All the new students gathered in line while waiting for the Academy Principal to give a welcome speech followed by rewards which were to be given to the top 10 students. Soon the announcer went to the main stage and welcomed the principal onto the stage. The matured woman beside Carmella slowly rose up and walked to the stage and introduced herself to the students. Her name was Susanne Inglewood and she welcomed the new students while giving a standard motivational speech asking the students to work hard. She also congratulated the top ten students while also saying that they should not get satisfied with this result and work hard as their journey is only at the starting phase. Then she called the top ten students in descending order and gave rewards based on their ranking. The top three received a violet pill and an inscription sword. An inscription sword was a sword smelted by blacksmith and inscribed by alchemist. These inscription turn the sword into an elemental sword which requires Qi to be channelised to activate the rune. The most popular elements are fire, wind and water. Violet pill on the other hand helps warriors to breakthrough a small level or can even be used to strengthen their foundation in other words it is a treasure for lower level warriors. Sean, Melinda and Sirius went to receive their rewards.
The matches for deciding the rank 3 to rank 10 were placed in between Quarter finals, Semi finals and before finals and between the match of Sirius and Roman, Sirius won getting the third place. The next seven ranks obtained an inscription sword and not the Violet Qi and once the rewards were given the students started dispersing. The Principal stated that the new Academy year would be starting from the next week. In other words the students had a two day holiday to ready themselves for the classes. Sean went towards the gate and met up with Wendell and Sherry who congratulated him for his victory. Wendell offered to treat Sean and Sherry and the trio went towards Sapphire restaurant where Sean was staying.
Meanwhile Rutherford was unhappy as his scheme to use Ken ended up in failure and Sean won the tournament. He planned on sending a bunch of his goons to beat up or even cripple Sean but Bernard stopped him. Bernard while maintaining his crafty smile said "Young master Rutherford, taking revenge on Sean is easy for us but we need to think on long term perspective". "Go on" said Rutherford while showing an interested face. "This Sean seem to be a talented person and the President Carmella seem to be interested in him. We can utilise that to our favour. We will make an offer to him, the kind he will not be able to refuse. Every warrior requires resources if they want to advance further into levels. We can offer him extra resources while making him a spy in the President's group and once we achieve our objective he will become a disposable pawn. It won't be too late to get rid of him then".
"Oh, though this offer seem good, do you think he will take the bait?" asked Rutherford for which Bernard said "Young Master does not have to worry. He is an intelligent person and would know better than to offend you. After all no matter how good he is in combat in the end he is just a single person and is from a small clan and would not offend someone from a medium size clan especially when he has his brother here. We can always threaten him by holding his brother as hostage or we can even send people to cause trouble to his clan". Hearing this Rutherford laughed happily while praising Bernard for his intelligence for which Bernard humbly replied "I am happy to be of help Young master".
Meanwhile Sean and company were having a meal in the Sapphire restaurant while chatting about normal stuff when suddenly Wendell reached for his pocket and took out a letter and gave it to Sean while saying "I almost forgot to give you this Sean, it is from Emily". Sean took the letter and read it. After reading the letter he smiled while thinking back to his time with Emily. From his birth Emily took care of him and though he was embarrassed to be taken care of by her from bathing to even feeding he had great love for his elder sister which was rare for Sean who was an orphan and his life was filled with bloodshed in his past life. Emily doted on him to a great extent and once the awakening ceremony was conducted she even trained him in the path of warrior. So apart from his mother, the person Sean was most close to was Emily.
The letter just stated how she was doing and what level she has achieved. She also talked about getting a good boyfriend for herself and she will introduce him the next time she visits the family. She also advised him to be careful of people from stronger background and also asked him to rely on Wendell if there were any issues.
Sean placed the letter in his pocket and continued to eat. Once the dinner was over Sean went to his room to rest early as he had to set off early to buy various items required to live in the dorm and for Academy life. Soon Sean reached his room and after a short break, he took a paper and a pen and wrote a letter to his Sister telling her that he got into the Academy and also placed first in the combat exam and followed by various other things and sealed the letter, deciding to give it to Emily through post. Just as he lied on bed there was a knocking sound on his door.
Since Sean did not expect anyone he took his gun out and equipped it with a silencer while reaching for the door. Sean opened the door just enough to see who was behind it and took a step back while finger was on the trigger ready to pull it. " Who are you" asked Sean as he saw a white haired guy around 17 years of age.
"Hello!! Is it a good time to talk? My name is Bernard and I have come with a proposition for you. If it is alright with you, we can talk further down in the restaurant. I have booked a VIP suit"
"Ok, give me 5 minutes to get ready" said Sean for which Bernard said "No problem I will wait in the suit". Sean closed the door and thought 'Bernard? Who the hell is this guy? I don't think I have seen him? Well it's better to be safe than sorry' as he started wearing a 'Nano fiber suit' which costed him around 10 Million dollars while covering it with a full hand shirt. He also wore his gloves on while only removing the head piece and storing it in the inventory in order to wear them if needed.
Sean came down to the restaurant and asked the waitress to lead him to the VIP suite which was booked under the name Bernard. The waitress asked him to follow her as she led him towards the suite and knocked on the door. The door was soon opened by the waitress when she heard the voice asking to enter the room. Sean followed the waitress inside the suite to see a total of three guys sitting in the sofas while the table was filled with food and alcohol.
Bernard saw Sean enter the suite and said" Please take a seat" while looking at Sean who just nodded and sat down. The waitress soon left the room leaving the four guys, three who are around 17 years and one was around 12 years of age. Sean got straight to the point and asked "How can I be of help Mr. Bernard" for which Bernard said "Well, let me introduce myself I am Bernard and I serve Young Master Rutherford Alexander. You must know about the Alexander family right? they are a clan which is almost classified as a large clan. Young master Rutherford watched your matches during the combat exam and has showed a keen interest in you. Young Master believes that you are extremely talented and wishes to support you in your training as a warrior. You must know that to advance in the path of warrior one must have lots of resources and these resources can be obtained only when you have support of a strong family".
" Ok, I have your attention. What do you expect from me in order to obtain the support of Mr. Rutherford?" asked Sean for which Bernard said "You are a smart boy Sean, of course there is no free lunch in this world. A few days back you recieved an offer to join the student council by the President. You will be accepting that offer and act as a spy for us. In other words you will inform us of all the actions taken by Ms.Carmella".
" If I am not wrong you should already have other spies amongst the Student Council. So why would you need me?" asked Sean while raising his eyebrow". "Of course we have various other spies but what we expect from you is different. Though we have spies they are mostly within the student Council. We want you to gain the favour of Carmella and join her faction. After seeing your combat ability she would extend an offer to join her mercenary team. You must accept the offer and join the team and pass on all the information about their weapons, base, routes taken for various missions, information about the team members and their background, the blacksmith they frequent to and from time to time we will ask you to do certain things for us such as leaking certain information, killing certain people or even enticing certain people within the team and you will do these for us. Of course we will provide you with full support and also give you resources and weapons which will raise your level" said Bernard.
Sean who heard this asked "What if I reject your offer?". Bernard's face did not change and said " Like I said you are a smart boy Sean. You should know the importance of resources and for those resources risks must be taken. We hold a lot of power in this city, we can make your life extremely easy if you co-operate with us".
"In other words if I don't co-operate with you, you can make my life here difficult" said Sean with a smile on his face. "Like I said you are a very smart boy" replied Bernard.
Sean who received this threat continued to smile while his eyes were slowly turning cold. "Well let me take a break, I need to go to the restroom" said Sean as he got up and went outside the VIP suite