Stan's brows raised slightly. "What happened to "Top 25 position is boring"? Huh?"
Though he was quite surprised, he didn't doubt Nathan's power. He was sure if he wanted to challenge even the top one student of Vane academy, his chances of winning weren't so low.
He was more surprised that Nathan was suddenly concerned about the elite ranks. He had always been nonchalant about them, always going on and on about how pointless they were.
"Huh… nothing, I just want to get into the elite ranks." Nathan said, still with that nonchalant expression. "It's not like I would be challenging the top ten, just those below top 20 are enough for me. They are weak after all, so winning against them would be quite easy."
Nathan wasn't actually from Vernil city, he came from Zenith, which was actually one of the biggest cities in the world.
He moved to Vernil city and also transferred to Vane academy a few months ago, due to somewhat complicated reasons.
Since Nathan formerly lived in Zenith, he also attended the magical academy in Zenith—Zenith academy.
Compared to Vane academy, Zenith academy was a thousand times bigger.
The former was in a very small city while the latter was in the one of the biggest cities in the world, of course, the difference in their sizes would be incomparable.
Since it was a well-populated city, the number of students in the academy was also very much.
Due to this, the competition in Zenith academy was ten times fiercer.
It was also why Nathan viewed the students here as weak.
While stage two Elementalists were seen as the top students in this academy, in the Zenith academy, they weren't even strong enough to get into the top 30.
Nathan was one of the top ten students in his former academy, with an academy rank of 5.
His name was very popular in Zenith mainly because he was the highest ranked combat mage; the first combat mage to get into the top ten rankings.
It was only after he transferred to Vane academy where he met Stan and they became friends.
Due to his weird personality and his background, most of the students avoided him like a plague even though he hadn't done anything to offend them.
The only person who didn't do the same was the orange haired boy in front of him, so it wasn't too surprising that they bonded quite well.
Stan stared at Nathan with his brows twitching slightly. "Still… isn't that a bit excessive?"
Getting into a fight a few weeks before the event wasn't exactly the right thing to do. Though one might emerge as the winner, recovering the lost mana in a few weeks might not be possible.
"It might seem excessive, But I just wanna form my own team for the competition, not just team up with some random students." Nathan said while shrugging.
Before today, he had already gathered information on all the elite students of Vane academy.
Though most of them were stage two Elementalists, there were still a few that had already broken through to the third mana core stage. A few.
The ones at the second mana stage posed no threat to him as he himself was a stage three Combat mage, and not just any stage three combat mage but one that was already a little more than halfway to the fourth stage.
He didn't reach his current stage through 'natural' means alone but was also assisted by the amount of resources made available to him by his father.
However, most of the efforts made to get to his current strength were his alone.
The only ones that might give him struggle were the stage three Elementalists, especially the ones at the top five positions.
He wasn't bothered about him losing mana, he could always recover it by absorbing a beast core.
"Ohh…" Stan nodded in understanding.
One of the aims of the ranking competition was to promote teamwork among the academy students.
The participants of the competition would be grouped into teams of five—the number of teams depended on the number of Elementalists that participated.
The competition was only a month away and the team selection had already begun, however, only for top twenty five students.
Elite students were automatically the leaders of their respective teams as they were given the choose to choose any five students of their choice and add to their team.
The remaining Elementalists that weren't picked by the twenty five elite students could form groups of their own and register themselves before the deadline, which was three days to the competition.
While the rest who weren't in any team by then would be randomly grouped into teams by the academy.
Nathan didn't want to be a part of the latter as majority of the academy students were weak in his eyes.
"How would you even get them to accept?" Stan asked.
"You shouldn't worry Stanley, I've got my ways." Nathan said with a slight smile on his face.
Stan didn't push it anymore, he already more or less knew how Nathan planned on getting them to accept his challenge.
"Whatever, so who are you planning on adding to your team?" Stan asked. From the way he phrased his question, it was obvious that he didn't doubt Nathan's capability of rising to the elite position of this academy, not even in the slightest.
After all, he knew the strength of his friend the most—he knew how monstrous Nathan strength and power was.
Although he was also quite powerful, he couldn't compare to the black haired boy.
He wasn't as talented as Nathan and he only recently broke through to the second mana core stage, and that was with the help of the resources given to him by his father.
He was a stage two combat mage while Nathan was at stage three; the gap between them was like heaven and earth.
"I don't know yet, let's just wait until then." Nathan said with a wry smile on his face.
He honestly found Stan's confidence in him quite funny. While he found the stage two Elementalists of this academy weak, he didn't plan to underestimate them too much either.
"I'm sure that brown haired Elementalist is among the team members you have in mind." Stan said.
Nathan's brows furrowed slightly, he didn't immediately understand the orange haired boy's words. 'Brown haired Elementalist?' He mumbled inwardly.
Then it clicked and he finally understood who Stan was referring to. "You mean… Harry?" Nathan asked.
"Yes. Who else would I be referring to?" Stan said with a shrug. "He's the only one you've shown interest in so far."
Nathan chuckled slightly when he heard the orange haired boy's words.
"He's strong, so I'll definitely want to add in to my team if possible." He replied.
Stan's brows raised as turned towards the black haired boy behind him. "I don't know what about him makes you curious, to me he's just a stage one elementalist… and a very unlucky one at that."
Stan didn't share the same views with his friend about Harry.
Ever since that day when he lost that bet to Nathan, Harry had become a frequent topic of their conversations—he was the one always bringing it up though.
Nathan wasn't the type to show interest in just anybody—the person had to be strong or at least have great potential.
He had only met Harry once and he didn't strike him as someone that strong or powerful so he was curious… why?
Nathan squinted his eyes slightly and then bent his head down a little. 'Just a stage one elementalist… huh?' He said inwardly.
The news about Harry enrolling as an Elementalist had spread quickly around the academy so it unsurprisingly reached the ears of the two combat mages.
However, unlike Stan, Nathan didn't see Harry as "ordinary".
While Stan saw Harry late awakening as unlucky, Nathan didn't see it the same way.
There was this budding feeling inside of him that Harry was hiding his true power… and probably potential.
He even wondered if Stan was dumb at times, Harry was the only Elementalist in the academy whose true affinity grades weren't particularly known; If that wasn't enough to pique a person's curiosity, then what was?
He had never doubted his instincts as his instincts had never been wrong.
The original reason he wanted to rope Harry into his team was to find out his true strength, and at least spar with him.
"I doubt that Stan." Nathan replied calmly.
A weird expression flashed through Stan's eyes, however, he didn't make any comment on Nathan's words. 'Whatever…' He thought.
A wry smile appeared on Stan's face as he reminisced on his friendship with Nathan.
Even though they had only been friends for a few months, they were very close and it felt like they had know each other for decades.
Their personalities contrasted greatly, yet, it didn't affect their friendship.
He wasn't ashamed to admit that he benefited a lot from their relationship.
From each of their fights—though it always ended with him getting utterly defeated, he did gain a lot.
He was able to refine his skills which made him stronger. It was safe to say that he was almost twice stronger than he was before meeting Nathan.
Suddenly, Nathan's eyes brightened and he sprung up as if he had just remembered something very important. "You do know Susan Grey right?"
Stan squinted his eyes slightly and then nodded his head. "The top one student… how could I not know her?"
"Yeah… she asked me to join her team." Nathan said as he walked up to Stan.
"For real?!" The orange haired boy asked in surprise.
"Yeah… it isn't too surprising though." Nathan said with a slight chuckle.
"Yeah…" Stan replied with a slight smile on his face.
Nathan suddenly walked to the side of the room and picked up a long green bow and arrow that were resting on the floor.
He nocked the arrow on the bow and even aimed at the round target in the distance, drawing gazes of curiosity from Stan.
"So did you accept?"
"No." Nathan replied as he drew the arrow back and then released it.
Fwoosh!
The arrow travelled in the air for a few seconds before hitting the target.
However, it didn't land on the black dot at the middle but on a white line close to the round edge.
"Tsk." Nathan released a low hiss. "My arching skills sure have gotten rusty."
A wry smile curved on Stan's face. "I would say better than most."
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