Rico's smile froze.
Did he hear correctly?
Beside him the previous smirk of Danny Bloom was also gone.
"What did you just say?" Rico asked quietly.
"You heard me the first time. No need for me to repeat twice. That's unless you're deaf," Damien replied.
Rico's face flushed red in anger.
How dare him!
He took a deep breath to calm himself down.
"Are you sure of this? Opportunity comes but once. You will not have this chance again. I suggest you take your time and think it through," Rico cautioned.
"I've already made up my mind, Rico. I'm not interested," Damien said.
"You're a frog in a well, Damien. You think with your many powers and talent you know it all but you're blind to how vast the sky truly is," Danny Bloom spat venomously.
Damien didn't deign to reply. He just leaned back in his chair and ignored the two lackeys.
"We offer you an outstretched hand and you spit on it, Damien. Watch your steps from now," Rico cautioned.
Damien narrowed his eyes.
"Are you threatening me?" he asked quietly, gazing into Rico's eyes.
The atmosphere immediately became stale.
Not wanting to be outdone, Rico held his gaze.
"No. It's a promise. We're done here. Come on, Danny. Let's go," Rico replied, turning around while pulling Danny with him.
The confrontation hadn't gone unnoticed.
Many people were already looking over at Damien and talking in hushed undertones but Damien didn't care.
"That was… surprising! I thought you'd join them," Brianna said.
"Yeah," Zane voiced in agreement.
"I prefer to move alone. I don't want to be any rich kid's lackey or be involved in anything related to them," Damien said.
"That's admirable," Mindy replied.
"You got big balls, man" Austin added.
If they were those faced with such a choice, they wouldn't have been able to say no as boldly as Damien had done.
They found his attitude admirable and they all now viewed Damien in a new light.
Meanwhile, Rico and Danny had returned to Ronnie Quentin.
"What happened back there?" he asked leisurely.
"Damien refused to join, young master. He turned down our offer. He obviously doesn't put you in his eyes," Rico responded with a respectful tone.
Ronnie Quentin glanced at Victor.
"Mm? I expected as much," he replied with a confident smirk.
He leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs.
"You've done well in recruiting more people into our fold. You both will receive ten high grade mana stones each," Ronnie said.
"Thank you master Ronnie," Rico and Danny responded gratefully. Their eyes glowed in excitement as they sat down not far from Ronnie Quentin.
Just by moving around and talking with people, they had earned ten high grade mana stones just like that!
Ten high grade mana stones were like 100 mid-grade mana stones!
It was a real bargain!
Damien was a fool to reject such an offer.
He would have easily acquired so many mana stones to train and quickly pass through the levels.
Look at Ronnie Quentin!
Ever since awakening, his family had provided him with a shitload of mana stones!
He had absorbed so many of them that he was solidly in the mid-level of the Enlightenment realm!
A few more weeks and he'd easily get into the peak level!
His family had even gotten the best awakened artificers to make magic artifacts for Ronnie. Those artifacts would be brought over after Ronnie had settled in the Imperial Institute.
Ronnie was like a walking goldmine.
Just being near him would allow one to reap so many benefits and goodies.
Rico and Danny shook their heads inwardly at Damien's folly.
That Damien truly was truly blind or an idiot or something!
Everyone's eyes were on Ronnie Quentin as he sat in contemplation, waiting to hear what he had to say.
Ronnie Quentin was a silver haired boy with extremely good looks.
He was tall with a lean muscled frame which boasted the amount of exercise put into it.
His irises were a bright green which sparkled and shined.
He oozed confidence and charisma, someone well acquainted with leadership.
"I've never had anyone reject me before," Ronnie Quentin finally said with a smirk.
"I must say, it feels quite different," He added.
"Let's see how far I need to push him for him to join me. It would be such a shame not to reel in a talent like that. A mark of nineteen and with four powers! That is literally unheard of," Ronnie Quentin chuckled.
"Notwithstanding, I'll let him suffer a little. A lowly person as him can never refuse me without consequences," Ronnie Quentin's smirk changed into a vicious sneer.
Rico and Danny exchanged satisfied glances.
That Damien would be showed his place soon enough!
"Next time I will go personally. I would like to see him refuse me to my face!" he declared.
Ronnie couldn't deny the fact that he felt jealous of Damien.
As compared to Damien, he had a mark of seventeen and he had awoken in the Spirit and Body path.
Damien's stellar results made him feel insecure.
He had been on top all his life.
He couldn't bear the thought of someone with more talent than him moving around freely.
Someone who didn't come from a prominent family no less.
Or was unaffiliated to a powerful figure.
It felt like an open challenge and it was like a slap on his face!
His dissatisfaction would be abated if and only if he had Damien under his command.
Then, he would be above Damien and Damien would be a huge stepping stone to propel him further.
Yes!
That was how it was meant to be.
He would be the leader of this current generation of geniuses.
And he would settle for nothing else!
If Damien dared refuse his offer again, he would make sure that Damien's stay in the Imperial Institute would be less than pleasant.
Until Damien submitted to him, he would suppress him!
It wouldn't be long before Damien broke down and succumbed to him.
A smile formed on Ronnie Quentin's face as he imagined such a scene.
Meanwhile Damien was still talking with Austin and the other three.
The four friends were also not from rich homes but they were eager to become stronger and prove themselves.
They were honest, especially Brianna whose candidness was often blunt.
"You were on the hoverbus when the Dusk Organization attacked last month, right? Could you tell me what happened?" Damien finally asked.
Due to his reclusive nature, he hadn't been able to know the details of what had happened from the horse's own mouth.
He now had that opportunity and he wanted to capitalize on it.
"It was horrible!" Brianna shuddered.
"We were on the hoverbus all excited, full of smiles and Mindy was sulking like usual. I looked out the window and I spotted flashes of pink laser lights.
It looked beautiful so I pulled Mindy over to take a look but she became horrified and frantically closed the window.
The hoverbuses were being attacked!
Whatever those laser lights were, they wrecked one of the hoverbuses and were causing the drivers to throw the hoverbus around like mad men!
I don't ever want to experience it again!" Brianna said.
"Yeah. It wasn't a pleasant experience," Austin added.
Damien nodded solemnly.
From the looks of it, the attack had been really bad.
Imagine returning from your awakening center with joy then you're suddenly attacked and your mates too get kidnapped.
All the more reason to get stronger, Damien said inwardly.
At least now, he was headed for the awakened school.
There he would be able to train without a worry or fear of getting kidnapped.
Surely, nothing could go wrong there… right?