Chapter 128 Clubfest

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful compared to their first class in the morning.

After the students returned to their classrooms, Professor Orfina returned to handle the rest of the classes for the day.

Going over magical theory, mathematics, language and literature, geography, and his other introductory classes, Arvell spent the rest of the day glued to his chair and with a textbook in front of him.

The only exception was during lunchtime, when they met up with Lydia and enjoyed a meal and a breath of fresh air.

After their class finished for the day, Arvell walked towards Marcus, bringing along Zen and Reyna behind him.

"Hey Marcus, do you want to do our rematch now? We have some time to kill."

Marcus eagerly turned to face Arvell but suddenly froze.

"...Actually, We'll fight later. I'm busy now."

Without another word, Marcus rushed out of the classroom door, leaving a bewildered Arvell in his wake.

'What just happened?'

Lykos smiled with a teasing glint.

'You got turned down… By a guy.'

'...'

Arvell turned to his spectral mentor with a dead expression before exhaling.

'His behaviour was kind of odd….'

"Hey Arvell, let's get going," Zen called out beside him.

"Alright, alright. Let's get going."

Tossing Marcus to the back of his mind, he joined his two friends and walked out of the classroom.

Leaving the classroom, one of the first things Arvell noticed was that the foot traffic had significantly increased compared to the day before.

In fact, the people, all of whom looked older than him, kept giving him weird stares as he passed them.

The girls threw him flirtatious winks, while the guys only offered scornful stares.

Since they weren't openly doing anything to him, he couldn't really say nor do anything. But, still, it was really annoying for him nonetheless.

Even more so since he could hear their whispers, which were quite audible for someone with sensitive hearing like him.

"This kid's on Cyprian's level! Say, who do you think looks better?"

"Hmm… Cyprian does have this cool and elegant vibe… But this boy has an air of mystery and a refreshing smile. I'm not going to lie. This is a tough competition."

"Oh yeah, did you hear about the rumours that Cyprian got engaged recently?"

"Engaged? Who's the lucky girl?"

"No one knows! The engagement only happened a little while ago, so the Mayfield family hasn't said anything. So all of this is mere speculation at this point."

"I wonder how his Fanclub is taking this?"

Arvell's ears perked up when he heard this.

'The heir to Mayfield dukedom got a fiance? This is big news! But… what is this about a fan club? Seriously, people have way too much time on their hands to do pointless things.'

Arvell walked past the groups with an inaudible sigh, pretending he couldn't hear them.

Reyna and Zen, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice, or if they did see, they didn't seem to care much.

They were engaged in light banter while giggling every once in a while.

Of course, they weren't trying to disclude Arvell from whatever they were talking about. Still, subconsciously they started primarily amongst each other and not with Arvell.

Seeing the bright smiles on their faces, Arvell smiled ruefully.

'I'm totally being a third wheel here.'

Deciding to let the young couple have their privacy, Arvell excused himself.

"Hey guys, I need to use the bathroom, but you two can start without me. I'll meet up with you all later."

Zen turned to Arvell with a perplexed look.

"We can just wait, you know? It's not too hard."

Shaking his head, Arvell responded, "It's fine. It's going to get crowded soon, so we should get a lead while we can."

Clubs and other extracurricular activities were going to start soon, so the various school club captains had started setting up stalls for students to see what their clubs did.

With the help of magic, the whole process didn't require much manpower or time, so most of them were already up.

Since Lydia wanted to use this opportunity to become friends with people from her class, Arvell, Zen, and Reyna had planned to tour these club booths as a group of 3.

Well, with August, it would technically be a group of four.

Now that group of 4 had split into two groups of two.

After leaving the couple's sight, Arvell started his way over to the stalls.

All the stalls were congregated in the open space near the school gates to make the event more straightforward for the first years and for general convenience.

"To assemble this so soon… Wow."

"Kyuu!"

August eyed one of the nearby stalls with an interested look.

One of the boys manning the stall was balancing plates using nothing but chopsticks.

Seeing that he had accumulated a sizeable crowd, the youth threw all of the plates into the air, keeping only the chopsticks on hand.

"WOAHH!"

The onlookers exclaimed as the plates soared into the air.

Only the boy with the chopsticks seemed unperturbed.

Reaching their maximum height, the plates switched directions and fell back to the ground.

Holding one chopstick per hand, he calmly closed his eyes.

Even with his eyes closed, the youth stuck out his hands with a confident look.

*CLINK CLINK*

Seeing the plates land directly onto the chopsticks without falling, the crowd burst into applause.

While balancing his body to keep the plates on the chopsticks, the boy

"Come and join the circus club! Anyone is welcome to join and 'clown' around with us!"

Arvell, cringing at the bad pun, decided to go check out some other nearby stalls.

'Sigh, none of these seem particularly interesting….'

Even after having spent over 10 minutes looking through the stalls, he still couldn't find any stalls that quite caught his attention.

'I might just use my afterschool time to train then. I don't think there are any real penalties for not being in a club. I'll guess I'll go absorb some of the surrounding Aether. I shouldn't be too far from reaching the 3rd stage of the 1st Power Circle.'

Turning away from the stalls, Arvell began to leave the club fair vicinities but suddenly halted mid-step.

*Sniff Sniff*

"This smell… It's medicinal herbs!" Then, smelling the air, Arvell exclaimed.

Following the smell, the silver-haired boy soon found himself before a booth with an alchemical pot currently in use.

Noticing the stand right before the stall, Arvell glossed over it.

[Alchemy Club: Come and ignite your passion for Alchemy with us!]

'Oh? Do they have an alchemy club here? Well, that does make sense. They have one, now that I think about it.'

Arvell had planned on applying to become an alchemist trainee at the school's hospital building.

If he could earn some spending money by making healing potions, he wouldn't need to constantly ask Wilfried for pocket money to buy himself.

Also, he could purchase some of the alchemical herbs he needed without rousing too much suspicion since only alchemists tended to buy most of those ingredients.

Technically Arvell wasn't supposed to know how to use Alchemy since his background was 'an escaped slave.'

He couldn't just randomly say that he could brew potions at an unprecedented level purely by being self-taught.

That was far too suspicious.

If he could get the proper 'experience,' people would be far less suspicious if he were to ever start selling elixirs for money.

However, if there was an alchemist club, it would out perfectly!

He had to pretend to be a new alchemist and slowly 'learn' the trade!

Arvell walked up to one of the nearby students manning the stall.

While one of them was serving as a live demonstration for onlookers and another person handed out fliers to passersby, some students sat down behind their stall, answering inquiries and handing out club joining forms.

The person Arvell went to was the latter in this group.

"Excuse me, I'd like to know how this club is run."

Seeing Arvell ask her a question, the receptionist gave Arvell a big smile.

"Run? Are you talking about how our club works?"

"Yes. Is there any commission for successfully crafting elixirs? Or anything like that?"

The receptionist nodded her head.

"While there is a reward, there is also a high chance of failure. Because of this fact, unless you manage to procure your own herbs and other ingredients, purchasing the herbs from the school market is your best bet."

'The academy doesn't want to lose money from wasted herbs, but at the same time, selling the elixirs will give you all 100% of the proceedings. Even if you used their alchemical pots to create the elixirs, you wouldn't get charged.'

Arvell found the system a little too harsh on the new students with next to no experience in using Alchemy.

After all, to join the club, they need to be able to secure the proper funds to support their endeavours.

Learning Alchemy would be nothing more than a money sink in the early stages.

Furthermore, mastering the arts isn't easy, so many people give up the path quickly.

Only those who persisted and trained in their alchemical studies for years could start making a stable income.

The higher the grade of an elixir is, the higher the cost would be, too as well.

Arvell was honestly conflicted at this moment.

There didn't really look like there was anything he would really gain by joining the Alchemy club, but for a little 'experience' in brewing elixirs.

"Are there any other benefits of joining the club that I should be aware of?" Then, looking at the person before him, Arvell asked.

"Hmm, there is a discount just for alchemy club members. All alchemical materials in the school market will be 20% off."

'20% off? Just for being a free member? That's quite the bargain,' Arvell inwardly exclaimed.

"How do I sign up?"

Hearing the enthusiasm in Arvell's voice, the girl smiled brightly.

Someone finally decided to join their club!

The girl enthusiastically pulled a paper off a stack of similarly designed sheets, and handed it to Arvell.

"Fill out this form, and then return it to me. It shouldn't take too long after that."