Chapter 58: Unexpected Annoyances

The next morning, Teo waited anxiously at the location where the usually meet before classes.

He was mentally fatigued from yesterday, and could not even take a break even within the inner world. Teo’s stress grew abnormally large for someone so young, he had too much to protect and had little power to do so.

His friendship was also on the verge of collapsing.This was the main reason why he was so anxious this morning. He waited an hour early, hoping to see his two friends just like before. He resolved himself for the worst and planned to stop at nothing to regain their trust.

His knees felt weak, so he sat down as he waited.

Compared to the whole crisis yesterday, this was worst by several folds. Negative thoughts flooded through his mind as the time drew closer and closer to the appointed meeting time.

He frantically looked around, searching for his two friends, but no sight of them could be seen. His head dropped in disappointment and sadness. Tears started forming in the corner of his eyes. He could feel moisture through his nose and his lips slightly shook.

……

Behind a large tree, two figures stood as they sometimes peeked to look at the black haired youth sitting around by himself.

“Hmph let’s make him wait”, Lia said to Windle.

She was wanted Teo to suffer a bit for the trouble he caused yesterday. In fact, the two had been waiting there before Teo and even wore hooded cloaks to hide their faces.

“Are you sure we should do this? Isn’t it enough yet?”, Windle questioned Lia’s decision

“Just wait a little bit more…”

But then suddenly they noticed a change in Teo…

‘!!!’

The two dashed out and came from behind.

-SMACK-

Lia smacked Teo’s head from behind

“What do you think you’re doing! Don’t tell me you’re going to cry”

Teo turned his head to look, and his miserable face revealed a snot covered nose and watery eyes. A smile slowly emerged as he recognized the two cloaked figures.

“LIA! WINDLE!”

He hugged both of them without restraint, but Windle and Lia pushed him away as they were hugged.

“EWW Teo don’t hug us with all that snot coming out of your nose!”

“That’s right! Why are you crying so hard! You’re gonna make us feel bad for this prank..er I mean making you wait”

They acted tough, but their eyes were still red from crying so much yesterday

-Sniff sniff- “I’m sorry you guys”, Teo once again apologized as he wiped his eyes and nose.

Lia revealed a smirk, but quickly turned around and quickly said

“Let’s go, we’re going to be late”

She was glad with the choice that she made, but did not show it to the others.

Windle could only smile as he understood both of his friends

…..

Teo finally relaxed after finding his two best friends were still there. A large portion of his stress disappeared but he still knew that he wasn’t out of the fire yet.

Windle and Teo headed for Dina’s class but as they approached the entrance, two guards who stood watch of it blocked their paths.

“You stop!”, He looked at the description on the scroll and it perfectly described Teo.

‘Black hair, short, plain looking face’

“What’s your name?”, one of the guard asked

“My name is Teo, Teo Char”

“From today onwards, you have been officially expelled from this special class”

“What’s going on?”, Teo asked but the guard gave no further response and just prevented him from entering.

A figure from behind approached the entrance of the room.

“Hmm? What’s going on?”

The figure who just arrived asked the same question.

Dina had just arrived and saw that some of her students were being blocked at the door.

The guard immediately recognized Dina and took a parchment and handed it to her, then looked intently at Teo.

Dina opened the parchment and read the contents of it.

As she read her face, changed into shock and took a quick glance at Teo.

She could not believe it. It was an order by the headmaster expelling Teo from the elementalist class! The main reason of the expulsion was because Teo’s very low growth potential as well as his yesterday’s performance, showcasing his cultivation and combat skills.

‘Since this student has obviously given up on the path of being an elementalist, the education council deemed that “Teo Char” be removed from the elementalist class from this day forth. This is so that he can completely focus on his cultivation and not be distracted by other things’

“Teo, what did you do?”, Dina asked as this was not normal for someone who has been going to the same class be prevent from entering it.

The two of them were confused about the situation, and Dina who saw their expression handed them the parchment.

As Teo and Windle read it, they became shocked at the contents, but the soon realized the reason why this was.

‘This must be the headmaster’s work! It seems like things are going to be annoying’, Teo initially thought

Although he found it annoying, he was a bit glad that the target of the headmaster’s actions so far was him and him alone.

After a reading the contents, Dina repeated her question

“Do you have any idea why this order came to be?”, Dina was curious. Normally the academy wouldn’t interfere with her class unless there was some special reason.

As Teo was about to answer, Windle hurried and covered Teo’s mouth with his hand and said

“We have no idea as well miss Dina”

Dina was curious with Windle’s action but after a while, Teo also nodded

Windle didn’t want to Teo to carelessly answer. If he talked about the incident from yesterday, he might anger the headmaster even more. It was best to play innocent and let things take it’s course on it’s own.

“I see, hmm..I’ll ask them about this in the central office after class and inform you if there is any change or news about this order. For now, just skip today’s class and practice on your own.”, Dina said

She had to inquire about this order to find out what really happened. Teo and Grifford were the only students who required to class during the second year since they have yet to reach the manipulation stage, and now one of them was expelled from the class!

But Teo quickly shook his head and said

“It’s okay miss Dina, in fact, this might be actually really good for me”

From Teo’s classes last year, he had the basic idea about advancing through the four stages of controlling the elements. In fact, with the amount of Qi he has, he would be successful enough to advance to the next stage, but Teo did not choose to do so so far.

Initially, he only wanted to be able to use his Qi in order to access the inner world on his own. After that, he continued gathering Qi as he practiced his cultivation.

Like everyone else, he also believed that his progress as an elementalist would not be feasible. Although he almost mastered his Sensing stages with the help of the inner world quite fast, he knew that sensing and controlling elemental energies were two different things, and the inner world could not help him in that area.

Thus, he did not bother to start his Gathering stage for elemental energy but instead focused on world Qi gathering instead.

He chose a different path!

The path of arrays and cultivation, where inborn talent was not required!

Without the elementalist class, he would have more time in his hands. After realizing this, he was quite grateful for this expulsion.

With Teo’s response, Dina could only let the matter go, but her head approached closer until it reached Teo’s ears.

“If you have any questions regarding the class, you can look for me at the central office. Despite the academy preventing you from entering the classroom, they can’t stop me from teach a student during my own time”, she whispered and then winked at Teo and headed inside

Teo felt warmth in his heart from Dina’s words. It was always a comforting feeling to have people to rely on.

But as he looked at Dina’s figure entering the room, he glimpsed at a familiar face which had a grin and stood deep within the room.

Zachery watched him with a mocking expression. Behind him were, Ash and Erin. These people had always skipped the elementalist class as they were already in the manipulation stage, but for this special event today, they came to watch Teo as he was banned from entering.

Although they were ordered not to harm Teo and his friends, they were not restricted from antagonizing Teo.

They enjoyed Teo’s dumb and confused expressions before, and now that they revealed themselves to Teo, they expected his face to turn ugly with contempt, but instead Teo’s face was calm and smiling.

Teo and Windle turned around and left the area.

Although Windle was in the manipulation stage, he still intended to attend Dina’s class religiously, but as for today, he decided to keep Teo company.

“Those people are really contemptuous. What should we do now?”, Windle asked in concern

But Teo was rather unfazed and seemed rather happy compared to Windle.

“Like I said before Windle, this isn’t a problem but rather a benefit. Without that class I have some more time to enjoy myself”, Teo said cheerfully

“Hmm.. if that’s what you really feel then I guess this is a good thing”, Windle said

In Windle’s point of view, there wasn’t really much benefit for Teo to attend that class because of his growth potential. Even after Teo graduated, Windle felt that he would still need to train on his own for years to improve by himself.

If both of them knew that Teo’s rate of improvement as an elementalist was actually only slightly slower than a normal specialist, then they would be both shocked! In fact, the whole empire would be shocked at this development!

But unfortunately Teo choose to focus his attention to other things, and stopped his growth with his own decision.

Whether this shocking rate of improvement was caused by the inner world and his master Cien, or caused by something else, his rate of improvement was slowly picking up speed, but was unknowingly halted by Teo himself.

“So what now? Lia still has her classes, and there is still a lot of time before we meet up with her. Should we just hang out around and wait for her?”

“Hmm, let’s go to the Emerald Pavilion, I need to buy some more supplies”, Teo suggested

He needed more materials for his experiments, and with his unexpected free time, he might as well strike while the iron is hot.

….

When the two arrived at the materials section of the pavilion, Teo took out a pen and paper and wrote down a few list of materials he needed to restock on. These were mostly elemental ink, elemental powder, a certain tree sap and liquid extracted from various animals.

Because he could not use Qi or elemental energy as ink to write within the empty space like old man Cien’s technique, he was improvising with thin wires and sap to hold onto elemental ink. He also tried several multilayered arrays to create the same function but it was very complex and with so many trials, his elemental ink stock was running low.

After handing the sheet to the clerk, both of them continued to look around. Teo searched for other materials he could use while the clerk prepared the materials within the list.

“Teo, you are buying so much stuff. What are you doing with all that material?”, Windle asked

He recognized some of the materials, which could be used for their inscription class but as for the other materials, he didn’t know what Teo would use them for

But Teo kept their use a secret and said

“I am experimenting on a new dish and thought that these materials might give it a different taste as for the other stuff, they are for a new cooking method that I am currently developing”, Teo smiled innocently

“Is that so..”

Windle knew that Teo knows how to cook, but using these materials for a dish? He could only reply with a weird smile on his face. He didn’t know how to cook, but he found it really odd for Teo to be experimenting with these materials.

When the clerk returned, Windle showed his Emerald Pavilion badge and got Teo a friends and family discount, but when the price for the materials was revealed as he was showed his identification stone. It was shockingly more expensive than anticipated.

The expected 60% elementalist discount that Teo expected was removed from the elemental inks and powders. As he was about to open his mouth to inquire why the price was so high, he noticed a familiar parchment on the clerk’s side.

Elemental ink was worth 60 silvers and elemental powder were 50 silver coins. He was buying two sets of both, so the total price was 2 gold and 20 silvers. Even with the 31% discount from the student discount and the friends and family discount that was still close to 1 gold and 56 silvers for those materials alone!

‘Goddammit headmaster!’, he cursed inside

He didn’t realize the implications of being kicked out of the elementalist class.

Despite being fortunate enough to earn lots of money, he wanted to save as much as he can, so he quickly pulled Windle to the side.

“Windle, buy these for materials for me. I’ll provide the money, and you will provide the discount!”

Although there was now some inconvenience with purchasing materials, there was still a way around it.