Chapter 199.1 – Ma Dong is Strange

“School newspaper?”

Hymin replied disdainfully, “It’s the Tianjing Evening News! Ha! We’ve become popular! Oh yea, Wang Zhong, where’s Ma Dong? That fellow is a self-proclaimed grand master of economics and the president of the Prodigy Society. He should be hopping around trying to increase his fame and spread propaganda that matches his newfound reputation and status, no?”

Wang Zhong spread his hands out and shrugged. “Even I don’t know where he is at. That guy has recently been acting odd.”

“That fellow really has been neglecting his job. Before, he had annoyed Scarlet and Milami into becoming the leader. But now, I haven’t seen him around for the last two, almost three days.” Senior Sister Hymin snorted her displeasure.

“Right, Ma Dong has been weird lately.” Scarlet thought about and continued, “Yesterday, Senior Sister Milami told me they hadn’t even been together as of late.”

“Did they have some kind of argument?” Hymin’s gossipy heart began to burn with interest.

“That’s not it. Senior Sister Milami even wanted me to ask Wang Zhong about it. But since we were all too busy with the preparations for the competition the last two days, I just forgot to ask…” Scarlet felt a bit apologetic as she just remembered.

Wang Zhong’s brows wrinkled as he shook his head. He didn’t know how to feel about this.

He had been too busy the last two days preparing for the competition that he actually forgot about his own brother. This was his negligence.

But even so, he did feel something was off about Ma Dong. It had started over a month ago that he began to mutter to himself the entire day. Wang Zhong, however, didn’t think much about it and assumed it was just some slight contradiction with Milami. Now it seemed he needed to have a good talk with Ma Dong.

“Alright, fine. You guys go and understand the situation first. Let’s push back publicity matters for a later time.” Hymin shook her head and joyfully turned her attention to the newspaper fluttering in her hand. Her voice was excited as she said, “I’m gonna go find Barran. Once that guy knows he’s in the newspaper, he’ll definitely die from embarrassment! Haha!”

Once they imagined the burly Barran with an embarrassed expression upon seeing the newspaper, Scarlet and Wang Zhong couldn’t hold it in an burst into laughter. But Hymin’s schemes were all too clear to the two of them. Scarlet couldn’t help but tease, “Senior Sister Hymin actually wants to go the freshman area to see Grai, right?”

“What! Did I become a person who would shove her friends away just for others?” Hymin rolled her eyes as she snapped back. The grin on her face, however, betrayed her true intentions.

☀

Freshmen of any academy would always consist of the most hardworking and diligent students. Each freshman should have the behavior of a freshman. They should be the first to enter the academy and the first to enter the classroom. As such, the soldier department’s first-year classes had already begun when Hymin walked over.

But the morning class today was different from usual. From first-years to third-year seniors to even teachers, everyone was gathering around. While it couldn’t be considered a large crowd, it was still enough to completely fill in the small training grounds while also crowding the outside areas.

“Look, Barran is over there!”

“He doesn’t seem that fierce and powerful up-close!”

There were even some female students showing interest in Barran. In fact, the conversations between the girls was even bolder than the ones between the boys. Their conversations even managed to make Hymin shiver with goosebumps. The tastes of Barran’s fans was of considerable difference from Grai’s fans.

When she saw Lily in the crowd, Hymin walked over to greet her. She asked with slight curiosity, “What’s with the situation, Lily?”

“Heh. What else could it be but how eye-catching Barran and Grai’s performance was yesterday.” Lily grinned and continued, “It’s fine for Grai as he’d always been strong, but the improvements Barran revealed had been too great. Therefore, several teachers from the third-year soldier department wanted to learn and study from him. They wanted to observe his everyday training sequence. I’m here to accompany those teachers.”

“Is that it?” Hymin gawked before laughing out loud, saying, “Then I’m afraid the teachers will leave disappointed.”

While everyone else was still curious, she was a part of the nine person squadron and knew how Barran spent every single day just crashing against a wall of the Prodigy Society training room. Everyone in the squadron could see how Barran progressed leaps and bounds in his foundations, but most of this was due to his miraculously recovered broken soul sea. It was just a waste of their time trying to examine Barran’s performance during class.

When he arrived for class today, the passion being emitted from his classmates caught the simple Barran off-guard. He watched as the lineup of students came gushing out like a swarm of bees and was so frightened that he assumed he’d entered the wrong place.

After he experienced yesterday’s big battle, Barran had grown calmer and less distracted as before. But being the focus of so many people still made him a little uneasy. There were just too many of them. Not only were they people from his class, but there were also people crowding the pathways, windows, and training room. He could hear his name being whispered from time to time as he became the target of everyone’s discussions. This kind of attention was really a bit too much for him to handle.

He had even heard how there were quite a number of teachers from the third-year classes within the crowd. Wasn’t this just a first-year morning class…

Unable to hold in his curiosity, Barran shot a look at the windows and spotted Senior Sister Hymin and Senior Sister Lily. Senior Sister Hymin was even waving at him.

Senior Sister Hymin is also here… Barran’s already flushed face grew even redder. Deep down, he never felt he was anyone outstanding or had any excellence in him. He just took up all of the responsibility he was tasked with accomplishing and even felt he was far from having done them sufficiently.

The morning training for the heavy soldier class went on like blazing wildfire. With the attention of so many people on them, the youths roared with fire and blossomed. They all wanted to show off a worthy performance.

Naturally, everyone had come over to see Barran. But instead of becoming more fired up, Barran had calmed down. His senior had once told him it was enough for him to just be himself. Therefore, after the first few minutes, Barran quickly disregarded everyone else and the commotion they caused and entered his usual training state.

After being flattered by a few of his fellow third-year colleagues all the way up to cloud nine, Teacher Zhao Gang opened his mouth and called, “Barran, Kroft, step forward and prepare for a head-on training!”