Next day The Principal of the Starwood academy is in an extremely good mood as he felt that he got one over the money- grubbing brat, Sam. That is why, he is full of smiles since morning as he followed, he attended his duties.
But this smile didn’t last when he met two people waiting at his office for him. He furrowed his brows as he recognised them as an Artisan and his assistant who runs a business in the city. He is good at making carriages and all the carriages in the noble families and merchants are made by him. When Principal saw him, he was quite puzzled. He invited them into the office and asked them.
"Why do you want to see me?"
"Sir, I am here to collect payment for an order." The man who seemed to be the boss said in a low voice.
"Payment? I don’t remember having made any deal with you and even the academy doesn’t have business. Are you here by mistake?" Principal grew more and more and confused.
"No, Sir. If you look at this, you will understand." He said as he passed over a letter to the principal which he took and read. As soon as the Principal read the content, he immediately became enraged and wanted to punch someone in the face. But he forced himself to calm down and looked at the boss in front of him and asked.
"Did this happen yesterday?"
"Yes, sir." The boss said. Even though, he is an artisan, he is merely a rank 1 and doesn’t have much status as he skills were low. That is why, he started using his knowledge to make the carriages instead of weapons. He was nervous, when ’that’ person came to his shop yesterday and placed an order on behalf of the Principal’s name. But he quickly dismissed the thoughts as he knew that a person of ’that’ status doesn’t need to bother to make him go against the Principal to deal with him. That is why, he became more confident and came to look for the Principal to foot the bill. But looking at the Principal’s expressions, he is starting to doubt his decision.
Principal suddenly heaved a sigh and looked away from the letter and asked. "How much is the bill?"
"5000 spirit stones." The person said slowly looking at the Principal’s expression and as expected, he saw the Principal’s expression turn dark and ugly and he immediately explained himself.
"Sir, He gave us a special order and the design himself, including the materials to be used. If you want, you can take a look at it." Boss passed over a huge scroll. Principal looked at the exquisite sketches and the designs of various components and became impressed, but when he looked at the list of the materials needed, he almost puked blood in rage. He held back his anger and returned the scroll for the boss and finished the Payment along with. Boss left the academy happily.
After making sure that nobody is around, Principal immediately roared in rage as tore down the letter.
"SAAAAMMMMM"
He became so enraged at the content of the letter. The words are written like this. ’Honourable Principal, yesterday when we discussed the travel arrangements, you only mentioned about the beasts of mine and forgot to mention about the carriage. So, as a humble student, I took it up on myself and ordered a specially made carriage for our team and I am writing this to remind you complete the payment. You don’t need to thank me as it is my responsibility to help you do these minor tasks. – Sam.’
Principal immediately understood Sam’s intention of getting himself a new carriage under the expense of him. But he can’t lose face and get embarrassed by exposing the truth. Because, if he exposed the truth, he has to action against Sam for blatantly using the Principal’s name which he obviously unable to do. That is why, he can only curse in his heart. Just when he thought he took advantage of that brat, he made him lose another 5000 spirit stones.
Meanwhile at the river-side mansion, Sam just came out of the river after taking a swim and started walking towards the mansion. Two panthers, also followed him along playfully jumping around. Even though they are big now, they are playing like kids.
Sam dried himself normally without use of any spiritual energy. He tried his best to live like a normal human whenever he can and taking bath and having sleep and even taking the meals regularly is for the same reason. After he changed into a new dress, he went to a room where a large table is there and a scroll is fixed over on it. Sam looked at the half- finished design and was in deep contemplation. He moved towards another small table at the side, which is filled with all sorts of calculations and writings.
He is trying to design the things he missed. The calculations are for making a wrist watch and he is designing them on the scroll. After that he has to think of ways to make use of the resources to run a motored vehicle. In fact, he wanted to make an engine full of inscriptions to convert the spiritual energy in the spiritual stones to the shaft power required. But he immediately rejected the idea because, this will make use of the complex inscriptions and high-level skills and experimentations on them, which are restricted by his cultivation level. That is the reason he rejected the thought and another reason is that, this world doesn’t have something like patent and if a high ranked inscription master gets hold of this, it will make his effort go to waste as they can easily imitate it. But if he were to use a new type of fuel and an engine with a similar and complicated mechanism to the modern world engine and make some tweaks with very delicate components, he can make sure they can’t produce a working model even if they get hold of the mechanism and that is the reason, he doesn’t want to make use of simple spirit stone powered engine.
But he is still in contemplation over what type of fuel, he should make and if he can proceed with his initial thoughts.
He then looked at the design again and started drawing the remaining components of the watch. He is slow and steady as he took his own sweet time, because even if he can design this faster, he cannot make the watch, because of the lack of materials as he included various meteorite sands in his design.
He just kept on drawing as he is trying to make himself busy. Because, lately Sam is feeling a little bloated and unable to be at ease. The cause of this is the overflowing spiritual energy within him. He is at the limit of his Level Acolyte, but he can’t break through easily because, he needs to exchange energy with his contract beasts. Even though at later stages, he can break through directly, at his current level of cultivation level, he can’t do this because at the foundation levels of cultivation, he has to increase along with beasts, so that he can have maximum efficiency. That is why he completely let go of anything that is related to spiritual energy and just concentrated on his designing of his new components.
This went on and on as he maintained his daily routine like a normal engineer from earth and worked on his designs slowly.
But the rest of his city is not at all boring as Sam’s life. The Principal announced the city about the selection tournament and the noble families, became excited as their speculations became correct. They all are filled with hopes that their geniuses would be selected, as the criterion for the selection is the potential rather than the cultivation level and are making their plans to make their children perform better.
All the noble families attended the assessment test which will be going on for three days straight. All the students were excited to try their best to get into the team. When they heard that they have only nine spots they felt a little disappointed and more than half of the students just dropped out of the competition but some of them felt weird as they thought that selection of nine members is a bit odd.
All the assessments were taken place inside the test grounds and the assessment this time is not fight against students but rather there are number of trails to assess their potential in various aspects.
But Sam was oblivious to this as he was in between in a pile of paper scrolls and continued to do his work.
Soon, the assessments are over and there are only two days left before they can start their journey to the Falcon cliff city and Sam finally got a message from the Principal to meet the rest of the team mates to get along before going to the competition. Sam also needs to visit the Evergreen family to take back the Blazing earth bulls, so he made a trip to the academy first.
When he reached the academy, a senior student received him and then led him to a room which already has ten people waiting for him.
When he entered the room, he saw Principal addressing the nine people sitting in front of him and felt a little surprised as he saw a few familiar faces there. Philip, Freya, Haley, Kelly, Jack are sitting along with another four people. He didn’t recognise the other people.
But the one with the big surprise is not him but the others in the room. They all felt weird at first when they noticed that the overpowered freshman, Sam didn’t participate in the assessment and now that they saw him here, they were shocked. ’So, He is already in the team.’ All of them thought and understood the odd selection 9 members, because the 10th member is already decided.
Between those surprised gazes there is one with some disdain. Sam came out of his stupor and walked towards the Principal.
"Hello, Sir." He greeted him with a nonchalant face. The rest of the people also came out of their stupor and looked at Sam.
"Hello, Sam take your seat." He said as he pointed at the seat.
Sam nodded and took a seat without greeting anyone else. He just gave his friends a look before turning to look at the Principal.
"Now, that all the participants are here, I will say a few words. We will be going to the Falcon cliff city day after tomorrow. The ten of you are going to represent the Starwood city in the tournament that is going to be conducted by the Count himself. There will be teams from the other cities under the jurisdiction of the Count and people from the Falcon Cliff city will also participate in it. I can’t tell you what the rewards are but the tests would be on various aspects and the winners will get the recognition and rewards beyond imagination. I hope you guys will prepare well and work hard in representing our city and the academy." Principal spoke as he looked at the ten participants.
"Sir, how many days is the tournament going to be conducted?" Philip asked as he raised his hand.
"I am not quite sure. But you will know after we reach there. I and City lord are going to accompany you all. Eisen, you are going to be the in charge of the team." Principal said as he looked at a person and that guy stood up. He is the one who looked at Sam in disdain. Sam saw the three stars on his chest. He seems to be at the initial stage Novice.
"Sir, do you mean that I am the leader of the team?" Eisen asked as he looked straight at the Principal. The latter nodded.
"I have an objection regarding the team." He said with an arrogant tone. Principal raised his eyebrow as he looked at Eisen.
"What would that be?" Principal asked in a low voice.
"I don’t want someone who used their status to get into the team through the backdoor. This will not do justice for the team members at all." Eisen said as he looked at Principal straight in the eyes without noticing the change of expressions on other members. But everyone could understand that he is talking about Sam and then all of them looked towards him. They wanted to see how Sam would react to that, but all they could see was a cold, emotionless and nonchalant face without any reaction. Then they heard the reaction from another person.
"So, Eisen. You mean the Principal of this academy, me is a person who is influenced by the people’s status and open the backdoor without considering their capability." Principal asked as he voice sounded a little colder.
Eisen was dumbfounded for a moment when he heard this. He really dared not agree to what Principal said. How could he agree that Principal is a person with out morals? That would be courting death. Even if he really felt that, he wouldn’t dare to say that.
"No sir. I-I mean that someone might have u-used their status to threaten......" He started in a fl.u.s.tered tone and was interrupted by the Principal.
"Enough. I am not going to ask your opinions nor do I care. You are only a leader of team because of the cultivation level. Don’t think that you have some say in the team members selection simply because I gave you the position. You better keep your mouth shut. Everyone you guys can leave. Meet me at the Academy gate at morning in the day after tomorrow. You are dismissed."
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