Alex opened the door to his suite and saw Camron eating dinner at the dining table. It was at this moment that he realized that he hasn't eaten or taken water in almost a week, nor did he feel thirsty or hungry after his sudden realization.
['Perks of cultivation. You don't feel hungry or thirsty as long as you don't expend too much energy at a go.'] Xander pointed out.
"Alex, you are back. I had made up my mind to come to look for you in the library if you weren't back before I finished, come join me." Camron said with his mouth full. He was eating food that looked like porridge.
Alex wasn't feeling hungry, but he still decided to eat something. "So, how many members do we have in our group now?" He asked as he took his seat opposite his friend.
-Cough, cough, cough!!
Camron choked on his food when he heard Alex's question. His abnormal reaction raised one of Alex's brows. "What did you do wrong?" Alex asked before he sent a spoon of porridge into his mouth.
"What do you mean by what did I do wrong? I did nothing wrong." Camron pretends to look offended.
"Well, you are a retard after all," Alex said and sent another spoon of porridge into his mouth.
"And you have major bi-polar tendencies." Camron retorted.
"You…" Alex blinked continuously and dropped his spoon, he paused. He wanted to deny what Camron said but couldn't. He cocked his head a bit and nodded.
"Touché." He picked his spoon and continued to eat.
Camron chuckled at his final reply. "I found three… decent people to join our group. 2 boys and 1 female. We planned to have a group meeting so we can get to know ourselves but you were MIA for a while."
"Decent people? How strong are they?"
"Well, there's good news and there's also bad news. The good news is that they are all nascent realm cultivators, two rank-4, and the other a rank-5. The bad news is that 2 have a below-average affinity with all the elemental pillars."
Alex frowned, although he didn't care about who joined his group, after being in the library he was now eager to earn MP.
['Just because they have no affinity with any of the elemental pillars doesn't mean that they don't have an affinity with any element. Take your spatial ability as an example, you have it and can use but they didn't have a pillar for it in the testing grounds.'] Xander stated.
['True'] Alex concurred.
"What about the third one?"
"He's alright. He is also a fire elemental user like you."
"That's not too bad. What about the cultivator they are going to assign to our group? Or we don't get any?"
Camron sighed. "Unfortunately, we reached the minimum requirement too late. They had all been assigned by the time I found a person to join ours."
"Let me guess, they were rejected by every other group and our group just so happen to be the dumpster group?" Alex asked with a smirk.
"Not really, there were other dumpster groups as you put it. I had to bribe two of them and make promises before they agreed to join."
"What promises?"
"Well, I promised them that they would get 10 blue LD-ECs from you every week, as you are the captain of our group." Camron turned his head to the side as he spoke. He had done something shameful.
['What the f*ck!? How can you go around promising to give others money that isn't yours? this retard is delusional, he can go ahead and f*ck himself. Let him have it Alex, tell him that we are not going to help him keep a promise that he made without consulting us.'] Al started to rant nonstop.
"Okay." Alex agreed.
['Good.'] Al thought he had agreed to do what he suggested.
"Really, you are going to agree to it? You are not mad that I did that?" Camron was relieved that his friend didn't get mad at him.
['What is going on? that's my money too. Don't I also have a say on what or how we spend it? What did I ever do to you?'] Al said dejectedly.
Alex ignored his alter.
"No, I'm not mad. I'm wondering why I didn't think of that in the first place. What about the third person, did you draw him in with a bribe too?"
"No, he came to me on his own and said that he would love to join us. Even after I told him our situation he still insisted on joining"
"Hmmm, that sounds fishy," Alex uttered.
"Yeah it does, but as beggars, we can't be too picky about who we accept. So I agreed to let him join."
"It is what it is. We just need to hunt or go for missions to earn MP. When do you plan on holding the next meeting? I think we should talk about when we would be going for a mission or hunting as early as we can."
"We can have a group meeting tomorrow, right after classes. Should we hold it here, in the suite?"
"Sure, why not." Alex got up from his seat as he had finished eating. He started to walk towards the direction of his room but stopped mid-way. "One more thing. You are the captain of the group, not me. I don't want unnecessary stress." He finished and left for his room.
…
The next day…
Alex and Camron went to class together, they entered a huge hall and they were immediately surprised by what they saw. There were barely 30 people here.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't we over a thousand in the arena?" Alex said.
"We were."
"Then where did everybody go?"
"You guys are still clueless eh, almost everyone has gone hunting or for missions. The students are eager to earn merit points. Those that you will meet on campus are the ones that their groups didn't get a slot for hunting, and those that are not confident enough to go for the missions left. The slots for hunting are limited."
Alex heard an unfamiliar flat, monotonous voice explain to him why there were few people around.
"Drake!" Camron called out. "Alex, this is Drake, a member of our team. Drake this is Alex." He introduced them.
Drake was a thin, pale-skinned tall guy, he had black spiky hair that was cut short and an oblong-shaped face with thick eyebrows. His eyes were blue and his ears were big. The things that seemed average in size were his lips and nose.
['Ayyy, he looks like a mismatched piece this and that. I mean he's got the nice color of eyes but the wrong type of brows and hairstyle. Nice shape of face but wings as ears. And that pale skin color, he looks like a vampire with too much make-up on.'] Al mercilessly dissed Drake.
['If you had a physical body you'd probably look worse than that.'] Alex mentioned.
['You wish.']
"So you are the captain? An orange badge student as our captain?" He scoffed.
"Before you shove your proverbial dick in anywhere, let me just stop you there. I am not the captain, he is." Alex pointed at Camron.
"For a weakling, you speak with too much confidence." Drake sneered.
"Says the pale broomstick," Alex said nonchalantly.
Camron had already started laughing but he changed it into a coughing fit.
"Alright, that's enough." A familiar yet annoying voice reached Alex's ears. It was Katherine's, she had come in with two people walking beside her. A girl and a boy.
The girl had average looks and an alright body shape, blue hair and a shy countenance. The boy had green hair, a muscular stature, average looks and was as tall as Alex.
"And these are?" Alex asked.
"These are the remaining members of our group, Emma and Adrian. Guys, this is Alex." Camron introduced.
"The guy that is famous for getting on the bad side of a teacher and Duna on his first day. It's nice to finally meet you." Adrian said playfully and stretched his hand for a handshake.
Alex refused to shake his hand. He wasn't used to interacting with people, and even when he did he hardly had any physical contacts with them. Alex only looked at his hand and looked elsewhere.
"Well, that was welcoming. I don't care either way, just as long as I receive the ECs that we were promised." Adrian pulled his hand back and put it in his pocket.
"That wouldn't be a problem," Alex said in a flat tone.
"Haha." Camron gave an awkward laugh. "We would be holding our first meeting as a team today in the school's guest inn after classes."
After that, they all went to different sides to sit. Camron went to Alex. "You know you can try to be nicer to people." He tried to coax Alex.
"You know I can always use your throat as a punching bag." He flashed an innocent smile that seemed to make his threat a lot more threatening to Camron.
Camron flinched and covered his throat with his hands. "I was just saying, as a team we should try to get along."
"I don't need to get along with them. If wasn't for the school I wouldn't even notice their existence." Alex looked away. Not long after that, one of the teachers that arrived on stage with Vincent on the day of orientation arrived.
"Take your seats, class is about to begin." The man's voice sounded monotonous.