While walking through the corridors, the old man said, "Young sir, in the two-day session. First, there is a get-together where all the young sirs going to the academy this year will be present."
"A get-together, okay."
"After the get-together is the first special class where a senior sir will teach the young sirs about the academy. In the evening, you must attend the inner family meeting that ends with the family dinner. That's all for the day."
"A get-together, a family meeting, and special classes. Okay"
"Except for the inner family meeting. This is the common schedule that happens every year, young sir."
"Oh, that's interesting."
"As for Tomorrow morning, you have the second special class, and later, the announcement ceremony. In the afternoon, all the young sirs will have to take the carriage that will take you to the academy. That's your schedule for the next 2 days."
"Hmm."
The old man continued to tell him a few more things about his eating and sleeping arrangements. It looked like this event was nothing special but a common occurrence every year. He noted the schedule, and a few minutes later, they came in front of enormous gates. Two guards were standing on each side of the gate. A little farther from the gate, he saw rows of assistants standing on both sides of the corridor.
The old assistant stopped after coming next to the gate and said, "In front of you is the session hall. I will be standing outside. If you need anything, just come out and tell me." The old man backed away and joined the row of assistants.
As Drake moved toward the big gate, one guard pushed open the door for him.
'Ah,' the bright light coming from the room instantly made him close his eyes.
One guard asked him, "Sir, are you alright?"
He peeked a little between his fingers and nodded to the guard. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the bright light, and he entered the hall.
Inside the hall, he found many kids around his age. The interesting thing was the arrangement of chairs in the room. There was a row of chairs next to all 4 walls of the hall with a space in the center.
It was such a unique arrangement that the moment he entered the hall, he was in the center of space, surrounded by everyone on the chairs. The kids were staring at him from all 4 sides. 'Quite an interesting arrangement.'
He observed each side of the hall had 10 chairs, and others had priorities taking the center seats. None of the sides had any seats left in the center 5 position.
He looked around and randomly sat in an empty seat near the corner of the wall. In the hall, there were 23 kids present, counting himself and all of them had a common feature, the bright green eyes. This was his first time seeing so many of his family members of his same age.
Kane's voice came at this time, [Oh, Drake, there are 6 others in the same blue and white dress as you.]
Drake noted that except for 7 of them, others were in random fancy dress. Except for him, others in blue-white dress sat in the dead center of all 4 rows.
[Yeah, that seems to be the case.]
There was silence in the hall as nobody was talking. He examined the hall. Multiple paintings and decorations covered the walls of the hall. On the ceiling, he found 10-plus light lamps brightening the room, and a red carpet covered the floor. In the silence, all of them were just like him, looking here and there.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
At this time, footsteps came from out of the room.
Creak!
The gate of the hall opened, and a middle-aged man in a full black dress entered the hall. He went to the center of the hall and said in a low but clear tone, "This year's special session starts from this moment." The moment he said, the light in the room brightened a little. With the announcement, the man took out a bunch of paper sheets from his hand and looked at all the kids with a relaxed smile. "Good morning, everyone. I am Commander Alex, and I will conduct this year's session."
Everyone nodded their heads.
Alex said while looking down at the papers, "We have many interesting members this year." He looked up and said, "Don't mind me, you guys can talk among yourselves. We have 30 minutes for the get-together. It will be the best chance for you to make some connections."
The moment Alex finished speaking, all the outer family kids stood up and moved toward different inner family kids. On the other hand, the inner family kids remained in their seats.
Drake found all this very fascinating, but there was just one big problem: no one from the outer family came to him.
Kane's inner voice came, [What's going on here?]
He waited for some time and saw how the outer family kids were following a pattern. They exchanged pleasantries with 5 inner family members first and, at last, talked with the 6th member, and most of them stayed there.
It was like the sixth member was the one they selected to associate with. It's a little strange, but he could not hear any sound while they were speaking.
Kane said in his mind, [Alex must have used some kind of power.]
He nodded and continued to observe others. Most of the outer family members had humble looks on their faces as they talked with inner family members.
Interestingly enough, there was this girl with silver hair sitting in the left wall row that had many other family members gathered around her. The other row each had 2 inner family members.
Except for the silver-haired girl, there was this one boy on the front wall who had the second most outer members gathered around him. All others had one or two outer family members next to them.