"Do you plan to face me now ?" Tom asked as he sat across from the window where Richard stood.

Richard remained quiet, his spiral patterned eyes now returning back to their base form.

He turned towards Tom with a fake smile. "It’s nothing like that."

"So...why didn’t you expel him?" Tom asked with hard lines on his forehead.

Richard sighed, limping towards the desk in the office. Keeping his fake smile.

"You know they make the best swords."

Tom rolled his eyes in annoyance. "You’re doing it again..."

"What," Richard snickered.

"It doesn’t matter. The boy broke the rules, Marcus’s injuries were actually more severe than we thought. Expulsion is only acceptable." Thomas slammed his palm on the table.

"And yet.. here we are," Richard said as he sat on the table. "There is more to this than you think."

"Doesn’t matter. Rules are rules."

"That mentality doesn’t work here," Richard frowned for the first time. "Tell me Tommy, did you know Dorian approached the boy."

Thomas froze mid his lean forward. "What do you mean Dorian? As in Dorian Vermith?"

"The one and only."

"Bullshit..." Tom snapped.

"That’s what I thought too," Richard stood again as if the desk was too hot for him.

"But that proud bastard met with the Grays personally and offered the boy Vermith,"

"And he said no?" Tom raised an eyebrow.

Richard simply nodded as began walking towards the cupboard, his eyes focused on the bottle of rum.

Thomas was completely shocked as he ran his hand through his hair. "..so you kept him away from them."

"Exactly so... expelling him was simply handing him over," Richard reached for the cupboard even as his tone grew sharper. "And that would only increase the gap of power further."

"Don’t you think, it’s too early to be drinking," Thomas narrowed his eyes.

With his hand still shivering above the bottle. "But I’m done with classes for the day."

"It’s still too early..." Thomas almost laughed.

Richard sighed. And retreated his hand. "So you understand why I had to make the rules flexible?"

"Of course... If Dorian wants him then it’s best we keep him."

"Other than that, those W.S.A thugs would have drowned me in paperwork, if we’d expelled him." Richard said as she stared at his reflection on the cupboard glass.

"Them too...?" Thomas quickly stood up. This was more serious than he thought.

"You see why I need that drink," Richard’s expression darkened. "They want to study the slime."

"No...No...we can’t allow that," Thomas immediately slammed both hands on the desk.

"I told them to fuck off..."

Thomas smiled. "They won’t like that."

"They didn’t, so they sent Vera..." Richard rolled his eyes.

"And you bent... you simp,"

Richard grinned. "You know I can’t tell that woman no.. They’re allowed to watch him for afar. The upcoming tournament for sophomores would allow that."

"Why would he join?" Thomas looked confused.

The grin on Richard’s face grew wider. "Because he would need the points. He is dead low in the class rankings."

"You sly bastard."

"It was the kid’s idea." Richard paused. "It’s the only way I can protect him."

While his fate was being debated behind closed doors.

Dean stood in front of the Flux zone exploration classroom in shock.

There was absolutely no one there. No students, no professors, even the lights in the hall were turned off.

’Talk about being uninformed,’ Dean thought.

He stood outside the doors for another ten minutes but no one showed up.

Dean immediately walked straight to the administration office. He needed class points and a No-show professor wasn’t helping his case.

Just as he arrived, Thomas was already walking out.

"Dr. Thomas. The professor for Flux Ex-"

"Wait.. you chose Fluxzone exploration?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah...wanted to understand flux zones. I submitted the sheet to you on registration day."

Thomas facepalmed and rubbed his face. No one read those sheets.

"Is there a problem?" Dean asked. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"No Freshman chose that class," Thomas said flatly.

Dean was taken aback, this was new information. Or was this why the girl registering the courses was laughing when he chose it back then.

"Thing is... "Thomas continued. "There is mass failure in that class. Last year, only five students passed."

Okay...that was bad news. It seems like he would have to kiss his opportunity of taking this seriously and climbing through the ranks, good bye.

"So you saying, i fucked up?"

"Precisely..." Thomas said as he paused, seemingly deciding something.

"I’m certain, you are the only one in that Class. Leona wouldn’t leave her post for just one person."

"Leona?" Dean was caught off guard.

"Yes.. she is your professor. But since you are the only one there—" Thomas sighed.

"----I can assign you to one of the five sophomores that passed. They can help you till whenever Leona shows."

Dean listened before speaking. "And if she doesn’t show?"

"..Well.." Thomas coughed. "Pray she does."

Well, this was far from ideal but instead of Dean feeling down, he was excited instead. Leona was going to teach him. Who would have thought.

"Deal.." he said. Knowing he had just walked into a mortuary for GPA’s.

Thomas nodded and walked away.

Dean stood for a moment, coming up with the next set of actions to take.

Only one thing made sense right now. He had to train. This body needed more conditioning.

After all, somebody had to pay for that jump on him yesterday.

He began walking to the training area when he heard a familiar voice.

"Running off again?"

Dean stopped, he couldn’t miss that blunt tone anywhere.

Before long, Ymir stood in front of him, a grin on her face as she crossed her hand under her perfect sized milkers.

"So you are actually stalking me?"

"Yeah... someone had to hunt you down. Since you lost the flier."

"Ohh...shit, it’s today," Dean said.

"Yeah. That’s why I am here. So let’s go.."

Dean didn’t move. This wasn’t in his plans but neither was missing flux exploration class. He could just supplement them.

"Let’s go.." Dean said, as he began walking forward.

"Where are we going?" Ymir asked, walking behind Dean.

Dean stopped, as he gestured for her to lead the way.

"Such a gentleman," Ymir teased as they walked out of the academia grounds.

A few minutes later. Dean found himself inside a Flux zone as several dog-like creatures were running.

"Of course.. it’s inside a Flux zone," Dean groaned

A/N: Thank you guys so much for the golden Tickets and power stones.