society, I had to do my part.
The booths and materials for the society exhibition were provided by the school, so we just needed to return them to the staff, who directed us to a storage space in one of the back buildings. After we put away all the stuff in storage, I raised a hand.
"Before you all go home, I should show you where our clubroom is."
"Oh!" Dong Fang Yue Chu was looking really hyper. "At long last!"
"Awesome!" Harvey was also staring at me in admiration, mistakenly believing that I had somehow secured the room by myself. Actually, it was given to me by Alicia when the Black Roses were sorting out their inventory.
"Interesting." Stanley Lee nodded thoughtfully. "I assume it has training facilities?"
"Yeah. I train there everyday. You'll see."
I led the strange procession of outcasts into the back building. When they saw where I was heading toward, they exchanged looks of trepidation. Except Harvey, of course, who remained shining with excitement.
"Cool!" he exclaimed. "This seems like a secret base!"
"Secret base my ass," Stan muttered. "More like a room nobody else wanted. We really are nothing but outcasts, are we?"
"Why do you think our society is named as such?" I asked dryly. "But Harvey is correct. We will rarely be bothered by anyone, because hardly anybody comes here. We basically have almost the whole level to ourselves."
In the past week of training, I realized that the building was practically deserted. Nobody came to this building, or even if they did, they didn't head to the level we were at.
Climbing the stairs, I reached the level where my personal training room was at. As I thought, it was deserted, but then again it had been a busy two days for the societies, and hardly anyone was going back to their clubroom after such a strenuous event. As I said, though, during the past week I was training here, I hadn't seen anyone.
Taking a mental note of that, I turned to Dong Fang Yue Chu.
"If possible, we should ask the staff if we can make use of the entire level as our society's clubroom."
"Eh? Okay, leave it to me!"
That wasn't strange, to be honest. The great societies such as the Black Roses and Holy Saints had entire buildings to themselves. The larger societies that were just under them in the hierarchy had several entire levels dedicated to their club activities. Even the smaller ones could afford to have a level or several rooms for their training and other purposes.
However, for a club just starting out like ours…
"This is better than I expected."
Stan's voice cut through my thoughts as he entered the room I had been using alone for the past week. Harvey and Wang Fei gaped at the state-of-the-art training facilities and elegant interior that stood out in contrast against the gloomy exterior.
"Amazing…"
"Whoa! This really is a secret base!"
"I guess you can call it that," I agreed with a laugh. Then I turned to face the whole society, which currently consisted of eight members. "Now that you know where our clubroom is, you can start reporting for club activities here, from tomorrow onward!"
*
After what seemed like a promising start, I was brought back down to earth the next day when Dong Fang Yue Chu approached me with bad news.
I was in the middle of sparring with Stan. Unlike Harvey, who was a swordsman, Stan was a gunslinger. He was wielding dual pistols and firing off energy projectiles at me. I dodged them as quickly as I could, summoning my Gemini twin swords to deflect them.
"Tch!"
Stan clicked his tongue and fired off a rapid series of shots. His guns were blazing faster now, apparently because he had finally finished casting an acceleration spell.
I sprinted across the ring, staying just a couple of steps ahead of Stan's shots, and then wove through his firing pattern. Suddenly I feinted to the left, luring Stan to shift his aim. His shots went wild, especially when I abruptly changed direction and dashed from the right, taking him by surprise.
"Gah!"
Stan threw down his pistols and grabbed a gatling gun. Its rotary barrels spun around rapidly, getting ready to fire an unending stream of high-velocity energy projectiles that would tear me apart if I allowed them to hit me.
Unfortunately, Stan made a fatal error. He had hoped to lure me in so that he wouldn't miss with his most powerful gun, but he had underestimated the time needed to charge and fire it. Even if he didn't, I could have easily dodged it anyway.
As it was, before he could fire off a single shot with his big gun, I kicked the barrel away. Stan staggered, caught off guard, and I pressed Castor's black blade to his throat.
"Good job," I told him. "But that was a fatal mistake. The gatling gun is too slow. If you want to use it at close range, you need to have it already charged up. You would have done better if you stuck to your pistols."
"I still couldn't hit you!" Stan complained, his frustration evident on his slightly handsome features.
"Yeah…another thing you might want to learn against a moving target is anticipation. Don't just shoot at where you see him. Try to predict my movements, where I would go to, and fire at that spot ahead of time."
"…oh!" Stan's eyes widened and he nodded. "Thank you. Shall we try again?"
Before I could agree, Dong Fang Yue Chu stepped into the training room, looking aghast.
"Bad news," he told me grimly. "I couldn't get the level booked for our Ultimate Outcasts Society."
"Why?" I was genuinely curious. "Are they already claimed by other societies?"
That would make sense, given how this room originally belonged to the Black Roses Society. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the rooms on this level were still under the ownership of the Black Roses Society.
"No, they are free. But that isn't the problem." Dong Fang Yue Chu gritted his teeth. "The problem is that we don't have enough prestige."
"Prestige?" Harvey parroted as he came over with Wang Fei, the two of them training at another corner of the room. "What's that?"
"You know, like how the Black Roses Society is one of the four Great Societies?"
The six first-year students nodded, all of them gathering around Dong Fang Yue Chu. He sighed heavily.
"Prestige is like…a currency, I guess? The greater the standing or rank or status of our society, the more prestige we have. Right now, we're considered a new, beginner club, so we don't have the same privileges that other societies with a longer history and more achievements do."
"How do we earn prestige?" Stan questioned, to the point as ever.
"Ranking battles." Dong Fang Yue Chu nodded. "Your Senior Richard over there already helped us gain a bunch of prestige points after he team-killed the Iron Fist Society. So we're actually doing very well for a newly started society. However…" he swept his gaze across the six first-year students gathered in front of him.
They stared at him expectantly.
"…you should be seeing how ruthless this school can be. Once the Protection Period is over, all the seniors will target you first-year students. Unless you can win, you'll most likely lose to them and lose the prestige points we've accumulated so far."
Right. I had mentioned this before, having been a victim of this last year. The second and third years often resorted to targeting the freshly enrolled first year students before they had any measure of combat experience and beat them up in order to improve their own rankings. Of course, this wouldn't just affect the individuals' rankings but also the prestige of the society they were in.
Fortunately there was a Protection Period where none of the second or third year students were allowed to challenge the first year students during the first month of their first semester. However, about a week had passed since school started, which meant there was only three weeks of the Protection Period left.
This was not looking good. Especially if the seniors of Jing Tian Academy began their newbie-hunting once it turned February, it was very possible that we would lose a bunch of prestige points after a series of defeats.
However…
"Don't worry. Leave the earning of prestige points to me. The rest of you should just focus on training, and do your best if you get challenged next month. Don't worry about the results, just learn from each battle. Winning or losing isn't important. What's important is you learning from those fights and making use of them to become stronger."
Again, those admiring gazes. Bloody hell, were they taking my word as the Gospel or something?
"What do you intend to do?" Dong Fang Yue Chu asked a little hesitantly. "Are you going to challenge all the other second and third years, and defeat them to earn as much prestige points as possible over the next three weeks?"
"Oh, no." I shook my head and grinned slyly. "There are other ways of earning prestige points, and I'm thinking of trying them out."