As they reached the top of the mountain, the space outside the gate was completely empty except for Xavier and Lua, who had reached the summit only just seconds before them.
Verso in a smooth motion hopped off the back of the Giant Eagle, the wind still whistling in his ears.
’That was a crazy story...’
Over the past few minutes, hearing Han’s entire story had changed everything.
Verso now understood exactly how he had co across as a plant sent by Yuan Feng to facilitate the assassination of his younger brother.
He felt a large amount of guilt when he realized that he had been oblivious enough to make the exact type of makes that would trigger Han’s paranoia, making him look even more suspicious.
’But, how did he even get those rcenaries into the dungeon?’ Verso mumbled to himself, glancing at Han.
’I thought the monster target and dungeon location were kept a complete secret until the start of the exam...’
It did not make any sense to him how Yuan Feng could have known exactly where Han would be sent during the Summoner Academy Exam.
Unless, the scale of the operation he had set up was much larger than just a single dungeon.
’Unless he decided to plant rcenaries across every single potential dungeon in Erald City!’ The puzzle pieces clicked together in Verso’s mind as the attack started to make sense.
If he had not heard Han describe the sheer madness of his family life, he would have never thought soone would be crazy enough to pull such a stunt.
But from what he had learned Yuan Feng clearly would do anything to harm Han, even if it ant wasting a fortune on a hundred failed traps just to ensure that he got one hit on his younger brother.
’I guess life as a scion isn’t so easy after all.’ Verso thought as he watched Han dismiss his Giant Eagle and walk toward the group.
Before any of them could step through the gate, Han stopped and perford a deep, formal bow toward his three teammates.
"My friends, I offer my apologies," Han said, his voice stripped of its usual eccentricities and full of apologetic guilt.
"I had not wanted to draw you guys into my family affairs."
The apology was enough for Xavier and Lua to confirm what they had already suspected as hits were a common topic in elite circles.
Lua didn’t show any anger, simply leaning on her rapier as she turned toward the portal.
"No need," She replied curtly with a small smile. "You just owe us one."
"After going through all of that, I hope you guys actually have enough points to make up for it." Xavier’s voice cut in, unlike Lua, his tone was dripping with irritation because of the losses he had incurred.
Hearing the ntion of points Lua and Han both froze mid step.
They exchanged a look as the original goal of the exam finally ca rushing back to them. Lua slowly turned back toward the boys, her movents almost robotic as her face paled.
"We... we only have five points." She stuttered, pulling five blue tinged Siren tongues from her pocket.
Han awkwardly scratched the back of his head, looking between Verso and Xavier with a sheepish grin.
"Will we be fine with these?"
Xavier let out a long, heavy sigh. He didn’t even bother to answer, simply turning around and walking into the portal to hide his disappointnt.
They had gone through a literal war only to co back with five points, it would have been better to just have camped the gate this entire ti.
Verso chuckled slightly, patting Han on the shoulder as he followed Xavier.
"Don’t worry. We had seventeen points from our run before we found you. We should be fine."
As he stepped into the shimring light of the portal, Verso felt a sense of relief.
With seventeen points, they were easily within the top 100, which ant they had passed the exam.
Any extra points at this stage only decided which academy they went to, and that was the least of Verso’s concerns right now.
As they exited the portal and entered back into the central ground, a chaotic scene greeted them.
"You ruthless bastard! You took everything from us!"
"You already had enough points! What more did you want!"
Dozens of candidates were standing in a cluster, shouting and cursing toward a boy sitting on a bench on the other side of the ground.
The boy was none other than Moon, who was casually scrolling through videos on his phone, laughing periodically at the screen as if he could not hear the a single thing being scread at him.
"What is going on here?" Verso asked, spotting Xavier standing in front of them, completely motionless.
"Is everything okay? Xavier?"
Verso walked up to him, but the blonde boy didn’t move. He was staring at his own phone, his eyes wide as he looked at the updated leaderboard.
As Verso’s gaze fell onto the screen, his mouth went agape and he froze in his tracks.
’No fucking way he did that.’
---
[Summoner Academy National Exam]
[Live National Standings]
[1. Team Alice: 36]
[2. Team Leonard: 28]
[3. Team Mailene: 26]
[4. Team Ashenveil: 25]
[5. Team Han: 24]
---
This entire ti, Verso had believed that their team would drop few placents in the ranking as other teams started submitting their points, but to his dismay this was not the case.
’If we count in our five points from now we will rank in second...’
He could not believe this at all, he slowly turned back to look at the chaotic scene on the ground. Instantly sothing clicked in his head, as he finally started making sense of what had happened.
’He went back into the gate and extorted every other group which tried to submit their points at the end...’
Looking towards Moon, Verso realized that the world was completely full of ruthlessly talented people and he had not even seen half of them.
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