Chapter 169 - Oops, I Did It Again

(MC POV)

"I believe all of you have made progress with the materialization of at least one of the basic elements. I want each of you to try it out now and we'll see how much you've progressed," Elder Gong instructed.

Huh… So apparently the special class students are expected to complete the materialization class within a day? I think the normal classes took like a month to go through this before they moved on to the next subject. Not really sure if that was because of me though.

Guess we're being really strict on the talent class, huh? Glad I wasn't one of them when I first came in or I might have failed to even enter the Sect.

Elder Gong pointed his finger at Chris, "Show me."

Chris gave his twin a cheeky grin before stretching out his palm in front of him, facing upwards. He closed his eyes and for a good four seconds nothing happened.

I could see that Tekiteh was just about to make a snide comment when a pale red flame appeared above his palm.

"Impressive," Elder Gong applauded. "It seems you managed to establish a connection with the Base Elemental Quark of Fire. It looks to be a rather stable connection too. Very well done. Now, Kris,"

'Chris with a K' gave the exact same cheeky smile his twin had given him, his hand stretching out in the exact same pose as his twin.

Seriously, do they have to do everything the same? Feels like they're going out of their way just to prove that they're twins for some reason.

Again, four seconds passed before a small orb of light formed just above his palm.

Well, at least that's different?

"Light Quarks, an uncommon choice but impressive nevertheless. Tekiteh?"

The little scruffy kid turned up his nose when his name was called, moving both of his hands in front of his chest.

It took just two seconds before a yellowish bolt of lightning began arcing in between his fingers, causing the little stuck up to smirk proudly at us.

What the hell did he want, a cookie?

I really think this guy's skin is thick enough to stop anything from harming him at this point, I doubt even the psycho Practitioner with that stupid 'truck-kun' stick would be able to damage him.

For your information, the twins had tied him to his bed while stuffing a ball of cloth in his mouth to shut him up last night. I won't say that helped much since he was thrashing around in bed and screaming into the cloth, but all of us managed to ignore him and just slept through the noise.

I'm not even sure if this idiot slept at all the whole night and it's obvious he learnt nothing from his ordeal.

"Good, good," Elder Gong nodded while stroking his beard. "Fast and stable too, nothing much to say. Sylphy?"

Sylphy glanced at me as though to ask permission to go ahead, prompting me to give her a slight nod of my head just so that she doesn't draw any attention to me.

With her confidence boosted, she raised her arm in the air and a gust of wind blew past us to form an orb of air above the former goddess.

Elder Gong smoothened his robes before giving her an approving nod, "Well done, Sylphy. You have an enviable talent indeed, I have no doubts you will be able to pass the tests at the end."

The girl dispersed the orb of air and gave an elegant bow, it's hard to imagine this was the same half-soaked girl that had been screaming "Commoner trash!" just the day before.

Speaking of which, she mentioned that her current body was a vessel that she used to inhabit to monitor the situation down here, did she create this vessel out of nothing or did she possess and take over the body from the previous owner?

Both of these possibilities are rather frightening if you think about it. How would I know if anyone around me has suddenly switched to someone I don't know? Or maybe... Anyone could be a god in disguise and just waiting to smite down some random mortal because of something they said?

Heck, how do I know that I haven't been possessed?

Ok, perish that thought, not going to go down that rabbit hole. I much prefer diving into the fox den at this point in time.

Ignorance is bliss and fluff is life.

"Brendan, let's see how well you do!" Elder Gong called out, clearly excited from the talent shown from this batch of students.

The young man took a deep breath before thrusting out his hand, closing his eyes in concentration to circulate the Quarks he needed.

Just slightly above two seconds, an orb of water formed above his palm, its size rather similar to the one we saw him summon yesterday.

"Hmm… Though it's not bad... But it seems you have not made any improvements from the first time you showed your capabilities. You will need to work harder."

"Heh, slow learner," Tekiteh muttered, though loud enough for us to hear.

Brendan made no move to indicate he heard what he said but nodded to Elder Gong's words instead.

"Alright, let's move on to the next lesson then. Today we'll be--"

"Hey what about the other virgin?" Tekiteh protested, his finger pointed directly at me. "You forgot about him!"

Elder Gong sighed, "That... It's not necessary I already… Erm…"

Tekiteh gritted his teeth, "That's not fair at all, you saying this little idiot here gets a free pass for no reason?! What the hell?!"

I noticed a single drop of sweat rolling past Elder Gong's brow, it was clear he had no idea on what to do.

Obviously, this wasn't planned, I never expected Elder Gong to skip me entirely which doesn't make any sense if he wanted to help me keep up my ruse.

"It's fine, Elder Gong. Let me," I assured him, stepping forward to assume my position.

He looked at me and gave me a grateful nod, an action that might have been mistaken as a nod to go ahead by the other students.

Not wanting to raise any suspicions from the other students and especially not from Sylphy, I focused my senses to try and complete my turn in the most basic of ways as possible.

Oh hey, maybe I can make it look like I'm barely passing or something? That might help explain why Elder Gong wanted to skip me because I was a lost cause? Yeah, let's go with that.

First, a deep breath to draw in the Elemental Quarks into my Cultivation Point.

Visualise the small orb of light materialising in the area above my palm, then slowly bring in the exact amount needed for that Technique to materialise.

My Pure Elemental Quarks changed into Light Quarks within my Cultivation Pont and I sent it down my Quark Veins to travel up towards my palm.

A second later, an orb of light was formed and the entire process took just under six seconds.

Heh, how's that for a mediocre student? Bet they're disappointed and laughing at this failure student now, eh?

"What… What was that?" 'Chris with a K' gasped.

"Perfect Circulation?! The exact amount of Quarks were used?!" Sylphy muttered, displaying the same level of surprise.

Brendan's eyes were staring unblinkingly at me, "No loss in conversion either?! But… But that was only possible in theory!"

Only Elder Gong seemed to be the most composed, if you could call a person nodding his head while wiping away tears from his eyes as composed, that is.

What the hell did I do wrong this time?!