Silence reigned the room.Because of Dyon"s inexperience with other formation and alchemy masters, he had no way of gauging his skill as compared to them. To Dyon, a saint level expert who was also a formation master should be far better than him at creating arrays. However, he was wrong. Because of the separation of array theory and alchemy, often, the highest levels formation masters reached was the peak master level – in terms of this particular world, anyway. A level that Dyon had already broken into the lower level of just recently. The advantage his innate aurora and intelligence gave him was incomparable to what other experts had.
To Elder Flyleaf, he was aware that Dyon"s soul strength was nowhere near the formation guild master"s, but, the ability to speed array was something he had no concept of. To him, the only way Dyon created a peak level pract.i.tioner array was by being able to draw the complete array quickly. Which made him slightly overestimate Dyon, but also underestimate him at the same time. He overestimated Dyon"s ability to speed draw complete arrays. But, he also underestimated Dyon"s intelligence by not considering the fact he could create his own short cuts to emulate such an effect.
Elder Erunonidan sighed, "the best way to know if he"ll be useful or not is once he"s grown enough to partic.i.p.ate in the wars…"
A complicated look appeared on Elder Flyleaf"s face, "because of these wars… we"ve lost contact with our king… we lost our greatest ally… the power struggles in our kingdom have reached unprecedented levels… and everyone has seemed to forget the reason we fight these wars in the first place," the frustration on his face was clear. But, he could do nothing but hold it in.
"All we can do is defend our gate and hope the other races do the same. With the Royal G.o.d Clan, humans will always be the rulers of this world. We can only trust that they have everything under control."
"The previous campaign ended early because of the struggles we"re having here. But, the good news is that because the world tournament is coming up soon, there"ll be many youngsters who want to temper themselves by leading their own campaigns. We should receive reinforcements for the 9th Gate soon."
Elder Flyleaf nodded, "either way, if he decides to join the Elvin campaign banner, it would do us good. He"s handsome, intelligent, and as long as he marries an elf of high standing, from the right family, no one will have anything to say."
Despite how much praise Elder Flyleaf heaped on Dyon, Elder Erunonidan couldn"t help but be surprised, "are you sure this is a student you just met instead of your b.a.s.t.a.r.d child?"
Elder Flyleaf chuckled, "I just have a good impression of him. If he campaigns under our banner and has good results, it"ll only help us in stabilizing the throne. The traditions that have always chosen our king shouldn"t be done away with so easily. The power-hungry n.o.bles who are so intent on doing away with our old traditions, have already forgotten why those things were our traditions in the first place."
Elder Erunonidan sighed, "sometimes I can"t help but feel that they have the point… without the help of our long gone ally, is it even feasible to continue with tradition? We haven"t even found a successor appropriate based on traditions."
Despite Elder Flyleaf"s determination, he had no good answer for his long-time friend. He could only shake his head, "we must trust that things were made like this for a reason. Trust our ancestors and trust the G.o.ds we came from. They gave us our strength, our faith and our future. We can"t forsake them."
"If only the old and devoted generation could still fight…"
"if only we could still fight…"
**
Dyon walked around the school completely oblivious to the fact he had inadvertently become part of something much bigger than himself.
Soon, after wandering aimlessly, Dyon finally found something that resembled a library because of a sign displaying a book. Following up a spiraled stair case in the school pavilion, Dyon suddenly wondered about what Ri could possibly doing. Because of his distraction, he didn"t notice the odd glances he was getting as he climbed the stairs, and couldn"t be bothered to focus on whispers.
"who"s that," someone looking up asked.
"Don"t mind him, if he"s entering that library, it must be because he has the authority to. If he doesn"t have an allowed access, then someone else will deal with his punishment, there"s no need to get involved and potentially end up with our efforts unappreciated."
The students who heard him nodded in agreement. They weren"t of high enough standing to really know who had access to this library or not. What Dyon didn"t know, was that this stair case was a direct entrance to the 5th floor of the library of Acacia Academy. In all his searching, he hadn"t managed to find the main entrance. However, the main reason no one stopped him was the same reason those entrances never had any guards to begin with. For one, no one dared to break the rules. Secondly, access to exclusive areas of the school were decided by the amount of soul pressure you could withstand. While Dyon was lost in thought, he hadn"t even noticed that something was pressuring his soul. Or maybe, more accurately, to him, the pressure was so minuscule that it wasn"t worth noticing.
The surrounding crowd could only watch in awe as a boy that couldn"t possibly be more than 15 years old, climbed stairs even the best of geniuses at his age couldn"t.