The Messenger of Death

Alex smirked at the way the guy responded obediently. Duna noticed that a lot of people were looking at a particular place, he followed their gaze and he landed on Alex. He saw that Alex had a smirk on his face and his attention was on one of the people that came out of the cave after the phenomenon.

Alex noticed Dune's gaze and he stared right back at him. They made eye contact and stayed like that for a while. Alex's confidence startled Dune a little bit.

'Was he the culprit? Did he cheat or something? No, if he did master Argus would have found out and taken care of it.'

He probed into Alex's core.

'Just a rank-6 origin realm cultivator, he shouldn't be capable of something significant.' He analyzed.

Alex could feel and Dune's consciousness invading his core. "A rude one," Alex uttered.

What Alex said made dune's eyebrows raise. "Huh. Hahaha!" He laughed. "A confident or an incompetent one," Dune said in reply to Alex's comment.

"Confident, not incompetent Mr. Nirvana realm cultivator." Alex retorted.

"So you know my cultivation realm and you still speak to me the same way. The pride before the fall."

"Is your cultivation realm meant to mean anything to me?" This made Dune angry. He was ready to attack Alex but chose to use the QI around to suppress him and bring him to his.

'Attacking him will be losing too much face. I will embarrass him without moving a finger, just a mere origin realm kid.'

A few seconds had passed by without any of them saying anything. Alex could feel the QI around him trying to suppress his movements. Unfortunately for Dune, his plan didn't work. Alex smirk only got wider as he stared at Dune.

"I wouldn't say anything about it, if you love your face you shouldn't say anything about it too."

"What!?" Camron exclaimed. "What are you talking about Alex?" He shoved his shoulder. "It's none of your business Camron."

['You should stop this bluff now before you completely enrage him. We can't fight against a nirvana realm cultivator'] Xander quickly advised.

"Alex eh? I will remember your name." Dune said. "Hello everyone, my name is Kawataro Dune."

"Kawataro, that's the name of the Class-3 ancient bloodline family. A water elemental from the ancient beast Kappa." Whispers from the crowd could be heard. Dune smiled at the commotion his name had caused.

He looked at Alex to see if he was intimidated by his family name. Just as he was disappointed the first time, he got disappointed again. Alex wasn't even listening to what he had said. He was speaking to Camron.

Dune felt insulted by Alex's actions. 'You will pay for this.' He made a mental note, Alex noticed him staring again and he still made eye contact with him – he smiled, challenging him.

"I have been tasked with the duty of guiding this year's new pupils. I am very sure that you are all wondering where the school's ground is. To answer that, this is part of the school's territory." Dune pointed at the ground, where he was standing.

"From the foot of the mountain that you entered, that is where the school's territory starts from, and where it ends. Well, it's a bit hard to specify, but all the students say that its territory ends at the foot of the snow-covered mountain.

Why? You will find that out once you've spent enough time in the Severance academy. Now follow me, I will take you all, to where you can check which element you have an affinity with."

Everyone followed behind Duna as he took them through the forest. "Most of the grounds of the school are covered by forestry. Between where your classes will hold and to your dorms, there is a forest, to the library, or the martial skill pavilion there is a forest.

Fret not, because there are no unmonitored monsters or beasts on the school ground. The dorms for boys and girls are the same, a male might share a room with a female, vice versa."

Some individuals in the crowd gave a sinister whistle. Some laughed.

"But you are not allowed to invade anybody's privacy nor are you allowed to force yourself on anyone. If you are caught or reported along with significant evidence then you will be punished then expelled.

The only way you can get a private room for yourself is to earn it. You can use MP – merit points to obtain a private room or you can use ECs. With merits and ECs, a lot of things in this school is possible." Dune explained.

['It's a good thing I'm loaded. I can't imagine myself sharing a room with any of these strangers'] Alex rejoiced.

['Now can you see the use of money, imagine if you had burnt all of our money when you were cultivating, you would have spent your days in this school with stinking strangers.'] Al stated. He was trying to coarse Alex to change his mind about using ECs as cultivation resources.

['yeah, yeah. I know what you are trying to do Al, it's not going to work.']

['I swear you don't deserve money.']

"Alex, are you going to get a private room?" Camron tapped him on his shoulder.

"Yeah. Do you want one too?" Alex smirked as he glanced at Camron.

['You bastard, why are you asking him if he wants one? If he does then it's our money you are going to use to sponsor him. Are you insane? The ECs are not unlimited. Ahhh!'] Al started to cry.

['You only get emotional when money is involved.']

"If I said yes, would you get one for me?" He jokingly asked. "Yeah definitely, ECs are not my problem." Alex shrugged his shoulders as he gave his reply.

"You are a spendthrift aren't you?" He smiled at his friend. He felt happy that Alex would do that for him. "What are friends for?" Alex said.

"You are also not allowed to leave the school's premises without permission until the session has ended. You are not allowed to kill a fellow student on school grounds less it is in the Arena of retribution. Disrespecting a school staff will help to lose merit points.

Disobeying minor rules of the school will also have you losing MP, absence from class without a suitable reason will have you losing MP.

The moment you have minus 100,000 merit points to your name, you will be expelled from the school. If you want to earn MP then you will have to get stronger and go for missions. These are just some of the rules of the school. The rest you will learn on your own." Duna briefly listed some of the dos and don'ts of the academy.

Soon they came out of the forest, and the first thing that caught their attention was the architecture of the building not too far away from them.

"That my juniors -- is the Martial skill pavilion." Dune pointed at the building. The building stood at 10 stories high and looked like it was made of glass, clear glass. But they couldn't see the insides.

"The reason you can't see the insides is because the glass of the building has rune inscriptions on it that creates illusions."

['Runes are useful. Can't wait to learn more about it.'] Alex thought in excitement.

They walked past the martial skill pavilion and entered another forest that was behind the pavilion. They continued like that for 15 minutes, then they exited the forest. The buildings they saw this time also caught their attention, but they were not mesmerized by its beauty but repulsed by its deformity and stench. The small huts here, are made of wood that had started to rot, and there was open sewage in the corner.

"This is where students with minus MP stay. Since everything in the school is influenced by MP, you not having MP means that you have no value."

They continued walking and they entered another forest. This time it took them 20 minutes to reach their destination. They stopped at an open place that only has 7 huge pillars with some inscriptions on them, and then a small pillar standing in front of the 7 huge ones.

They took in the scenery of their surroundings. After looking for a while they heard Duna speak.

"Alright line up according to the following;

Origin realm cultivators on a straight line.

Nascent realm cultivators on a line of their own.

Early-stage Disaster realm.

Late-stage Disaster realm."

Duna finished announcing. He searched the crowd for Alex. As if Alex knew that he was searching for him, he raised his hand, indicating his position. Duna found him as soon as he did that, he stared at Alex with a frown whilst stared at him with a grin on his face.

['Why do you keep on frustrating the guy!?'] Al shouted. ['Can't you understand when we say that we can't take him on? sure he can't kill us in the school's ground but he can embarrass and tarnish my reputation.'] Al started to rant.

Alex ignored his rants and smirked at Duna.