"Haha… I have come to challenge your group!" The one who opened the door was a pink-haired woman, Isabelle Fisher.
She had been silent for a few days, making Michelle think that she would not come. Sadly, the nightmare finally came.
"I... We refuse," Kai replied.
"You… I still haven't forgotten about the previous thing you did, Leo." Isabelle crossed her arms, complaining. "Are you even a Zodiac? To think you don't dare to accept a challenge. I can't believe you are the first Zodiac."
"Zodiac?" Ayaka was clueless. She took a few glances at Kai, wondering if he would explain about the Zodiac or not.
"We don't have any obligation to accept your challenge." Michelle stopped Isabelle.
"Indeed. You don't need to accept my challenge." She nodded, making them think she would stop, albeit she had another trump card. She looked at Michelle and smirked. "Think about this. He is the first ever Zodiac, right?
"I am also a Zodiac… I am sure many people are curious about what kind of kid two Zodiacs would produce?"
"!!!" All of them instantly realized what she wanted.
"Hehe…" Isabelle grinned, continuing her explanation. "That's right. Do you think I did not do anything in the past few days? Too bad, I have been explaining the possibility of Leo and Myself to my family.
"That's why if you accept this challenge, I will leave you guys alone. I will also stop them from making this thing happen."
"You B*tch. If you want a Zodiac, you can take that Evan Young or that brute man." Michelle gritted her teeth.
"Hmph. Pisces does not interest me while I don't like that brute man, Taurus." She snorted. "Besides, I am sure many people are wondering what kind of man that Michelle Graham fancy and about the first zodiac ever created."
Isabelle made a smug smile, thinking she won the argument.
"I agree." Kai suddenly answered, accepting the challenge.
"Oh. This is truly surprising. For Leo himself to agree about this proposal… Do you find me ugly?" She looked at Kai, making a sexy pose.
"Why do you think you fell on your face last time?" Kai harrumphed, striking back at her.
Michelle laughed as loud as possible, making fun of her.
Isabelle's face turned red, ashamed. She gritted her teeth and said, "Since you have agreed, we will have a group battle one month from now."
She turned and walked away, but Kai stopped her. "Wait. There is another thing to do."
"What?" Isabelle glared at him.
"I want you to make a written agreement. I don't like the possibility of you making your family and the government pair up with someone like that," Kai said with a serious face.
"Fine!" Isabelle suddenly thought of a good plan, making another threat. "If my group wins, then you need to promise you can't stop me from doing that."
"That is not possible," Michelle answered. "I will make the written agreement later. You can come back tomorrow to sign it."
"Hmph." Isabelle walked away, leaving the room with anger.
Kai then scratched his cheek with his finger, turning toward Ayaka and Tasha with an apologetic look. "I am sorry for deciding this."
"I will protect you from that vixen (her)." Tasha and Ayaka said at the same time, agreeing upon something.
"Well, the duel is one month from now." Kai sighed as he turned to Michelle. "I need you to gather the information about her group… and maybe I want you to gather the information about Evan Young too."
"... Evan Young?" She furrowed her eyebrows, looking at Kai with a confused look. "I can understand if you want to know about our enemies… Still, Evan Young? Are you planning to recruit him?"
Kai shrugged. "I don't know. But his ability is useful. If his character is okay, I don't think I would mind about having him here. I am the only man here anyway, it will be good to have another male in our group."
"..." Michelle looked at him before glancing at Ayaka and Tasha. "I don't particularly mind about it, but I don't know about the other two."
Tasha and Ayaka exchanged looks before shrugging their shoulders. Ayaka thought about his well being, thinking it would be good to have another male to chat with. On the contrary, Tasha thought there would not be any potential candidate if Evan Young joined their group.
"Fufu… Why do you seem to be against the idea of having her on your side?" Michelle asked. "I mean, she is pretty and a good body. She also has a good family background and she herself is strong."
Tasha and Ayaka pushed their hair behind their ears, trying to listen to Kai's answer.
Shaking his head, he answered ambiguously. "I just don't like the idea. I want to choose for myself."
Michelle and Tasha smiled upon hearing this while Ayaka blushed, wondering whether she was one of the lists. Michelle said she was a potential one, but... If Kai decided that, then her opinion would not matter.
"Well… Just like my element, I will be your shadow and support you in the back." Michelle smiled.
They all forgot about Kai's new magic because of this incident.
"By the way, what is this Group Battle all about? Is there any benefit in accepting the battle?" Kai asked Michelle.
Hearing that question, Michelle simply walked toward the computer and projected the screen so everyone could see it. On the screen, there were ten names with numbers beside them.
Dawn - 113100
Golden - 108500
Brave - 105400
Bronze - 101800
Thunder - 91300
Tempest - 88400
Grace - 81300
Eagle - 78900
Honor - 77900
Slayer - 72500
"This is the first ten groups in our generation. These numbers are their points right now. Well, there is nothing good about these numbers other than recognition.
"Well, there are many who fight for fame and pride… I mean, they have a huge background and it would be too shameful if they are not the best.
"I don't care about such a thing, so I never created a group again after my former group graduated. Even my father gave me permission to do anything I wanted. So here I am.
"As for this group, this is more like a place to hang out with you guys and do missions. I don't really care about points as long as we are at the top 100 and get our personal helicopter. By the way, we need forty thousand to get into the top 100.
"There are two ways to acquire points. Firstly, we can get it from a mission or emergency mission. The second is from Group Battle. If we beat our opponent, we would get ten percent of our opponent's points.
"This point will reset the moment one of our group member graduates. Considering you can recruit an elite third year to your group despite being a first year, I think such a rule is normal. This is to prevent someone from taking advantage of the system.
"Most groups consist of people of the same year. There are other reasons besides this rule. If you graduated from this school together with your group, you will be thrown into the frontline and help expand our border.
"However, if you have the same group, you would know each other's fighting style and the others, thus increasing your survival chance. Anyway, they made rules after considering so many things." Michelle explained.
Kai and the others could relate that. "Well, since we still have a month, do you want to go for another mission?"
"I personally don't mind that, but how about the others? Besides, there is a cooldown period of a week. We can't take any mission right now. This cooldown period is to make the others rest.
"You can say that the monetary reward is great. However, sometimes, a few reckless ones tried to get as many missions as possible… This led to many unnecessary deaths despite being too tired for a mission. They thought they would be able to get money for their family, lover or whatever, but what they got was death. The school then made this rule to prevent them."
"I see. Then we basically have free time for the time being." Kai nodded. He wanted to research another magic to begin with, so he had no problem with this rule.
"Yes. Everyone is free to do research on their own…" Michelle said, taking a glance at Kai. "Maybe, we can have a date after this."
"!!!" Tasha's eyes flashed while Ayaka kept glancing at him, hoping she could have one too. Although she had yet to reach Michelle's or Tasha's level, she had realized she also liked Kai.
Kai shook his head, making an apologetic look. "Maybe after the group battle… I want to focus on this first."
"Fine." Michelle shrugged as the others also nodded inwardly.
...
A few days later, they could receive a mission again. However, they were not as lucky as they were previously, they could not find a good mission, so they decided to hold on.
The next day, they started searching for a mission again but found nothing. Finally, on the third day, they found a mission. Surprisingly, the mission was not from the school's system. Instead, it was coming from the student council.
Michelle and Kai decided to go to the student council room.
"I have been waiting for both of you." The president greeted them with a simple smile. "A very good job back then. I don't have any complaints about the wolf mission, and could only give praise for the emergency mission."
"Enough about the pleasantries. Just give us the mission." Michelle stopped him.
"Fufu… After having her man beside her, she doesn't want to hang out with us anymore." The vice president chuckled.
"No. That's not what I mean…" Michelle turned to her with an apologetic expression.
"Alright. Since she wants to finish this as soon as possible…" The president gave her a paper. "This is the mission."