Two hours earlier, before everyone returned to their dorm ***.
In professor Tony's office.
" What's wrong guys? Why are you all here?" asked Tony, looking at his students faces with a gentle smile, they all stared at him.
"We're going back to the dorm early today so we can start the preparations for Aella's welcome home party. So... you're coming as well," they all approached Tony. Kye grabbed his right arm, while Nian grabbed his left and pushed him out of the chair.
Amari moved behind him and pushed the chair out of the way so he couldn't sit down again.
"Hey, I'm not done with paperwork!"
Annoyed, Adam moved his desk, which was full of unorganized documents.
"That damned dean and all the teachers are always sending all of their work to Professor Tony."
Everyone at Oasis thinks Tony has it easy because he only has good-for-nothing, useless students. That is why even the teacher of the F class was bullied by the other teachers. They would always order him to keep quiet and obey if he didn't want the Dean to kick him and Class F out of Oasis.
"Teacher, we have to leave early today. Let's go celebrate together. We'll help you tomorrow, okay?" Yun tried to convince Tony.
"Huh....no, you guys can go without me. I'll go later" He wouldn't let his students do his work for him.
"Hm.... you're not coming?"
They all heard a cold. nonchalant voice and knew whose voice it was. They all looked towards the office door and saw Aella leaning against the door, looking impatient.
" ! "
"Ahh... he said he has too much work to do, so he won't be coming," Kye said giving up.
Aella stared at her without saying anything. That's when she noticed a thick gold ring with a blue crystal stone in the head of the ring on their fingers. Her eyes narrowed, and her face stiffened.
She wasn't surprised because they wore matching rings, but because of the smell of poison coming from the rings.
"Your rings..."
Tony noticed Aella staring at his rings and raised his hand showing it off. "Ohh, are you interested in our rings? Do you want one as well?"
Aella looked at him and responded.
"Sort of. Well, I would like to ask you a question."
They stared confused at Aella
"Where did you get the rings?"
Before Tony could answer, Aisha said, admiring her ring.
"Mm.... Professor Darius gave it to us as a gift"
"Darius? Who is that?" Aella really had no idea who he was.
"Pfff hahaha." Amari laughed. "You really forgot about him. Do you recall the day you arrived here? outside the school?"
"No, no idea."
"Hahahahahaha" Amari couldn't stop herself from laughing. "It's the arrogant man who was standing next to teacher Tony.
"Ah, that clown," Aella said with a detached attitude.
"...!!!"
"Pff HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" they all burst out laughing while Kye, Kathleen and Nian only smiled.
"So... he's the one who gave you these rings? why is that? Aella asked, her eyes still on the rings.
'It's strange, especially knowing that Darius, like all the others, was part of those who bullied the F-class. In addition to the malicious energy she felt from him every time the F-Class was mentioned. It was obvious that he did not like F Class students' Aella was lost in thought.
"Gifts, huh!?". 'How ridiculous, with the poison he put into those rings, it's obvious that he wants to destroy their core essence'. Aella scratched her head sighing. " it's one thing after another"
Kye had the feeling that there must be a reason why Aella was asking so many questions about the rings, "Well, he did give us those rings back when Oasis was just starting up and recruiting students"
"Honestly, we weren't always like this until last semester. I know we're having a hard time cultivating mana right now, but it wasn't always like this. In the past, we used to have two teachers. One was Professor Tony, and the other one was called Ohyo, who was also Darius' best friend.
"Although he no longer works at Oasis. According to him, our mana was the highest among everyone in the school. Even though half of our mana was still sealed, he said that our future was promising, but we just needed to focus on cultivating and practicing in order to unleash our talents".
Nian nodded in agreement with Kye as he added, "We even had some unusual abilities. They weren't elemental powers, but they were still very powerful. Darius was also present that day, along with the students who are now known as SS class, when Ohyo explained everything about our powers and mana.
"Back then,' he paused,".....we and those of the SS class were all together in one class. And would soon be assigned to our new classroom. No one else knew about our powers except the current members of the SS class, Trinity, Noah, Professor Tony, Darius and Ohyo. Nian explained.
"Not even the Dean?" Aella asked.
"Hum," he nodded, " the dean didn't know anything either".
"¡Ah! But Cain wasn't there that day either. He was training outside the Oasis. Darius instructed us to keep a low profile and train until we could control our powers. Until then, it was best to keep it a secret he said".
"You are some of the biggest idiots I have ever met. Or should I say, you guys are a little too trusting. So, none of you found it suspicious? And who's Cain?"
"He's a former classmate....But huh!? Suspicious!!!? Is something wrong with us, Aella?" Yui approached Aella, her hand clasped to her chest. You could see on her face that she was starting to feel worried. But it wasn't just her, Junior, Sara, Nara, Nara, Aisha, Shion, Kathleen, Nian, Francois, Adam, Yun, Nian, Kye, they all stood there staring at Aella in distress.
"Is there something wrong with us, Aella? Are the rings .... the reason why we cannot cultivate?" Kathleen also asked.
"I can't say that there's nothing wrong with you guys.... But first, finish what you were saying," Aella asked.
"Well, from that day on, our class only focused on cultivating mana with Professor Ohyo's help..." Aisha paused. She had a hunch that there might be something worse going on.
One night, I had to go back to the classroom because I forgot something. As I was gathering my things to go back to the dormitory, I heard two people arguing in the hallway. It turned out to be Professor Ohyo and Darius.
Professor Ohyo and Darius were having a very intense argument. Ohyo seemed to be upset about something. It seemed that Darius was asking him for help with something, which made him very angry. When I got a little closer, they seemed to sense my presence there.
"The only thing I heard was Darius yelling at Ohyo: 'We can't let the SCAE and them meet, we have to stop them from getting stronger or we'll be in trouble! Have you forgotten the prophecy! We are supposed to stop it from happening! So, do your job and follow my plan.
"That's what he said," Aisha narrated, "I told the guys about it, but at the time we didn't think much of it.
" In fact, Aella, there was no F class or SS class, our class and SS class didn't have a class rank at that time. We were the last to prove ourselves and our strength in order to be assigned a class rank," Francois leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.
Yun sighed, "We were supposed to tell the dean about our powers in just a few days. We were also going to be named as students of the SS class and chosen as the strongest class, if we proved our strength to the Dean. And we were sure that we would be chosen because our powers exceeded the numbers and criteria that the Dean had set. And we were also the first students to have mastered Mana. All of us here and Cain except for Amari, we all trained together and were going to be the students of the SS class. Ohyo was the one who had our mana level results, he had to be present that day to take the tests. But on the next day, something happened".
Adam sat down on the desk, "The next day, Darius came to our class and told us that Ohyo had resigned from his position. Cain had some stuff going on with his family at the time, so he had to leave Oasis temporarily. He didn't know anything about what was happening."
"We thought that Darius felt sorry for us because he started to blame himself for Ohyo leaving school. He said he only asked him for a small favor and Ohyo got angry with him. He felt bad that we lost a precious teacher and trainer because of him and gave us these rings as a form of apology and said that he would give Cain his when he came back. Yui bit her lips and clenched her fists. "Those rings were supposed to help us cultivate in a much safer way... But from that day on, our misfortune began," Yui explained.
"Haa," Aella said very calmly, her eyes smiling and a distinct sneer on her lips.
"Every time we tried to cultivate, we would end up vomiting blood, with severe chest pains, severe headaches, our hearts would start pounding as if it would literally stop beating at any moment, and sometimes we would even faint for days. So we had no choice but to stop cultivating," Yui explained.
"Okay, I understand. Well, of course you will feel all those symptoms." Aella said before she looked at Professor Tony.
"So, why did Darius give you a ring too?"
"Ahh umm... that's because he said it would help me become stronger if I wore it for a year. The stone in the ring is a stone that has pure energy, which will help me a lot." Tony softly said
"Ah....yes yes," Aella looked at him as if she was looking at an idiot.
"Well, let's go back to the residence," Aella said as she turned to leave.
"Wait Aella, I want to ask you something," Adam called.
"Ask me at home, I'm hungry, jeez."