Mystical Encounters

Irvene's point of view

An instructor immediately stood up and started announcing the scores for the first 70 students who got the highest points.

The competition for us, fourth level students were strong. Some points were close to each other, and the students who are ranked 71-80 only has a small difference to students that were ranked 60-70. I could saw their depressed expression for almost advancing to the next round but miserably failed.

The instructor has a thin, rectangular object at his hands which he would use to see the points and ranks of us, students.

"Meryll, how many points do you have?" I heard Sid talked.

"I got 1650 points," Meryll answered.

"Pft. I told you! I will have the highest points!"

"Insulting me? How about your points?"

"I got 1660 points--,"

"You're just 10 points above me and you have that much confidence to boast about your points?"

"Stop that, you are attracting too much attention," I said.

When will they grow up? Finally, they stop when they saw the other students began looking at them.

"5th place, Lianna Lynnford. 1380 points," the instructor said.

I saw her feeling proudly at herself. Lianna quickly looked at our direction like she always knew where we are. She opened her mouth, but before she's about to utter a word, the instructor's voice towered over her.

"4th place, Merlly Dellmira. 1650 p-points!" The instructor's staggering voice confused me.

I also didn't fail to see the students' shocked reactions.

"She broke the records of Student Council President Ingrid Welsey in the last two years!"

"It wouldn't be shocking if it's the normal Magic Battle Competition."

"This year's competition is twice harder or even thrice. What more for the 3rd, 2nd and 1st place?"

Almost all the students said the same things, and that made me understand everything. I should really know about the Magic Battle Competition in this past five years to avoid going overboard in our scores.

"3rd place goes to Sid Salford, 1660 points," he said.

"2nd place, Irvene Aly Elvina, g-got 1990 points and the first place goes to Vaughn Estrama, 2100 points!"

Their reactions didn't change, even though they expected it to be higher than the 4th place but not to that extent. I looked at this person who said that we should compete based on a fourth level student skills, but still got the first place.

Vaughn showed a blank face that I didn't choose to fathom. I wouldn't know what he's thinking anyway.

Lianna, who boasted a while ago had a frowned expression on her face and started to walk away from us.

Another thing, breaking the records of Ingrid Welsey? The name of another person who is keeping an eye on us, and tend to appear everywhere we go, even though he's not our classmate which is more suspicious than Lianna.

They let us clean ourselves since mud almost covered our bodies. This school has two separate huge bathrooms for male and female. We took a bath and change to our school uniforms.

The fifth level and sixth level students had ended. They were more experienced than the other levels, thus earning much higher points. The Student Council President, Ingrid Welsey, set a record for the elimination rounds for sixth level students.

The students went cheering for him, especially the female students. He's quite popular huh?

The first elimination rounds ended in the afternoon, and the instructor announced that the second round would be held tomorrow. Only one round would be held each day, thus it would end on Saturday.

Since today's competition are all finished, they let us go home early. The four of us are walking near the school gate when Ingrid Welsey appeared in front of us.

"It's been a while since I saw the four of you," he said.

"What do you need?" I asked him.

"Nothing important, I'm just here to congratulate the four of you. I didn't expect that four people at once would break my records at the first elimination rounds for fourth level students," he said. He sighed deeply.

I almost rolled my eyes when he said that it's not an important topic but his actions said otherwise.

"That's it? You broke a record for today's elimination rounds, so I think it wouldn't matter much, right? We have many things to do, so we'll be leaving," Meryll uttered.

"That's not all. An invitation to the castle has been sent to our family, and it said that we could invite some friends. My companions have their own already, so I think of asking if you are interested?" He said to us.

That made my eyebrow raise. We aren't close enough to him, but he even thought of inviting us?

It seems that Sister Adelaine or my brothers decided to send out invitations to the esteemed officials, guests and the twelve most-well known families in Soul'e. I think not all people would be invited since it's like an arrangement on political affairs rather than a huge cheerful celebration.

Although, we live inside Soul'e castle, so why would we need an invitation? He didn't know about this, but he's too bothersome and I wanted to rest early after this tiring day.

If not for his identity of a Student Council President, we should have left him without notice.

"We don't need your invitations," Sid said.

"We have our own, each of us," Vaughn said.

I looked at Vaughn. Why did he say that?

We walked away from Ingrid, but he followed us and his indifferent attitude came back. A grin flashed through his face.

"Really? It's weird though. Invitations from Soul'e Castle for this event is for important guests. I wonder which well-known family did you come from?" he asked.

That made me shocked. He's starting to doubt our identities, although we didn't stop from walking.

"Hmm? Your last names would be Elvina, Salford, Estrama and, Dellmira. The three from the last names are the same from the high-class families in Soul'e country especially Elvina. It's the Ruler of this country's last name. I didn't hear any of you from being a member of that families," he said.

His gaze upon us was filled with curiosity.

"Secrets, so many secrets. Your sudden existence is a mystery to me," he continued.

What should we do? ....