A red haired boy dashed through a foliage of trees at fast speed, enacting what many would view as a massacre.
The young boy moved with a cold expression on his face while effortlessly locating different beasts in the forest.
And every single time, he wouldn't stop or turn to even acknowledge the presence of the beasts. At every instance, a myriad of thick vines would suddenly shoot out from every direction, brutally piercing the forms of the beasts.
Then the boy would simply continue as though nothing had happened.
This boy was none other than Dell Alverian. The Alverian family bloodline was completely plant-based, and it was exactly because of their bloodline that enabled them to be the alchemists of the human domain.
While the other tiered families also had their alchemists, none of them could be compared to the true genius alchemists of the Alverian family.
But this didn't mean the battle strength of the family was weak; quite the contrary. For every member of the Alverian family, given their bloodline, the forest would always be their domain, and the current ongoing situation only goes to show why.
Facing an Alverian in the middle of a forest, especially of the same rank, was simply asking for a brutal death.
After a few hours of hunting, Dell finally decided to stop. His form, which was initially moving through the air, abruptly stopped on one tree branch.
Resting his back on one tree, Dell raised up his artifact and with a few clicks, his eyes couldn't help but get intensely colder as he gazed at the figure of the white-haired youth who was brutally burning the figures of some students.
'She wasn't lying,' Dell thought. He had constantly been rewatching this same video over and over again throughout the weekend, trying to figure out how he had done it but to no avail.
Dell gritted his teeth hard.
"I might not be able to win," a cold flint passed through his eyes as he concluded.
If Lila could hear her brother's thoughts now, she would be very shocked. Her usually hot-tempered brother actually admitted that he was weaker than Atticus?
Dell took in a deep breath. 'So what do I do now?' He wondered. It was obvious that directly going after Atticus would end with his body getting roasted. This had been his original plan.
He couldn't even refer to it as a plan. It simply involved him beating up Atticus in front of the students.
But that could only work if he were stronger than Atticus, which Dell had thoroughly believed before he saw this video.
Dell had no intention of going through that despite how much hate he had for Atticus. He would simply be taking another huge blow to his reputation should he fail and get beaten up instead.
Resting on the tree branch, Dell closed his eyes and pondered. 'How do I deal with this? He's stronger than me and from what I've seen, he's also smart and cool-headed. He should be an Advanced+ rank, but looking at the way he defeated those third years, he's obviously stronger. Just to be safe, let's say Expert-,'
Dell was also an Advanced+ individual, and despite probably being stronger than each of the third-year assailants that attacked Atticus, he knew deep down that he couldn't have easily defeated them like that.
Which was why he decided to be careful and placed Atticus in the Expert- rank.
Dell's thoughts swirled, and after pondering for a bit, he finally came up with his next course of action.
"Let's see how you'd deal with this."
…
The days went by fast, and the video of Atticus's brutality spread throughout the whole academy, with practically everyone seeing it.
This particular video caused a lot of tension in the academy, especially among the lower and higher years.
Everywhere one went, regardless of the place, it was always natural for the seniors to see themselves as superior.
Even though there was no seniority in the academy, while it wasn't applicable to every lower year, it was natural for a higher year to be more powerful than a lower year.
And it was exactly because of this that there was an unspoken consensus among the lower years to always either completely avoid them or show them the least bit of respect.
But now that Atticus, a first-year, had effortlessly defeated multiple strong third years and had even gone the extra mile to torture them in front of multiple people!
There was no one in the academy who didn't know who the white-haired monster was. At this stage, Atticus was practically infamous.
And this infamy only seemed to increase as it became a normal occurrence to see the handsome, imposing figure of Atticus walking through the garden with the breathtaking form of Zoey.
Words could not even begin to express how badly this was taken.
There was a reason the instant lectures ended Zoey would always immediately head straight towards her teleportation room and back to her division.
And this was because of the massive amount of guys who would approach her. Zoey was a tier one, regardless of the fact that practically every one of the first-year guys wanted to talk to her, they wouldn't dare carelessly approach her.
And this particular reason gave her a brief respite during the first-year classes, but this was different for the higher years. Especially the tier ones and even the tier twos who believed that they were stronger than her.
The number of higher years carrying those delusions was very staggering. This was exactly why she avoided stepping outside the first-year leader's building. And this only changed when Atticus came into the picture.
It goes without saying that Atticus had become public enemy number one among the higher years.
Each of them wanted nothing more than to rip him apart piece by piece. He had beaten up the higher years and also dared to take Zoey?
But reality had always been a big bitch, neither one of them dared to approach or start something with Atticus. The scene of what he did to those third years was still fresh in many of their heads.
Surprisingly, this same thing had happened to Zoey. She was hated among the girls in the academy. And this was because of the same reason Atticus was hated, she had taken Atticus off the market.
Atticus was incredibly handsome, and this was especially glaring when he started putting on trenchcoats. After the video of Atticus spread, he became well-known everywhere, especially among the ladies.
He was a tier one, he was handsome, and he had monstrous talent; they all wanted him! These groups of ladies were not in any way happy when they found out about Atticus and Zoey.
In simple terms, Atticus and Zoey became the most hated individuals in the academy.
But as days passed, while the matter of Atticus and Zoey didn't die down, it somewhat reduced.
People started thinking about the bigger picture.
"Hey, don't you think this year's leader summit will be awesome?" A green haired student turned to look at a black haired youth walking beside him.
"Huh? What do you mean?" The black-haired youth asked.
"Do you live under a rock? You know, the leader's summit, where the top 10 of each year compete against each other?" The green-haired youth shot his friend a look that screamed idiot.
The black-haired youth frowned deeply, "I know that, dumbass. I meant how will it be interesting? The number one ranker of the third year always wins every year, and I doubt it'll be different this year. If anything, I think they should scrap it. It's simply a waste of time and a way to glorify those egotistic and self-centered tier ones."
The green-haired youth swiftly turned his gaze back and front, checking to see if anyone was listening to their conversation. He let out a sigh of relief seeing that there was no one there.
He turned and shot his friend a stare, "If you don't care about your life in the academy, don't drag me into it! What would you have done if a tier one had heard that?"
Seeing the complete nonchalance on the black-haired youth's face, he sighed.
"Idiot," he muttered under his breath, earning him a deep stare from the black-haired youth.
He ignored the stare and decided to respond to what the black-haired youth had said,
"To answer your question, have you perhaps forgotten about a certain white-haired first year who easily defeated multiple third years?"
The black-haired youth's expression seemed to change for the first time as his eyes narrowed slightly,
"Are you trying to say he would be able to contend with the top rankers of the third year?"
Seeing the green-haired youth nod his head, he seemed to ponder on it for a bit before eventually shaking his head in disagreement.
"I don't think so. The top rankers of the third year are mostly in the expert- rank. While he easily defeated those third years, according to the rumors, he is still in the advanced+ rank. Bridging that gap would be impossible," he concluded.
The green-haired youth shook his head with a wry smile, "You always love analyzing everything, but isn't it obvious that he was stronger than Advanced+ ranks though? He did easily defeat multiple people in the same rank."
"Hmm, that's true." The black haired youth agreed. The both of them went silent for a few seconds until the green haired youth suddenly spoke,
"I guess we'll see at the end of the year."
Talks like this were ongoing throughout the academy.
The leader's summit.
Many were anticipating how this year's summit would turn out.