Zavier too was shocked to hear his own name. Though he had some fighting ability and his strength exceeded that of his peers, that didn't mean that he was eligible for the endorsement at all because the endorsement also took the academic score into account.
Zavier had always been at the bottom when it came to the scores so he had never dreamed that he would even be considered for such a thing.
Moreover, the test scores were also an important criterion for the pre-screening carried out by the universities. Zavier had a negligible chance of being accepted by any of the universities even if he was recommended for the test due to his poor performance and perennially low scores.
If even Zavier was not convinced as to how his name came to be there, the students in the class were even more doubtful. First they thought that it must have been some kind of mistake but when Valerie cleared away their doubts, reality befell the poor lambs.
Some of them stood up in protest but Valerie shot each of them down by asking if they were trying to judge the decisions of the school.
No one had the guts to say that the school was trying to cheat so they had to shut up. Some angry gazes landed on Zavier but he pretended as if he had not seen anything.
Since they had no other way to take out their anger, the students started to discuss among themselves.
"Maybe his uncle had something to do with it. I hear he is a high ranking official in the government. His aunt is our teacher as well."
"You might be right about his uncle. As for Teacher Valerie, I heard that she hates him and always grabs any opportunity to torture him. So you can exclude her from the conspiracy. It must have been his uncle who has cleared the road for him."
Zavier could hear those conversations clearly even though he was sitting at the back of the class. His hearing had been enhanced by the perception system.
Once again he had to acknowledge the effort that Valerie had put in to become the bad guy in order to protect him. No one was willing to believe that she would side with him and would try to give him preferential treatment.
Zavier laughed at that. Valerie was probably his greatest supporter out of all those they had associated with him.
If it had been earlier, Zavier would have probably tried to figure out the person responsible for the sudden recommendation or would have tried to prove his innocence through some means. But this time was different. He did not care who was responsible for the manipulation or who had pushed him up the ranks. He was past all that.
All he was concerned about at the moment was that he had to enjoy every moment that he had. Since he had been nominated, he was going to make sure that he got accepted by whatever university he wanted to go to.
Zavier had died many times and he had been close to dying for real when he had been trapped by the giant faced monster, so his perspective on life had changed a little after he had that conversation with Val. He had decided to temporarily forget everything about conspiracies, assassination attempts, manipulations and deception meant for him in order to live his life and to get some time to improve his strength in the meanwhile.
Therefore, he wasn't about to argue with his classmates like a petty person over such trivialities. He had returned to the time when he didn't care about being at the bottom. This made him feel freer than ever before.
While the whole class full of students was busy regretting their past actions in the most noticeable way possible, the lucky winners who had won the recommendations from the school had their own fatigues that they had to tend to.
Zavier and Dahila had to figure out the details regarding the preliminaries that they had to attend due to the endorsements that they had received from the school. They had no information as to when, where and how would those preliminary tests be conducted? Their class teacher had not bothered to explain anything to them because she wanted to conduct her class right after the announcement had finished.
Dahila had even asked her for further elaboration but had been stared down into silence by Valerie. Valerie had a stern look on her face as she had told them off to go find their group leader for the relevant information as if she was daring them to waste one more second of her class.
Zavier wondered if the result of that would have been the same had he asked her the same question. After all, lately she had been doting on him quite a lot.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind he felt as if he had been struck by something heavy right in the middle of his face as he came back to reality.
A small piece of chalk that was smaller than the top of his pinkie finger hit him square in his face. The force behind the throw had been enough to make him feel like he had been hit by something heavy.
"Where do you think you are? Be attentive in class otherwise stay away from my sight."
A cold and stern tone that sent shivers down his spine emerged out of the mouth of Valerie. Her gaze was piercing a hole in his forehead and he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable in front of her for the first time ever since he had come back from the mission.
At that moment he was sure that the result might have been even worse than it had been for Dahila.
Valerie might not be concerned about others knowing about their relationship now but she sure as hell wouldn't have tolerated him trying to get favourable treatment. No matter how close they might have gotten, Valerie was a good teacher who put her principles before everything else. Therefore, she still would have continued with her class regardless of who had been the one to ask the question.
Before the class was about to finish, Dahila managed to look back towards Zavier once or twice when Valerie was not looking. She secretly told him to follow her after the class as she pointed towards Valerie at the same time.
Zavier understood what she was trying to convey and hastily nodded his head since he too wanted to know the information regarding the next phase.
As soon as the class was finished and Valerie left the class, Zavier and Dahila dashed outside to catch a hold of Valerie who was moving away at a brisk pace. They wanted to stop her in order to get some information out of her.
Since that wasn't class time they didn't have to be afraid of getting a chalk in the face as a result of asking those questions.
As soon as Valerie noticed Dahila and Zavier running after her she came to an abrupt stop and waited for them to come closer.
Before they could even ask her anything, Valerie raised her voice to shush them down.
"I don't want to hear anything about the preliminaries. You two can ask me anything else. So, is there anything else or can I leave now?"
Both of them were dumbfounded as to the way that this was progressing. They had not expected to receive the cold shoulder from her after everything that they had been through.
As they turned to leave, Valerie's expression softened a little and a weird expression flashed past her face.
"Go ask Calista, she will be your group leader this time."
Valerie said what she wanted to say and left hurriedly as if she was afraid of being held down by the two of them.
It was that moment that Zavier understood the reason for her odd behavior. She was just feeling competitive with Calista again. Before the mission the two hardly had a relationship that could have been called good. They were extremely competitive as evident from the fact that he had had to fight her battle when she had decided to confront Calista's class for almost no reason at all.
The hint that gave away what she was feeling was that weird expression that had flitted past her face just now. It felt as if she had a guilty conscience and had only been angry that she was not being sent as the group leader this time and Calista had been nominated instead.
Zavier too felt a little disappointed that Valerie had not been nominated. Although his relationship with Calista had gotten better it still couldn't be compared to the one he had with Valerie.
After roaming around a little, the two headless chickens soon figured out that the main notice board of the school was bearing a notice with the names of all the staff and the students who had been given an endorsement.
The notice indeed indicated the group leader to be Calista and a bunch of names that corresponded with the names called out by Valerie earlier. Moreover some of the teachers had also been named who were responsible for the paperwork up until signing them up for the preliminary tests. It looked like Calista had the job of escorting us back and forth and such burdensome tasks had been left to the others.
Even though he would have liked if Valerie had been the group leader, Zavier preferred to spend more time with the legendary Elf descendant, Calista.
The reason for that was none other than the fact that she had the perfectly lethal combination that any bombshell could have; an angelic little girly face and an exaggerated bodily proportion that would have made all the mature ladies out there feel shy. Sometimes it felt to him that Calista was even more seductive when compared to Valerie.
Valerie had her own charm but her seductive charm was dragged down by the stern expression that she always maintained on her face.
Therefore, Valerie only came about as an ice cold beauty and was wasting the potential that she had for seduction. On the other hand, Calista was someone everyone could approach and fantasize about yet no one had the guts to offend her.
Another reason that neither the students nor the teachers at the school ever thought of revealing their thoughts about Calista was that despite her girly looks, she was actually a very fine A class mage who was enough to handle most of them in groups of tens without even breaking a sweat.
No matter what, an A rank mage was a scarce resource for any school. A decent mage of that ranking was hard to hold back in schools as these mages needed to increase their rankings through missions that could give them constant practice. An A rank mage of Calista and Valerie's calibre staying back to teach was a rare occurrence.
The school must have had a lot of other tasks pending for Valerie as she was one of those A rank mages that the school currently had. She couldn't just keep on spearheading the roles that kept her away from the school for too long.
Therefore, Zavier understood why Valerie had not been assigned as the group leader this time and why she was feeling aggrieved about Calista being sent in her stead. She must have wanted to come along with them but must have been refused by the higher ups.
Zavier and Dahila tried to look for Calista but were unable to find her at all. She was probably busy somewhere else, therefore they had to reluctantly leave it up to the next day.
After Zavier returned home after a full day of running around, he was considerably tired. His body was refusing to move and he wanted nothing more than to dive into his bed upstairs.
But someone was already pacing around in the living room impatiently while waiting for him.
Ever since Nadia had heard the list of the luck winners of the recommendations from the school, she was incomparably excited. Her happiness was not because she had been one of the ones to get the recommendations but because the people she loved the most in the world were going to be accompanying her. Both Kacie and Zavier had also been recommended and she could not help but jump around at the news that she had never expected.
Kacie was an outstanding student so her recommendation hadn't come across as a surprise to her but Zavier had never been a good student and he had only revealed his magic talent recently so that came as a huge shock to her. Nadia had never even considered the fact that he might have become stronger despite the magical prowess he had shown during the class competition that she had witnessed.
Nadia clung to him as soon as he crossed the threshold of the household. She was so happy that her voice came across to him as a sweet and shrill chirping bird. Even Nadia herself had no idea what she was saying but she continued to spew everything that came to her mind.
Zavier laughed while looking at her antics lovingly. He loved how free spirited this girl could be sometimes.
Nadia saw that Zavier wasn't saying much and thought that he was nervous about the upcoming test so she proceeded to reassure him.
"Don't worry too much big brother. I will protect you during the test so you don't have to feel afraid at all. I will do my best so we can attend the same university together. We might even become classmates once that happens."
Nadia patted her chest that was like a flat plain with not a single mountain in sight. After reassuring Zavier with a serious expression she broke out into a fit of giggles.
Zavier patted her head dotingly as she continued to cling to one of his arms. This action of his seemed to have fuelled the fire even further as the girl grew even more energized.
Zavier felt that the limit to her excitement was really hard to fathom. He wondered where all that enthusiasm was coming from.
It was quite an ordeal for him to get rid of Nadia just to get to his room to place his stuff before coming back for his meal. He had to promise to talk to her some more before he was allowed to take a single step away from her.
At the meal Zavier finally got some information regarding the upcoming tests. It looked like both Nadia and Kacie had gotten their hands on some of the information regarding the qualifiers. Other than that Valerie had also let go of her anger at not being chosen to go as the leader. She was not being as tight lipped about it as she had been in the morning when he had approached her with Dahila in tow.
Zavier thought funnily that if the school had allowed her to go with them then the trip would have definitely turned into a family trip for the four of them.
It was Nadia who was busy iterating what would happen to them in the qualifying tests that were waiting for them.
"We found that the preliminaries would have various tests that would focus on determining combat and survival capabilities of the students out in the wilderness. There would be considerable danger in the scenarios that would be created for that reason. The teacher tried his best to hide it from us but we were able to deduce that even though the chances of fatality appearing would be close to zero, the chances of serious injuries would be quite high."
Zavier wondered what method she used to coerce the information out of the teacher. He wondered if she had annoyed him into giving her the information because that was what this younger cousin of his was best at. He knew that even if the answer was not exactly what he had imagined, then it would have been quite close to it at the very least. Therefore, in order to avoid the same fate as that of the teacher, Zavier decided not to ask her how she had pulled it off.
Valerie had been watching everything in silence while feigning ignorance but when she saw that even after hearing the dangers of the tests, Zavier was totally indifferent; she felt that she had to do something to make sure that Zavier understood what he was getting into.
"Don't think that the test would be easy. If you are thinking of showing off your strength at the start of the test to impress the professors, you have a whole other thing coming. Don't overdo it no matter what. The preliminaries would consist of a series of tests so you need to conserve your strength and make sure to not reveal your trump cards until the very end. You have until the end of the test to impress those professors so you don't need to hurry or you will get injured very easily."
Zavier acted as if what she was telling him was something that he had already known and the level of difficulty described was not enough to faze him at all.
He appeared quite calm and composed to everyone there as if he had taken everything into account and was able to handle all the challenges that were waiting for him. But the words that came out once he opened his mouth were the exact opposite and Valerie felt like dragging his useless tongue out of his mouth.
"All of you don't need to worry about my any longer. I have no need to pass a measly test like that. I have succeeded in securing a backing for myself already. Even if I end up failing the qualifiers, wouldn't I still be the descendant of a noble family. I would still be living a flashy and comfortable life that others my age would only be able to envy. I have no interest in attending a university anyway. How great would it be…spending my days loitering around the city like a rich playboy chasing skirts. Now that I think about it, I feel like not taking the test at all."
Zavier was joking on the outside but in his heart for the first time he could feel the warmth of having a family. For the first time since he came here, he was sure that the people with him were all his well wishers and wanted him to live a better life. He had previously joked around so they wouldn't be too worried. Even though Valerie knew how strong he was, the other two still had no inkling of his true strength and from their determined looking faces Zavier could already guess what the two were feeling at the moment.
"What should I do with you? You really have no motivation at all. Anyone else in your class would have been jumping up and down if they were given an opportunity to be in your shoes and yet you want to throw it away like it is household waste. You should keep in mind that not everybody likes rich playboys."
Valerie had seen how obstinate and persistent Zavier could be in times of need. She didn't have to worry too much about him not putting his best effort. Therefore, she kept playing along with Zavier in a light hearted manner.
But Zavier was able to read through her lines and had received her message as well just as she had understood that Zavier was only trying to make her feel at ease by saying through his joking manner.
Kacie as usual was a miser for words but Zavier had come to know that she was actually a kind and nice girl on the inside. She pretended to be indifferent but actually cared about him.
Unknown to Zavier, Kacie had already been planning to protect him as soon as they left for the preliminaries. Even though she hadn't declared it out loud like Nadia, her determination to do so did not lose out to her at all. If Kacie had actually known the true strength of Zavier, she would definitely have felt ashamed at even thinking of doing so; after all, Zavier was powerful beyond her wildest imagination.
The meal concluded in a joyful manner and everyone headed towards their respective rooms. Both Nadia and Kacie kept looking towards Zavier as he was going back to his room. Zavier could feel them staring his way but was unable to establish what they were thinking. He was unable to measure the determination that had laid its foundation in their eyes.
Zavier knew that the upcoming test would be difficult even for him as per the instructions that he had received from Valerie. He had to set up some precautionary measures just in case of an emergency. Even though he did not have anything to lose in case of failure, he knew that he wasn't alone in the qualifiers. He had to make sure that the futures of Nadia and Kacie would be akin to smooth sailing. He would crush any and all tides and typhoons that came their way. Therefore, to cater for all contingencies he began moving all his pieces in place.
Zavier had already used the self cloning skill to produce more clones and had touched the upper limit of the number that he could hold with his limited mental strength.
Excluding the one that was an eternal resident of the cupboard in his room at home, he sent the other three clones on the journey ahead of them to their final destination.
He didn't want to repeat the same instance where he had to wait for the clones to make their appearance before letting loose. This time he was taking the clones with him in case there was a repetition of the previous scenario where he needed their help.
The last clone continued to stay in the closet in his bedroom as it was busy meditating to increase the reservoir of mental strength that Zavier had. Only through that would Zavier be able to create more clones and use more of the multi-system privileges.
Also this clone was Zavier's absolute insurance of his life. Even if the rest of his clones ended up dying, Zavier would still be able to survive if this clone continued to meditate in the closet like always. Therefore this clone was the key to Zavier remaining immortal.
Only after he had set up everything in advance did Zavier manage to close his eyes to sleep.
Despite his vow that he would take it easy and enjoy every moment of his life, Zavier could not truly do it. His instincts screamed at him every time he tried to let down his guard which was the reason that he had to arrange for safety measures beforehand.
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