564 Chapter 564: The New Student Even

"Did you get all the info we need?"

"Yeah, the important points anyway."

One of them smirked as he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. His friends gathered around him, listening intently. I couldn't help but stop to eavesdrop because I was a busybody.

"Hai Da Pang summons a Crystal Armor Scorpion. Their class representative, Zheng Ying Shou, I believe, summons a Lava Golem. And then they have someone who can summon a Skeletal Vulture."

"Skeletal Vulture!" one of them exclaimed in horror. "You've got to be kidding me! There's no way we can fight against that!"

The group of friends milled about, contemplating over what they had learned. Then one of them raised a hand.

"There's also a guy called Richard Huang, right? Have you heard anything about what he can summon?"

"Nope," the information giver replied. "It just so happens that he's not in the same dormitory as the other six summoners."

Oh, the rest of them stayed in a dormitory? That sucked. At least Dad was able to help me rent an apartment here. I felt fortunate when compared to them. A mercenary wasn't super-rich, but he was admittedly more well off than othr vocations.

"Well, it can't be helped." The info giver sighed. "We'll just choose to fight the weakest one. As long as you can defeat one of the summoners, you'll be rewarded by the university."

From a distance, I continued to eavesdrop, and then I sighed in relief. I had thought they would hear of me, I mean, what was the point of having social media and the Internet if they couldn't just google my name online and watch videos of my match? Either their Google Fu skills were not good or they just sucked at searching online.

Whatever the case, they had clearly never heard of me before. Hah! That lapse in their intelligence gathering skills could only serve to benefit me. Though I wondered if this was a result of plot armor or side character blindness. You know, where for some stupid reason, no matter what the protagonist did in urban cultivation or medieval cultivation stories, nobody in the rest of the world or continent or wherever had ever heard of him. the guy could wipe out entire families or become a grandmaster who was a half-step away from becoming a god, and nobody would have seen him or know how he looked like. It was just baffling, to say the least, especially when you considered how information networks and social media operated these days.

It had to be plot armor or something. There was no other way to explain the ignorance of side characters and the ever annoying crowd who existed solely just to trash-talk the main character.

Fortunately, there was someone who did recognize me.

"Hey, Richard!"

Zhao Zi Jun waved at me before striding over. He gestured for me to sit at a table with him. Since this was a cafeteria, there were plenty of spots for us to sit around. I was hungry anyway, so I grabbed a bunch of stuff to eat and sat with him.

"How are you?"

"Okay lor. What about you, bro? Long time no see, eh?"

"Yeah. It really has been a while. I hope you didn't get into trouble with the Hei family or something?" I still recalled the last time we spoke. Zhao Zi Jun had informed me of Hei Gui's attempt to get me assassinated over some reason as stupid and vague as me "having a connection to her." What an idiot.

"No lah. Don't worry about that. Brother Gui is a bit seow (crazy), so his parents sent him to a mental institution for treatment. He always anyhow say one lah. Lucky his parents never listen to him, otherwise we all very jia lat (will be in big trouble)."

Yay! I really missed Singlish. It was great to speak to a fellow Singaporean after a long while. Majulah Singapura!

"Anyway, bro, you got any info for me or not? We very gum (we are friends), right? Tell me about your summoned beast, can or not?"

"Okay lor. Not like I have anything to hide. But are you sure you don't know? You should have watched my matches during the national tournament last year what."

"Alamak, how did I forget, huh?" Zhao Zi Jun looked as if he wanted to hit his forehead in exasperation. "Of course I got watch! Sorry lah, bro. These days very busy, so every time forget. You have a spirit wolf, right?"

"Huh? Spirit wolf?" Was he referring to Canis Major? But Canis Major was more of a dog than a wolf, so even if he was referring to my huge Constellation spirit, he was still mistaken. "No, not exactly."

"Then it must be a few times stronger than even the typical matured monster!" Zhao Zi Jun laughed. "Even if many people from our dormitory group up together, we still wouldn't be able to defeat you!"

"…are you mistaking me for somebody?" I asked, trying not to sound too angry. "I'm not a versatile mage, you know?"

"Oh, right. You are not Bu Fan. Sorry for mixing you up."

"Wait…wait, wait." I raised a hand. "Did you mention Bu Fan?"

"Oh, yeah." Zhao Zi Jun nodded. "He joined Ming Zhu University, but he ended up having the summoning element and shadow element shortly before he enrolled there, and now he has a spirit wolf in addition to his fire and lightning magic!"

"We are so going to be sued for copyright and plagiarism, aren't we?" I asked, burying my face in my palm. It was only a matter of time before this story got taken down and I got blacklisted. Even the excuse of parody wasn't going to get me very far.

"Don't worry lah. He's not the main character what. As long as he doesn't show up too often, nobody can complain about copyright and stuff."

"That's assuming we hadn't gotten into trouble regarding the whole vampire arc earlier, which was clearly me making fun of a certain vampire shoujo manhua…granted, the writing was so awful and the characters made no sense whatsoever, so there was no way for me to resist making fun of everything that had happened there…"

"Anyway, it's going to be time." Zhao Zi Jun glanced at his smartphone. "My deparment wants us to assemble soon. I go first, okay?"

He patted my shoulder as he rose from his seat, carrying his tray. I nodded and hastily finished what was left of my breakfast. And gulped down my milk.

"Good luck, bro!"

"Thanks. I will do my best."

Pushing my glasses up, I smiled back. Inwardly, I knew that I was going to need it. Seven summoning students versus two hundred students from all the other departments…no matter how you looked at it, this was unfair.

Then again, it was true that the summoning students had an immense advantage because they were allowed to summon their soul beasts before the match. So we really couldn't complain. It was the equivalent of allowing the mages from other elemental departments to start casting their ultimate spells right before the match, and then unleashing the equivalent of a nuke on our summoned beasts.

The only reason why they allowed this was because the professors justified this as training against actual monsters. When out in the field, we weren't always going to have the chance to start casting our best spells before encountering a monster out of nowhere, especially when going on missions in the wilderness.

The same applied to us summoners too, though…and the hundred meter rule made it tougher for us. there was the option of summoning our soul beasts before heading out into the wilderness, but it cost a lot of mana to maintain their presences in the physical world and thus wasn't practical, especially if the mission went on for more than several hours – and that wasn't even including missions that took days or weeks. And our summoned beasts would automatically disappear whenever we fell asleep or lost consciousness too.

After I finished my breakfast and returned my tray, I then headed to the Crimson Arena, which was a coliseum where the university battles were held. Upon reaching there, I ran into my class representative, Zheng Ying Shou. He waved for me to approach the group and I obliged quietly.

"Richard, you're here." He nodded at me. Like me, he wore glasses. And before readers begin asking why he didn't undergo lasik or healing magic to get rid of his myopia, I'd tell them to deal with it.

"Yeah. Sorry for being late."

"Don't worry, you're not late. We still have quite a lot of time to spare." He glanced about at the rest of the class and smiled. "Since we're all here, let's head inside."

"Okay~"

I followed behind them, hanging out at the back because I was shy. No, really. I didn't like standing out and I would rather my classmates receive the full heat of the gazes of oour schoolmates in my place. As we did so, my eyes widened when I caught sight of the place we were about to enter.

The Crimson Arena was not some closed-door stadium or gymnasium that I was used to back in Jing Tian Academy. It was an open-door stadium like the venue of the national tournament I participated in last year. To my surprise, there was a massive structure with wire meshing and magical runes that stretched over the entire space, isolating the coliseum off from the spectator seats.

Even though it was still early, the stadium itself was nearly packed, with hundreds, probably close to over a thousand students all gathered inside and looking for their seats. However, my eyes were drawn to the wire meshing and structure.

"That looks like a cage," I muttered. For some reason, I was reminded of those gladiatorial cages that they used in underground fighting rings. Perhaps they were meant to trap us in with our opponents, to ensure we couldn't escape.

It wasn't as if the place was incredibly restrictive. Studying the massive cage, I saw that there was ample space for a flying-type summoned beast to soar above the combatants if necessary. Just…not out of the stadium. Then I realized something. It wasn't that we were trapped with our opponents. The mages from the other elemental departments were trapped in the cage with us and our summoned beasts.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

"Are you the summoning students?" one of the professors asked, stepping forward to greet us when we walked in. Hai Da Pang and another of our classmates stepped forward and nodded.

"Yeah!"

"This way, please." The professor gestured toward a backroom. "You may use the time to get ready."

That was right…we were allowed to summon before the match, so the intent of the professor was clear. Before the match officially began, we should begin summoning our soul beasts so that we could unleash them immediately once the event started.

"Yes, sir!"

While we proceeded to the backroom, the stadium itself was increasingly populated by enthusiastic students.

"Over here! This spot looks great! We should be able to get a good view from here."

"My goodness," one of my classmates whispered nervously as he glanced out of the window and saw the stadium filling up. "Just how many people turned up for this? This is making me nervous."

"Hah!" Hai Da Pang burst out laughing. "Don't be such a wuss. We should be thriving in this kind of environment!"

Well…good to know that at least one of us wasn't going to suffer from stage fright. As for me, I was feeling a bit ill. Not that I cared. This wasn't the first time I was fighting in front of a crowd. I did that in Jing Tian Academy (the beginning of this story, if you still remember), and again during the national tournament. Once the spells started firing overhead, I would be focused more on fighting than on the crowd.

"On the way here today, I overheard a bunch of people talking about us. Some idiots even claimed that they were going to crush us!" Hai Da Pang continued arrogantly. "What a joke!"

Then his expression turned psychotic and I felt a stab of worry. This guy didn't seem like his head was screwed on right.

"My Crystal Armor Scorpion is going to teach them the difference between us summoners and them commoners!"

"…commoners…?" I repeated incredulously. Beside me, Zheng Ying Shou shook his head in disapproval despite maintaining a smile. But I noticed the bead of perspiration rolling down his face. Like me, he evidently disagreed with Hai Da Pang, but he didn't say anything because he didn't want to cause a fuss.

"In any event," he said instead in a conciliatory manner. "The matches will begin soon…so let's get ready, everyone!"