Greyson slowly made his way to the meeting place at the front gate of Academy City. Apparently, the people from the Aurora Academy will meet first and then they will fly over to the Idris Kingdom capital city to pick up the rest. From what he remembered, the only other people would be his teacher, Ezra, and Ignis. Speaking of his teacher, Greyson had wanted to go together since they were starting from the same place. Sweetbow had quickly rejected him, though, saying he needed to make a more impactful entrance to the rest of the group. While Greyson should be there first due to his young age, Sweetbow arriving early as the elder would be "embarra.s.sing." Although the reasoning just made him roll his eyes, Greyson had always known his teacher was egotistical to the point that no words would work on him. Plus, he knew the real reason was that his teacher was bad at waking up early in the morning. Always claiming he needs his beauty sleep, while the truth was that he was lazy. Turning his head back towards his teacher"s place with these thoughts in mind, Greyson just let out a helpless sigh while visibly shaking his head."I"m okay with leaving the group idiot back home. Just breathing air near him makes me think I"ll catch his ridiculous narcissism." Lucius quipped in a mental message as he knew exactly what was going through Greyson"s mind.
Greyson turned his head over with a disdainful look. As if you are one to talk?
"Hm? What?" Lucius asked.
"Nothing. I just suddenly pity myself." Really. Getting stuck with people like this all the time, it was a wonder he did not go insane.
Puzzled, Lucius no longer paid his friend any attention and continued napping.
The walk was not far at all, so Greyson arrived in just a couple minutes with his speed. Seeing the empty s.p.a.ce, he knew that he was the first to arrive. The only people in sight were the guards on s.h.i.+ft. Since he did not recognize them, Greyson decided to walk to the side and laze in the snow waiting. His body was almost completely insensitive to the cold, actually he found the cold more comfortable than warmth. While he was comfortable, the same could not be said for Theo and Gold. From the moment he sat down in the snow, Gold woke up from his nap and frowned. Theo could not stop s.h.i.+vering as the Snow Country temperatures were far colder than the temperate gra.s.slands that he was from. He tried to cuddle into Greyson only to see that the body heat he was hoping for was not present.
"Why is your body so cold?"
"Me? I never really noticed."
"Ever since we started getting closer to your home, I have been s.h.i.+vering. Why must you live in such a frozen h.e.l.l?" Theo complained.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.
"Well, here." Greyson decided to meditate and focus on absorbing the fire element. Naturally, his body started to heat up like an oven. Happier, all the animals cuddled closer to him. Looking at their behavior, he did find them rather cute while stroking their silky fur.
"Hahaha, aw, Grey Grey, big sister did not realize you had such an adorable habit of keeping small animals. But it"s okay, only real men can confidently be in touch with their feminine side. This sister here really looks up to you." With that same flirty tone, Ezra came up from behind and pet his head. Feeling the urge to cry from his grievances, Greyson did not correct her as he knew that he should just accept that everyone has good reason to misunderstand. It was not like he could correct everyone.
"Lady Seirina, nice to see you again." Dusting off the snow, Greyson turned around and politely greeted.
"Oh, now you are making me feel awkward. I talked to you like a friend, but you are clearly drawing a line." She pouted. "Do you hate me?" Exaggeratingly biting her lip with tears forming, she looked the picture of a girl holding back after being bullied. Badly wanting to scold her for being fake, Greyson still decided to hold back and force a smile.
"No, I just do not know how to interact well with woman so much older than me." His voice came out sweet like honey, but his words cut like a knife. Erza finally choked on her words and her expression cracked. Old? OLD?! Did he just call me old? Unable to keep calm under such shocking words, she quickly turned her attention to the companion who walked over with her. Scanning the man, Greyson knew that this was Ignis Arcadian. He had the same blonde hair and hazel eyes from before. Objectively speaking, he was decent looking seemed to carry himself honest and upright air. Noticing Greyson eyeing him, Ignis nodded in greeting. Greyson responded in kind.
"Ignis dear, am I old looking? I am still a flower just starting to bloom. A ripe fruit! If people did not know better, they could mistake me for being the same age as Greyson, right?"
Blus.h.i.+ng fiercely, Ignis could only dumbly nod.
"Young-looking. Same age." He agreed quickly. Watching this scene from the side, Greyson suddenly thought back to the tournament before he left. Ignis was so afraid to fight Natalia because he had fought her once before and lost horribly. If Greyson remembered correctly, it was because Ignis had taken Ezra"s side in one of their many arguments. Before, he did not pay attention much to this because it was true that Natalia could be very unreasonable and her personality was not very likeable. But now he started to think that there was definitely more to the story. Ignis definitely seemed to have a crush on Ezra. With her emotional intelligence, Ezra was anything but dense. She definitely knew, but it seemed she had no desire to start anything. Greyson wondered if she was taking advantage of Ignis" undisguised affection; there were a lot of bad rumors surrounding the Seirina women and their relations with men. Many said they were poisonous foxes that acted like prey when, in reality, they were merciless predators. But, well, Greyson was not the nosy type and he did not really care if Ignis was blind enough to be used.
Her vanity seemingly satisfied, Ezra grinned widely.
"Geez, Grey, you should learn to speak to a lady with compliments. Age is a very sensitive topic. Just look how great Ignis is."
Greyson just grimaced and nodded obediently. Am I supposed to just lose all my brain cells because you"re pretty? Honestly, he never had a bad impression of Ignis, but it seems his intelligence was rather subpar.
No longer wanting to pay attention to the two man show, Greyson waited patiently for his teacher to arrive. Once Sweetbow came, they could immediately head out. The sun continued to rise in the sky, but Sweetbow still had not arrived. Growing more and more impatient with each pa.s.sing second, Greyson was about to explode. During this waiting time, he had to listen to Ezra chatter on about what happened during the time he was gone. Ignis also chipped in and seemed friendly enough, but Greyson was not really in the mood to socialize. From the beginning, he was not much of a conversationalist. Who was he kidding? The first years of his life were spent living like a mute. Forcing himeslf to pretend the pair were like air, he tuned out their voices and meditated instead. Around noon, Sweetbow finally made his entrance. Confidently walking forward while flipping his long hair, the elf did not look even the slightest bit apologetic for being almost 4 hours late. Greyson could hear the exchanging of words, however, he continued to ignore his teacher. The silent treatment seemed rather immature, but only Greyson knew that this was the best revenge. For someone who pretty much lived and breathed for attention, being ignored was the worst feeling for his teacher to experience.
"Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey! HEY!" Poking Greyson"s face, Sweetbow continued to call to his student.
Eyebrows twitching angrily, Greyson finally opened his eyes to glare at his irresponsible mentor while openly conveying his discontent. Ignoring the fierce look, Sweetbow pretended he saw nothing. With his thick skin, dirty looks would not affect him in anyway.
"Let"s take your partner beast. Flying on him would probably be the fastest."
Although he was still unhappy, Greyson did not want to spend another second waiting. Quickly allowing Zephyr out, Greyson led the group in jumping onto the dragon"s back. They were about to quickly take off in the direction of the Idris Kingdom capital when another voice shouted to hold them back.
"Wait! Wait for me!" A rather scrawny individual with floppy brown hair and clear blue eyes showed up while waving his hands wildly. Greyson had Zephyr stay grounded and waited to see what this unfamiliar guy wanted.
"Whew! I seemed to have just made it!" He grinned happily while wiping away his nonexistent sweat. Lips twitching, Greyson, Ezra, and Ignis were all tempted to smack him upside the head. Just made it?! If not for Sweetbow being so crazy late, they would have left hours ago. It was almost as if the two of them had planned it.
"Quinn dear, it seems that your habit of being late to everything is still not cured. However, why are you here?" Ezra finally regained her usual easy-going smile and asked. Quinn? Greyson heard this name and thought really hard. Why was this name so familiar? Noticing that Greyson seemed to be struggling to remember, Ignis decided to lend him a hand.
"The Ventus family."
Then, the memory finally hit him. That"s right, the Ventus family was one of the 10 n.o.ble families of the Ignis Kingdom and their heir was named Quinn. Throughout his five years of staying in the Academy City, Greyson had not seen head nor tail of this fellow. A lot of people claimed that Quinn was very mysterious and lowkey. He did not even show up to the compet.i.tion 2 years ago, and everyone said that he never partic.i.p.ated. It was only today that Greyson could finally match a name to a face. Looking closely, he tried to match this sloppy looking young man to the mystical young man from the rumors. It seemed that it was true that one should not trust the rumors. Mysterious, his a.s.s. This person was obviously just lazy and unconcerned. Even now, Greyson could tell from Quinn"s tired and hazy eyes that he only just woke up. The only thing that surprised Greyson more than Quinn"s unexpected appearance was the level of Quinn"s magic. Magister level stage one! As someone at the fifth stage, it was not a power that impressed Greyson. But it was different since Quinn should still be 19 and only turned this age recently. This status meant that he was actually much more talented than Ezra and Ignis. Yet, how did no one know of this? With the power of the Arcadian and Seirina families, it was hard for information to not even make their way to the pair"s ears.
"Of course, I would come. I have broken through. If I did not come and partic.i.p.ate, my father would surely beat me everyday." With a bored expression, Quinn yawned nonchalantly while dropping this bomb on the other two. Greyson could tell because his stage was higher, but Ezra and Ignis were not able to accurately sense Quinn"s power.
"What?! You"re a magister?! You?!" Ezra shouted out in surprise.
"If you act that surprised, you"re really going to hurt my feelings big sister Ezra." Faking a stab to the heart, Quinn teased.
"No, well, I"m just surprised. Don"t take it personally, Quinn." Forgoing her normally flippant att.i.tude, Ezra expression looked fairly serious. It was to be expected, though. No matter how playful she seemed, Ezra was still the next head of her family and would have to be wary to threats. A talent like Quinn"s coming from the Ventus family would change the status quo that they have held. Ignis" expression was also slightly ugly. He was not so vainglorious that he could not stand others being more talented or powerful, but it was hard to accept it when Quinn"s family and background were almost identical to his. All ten heirs were each other"s lifelong rivals. Seeing a rival get ahead was not a pleasant sight. Ezra and Ignis were not overly proud about breaking through to the magister level first as they had the age advantage and they knew that the rest were right behind them.
"Alright, Quill, hurry up and come over. We are running late now because of you." Sweetbow frowned deeply and interrupted the conversation. Speechless, Greyson wanted to just dig a hole and bury himself in it due to shame. His teacher clearly only just arrived as well, but now he was blaming someone else for holding them back?
"Teacher, his name is Quinn." Greyson corrected.
"Whatever, you know I"m terrible with names."
Since when? Where was the teacher that always bragged of his amazing memory? Scoffing, Greyson knew that his teacher was only upset that someone grabbed the attention of the rest away.
"Well, Finn, aren"t you coming up?" Sweetbow saw that the teenager had yet to move. Quinn just awkwardly smiled in response and sat down on Zephyr"s back. He decided against trying to correct the elf. Greyson sincerely wondered how his teacher could be so immature.
Once they were on their way, the atmosphere did seem to grow more solemn. Ignis and even Ezra began to sit and seriously meditate. They wanted to use every free second to try to strengthen themselves. Born and raised in the Idris Kingdom, they highly desired to win some praise and attention for their kingdom. Though magister level stage one magicians were all the bottom rung in the compet.i.tion, that did not mean that they could not fight. They could at least stand out within their same stage opponent group. These compet.i.tions were also a way of making powerful connections and gaining wealth. They had to try their best and put in real effort. Quinn, on the other hand, decided to just snore away. Zephyr made sure to block the wind for everyone, so the top of his back was very tranquil. Greyson also did not meditate because he knew that this little bit of absorbing mana would not really make a difference to him in time for the compet.i.tion. Plus, breaking through would actually be worse since that would mean he could no longer partic.i.p.ate.
He wondered what the people from the capital would be like...