61 Monday

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In the following weekend, both Wilson and Ella had actually tried to find Irvine by looking through the dormitories' registry.

And through that, the two of them had actually managed to easily find his room number!

Because of how the students' rooms were neatly arranged based on their subject major, it hadn't really been that hard for them to find the room that Irvine was assigned to from amongst the few buildings that were dedicated for Sport Science majors.

At first, the two of them were feeling a sense of both anticipation and nervousness combined when they had finally zeroed in on the other party's supposed location.

After all, they had only ever had a handful of superficial conversations with the other person.

And with no proper enough reason, it truly did seem a bit weird for them to suddenly barge in on his place of residence just to get to know him more personally like they'd originally planned to do.

However, the more awkward thing for them had actually happened right after the two had reached his room.

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*knock* *knock*

As soon as they'd arrived on the doorstep, Wilson and Ella had steeled their hearts and knocked on the door.

But before they could even feel their nervousness rising further, the most unexpected news for them had quickly arrived from the other side of the door in the form of Irvine's own roommate's words.

(...Eh, that guy doesn't live here, though?)

(Huh??)

Clear signs of surprise and dejection could literally be seen on Wilson's face at that moment when he'd heard it.

(I've only ever seen him a handful of times myself. All he's told me was that he only lives here on paper, so as long as I don't do away with the rest of his stuff that're here, I can do as I please with the room.)

((...))

And just like that, the two of them were back to square one. All their built-up tensions from before had disappeared in an instant.

Wilson had been the one to urge Ella in finding Irvine as early as possible on the weekend, but in the end, their efforts had barely yielded any results except for knowing the location of the guy's unused dorm room.

(You...) Wilson himself had remembered how Ella had grumbled at him for wasting her time by not planning things better.

It was not until Monday that this attempt of theirs eventually reached the ears of the very person himself.

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"...That's because I'm living inside the Arena Facility Building." Irvine replied to the people in front of him with a wry smile on his face.

"Ah." When she'd heard this, a look of realization had appeared on Ella's face almost immediately.

...

Regardless on how their weekend search for him had gone, the three of them were students of the same class.

The following Monday, when the regular morning classes was about to commence for him after the team's morning practice, Irvine's arrival to his classroom was quickly greeted by the loud energetic voice of Wilson.

"There you are!! Irvine-- Er, Lang! Brother Lang? Mister?" His spirited approach was followed by the slightly embarassed looking figure of Ella on his tail.

Looking at the two's slightly different attitude towards him, it hadn't taken much time for Irvine to realize the crux of the matter even before Wilson could continue on.

"Just Irvine's fine, Wil." He quickly interjected the man with a friendly smile.

He was pretty certain that the two in front of him had found out that he was a regular at some point after their last meeting judging by how they'd approached him first thing in the morning like this.

And sure enough...

"Irvine... Then. Alright." Wilson nodded at the his words and then proceeded to blabber on without anymore reservations, almost as if a switch had been flipped.

"--You're really a freshman regular of the Illusions! That's crazy!!" He very loudly exclaimed,

"I mean, damn! When I asked you back then, all you've told us was that you're an invited player!!"

"Well... You didn't specifically asked my situation with the team at that time, even if I told you, it would just seem like bragging and you might not even believe me, right?"

"That's-- Probably true..." Wilson scratched his head rather awkwardly, behind him, Ella also seemed to agree with what Irvine was saying as she nodded her head as well.

"Plus, it almost makes me look more impressive after you guys found it out yourselves, doesn't it?" Irvine grinned as he jokingly added, trying to lighten the mood between them.

"Uwah... You just broke your own image with that statement."

"Don't worry, there's not much to break there in the first place."

"I don't believe you--"

"--A, anyway!!" Just as the two were chatting, Ella's voice had suddenly exploded out and interrupted them from behind.

"Yes?" Irvine shifted his line of sight towards his only other acquaintance in the class.

"You-- You're really a Starseed? The one rumoured to have entered Ravenville..."

"Yes, that's me-- Well... It might've been me?" He was about to answer her question, but then Irvine remembered that he was not the only Starseed here in Ravenville, so he couldn't really be too sure of that.

Irvine hadn't had the time to pay much attention to the various rumours of the school's Arena fans in the first place, so his answer to Ella could only come from his own point of view.

"...Might've been?" Ella was confused.

"Well, there're currently 2 freshman students in the 1st string roster, so..."

""!!""

Both Wilson and Ella were once again struck dumb at the surprising revelation.

There were apparently 2 Starseeds in their school right now!?

"Wait-- The other one's also a Starseed?" Ella asked the question carefully.

"Naturally."

"Two..." In the end, she could only exhale in astonishment.

It seemed like the statement she had mentioned before about this being the best period to join Ravenville might be truer than she'd ever thought.

'...Hm?'

Suddenly, Ella remembered the rumour a couple months back regarding 2 senior high school students who'd passed the Zeta city's License Exam at the same place and time together.

'Is he one of the two who joined Ravenville? That means the other one's...' She silently pondered in her mind while telling herself to remember to look for the news on that particular License Exam.

Irvine Lang. If her guess was correct, chances were high that she could also easily confirm the other Starseed's identity.

There're only a total of 7 players who had gotten the Starseed title in the academic year 217-218 where Irvine had taken the exam.

And Ella could vaguely remember that of those 7, only 3 had been found to be from the Northern Sector.

Although she rarely followed the news on stuffs like high school prodigies emerging as Starseeds, she also understood that the chances of ones entering a college in Northern Sector would usually only happen if they were locals from the same Sector themselves.

This was because the majority of top Tier-1 colleges who regularly took the Top-8 or Top-16 positions in the Silver Crown were almost all gathered in the Central Sector.

So unless the student athletes' living situations specifically didn't allow them to go too far away from home for college, it was more than likely that they would lean more towards the invitations from the colleges there.

Not to mention those who had already been living in Central Sector since high school or longer.

"Anyway you two," Seeing that the two people were now busy with their own thoughts while still standing in front of him, Irvine steered the conversation towards another topic,

"Do you think you'll get in safely? The announcement IS today right?"

Today was the day where the results of their try-out would be announced!

Irvine had somehow remembered this because it was also today that the bracket for the Zeta City's Warrior Crown Tournament would arrive for them.

In other words, the schedule for their first tournament match would finally be decided on this day.

"Well, I mean, fingers crossed, but--"

"We'll get in." Wilson was just about to answer him when the resolute voice of Ella had once again interjected from behind.

Ever since she'd had her resolutions reaffirmed with Wilson's help, she had begun to look at her situations with a more objective clarity.

As she looked back to the day of the test, she could easily remember her and Wilson's test results amongst the many other participants.

And if she or Wilson failed with their results, that would leave only 3 to 4 people that were objectively slightly better than them to have the chance to pass.

One should remember that the try-out was open for every student of the university. But all the players with good enough skills should've already been scouted by at least a Tier-2 college in the first place.

There weren't many people like Ella who would reject scholarship offers to try their hands on becoming a walk-in for higher leveled schools.

Though they existed nonetheless, these people were relatively rare.

Ella's current confidence in her calculation was based purely on statistics.

As far as she remembered of Ravenville, there were no cases in recent years where less than 5 walk-ins were accepted amongst the couple dozens applicants.

Even if the quality of the batch of walk-ins were particularly bad in that year, the school wouldn't skimp on their bottom-line quota as long as the players were adequate enough.

And this quota of at least 5 walk-ins were already the absolute lowest number for the past few decades of Ravenville's Arena team's recruitment history. Most other years would see the number of walk-ins closer to the usual 10.

When looking at it this way, Ella felt that her and Wilson's chances on getting in shouldn't be too bad no matter how she looked at it.

Hence her confident answer towards Irvine's earlier question.

"Heh, what she said." Wilson also changed his words and agreed with Ella the moment he saw the fire in her eyes.

"...That's great then!" Irvine could clearly see the hints of emotional struggle from the two, but he simply replied to their convictions with a smile.

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As the day eventually reached the end of the last afternoon period,

Irvine came out of his classroom together with Wilson and Ella.

Today, the three of them would walk together from their classroom towards the Arena fields.

For the two, it was to see their try-out results. And for Irvine, it was to finally find out which Tier-1 school would be their first match for next week.

All of them walked in a brisk pace with different level of anticipations in their hearts, but as they got closer and closer towards the outlines of the fields, their path naturally branched with Irvine going towards the Ravenville Stadium further in the distance.

For Wilson and Ella, the information that they sought could be clearly located in the vicinity.

It was the posting board that had been wheeled in and set up to the side of the closest field.

If Irvine were there, he would've noticed that the board's location was exactly the same as when it had shown the new updated rosters for the 3 different strings during the end of his training camp.

Whenever this particular board was taken out, it would be the moment of truth for some of the people on the fields.