Tom has many ways of solving this, but telling his father is not one of them. He has zero credibility with his father, and he has no intent of raising it by proving himself capable of identifying traitors. It's best his father maintains his impression of Titan being useless. Well.. it's true any way.
Another person would have trembled with anxiety upon understanding the magnitude of loss that can occur if the demonstrations at the school go exactly like sir fenton planned. Not Titan. His policy in life is 'sleep fixes everything'... when that doesn't work, there are sweets.. When even that doesn't work, there's his father. Though, in the end, all this serious-thinking does is make Titan crave sleep. It's a vicious cycle.
He kept the scroll with him.
What could he do? …
For now, go to school.
The car is reaching the school. Titan has to walk from the gates to the classes on his own. Their school does look it's part of the most expensive school in the kingdom. Their garden is extensive, with two vast side gardens filled with various exotic trees, each tree's base a carefully designed tree island. The middle garden is long, and rectangular shaped, with half circle shaped fountains attached to it on both ends.
The sculpture in the fountain in front of gates is an angel, made with white marble, streams of water spurting out of her angel halo. The morning light hits the falling water and splits into rainbows. The one in front of the school building is a magician, with a great waterspout coming from his wand, splitting into an umbrella shaped water dome. In the evening, it looks like rainbow fairies dancing inside the water dome.
The trees in the middle garden are all grand eucalyptus, dividing the stone path on the right from the stone path on the left. Teachers are located at either end of the school, on the left and right side. However, the fifteenth tree on right and fifteenth tree on the left are both a little out of alignment, creating a space where teachers can't oversee. As he neared that part, he could see the sight he absolutely does not want to. The self proclaimed H4, shortened version of Heroes four is waiting there. How does he know? He got his money snatched by them yesterday.
"Ooohh! Mr. Sponsor is here… Come now, Mr. Investor .. let's see how much you are investing today?" They surrounded him, taking his wallet before he could do anything whatsoever.
There is very little in the wallet today. Because he has budgeted for buying a beast tablet.
"I need to buy a beast tablet. For the taming class." Tom stuttered.
Yes, he is a little afraid of rejecting them, for he has never, but he is indeed capable of rejecting.
"Of course … of course… We know all about it. After all, it's our venerable Investor's business. If not for our supremely respected, idolized and admired Investor, How will we ever get our demonstrations cancelled? " Hero 1 asked sarcastically.
"This… I dd.. Did not know about it." Titan stuttered.
Damn it .. now they are going to scruff him till he gives in.. what to do? He could not go with what they wanted. He must buy that beast tablet and sign a contact with it.
"Yes.. of course.. After all, our venerable investor need only move a finger, and someone will take care of it for him.. However, We do have a solution for that… Our dear Investor need not worry about the beast at all.. He only needs to worry about getting a signing scroll.. I have got the perfect beast for him, right here." Hero 2 said, bringing out a glass jar from his back.
There is a ridiculously ugly grey slug in there. It laid there without any energy, looking and feeling like a wet shit pile. Tom knows what that beast is. It's a devouring worm. It sounds like some grand predator when it's called so, but they are less than level-0 mobs. Devouring worms, like it's name, eat anything and everything, including human flesh, and humans themselves. Only, what each devouring worm digests is different. What they digest, they convert to corresponding spirit energy.
Thus, they are used in industry to recharge spirit stones. Simply put, a stone devouring worm which can devour fire is placed in fire spirit ore, with a rechargeable fire stone in a metal ring. devouring worm eats fire stone ore, and digests it to fire spirit energy. The array on the metal ring sucks out fire energy from devouring worm and charges fire stone. When the stone is charged, another stone is placed. The devouring worm keeps on eating without evolving.
"Oh.. loookie here… He actually got a scroll.. That's very naughty of you, Mr. Investor. This product is not even released into the market...How many confidential laws is your dear father breaking giving this to you? If it gets reported. Could you imagine? " Hero 3 acted out energetically, gesturing to Hero 4, who is recording it all.
"I .. I … I sss.. Stole it." Tom insisted.
If it gets reported that his father gave it to him, it really could become a big deal.
"No, No, .. Good kids do not lie. Santa does not give presents to bad kids. Come Now, Mr. Investor. Tell me, when did the CEO of Goldmedal corporation give it to you?" Hero 3 asked in a singsong voice, as if he is convincing a little kid to admit he has stolen a lollipop.
It's too early for that to work on me. Tom thought.
Like what most of you imagine, Tom is indeed getting bullied. Unlike other victims, he doesn't have much opinion about it. It's a situation he is just maintaining. These four are scholarship students, and more importantly, it's their company that's providing scholarship. Once they do pass this stage, they will go directly to dungeon crawling, and the survival rate of dungeon crawling is 10%. He has seen profiles of these kids.
These kids are barely holding on in their real lives. On top of that, they only ever use words to steal his money. And Tom let them, for he is sure they will die sooner or later. Plus, he knew any time he fought back, he could suppress them easily. He could not say the same for the rest of the student association. AAA is where dragons mix with fish. He knows the complete biodata of these guys from the day they are born till now. As they say, know yourself, know your enemy, you can win any battle.
However, you do need to try and win that battle. Tom is too lazy to even try.
He has money, he has a building whose rent he can live on. Why does he need to try and win unnecessary battles?
"Now, Show us how to use this scroll, Tommy dear." Hero 4 said, opening the scroll and spreading it on the ground.
"Come now Tommy, show us how to use it.." Hero 3 chimed in.
Tom thought about it. Beast tablets are usually sold in the inner city. Underage students actually need permits to get one. He initially thought he could probably ask one of the teachers for permission and a favor, but this is better. Even if it's an absolute waste of this specially designed scroll his father prepared, this is better than things going wrong with a golden dragon. Not many people can subdue one.
He placed the dead looking slug on the scroll. One of the heroes helpfully provided a pencil cutter.
Were you expecting a knife or something? … after all, they are just scholar ship students. Truly scary knives are expensive.
Tom removed hand sanitizer from his backpack, and sanitized the pencil cutter blade…
Yep.. he did that.
Hero 1 stopped Hero 2 from kicking Tom.
There is a story behind that, but that's for another day.
Tom carefully let a drop of blood spill on the scroll.
The blood fell down on the worm, slid on to the scroll.
Golden light emitted from the scroll, little golden chains twirled around the slug all over, then one of the gold chains pierced between its eyes. Another end of the gold chain pierced between tom's eyes. Then it flashed red once, then golden thread connecting the worm and tom disappeared in a rain of golden particles. Tom could sense the slug weakly. It felt cold, and wanted to stay near a warm body.
Tom picked up the slug, which looked only slightly better than before, placed it on his wrist. It curled into itself, and vanished. There is nothing but a faint blue tattoo where the slug was.
"Success.. Grand success!! Congratulations, Tommy dear. You must be the only person in the entire arcadia who has a contract with a devouring worm." Hero 3 exclaimed.
"Now, call your beloved father, and tell him to cancel the demonstration." Hero 4 ordered.
Tom straightened up.
"No." he answered back.
…
..
.
Disbelief spread on hero 2,3 4 while Hero1 hung his head in understanding. Time for acting is up. Tom finally decided not to be lazy.
"How dare you talk back to me? Have you become tired of living?" Hero 3 shouted, throwing a punch at Tom's face. Tom caught it. Then he snapped it up, like he is twisting a flower stem. At the same time, he adjusted his position, kicked out his right leg putting all his energy in his toes.
CLACK..
CL.CLACK..
The sounds reverberated in the clearing loudly.
Hero 2 abandoned his phone, started running off.
Tom gestured to Hero 1 casually. Hero 1 immediately pulled back Hero 2.
Hero 3 and Hero 4 stayed on the ground, holding their hand and leg respectively, crying like there is no tomorrow.
At this point, you might be wondering, isn't this guy a hundred kg weakling? …
True, he is a hundred kg soft cushion weakling.. When compared to the trainers hired by his dad. Before Tom decided on giving up his life, and alternatively making his dad give up on grooming him, he still played dutiful son for a while. After all the nutritious supplements, and specially designed exercises, he looked like a little muscle man.
One fine day, he looked at himself in the mirror, looking like a monkey king fused to everyday school boy, and Tom did not want to do it anymore. What is the point? His father wanted him to be number one in a wizard event, when he did not have a lick of magic.
For that reason, for that one in twenty million chance he could become someone like might gai, he worked day after day, eating grass and steamed meat. One is capable of bearing that kind of torture only for their own dreams, not other's. He realized at some point, it is his father's dream he is living, not his. So, he gave up. That does not mean his skills vanished in a day.
Hero1 actually knows him from his monkey king days. Thus, he kept himself decidedly aloof.
"Delete the recording." Tom ordered.
"Yes. Right away." Hero1 answered, smacking on unwilling hands of Hero2, taking away his phone.
He deleted the recording, and made shew the history to Tom to confirm the deletion.. Tom nodded his head, looked over the entire set of heroes for a moment.
Well.. there are no words that can allow him to leave this gathering on good note.
"Then have a nice day. Since the weather is good, enjoy the rest of it." He said, removing the money from his wallet, throwing it on the ground.