435 Chapter 435: Departing for Yao Cai Mountains (1/2)
”I'm very sorry, everybody!”
I bowed as low as I could, my body almost perpendicular at the waist. My friends all stared at me, perplexed.
”Please.” Feng Hai was also beside me, lowering his head in apology. ”I'm very sorry, but I will need to borrow Richard for a while. I understand that you might want him around for the third place match, but this is a very urgent matter. Please don't blame Richard – I was the one who selfishly made this request and pushed him into this. I hope you will forgive me.”
”There is nothing to forgive.” Unsurprisingly enough, it was Harrison who took the initiative and stepped forward to speak on behalf of Jing Tian Academy team. He placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled. ”Do whatever you need to do. The life of your comrade is much more important than a tournament match.”
”Yeah,” Craig agreed. ”Besides, it's just the third place match, and not the finals. I'll be honest, it doesn't really matter that much if we win or lose this one. The only difference is whether we finish third or fourth, and let's be serious…fourth place is a lot more than we deserve.”
”You've done your best to help us progress this far,” Sheila added with a warm smile. ”It's our turn to not let you do. You can leave the rest to us.”
”That's right!” Yue Chu thumped his chest confidently. ”You also have to give us a chance to shine as well, Richie! You've been hogging all the limelight and stealing the glory! At least allow the rest of us to display our strengths as well!”
”Correct.” Harrison nodded. ”This is a team effort, not a one-man show. While you're undoubtedly a very important member of the team, and your contributions have been nothing short of tremendous, we cannot depend on you forever. This is Jing Tian Academy team, not Richard team. Every member matters. If you have your own circumstances, it falls to us – your teammates – to pick up the slack and compensate. Besides…”
He lowered his voice and winked.
”I wasn't planning on fielding you in the third place match, anyway. I did toy around with sending you against Lilith Porter if she comes into play during the individual matches, but in the end I decided not to. You've done so much throughout the tournament…all-killing Saint Teresa Academy team, forcing Charles Lacroix to withdraw from the team match during the semifinals…and so many more. As Yue Chu said, I should give the others some time to run out on the field and present their prowess. The seniors, in particular…they deserve the chance to attract the attention of some of the recruiting universities.”
That was right. I almost forgot. Harrison, Pearl, Cody and Theodore would be graduating at the end of this year. They needed to find admission into a prestigious university, or at least that was what society expected of them. Fortunately, the criteria for admission to good universities usually included a mixture of excellent practical results, mission records (though not many people participated in these) and individual combat rankings. Most of which Harrison and the other seniors had already done well in. Of course, those were sufficient for them to get into fairly prestigious universities, but Harrison wasn't just referring to those.
Depending on their performance in the tournaments, they might get scouted out by the elite universities. The cream of the crop. Ivy League. Who could say no to enrolling in the best universities the Global Federation had to offer? The universities ranked among the top ten?
Harrison was correct. While it wasn't as if I hogged the limelight to myself (Bu Fan, Yue Chu, Lily, Craig, Sheila, Theodore, even Harrison himself all performed extremely well, and won a lot of recognition from pundits and professional mages alike), the seniors deserved their chance to shine. This was, after all, their last high school tournament. I might still have a chance to participate again next year, as long as I didn't get complacent and maintained my current ranking, but my seniors would have to move on, to look for universities. This could have a great impact on their careers, and I wasn't selfish enough to deny them this opportunity.
”Good luck, everybody.”
”Don't worry about us, and do what you need to do.” Harrison gripped my hand in a firm handshake and then shoved me gently, toward Feng Hai. ”Get going. Your friend is waiting for you to save her, right?”
”Yeah! If you really want to make up for your absence, then promise us that you'll definitely save her.” Pearl joined in with a sweet smile. ”Bring her back safely.”
”We will.” Feng Hai returned the friendly expression. I could almost read his thoughts – he was touched by his juniors' goodwill. He was most likely whispering to himself something along the lines of ”so Jing Tian Academy hasn't changed since I've left it. It's still filled with good, loyal students. I'm very glad.”
Man, I wouldn't be surprised to see him shed a tear or two.
”We'll be back,” Feng Hai promised. Then he turned away, gesturing for me to follow him. I gave my friends a wave.
”I'll be seeing you,” Yue Chu said with a grin and a wave.
”Yeah. Later.”
Then I was gone, following Feng Hai toward unknown territory.
*
”How are we getting there?”
”Summon your monsters and fly over there, obviously!” a reader shouted from the comments section. Feng Hai kicked the guy through the fourth wall and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
”The Yao Cai Mountain is so far away, if we fly there on one of your Soul Beasts, it'll take forever. Besides, it's an incredible drain of your mana. The flight would take a few hours, and maintaining one of your larger Soul Beasts to ferry an entire squad would exhaust you. You would be of no use to us if you arrive, your mana completely expended…and that's provided you'll be able to last the several hours' worth of journey anyway.”
”I know all that. Why are you telling me all this? Tell them.” I jabbed my finger at the broken fourth wall, through which the insolent reader had just been blown through.
”That's what I meant to do. These readers, always thinking they know better than the characters in the story. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and it's not as if we possess the same vision or perspective the readers do. They're always looking for ways to exploit the system, to abuse the rules for some stupid advantage.”
”Yeah. Obviously it's against the rules to summon before the match, and they kept asking why I was stupid and not summoning before the match. Or they kept calling me retarded because I don't have a Constellation spirit that can cast healing spells. As if I can conceptualize and summon something so convenient! I need to learn healing magic first, which is a completely different type of magic from elemental magic, and I don't have the aptitude or time to switch specializations. Yet they always think they know my own world and reality better than me, and try to twist the rules to their distorted advantage. If I can't do it, then obviously there are rules that prohibit it! If I don't summon a healing Constellation spirit, then obviously that's because one doesn't exist! Stop whining about me being stupid or retarded just because my life doesn't go the way YOU imagine!”