Chapter 28: High Stakes ‘Game’
"Come now children, let's get inside." Says the elderly mage. "My name is Van, you can call me grandpa Van or just grandpa. Hahahaha… a lot of children at the Academy call me this. Sometimes I even forget to respond to my name being called regularly, hahaha…"
The old man's friendly attitude puts the children at ease. They feel that this old man is quite nice, every one of the children starts walking up the ramp. As they walk up Van smiles at them and casts a levitation spell on their bags, making them lighter.
"That should help you. Honestly, I should ask the headmistress to have mages pick you up. A child having to hold such heavy baggage is unreasonable." Frowns the old man in worry, he isn't necessarily wrong. But his reasons for saying such things out loud aren't as selfless as it seems.
Alex's turn comes as he climbs up the ramp, he looks down not giving the old man a clear view of his face. He does so because the old man has experience reading people and immediately saw through Alex during the first look he got.
Van sees Alex do this and with a smile on his face figures out that Alex is hiding something. 'The kid is hiding some things, now I just have to figure out what they are. Oh well, that won't be too hard.'
As Alex gets close to him he acts like he is using the levitation spell on his bag but unlike the other students, a white magic circle appears above Alex.
He pales as he sees this circle analyzing him. Alex almost cries at this, but he gets his emotions under control quickly. 'Fu*k, fu*k, fu*k… he will figure it out.'
Alex was internally cursing, but he knows that this is the only way for him. The old mage won't attack him in daylight, and even if he did, Alex has a dozen defensive magic items on him.
The old man's eyes widened for a split second at this. Even he has trouble keeping his emotions under check as he discovers what Alex is hiding. 'Legendary Item!!!'
What he had detected was the Dragon Horn in Alex's backpack, sadly Alex didn't know any sealing rituals that would help conceal the Legendary Item. Even the ones he knows are too high level, and the ones on his level can't hide the Dragon Horn.
Still, Alex has a calm look on his face as he sees that Lily wasn't noticed by the old man yet.
Though the old man had a smile on his face and greeted every other student warmly, he was absent-minded after discovering a Legendary Item which he already sees as his now.
Alex's eyes shine for a split second at this. 'Yes… he didn't pay any attention to her.'
Alex then walks and sees one of the red-robbed middle-aged mages gather over the children. "Okay, is everyone here?"
..
He sees that a couple of children aren't there yet and waits for them with a friendly smile on his face. In here, he treats every one of the children nicely, because one day one of them could grow into someone powerful, though the chance is low, why would he antagonize them needlessly. Though he won't pay attention to any of them once they reach the Magic Academy, he will still act as he cares about them.
He still has his eyes on Alex and sees that he is sitting in the middle of the group being as inconspicuous as he can. Lily was next to him, but even the red-robbed mage didn't pay attention to her. Alex was someone who seemed way more important and miraculous to them.
If Lily had the gamer interface, she would see that she has many Perks and Passive Skills that affect her presence that perfect her new Assassin Class. She won't be sensed easily even by people at a higher level than her unless they are looking for her specifically.
Alex knew that he had to be drastic, so he kept Lily next to him and used the Dragon Horn to increase Lily's chances of not being detected. He knows that he must now pay for this very dearly, this trip to Magic Academy won't be easy.
'But it doesn't matter.' Concludes Alex. 'Lily is way more valuable than a Dragon Horn… at least in the later stages. Currently, she isn't all that useful.'
...
Finally, all the children boarded the big ship and the red-robbed man smiled proudly at them. "Okay, now that we are all here, let me introduce myself. My name is Gon Miller, you can just call me Gon or Uncle Gon. As Van says, I am not used to people calling me anything other than uncle either…"
He shamelessly said things like this, when Alex knows he is casually lying. No one calls them uncle or grandpa, they were both just using the children's young ages to manipulate them.
"Anyway, you woke up quite early today and kids your age need to sleep at least nine hours. I feel guilty if I put you through this. So each registered Magic Academy student gets their own room." Explains Gon, he then waves his hand and different cards appear and fly off to each of the children.
Alex gets his own and looks at it, Room Nr.48. "If you wanna go and rest, you can rest, you can also look at it from the windows in your rooms."
The children seem excited at this, but some remember how scary it is to look from such heights. They are afraid that they might fall or something. So they go towards their room below deck, the ship is a giant ship in comparison to the normal sailing ship.
Even Lily seems excited at this, she looks at Alex and sees the split-second look that he sends her. He goes towards her and grabs her hand, his body shakes slightly. "I -I am scared of heights, keep me company."
He then looks at her with a scared look on his face. Even Lily herself almost believed his act, but she then remembers who she is addressing and immediately settles down.
'Damn… his acting is too good.' Ponders Lily as she walks next to Alex and even with no one around them he keeps his act up as tears appear in his eyes and he almost seems about to cry.
As they use the stairs on the deck to go below it, they see a brightly lit hallway with letters in each room. The hallway is brightly lit by something that looks like a modern-day lamp, but Alex knows that this is a magic item that is fueled by mana. The hallway has a light blue color with the doors all being dark brown wood color. The only difference the doors had was the letters written on them.
As they walk, Alex sees paintings of mages, those mages were doing heroic deeds like slaying goblins, helping people, or just casting a spell. The paintings are like movies as they continue doing a certain action, like a video in repeat. But there was a creepy feeling to them as no matter what, the eyes of the people in the pictures followed Alex and Lily as they walked.
Alex acted even more creeped out at this...
...
As he went to another floor below and reached the rooms that have numbers he reached room number 48 and entered, the door is like every other door, he opened it, and inside were two beds for a single person and two desks. Alex leaves his bag in the middle of the two beds, leaning on the wall, opposite the entrance to the room.
Immediately his expression changed as he entered the room.
'I might be being watched at this moment. But I must seem like I am smart, but not smart enough to act like I know that much.' Contemplates Alex as he lies down in one of the beds.
He was playing a very complicated 'game' against the mages on this ship. He needed to hide his real trump card. 'The journey will last five days… these will be the most challenging five days of my life.'
He knows that this little game could spell death for him…
'Well… let the game start then.'
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AN :
Alex's most valuable 'possession' is Lily, he needs to hide her at all costs. She is simply too precious to let go. Also, we can see that the mages in here ain't dumb, they ain't arrogant either. They didn't underestimate Alex and the old man found the Dragon Horn on him.
The Mages on the ship have way more life experiences than him, combine that with their intelligence and they become some scary people. They will never fight head-on needlessly, they will scheme... Alex also had no choice but to play on their playground.
...
Don't forget to throw some power stones :)
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