Stare

The slap was resounding and they felt a sharp pain on their wrists. Their eyes were furrowed; Aric's indifference filled them with indignation.

Aric was supposed to be the one who avenged them, but he kept silent. Aric just sat on his chair and looked at his desk with a blank face, ignoring everybody who looked at him.

Even Hugh was confused at Aric's behavior. He had known Aric for a long time, and he had never displayed this kind of behavior before.

He would be too aggressive at times, but never aloof. His charisma was the reason why so many people like to follow along with him.

Now, Aric looked like a shell of his old self, empty and devoid of any hope. Everybody was silent and silence reigned in the classroom.

"What's wrong with Aric?"

"He was away for a week, and now he is like this. I wonder what happened to him."

"Too bad. I really liked his smile."

"Seeing those cold eyes is not that bad too."

Just as the students started to chatter about Aric, the door slid open again and professor Kain stepped in. As soon as everyone saw the professor, they shut up and returned to their seats.

The seats were in a disarray from the chaos of the fight, so they had to manually return them into position. They avoided any eye contact with professor Kain to make sure that they were not being blamed for all the mess.

Hugh panted and let go of the tension in his shoulder. Somehow, he had won this fight against the three of them. If they had all worked together from the start, he would not have any chance.

Hugh took advantage of the fact that they still underestimated him. When they got comfortable, he would sweep the rug beneath their arrogant feet.

He looked towards Brad and Chip and saw that they were looking back at him. They still had a look of fury and hate on them, but it was now mixed in with fear.

They both witnessed with their bodies how strong Hugh got. They could not longer treat Hugh the same way that they had treated them all this time.

Thankfully for them, the rest of the classroom did not know that Hugh got stronger. This saved them a lot of pride and they could keep being the top dogs of the classroom.

If they had admitted that Hugh was stronger than all of them, they would lose all credibility in the social standing. They could never let that happen.

They both decided to keep this little piece of fact buried in their hearts. They had no choice but to avoid Hugh for the time being until they got stronger.

Professor Kain looked around the classroom, but his expression did not change. There were no indications that he was angry nor disappointed.

He scanned the room until his eyes landed on Hugh. If Hugh had his eagle eyes activated, he would have seen that professor Kain looked at him longer than he did with his other classmates.

In a short amount of time, professor Kain looked at Hugh up and down. He seemed to have noticed that Hugh had improved his strength.

There was an imperceptible look of surprise on his face, which no one picked up on.

He looked down and saw the Tanner in a mess. There were vomit and blood everywhere, but it did not faze him. Everybody braced themselves to answer the professor's question.

If the professor asked what had happened in the classroom, they all decided to answer truthfully. They would pin all the blame onto Hugh and the trio.

Contrary to their beliefs, professor Kain did not scold them. He only turned his back on them and started to write on the blackboard.

The students were confused and they all looked at each other. Then, professor Kain spoke to them while he still had his back turned away from them.

"Somebody call the hospital. Also, clean up that mess."

After those few short words, professor Kain continued to write on the board and prepare for the class. He did not seem to mind that a fight had occurred in the classroom, causing chaos all over.

The hospital was called and the mess was fixed. Soon the classroom was as tidy as a newly established room. It was all thanks to the state-of-the-art self-cleaning system of the school.

After Tanner was carried out on a stretcher, professor Kain started to continue his lecture. With the monotony of the lessons, some of the students stole glances at Aric. They were both worried and intrigued as to the reason why Aric was so gloomy.

Even though Hugh had come out as the winner of a three-on-one fight, they just shrugged it off as luck. They did not give Hugh any more attention.

Hugh liked it this way. With everyone underestimating him, they would pose no problem to him. If they came looking for trouble because they thought Hugh was weak, then they would enter a world of pain.

Even though there was not much attention on him, Hugh still felt a sharp gaze directed at him. He wanted to ignore it at first, but his curiosity got the best of him.

He activated his eagle eyes to see who was staring at him in his peripheral vision. He did not want the person staring at him to know that he had noticed them.

With his eagle eyes, Hugh focused on the right side and saw that Jane was staring at him. She had her head fully turned towards him as if she wanted him to notice her.

She had her eyebrows furrowed with a look of confusion and surprise. She had seen Hugh's strength and realized that Hugh probably advanced to D-rank.

This was an impossible concept for her to grasp. As an S-class talent, she would have been content with advancing to the next rank in a month, but Hugh seemed to do it in two weeks.