"I have always been eating raw meat and berries I could find in the forest outside the Outer Walls." Arslan said while he was giving his first bite to the sandwich. The feeling his mouth tried was unbelievable for him. He, who had never eaten fish for the last 10 years, almost forgot how it tasted like... a sudden joy, mixed with the image of his parents eating with him at the same table, made tears run down his face while his mouth was smiling.
"Hey, hey, I didn't expect this kind of reaction. Maybe it went even better than expected." John said confused while he was trying to lighten up the atmosphere.
"Nif, nif... Yeah, sorry I got carried away by emotions and memories." Arslan said as he dried his own tears with his wrists. He was a difficult person to approach... but when someone was able to pass through his first barrier, they would have found a comfortable guy to whom talk to.
"Why don't you buy food in the Academy with the cultivation credits It gives you weekly? I'm sure even not ranked receive at least 50 of them." John wondered after witnessing such an overreaction.
"Ah, those... I have never received any of them." Arslan answered naturally as if this were normal for him, 'I even forgot about them.'
"What? Why? How could you cultivate? You can't even buy herbs or time in the cultivation rooms. Don't tell me you only cultivated by yourself?!"
"That's exactly what I did."
John was shocked after hearing that. But even more than the fact that he had never received any credits, he couldn't believe that Arslan became so strong regardless of them. John wondered how strong he could have become if he were given the possibility to train in the cultivation rooms like everyone else.
They continued talking together for some minutes, but John couldn't let the matter go as he continued thinking about it the whole time,
"Why don't you fight for a ranked spot?" John asked while he was starting to eat his second sandwich. He really loved its taste and it could be seen by looking at his ecstatic face. He closed his eyes to savor it more.
"I'm too weak for that." Arslan said as he gave another bite to his sandwich, 'It wouldn't be that bad to eat this food every day.' He said, while his emotions weren't transpiring as much as John's. He wasn't used to letting his emotions run wild.
"Oh, come on, who are you trying to fool around?" John said as he smiled at him.
Arslan glanced at him,
"..." He felt even more frustrated by how he behaved the day earlier.
"I mean, with the strength you showed yesterday, probably you are on par with me..." John said as he paid attention to every reaction Arslan had, to grasp what he was thinking.
'It would be difficult to lie any longer...' Arslan thought as the forefinger of his left hand began hitting on his left knee rhythmically, showing all his nervousness.
"You would gain a lot of advantages, you know? The first ten in the ranking have a cultivation room allocated for them permanently, and a lot more credits and bronze pills than the others... well... the lowest-ranked disciples don't have so much to gain, but better than nothing for sure." He continued as if he were trying to convince Arslan to aim for higher goals. He thought that if Arslan wanted to avoid being bullied so much, he should have had to show his strength. It was natural to think like this, but Arslan was doing exactly the opposite. This made John curious about his reasons.
Bronze pills were given weekly to every disciple exactly like the credits, but the not ranked ones were given only 1 per week. Instead, in the last fifty ranked spots, they would have received 2 of them, while from the 11th to the 50th they would have gained 3 of them, 4 from the 4th to the 10th, and 5,6,7 respectively for the first 3 spots from the lower one to the top one. These pills, when consumed by disciples, could instantly increase their amount of raw Qi, reducing the time they would have spent to gather it on their own, so they were really useful to speed up one's cultivation's pace.
"Honestly... I hate violence." Arslan answered opening his heart to John.
John was already shocked by that sentence, but he didn't stop Arslan and waited for him to explain himself, looking carefully at him, not to lose any movement of his lips.
"I find this Academy... no, this world... totally senseless. People fighting all the time with each other... and for what? Power? Wealth?"
John couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I've already seen with my own eyes where all of this ends up to. I never liked the concept of this society. Violence always brings more violence and at the end of it all, there is only suffering left. This Academy should be a place where everyone is equal and this is why I began attending it... but it is exactly the opposite... The strong prey over the weak and the Great families are free to do whatever they want in here... the elders are all corrupted or ignoring the problem as if it didn't touch them. Status and strength are the only rules in this place..."
At that moment, Arslan looked at John with a heartbroken glare. The glare of a person who already suffered a lot from what the world had to offer,
"This is why... I don't want to have anything to do with this."
John didn't know what to say... He indeed considered the world as sick, but, from there, to have the courage to disdain aloud what the society is based on... he never thought about that, or at least he was too fearful of the repercussions of such a thought.
After a few moments of silence, John talked,
"Then... what are you training for?" His face showed how eager to know the truth he was. He wanted to know what he, the man who spoke such daring words, was aiming for.
"To protect the people I care about." Arslan's sincerity stunned John, who, for the second time in his life, heard such a noble reason to fight for. In a world where people walked the path of cultivation just to submit the others and exert their power to gain reverence and respect, it was totally shocking to find someone like Arslan.
Arslan himself was surprised by the sentence he told. Before entering the Academy, he would have said that he was doing it only for his sister... but, after the last 2 years, another person came to his mind.
"My father used to say the same thing you just told me. I always considered him foolish for not aiming for a better position in society, considering his talent, strength, and family power... but, hearing that there is another fool to have the same view he had, makes me happy. I now understand why he worked for them." John said as he sighed due to the relief he felt at that moment. His eyes pointed at the sky as if they were looking for a star in particular.
'He spoke in the past tense, so I guess his father is dead... I wonder who he worked for.' Arslan thought as he paid a lot of attention to what John said. Arslan rarely talks about his view of the world, so it was highly important for him to see John's response.