Martin sat across Lance who was biting into the hamburger that looked scrumptious.
He thought that Lance was taking too much time while he had not even touched his own food.
"I'm waiting." Martin was running out of patience, the lunch hour was almost gone. He didn't want to eat yet until Lance told him what he wanted to learn.
"Calm down will ya?" Lance dropped his half-eaten burger on his tray, took a sip from his juice before looking at Martin.
He pushed his glasses to settle on his face before he began his story.
"The Dark Alliance is a very dangerous set of people." Lance began.
"They never cared about anything except getting more power. I once heard that they communicated with beings from the dark realm to get their powers." He brought his voice to a whisper as he spoke while his eyes darted around trying to make sure no one was close enough to hear.
"What have they done?" Martin suddenly got interested in these set of people.
"Mass murders in cities, genocides, and there was even a time where a rumor passed that they had been the cause of a Grandmaster's death." Lance said, causing Martin to widen his mouth.
"You kidding?" Martin just couldn't believe it.
"Well, I did say it was a rumor though." Lance pushed his glasses up.
A grandmaster was the one of the highest level that a mage could attain.
It took people centuries to reach such a stage.
It had been documented that the grandmasters now lived in seclusion desperately trying to break into the Ascension realm, and there were only a few of them.
For a grandmaster to come out, and fight with the Dark Alliance then it must have been a really serious case.
"What else do you know?" Martin said as he watched Lance finished the last bite of his burger.
The boy in glasses looked at him for a while before he shrugged, "That's all."
Martin slapped his forehead, he couldn't believed Lance had wasted his time for a few sentences but the Dark Alliance sounded like a real piece of work.
Why would they take pleasure in engaging in such mass amount of killings?
A loud sound interrupted his thoughts, someone's hand was on Martin's table causing him to look up at the person.
The guy wasn't the only one around, there were some other boys around him.
Martin felt he had seen one of those guys before. It was the one with his orange-colored hair.
Lance on the other hand was greatly shaken, he wondered why the class representative of the A class was present here.
The little commotion had caused them to be the center of attention, and that was one thing Martin didn't like.
"Mind if we talk to you for a moment," The person who had slammed the table had a dark blue hair with bright green eyes. He looked at Lance with indifference in his eyes.
"Alone." He brought his head closer with a small smile.
Martin didn't like the confident look in the guy's face, he wanted to punch it off but there was nothing he could do but stare.
He glanced at Lance who slowly nodded his head telling him to go along with them.
"If you want to speak to me, I'm sure you can do that here." Martin smiled back at the blue haired boy.
Lance felt a strange sense of joy in his heart.
He just realized that Martin saw him as someone very close that he was even given the privilege to remain in their midst.
He had formerly thought that Martin would ditch him after seeing that such a powerhouse wanted to talk to him but he knew he was wrong now.
Raider was the name of the blue haired boy.
He felt a bitter taste on his tongue when he heard Martin's snarky comment.
Did this boy not know who was standing in front of him?
Why was he being disrespectful?
"I'm sure you know that I am Raider, the class rep of the A-grade students." Raider slowly muttered, trying to make sure Martin understood what was going on.
"I know," Martin didn't know but no one cared much.
Martin turned to look at his lunch, it was growing cold.
He took a bite from it, completely ignoring Raider's presence.
"I just don't care. As you can see, I am in the middle of a great lunch. Talk to me now." Martin was unrelenting.
Raider could only clench his fist.
"How dare you talk to our captain like that?" One of the boys came closer, and was about to throw a punch at Martin when Raider came forward.
"Don't worry. Let's go. We do not need an F-grade student that badly."
Raider stopped the boy before he could do anything.
He brought his face close to Martin, and muttered a single sentence,
"Watch your back."
Although Martin had heard him, he just casually bit into his lunch as if nothing had happened.
He wondered what he had even done. If Raider wanted to talk to him so badly, why didn't he talk right now?
The next day, the news spread across the school of how an F-grade student had opposed an A-grade student, and lived to tell the tale.
Martin realized it was only two weeks left, he needed to study more, and train harder.
He was now capable of creating more than three wind blades at the same time without emptying his mana supply looking at how he had two mana cores.
Martin now needed to move on to his next magic spell.
Two weeks was enough to complete the primary spells of his wind element before moving on to the fire element.
Martin stood in front of the dummy object in the practice room with his hand ready for combat.
He looked around to ensure that no one was in the room with.
A while ago, he had deliberately skipped class after checking the time table of all the students, and it was a full day.
The only set of people who had used the room were the B-grade students.
Martin had his by the corner wondering if he could spot Theodore as he had not seen the boy in days but there was no sign of Theo.
After the students left, Martin quickly went in, and locked the door.
He didn't want to be disturbed by anybody, and he also didn't want anyone to know that his spells were high tier.
How would he be able to explain such phenomenon? An orphan being capable to produce such an high tier, it was unheard of.
The reason for this was that the only way high tier spells could be produced was through the use of a very expensive advanced magic tool, or by exposure to high quality mana just like what Martin had come across.
If curiosity was raised, questions would be asked, and questions deserved answers.
Even if he wanted to lie, he wouldn't be able to fool them for long.
Martin produced a wind blade from his hand, getting ready to attack the dummy.
He had been experimenting with his spells for a while now, and he had decided to change a few things.
The wind blade in his hand shot forward at a slow pace, heading straight for the dummy.
Martin widened his hand causing the wind blades in front of him to widen into a crescent shape, and he pushed his left hand forward which immediately increased the speed of the wind blade.
The crescent blade immediately split the dummy in two.
Martin rubbed the bridge of his nose as a sigh escaped his lips.
_I didn't think that it'd do that_
He had broken a dummy, and it was definitely bound to be noticed but Martin didn't really bother about it.
He immediately moved to the next dummy, and this one was made with alchemy which allowed it to function like a human.
Martin activated the dummy by sending out a mana signal, causing the dummy to stand straight, and getting its sword ready to fight.
Martin smiled, it was time to see his fruits after all the arduous training.
A few minutes later, a sword clattered to the floor as Martin rubbed off the sweat across his forehead with a smile.
Standing at a small distance from Martin was the dummy or what was left of it as it was no longer recognizable.
The smile of Martin's face widened more when he realized the true strength of his high tier wind blades.
Now, the next spell he had to learn was the Gale steps.
*****
Tana stood in front of a group of students demonstrating her immense mastery of the fire element to her classmates.
She was in a higher class than Axton due to the fact that she had skipped past most of her classes.
Her father wanted her to leave the city, and go to a greater city to learn more in order to increase her skills, and experience.
Tana produced a burst of flame from the middle of her palm, and played with it as she tried to explain the phenomenon behind it.
She knew that her father only wanted her powers so he could gain more standing in the society.
Many connections had already been made, people gave her gifts, she once overheard her father even planning her marriage, and it made her skin crawl.
She just wanted to be able to live her life just the way she wanted.