Parallel Memory

Anyway, after the tournament, students were convinced of their power, and more than ever, they were eager to make friends with them.

It was not surprising that those looking for connections flocked to Hiro and Zero's table.

Many were still wandering around and chatting with Hiro but a couple of the students also came to Zero in hope of making some kind of connection with them. However, with Zero's indifference, they soon gave up the idea.

Students tried their best to talk to Zero, but he kept a straight face throughout the conversation making others feel awkward. They thought that he was not interested in them.

Though the reality was far from it. It was not that he didn't like them or anything but he simply didn't know what to do when others came and talked to him. He was willing to but he didn't seem to make a good impression on other people.

In other words, Zero was bad at making friends.

However, unlike before, they were some students who were friends with Zero. There was Sylvia, who is his closest friend. Then there is that Professor Mia fan club president who can't stop singing the praises of Professor Mia to him.

And also its members, who think that Zero has done great service to their goddess by providing a place to showcase her beauty.

Zero would always twitch his mouth when he heard it because he had to suffer because of that. It was fortunate that it was only Professor Mia who found that out.

If Sylvia also came to know that he had made the Sylvia Fan club in Twitflick, he couldn't imagine his fate. As her friend, he had known her hatred towards the person who had made that page.

Every time those topics came up in their conversation, Zero tried to change the subject and said she shouldn't be angry at those idiots. He was trying his best to hide that fact from Sylvia as well as Lisa.

Anyway, after the tournament, Zero spent a good time on campus.

To Zero, the current situation in the school was comfortable for him and he felt a little sad when he thought about leaving this place.

For Zero, for as long as he could remember, he found it difficult to form any kind of relationship with others. This was a precious time for him.

However, that emotion lasted for a second. Because for him, he could not waste his time knowing about future disasters.

The class continued as normal for most of the days.

The only thing that was a little different was the increase in the number of journalists outside the school campus.

It was already normal for us to see many journalists before the Tournament of Academies, due to Professor Mia.

But this number just jumped up due to Ace Academy winning the tournament.

Winning the tournament was nothing new for Ace Academy, which had been defending its title for two decades. However, this year, the Tournament of Academies was different.

The odds against Ace Academy were heavily stacked and Arcane Academy was favored to win. With the appearance of Ruelle, a rank-B student, it was more apparent that Arcane Academy would take the championship.

Additionally, Ace Academy was discriminated against by the referee, which put them at a disadvantage by removing their strongest students.

Even then, Ace Academy displayed its mighty power once again and won the championship. This scandal was worth publishing and also knowing the thoughts of Ace Academy on that matter.

The journalists were also eager to interview Lisanna as well as other participants from Ace Academy. To them, the participants from Ace Academy were kind of newly crowned celebrities.

As long as the news was about them, people were interested in watching it. News companies could not let this opportunity go and sent their employees to Ace Academy to collect news.

Moreover, the number of agents from Guilds entering the Ace Academy had increased. Before the tournament, only a couple of the Guilds would send their agent to recruit the third-year students.

Now that the tournament has ended and the guilds have seen the talent of the students, they went full force to recruit the talented students. And as the champion of the tournament, Ace Academy students were the hot commodities.

Obviously, the tournament participants were the top choice for most guilds, but some small guilds opted to go for non-participants who were powerful and were more likely to join them.

Participants would get invitations from many guilds and they would obviously choose the bigger guild.

Those who failed to be selected as participants - like some of the former Top-10 rankers of the third year - are left with no other choice but to join small guilds. They were the target of those small guilds.

We say small guilds, but they must have been at least Gold-ranked. Below that level, only some untalented students from Ace Academy would join.

Anyways, in a couple of weeks, the third years were going to be graduated and they had to choose their future path.

As for Lisanna, she had been approached by The Authority to join them and it didn't seem like Lisanna was against the idea.

Lisanna likes to maintain order and The Authority was the right place for her. She also met with many other prominent organizations including the church who also wanted to recruit her.

The school campus was currently filled with people of all types and from a wide range of backgrounds. It was also not uncommon to see Rank-S coming into campus from time to time.

Other than third-year students, not much impact was there on the first-year and second-year students. It was still necessary for them to go to class and attend regular classes as before.

Nevertheless, many professors who will attend Zero's class will not forget to congratulate Zero and others for their brilliant performance.

They would often spend quite some time expressing their thoughts and their feelings about the tournament. They would take them as an example for other students to follow.

Most professors had a positive feeling about Zero after the tournament.

Before the tournament, while some professors did acknowledge Zero for his talent, due to many rumors about him being cowardly and underhanded, many professors didn't have favorable opinions of Zero.

However, after watching the tournament, many had changed their minds and now their appreciation for Zero was at the level of Hiro.

However, certain individuals were not very happy with this development. Professor Williams, who had been trying to drag Zero down the drain had been angry for the past few days.

Professor William takes Zero as a rival in his conquest to conquer Professor Mia. For him, Zero was a thorn in his path and is meant to be eliminated.

He traveled with Ace Academy professors to the tournament but unlike the others who were there to help Ace Academy, he was there just because he wanted to eliminate Zero.

He had been giving information about their school participants to other schools such as Arcane Academy and Skyline Academy in hope that they would help him defeat Zero.

However, Zero's power was beyond his imagination and everything that he provided to other schools seemed like fake information.

As a result, after the first round, Professor William began to be distrusted, and other schools' professors thought that Professor William was giving them information that was the trick of Ace Academy.

Professor William gritted his teeth in anger because his plan obviously failed. For him, this was not his mistake, but that of other schools. He believes that they are incompetent to even defeat a single student.

He also stopped relying on them. He then turned to other people who were willing to help him. The Authority people.

He had also cooperated with Ulv Sylvester. Professor William started giving information about his parents and friends and how to deal with him. Obviously, Ulv did not blindly believe him and had done his own research.

But he maintained a good image in front of Professor Wiliam. Ulv made a wise choice by having Professor William owe him, whose father is Rank-SS. Therefore, he acted as if he had done things according to Professor William.

During the time when Zero was being beaten left and right, Professor William was filled with joy. He knew at that time that his plan was working and that he would be able to exact his revenge.

However, even that joy lasted for only a few minutes and Zero had managed to do the impossible. All of them including the Rank-B girl who had the same strength as him had been defeated by him.

He knew that Zero's strength was above his and this further angered him. Though he consoled himself by saying that Ruelle was just an amateur and he was more powerful than her.

The only achievement that he felt was that Zero was eliminated in the second round which relieved his mind. In spite of Zero's popularity, it was not as high as when one won the tournaments.

After the tournament, Professor Mia had suggested to the school that Zero should be rewarded by giving access to the Treasury and this infuriated him.

( Treasury? To Zero? )

This was tantamount to giving his enemies the nuclear code. He had to stop this from happening at all costs. He began resisting such a choice with a couple of his lackeys who supported him.

As it turned out, those who he had thought would not interfere helped Zero at the last minute.

( Those geezers! )

He was absolutely angered at the senior professors who had supported the idea of Professor Mia.

In earlier times, those senior professors would not interfere with him. At most, they would suggest some other ways to solve the problem but they would not go against his choice.

In this case, he expected the same thing to happen. He had his father's power to back him up and those senior professors would not necessarily fight for Zero who is just a kid.

At last, Zero was given permission, and he had no choice but to accept. However, the idea of retaliation never went away.

The more Professor Mia helped Zero, the more he wanted to kill Zero.

"Just wait! It was not that I wanted to do this but it was you who forced me! Hahaha…"