Traveling in the central aria is really faster it didn't even take two hours to get to the headquarters that served as a meeting point and when we got there, we found a handful of students, but not one of the leaders was here.
It seems that the matrix is not just for the leaders, a lot of students who didn't join a group are here and that means I will have to find a new member for my group now. If I don't do that, I'll lose the spot, but I don't feel the least bit sad or angry about the situation. I have more than fifteen candidates for my team, I just hope to find someone useful so I turn to my team that is about to go to war with the team members of Ingredi and Vonin.
What's the problem with these people, I thought the alliance nobles are idiots and shortsighted for fighting each other instead of banding together and attacking the elves who are prepared to win the test by crushing them, but now my team is picking a fight with other people for silly reasons I don't even want to find out. What's wrong with nobles? If you gather some of them in the same place, they will start fighting and if you don't or see even a drool watching them the idiots will start fighting.
"You guys want to stop this shit! We have more important issues to solve, if you haven't noticed we have yet to recruit the last member of our team now, we have a handful of candidates but I don't know them. I want to know if there are any friends of yours who aren't useless or someone you know who won't hurt the team?"
My team went into a frenzy, especially Vanessa she hung on my shoulder and started pointing out people she doesn't like and who are generally useless so she's helping me, but it's still uncomfortable to hear her criticizing the male students' appearance and call the pretty schoolgirls cheap bitches.
At the end of the confusion and with Ingredi's help I narrowed down my choice to a water element wizard and a wind element warrior, I must say I'm more inclined towards the warrior than the wizard, he gives me a feeling of being soft. aggressiveness in it. To me he's just an academic wizard, but from what Ingredi said he knows his way through a chaotic battlefield, but I'm not so sure.
But now I have to see which one of them accepts to join my team, in the end they have to give their consent to join my team. I approached the mage first as not only Hilda supported Ingredi's candidate but even Vanessa was silent.
Even when I looked at Amael who was the team's wizard he was silent, not even an opposition on his part. I believe I will be required to have a water element wizard on my team.
"Good morning, I'm Ulric the leader of the black team, and I still have a spot on my team to fill and I want you to fill that spot. You and the one who seems least weak and useless here."
The mage is startled by my introduction and that's not a good sign.
"Hello, I'm Bene. I would be very happy to join your team. May I ask whatever is your position captain?"
Well, I don't know if I should be happy that the mage is very calm and looks like he wants to cooperate with my position or if I should be upset that I seem to have gotten a mage puppet for my team. He is extremely stoic, I don't feel any excitement or any other feelings from Bene, he must be very talented as an academic wizard, as far as I know the more rational, they are the better they are at research.
"I am on the side of the alliance but I believe that my presence will only make conflicts worse, but that will not change the final result. The elves are starting to attack everyone, and the other leaders will have no choice but to join in or we will all lose to the elves in this test."
"This is going to be problematic; your problem must have to do with Soran Vernos. The rest of the alliance members seem to get along fine, but now with their entry the Vernos family members and those who sympathize with them will be even more enraged by the alliance, with all this hostility and trouble gathered in one place just the possibility of may the alliance fall apart and a great and meaningless struggle."
"Although the Vernos family doesn't like the elves they are even less fond of losing and being underlings of another faction, there is a real and big chance that Soran will align with the elves simply to screw with the alliance that humiliated his family. They are quite vindictive and the fact that the elves' victory is more likely that most members of the Vernos family will be happy with this ending, even if it makes them inferior to the elves."
Okay, Bene is smarter than I expected, he easily analyzed the scenario we are going to face and already expose his opinion that the worst scenario will come true if the first meeting of the alliance ends in conflict. If leaders fail to make the first meeting work, the alliance is bound to crumble.
But that's just one of the problems we're going to face, I have to figure out how to use students without a team to my advantage, plus the problem is that students without a team can't walk in groups larger than four people.
"We're just going to find out what's going to happen at the meeting when the other leaders show up here, but before that I want to ask you something, Bene. Why are you here now, as far as I know this was the point for the leaders to meet and not for all the students to gather, who told you to be here Bene?"
I finally managed to cause a change in Bene's face, he's really surprised by my question.
"Leaders Soran and Nole spread the news that students who don't want to be defeated by the elves must gather in this matrix, you're with Ingredi and Vonin didn't they tell you about it?"
"They don't know about this Soran and Nole action, which is pretty weird and has just become more of an issue that's been worrying me. I feel like this place is becoming dangerous."
"Captain, you believe this matrix is an elf trap. Leaders Soran and Nole have teamed up with the elves and at this time all the elf leaders, Soran and Nole are coming to this matrix to tackle all the other leaders in the alliance?"
"Are you sure this is what's happening Ulric? If you make that accusation now and you're wrong, the other leaders will know the alliance will end because of you."
This is a big risk, if I am right, I basically become the leader of the alliance, but if I am wrong, I will destroy the alliance. This is a complicated situation for me, but I still believe I have to make a decision thinking that my suspicions about Soran and Nole are right.
"I don't think we should talk to nique people about my suspicions about the other leaders, but I think it wouldn't be bad if we started building some defenses in this matrix, in case we are attacked by the elves or if I convince the other leaders to use this matrix as a basis for the alliance. I think preparing for the future might be the wisest idea, at the end of all possible paths the direct conflict with the elves is an absolute certainty."
"I agree with you captain. I believe that strengthening the defenses of this matrix is the wisest path, are we going to ask for help from the earth elemental mages who are here? I know the two wizards who are not part of a team, do you want me to talk to them?"
It looks like Bene is more helpful than I thought he would be and it seems he knows a lot of the students who are taking the test.
"You can start gathering those who can help with the strengthening and creation of our Bene defenses. I'm going to talk to Ingredi and Vonin and convince them to help me build a makeshift fort that we can use as a base."
"Vanessa, you can go and recruit other people to defend this place, the examiners can prohibit groups from traveling together, but nothing prevents all students from joining one another in a single matrix to fight."
I started heading towards Ingredi and Vonin who are solving their own problems, but I believe Ingredi will be on my side but I'm not so sure about Vonin, I just met the dwarf and I'm not accusing another dwarf of betray us, so u believe he will choose to help me assemble the defenses for this base. I wonder if Amael is able to create a lava pit here, a pit like that would be very useful to surround a base.