Chapter 10

After the first day of the Academy ended, nothing out of ordinary happened for over a week. The classes conducted were just basic theory lessons like about the working of the dungeons, anatomy of various monsters, various essence uses for critical situations, etc.

Atleast not for Rey.

During this past week, a lot of cliques had formed and clashed against one another.

At first, despite Elliott's popularity, he wasn't able to make any new friends and was left all alone. Just after that, the lackeys of Garrett - Sami and Felix began to make things difficult for Elliott. They were clearly making trouble for him on behalf of Garrett. But just when things were about to escalate, three heroines arrived to save the day.

Since that day, Elliott became part of Somia, Juhie and Amisha's party. They always trained together and also studied till late inside the library. Their friendship grew closer day by day.

'It's like Elliott is some kind of protagonist, taking care of his harem.'

Garrett, who at first only told his lackeys to trouble Elliott, was now showing hostility towards him in front of the class openly. He even asked for a duel to which Elliott was forced to agree. And the result was . . . . that Garrett got beaten up by Elliott and was humiliated in front of the whole Academy.

As this was going in one end of the class. Rey and his new friends were following a hellish training and were improving their strength day by day. And a new member joined their little group.

He was Jim, who was ranked just above Kale and Natalie.

Seeing both Natalie and Kale train with Rey everyday made him anxious. Jim clearly saw the improvement in the couple and that they have both surpassed him already. If he don't do something then he will become the last ranked student of the class. After some serious thinking Jim decided to join Rey and his group, as there was no one else who was willing to take him in their group.

To be honest, when Jim came to us to ask for letting him join us, I was surprised!!

Though he himself admitted that we were his last option, he followed my training without any complaints unlike the other two. Soon he became accustomed to our routine and opened up himself more to us.

Natalie was a type of person who could befriend anyone. She was friends with almost every girl in the class and she was the biggest contributor in our quest to make Jim open up to us.

************

After another week passed by.

Rey and his friends decided to challenge their first F-Rank dungeon in the coming weekend. During these past two weeks of rigorous training, all three of them broke through Rank-E. So to solidify their advancement and test their improvement, they all decided to challenge the F-Rank dungeon near the Grace Academy, together as a party.

"Goblin's Den."

That was the name of the dungeon we were planning on raiding. Since we all were E-Rank mages, we were only allowed to enter the already conquered F-Rank dungeons. And Goblin's Den was just near the academy which ticked all the requirements.

Dungeons were a special realms in which Mages risked their lives and get rewarded for their efforts. There are various monsters in the dungeons along with a Boss monster of a higher level. The Dungeon is usually divided into two levels : basic and boss. In basic level, the objective always varies from killing all the monsters to solving complicated puzzles. But the boss level is much more difficult. It is a fight between the boss monster and challenger in an environment suitable to the Boss monster. In an F-Rank dungeon the boss monster is of rank E, Hence only E rank party can enter. Once a Mage has entered the dungeon, he can only come out of it if he clears the first level or completely conquers the dungeon.

Just as the risks are huge, the rewards are also huge. The first thing everyone gets is the experience and a stat boost according to their contribution. Second reward is the rare monster cores found in some monsters. The third reward is the bodies of monsters itself, as they provide for the raw materials for the mages equipment. And the last reward is skills. Though very rare, they are the most coveted reward out of all.

'But first I have to get new gears such as a new armor, a sword, potions of all kinds and the most important thing - a storage ring. It seems like I have to go on shopping.'

I asked everyone, if they are free so we can go to the shop together. The response I got was none but positive.

One day prior to our dungeon visit we all decided to meet at the 'Academy Gates' after our classes ended.

Now that I look at it, both Natalie and Kale were gorgeous by the Earth's standard. Both of them belonged to well-known families. Their families could be stated as of higher status even among the big families. So their budget for today's shopping was off the charts. Mean while for me, even though I come from a decent family, my financial condition was not great. As for Jim, he didn't belong to any family, in other words, a Commoner, according to this world.

The people of this world had a mindset of dividing themselves into Nobles and Commoners. The Nobles were the descendants of the first generation Mages who saved the world from catastrophe. These people had all the techniques and skills of the previous generation and was passed down to young generation. The power of Nobles kept rising on one side and on other side, they kept pressuring the rising talents from the commoners. Since then status became a huge plus point for a mage, regardless of their skills. In short, this world was corrupted beyond repair.

But this year something unexpected happened which sent a slight tremor in the Noble society. A commoner named Elliott was ranked first in the entrance exam for Grace Magic Academy by defeating Garrett Blade, who was known as the future leader of all Nobles. This angered many nobles and they started creating troubles for him directly or indirectly. But unfortunately, he was strong enough to pass every trouble and to take care of the aftermath, his new friends helped him greatly.

' The more I look at Elliott, the more he seems like a protagonist of some novel. ' I thought.

As I was getting ready for today's outing with my friends, I dressed up nicely and checked myself in the mirror, I was quite happy.

Sparkling Platinum hair, green eyes with long eyelashes, a spot free face. Yes, Rey was handsome, but because of all the stress from his family and also due to his frail body, he was always gloomy. But now my body is much more healthy due to my training and there was no stress, hence this was the result.

' So this is what a B Rank charm looks like!! '

Rey was wearing a plain white t-shirt with a denim jacket over it and jeans for the bottom. For some reason, wearing jeans is a symbol of wealth in this world. The price of jeans is off the top for this reason.

" Well, let's get my first ever equipment for the hunt!! "

And so Rey went straight towards the gates where all his friends were waiting for him.