Lisa smiled, feeling guilty for thinking badly about avoiding Aiden yesterday, but on the other hand, she was glad to have met and been rescued by him.
"Nice to see you again, Aiden," Lisa replied, smiling sweetly.
Aiden nodded. The threat to him and his squad members gone, Lisa could go back to finding more gold plates.
Suddenly, Aiden felt a hot stirring in his stomach. He fell to his knees holding his hot stomach, his head felt dizzy and his energy was almost lost.
Aiden vomited blood from his mouth, just a little drop. Lisa and Helen saw that and rushed over to help Aiden recover.
'Damn!Using the Flaming Spear magic spell drained all 100 points of my MP,' Aiden replied.
'I don't have any MP Potion left, it looks like I'll have to rest until my MP is completely restored,' Aiden said.
Helen checked Aiden's condition thoroughly and matched Aiden's symptoms with those caused by magic and its use.
"I'm guessing he ran out of MP," Helen replied.
"MP? It looks like I still have one bottle of MP Potion left."
Lisa reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a blue-colored bottle of MP Potion.
Lisa gave the bottle to Aiden in return for the young man saving her, though Lisa didn't think it was enough to repay Aiden's kindness to her.
Helen nodded, accepted the bottle and removed the cap. Helen immediately helped Aiden drink the bottle until it was empty.
Slowly, the burning in Aiden's stomach faded, the dizziness in his head disappeared and his energy gradually recovered. One bottle of MP Potion could increase MP by 100 points.
Aiden had fully recovered. He sat on the ground and saw Lisa and Helen crouched nearby, full of worried looks.
"You girls don't need to worry. I'm good," Aiden explained.
Helen nodded, and Lisa responded in turn. They could finally rest for a while after the battle that had left many squad members on both sides injured.
"Where's your squad, Aiden?" asked Lisa, curious.
"I got dumped by them, they don't even really care about me," Aiden replied.
"Ahh, that really hurts. Our squad has seen mages like you a few times, they were dumped because their squad leaders thought they were useless," Lisa said.
"But you seem to be different, your squad will definitely regret dumping you," Lisa explained.
"I don't really care about them. If the rules allow it, I want to switch squads," Aiden said.
The rules said that any mage who had joined any squad was forbidden to switch squads. This made Aiden think that everything was at stake.
Lisa, a high talent girl, was forced to join another team which was quite difficult for her. Unlike the low talent mages who could benefit from the protection of the high talent mages.
"Unfortunately that can't be done, but look on one side, you're still alive even if you're fighting alone," Lisa explained, Aiden clearing his throat in approval.
He asked about Lisa's squad's next move, considering there were two of them left.
Lisa shook her head, her condition hadn't fully recovered and with the countdown to the main test getting closer, she could only do her best to survive and not get hurt in this test.
"In the end, I'll still fail," Lisa said, smiling a faint smile of resignation.
Helen looked down at her head, she didn't get a single gold plate after all her team members failed. Now, she could only surrender and leave everything to Aiden.
Aiden felt sad, even though Lisa had a great talent to become a top mage. However, because of this system, they were forced to fail and give up on their dreams.
"I understand," Aiden whispered.
"You don't have to be sad, I can go back to my family and run the family business, after all, my family strongly refused to let me take this test," Lisa explained.
Lisa and her friend got up, she was happy to see that Aiden had recovered, but she couldn't stay in that place for long. He had to go find shelter until the exam was over.
Aiden nodded, asking Lisa to always be careful. Lisa gave him the same advice.
In the end, it was just Aiden and Helen in that place. Aiden turned around, looking at Helen who was still slumped over.
'She's different from Lisa.The Reinhard family must have placed high hopes on her.That's what's making her more devastated by this situation than Lisa,' Aiden replied.
'I need to go see my squad and see how many gold plates they have,' Aiden said.
"What do we do now?" Helen asked.
Aiden turned his head and fell silent. He picked up the white plate and opened the map to see the locations of his three squad members. Apparently, they were not far from Aiden's location.
"We're going to meet my squad," Aiden replied, scaring Helen.
"Your squad? But I'm not—"
"Don't worry. I'll protect you," Aiden said.
Helen was silent for a moment, seeing the seriousness in Aiden's eyes. In the end, she agreed to do that.
They left following the directions on the squad map, heading southwest to meet them.
The longer they walked, the more Aiden heard the sounds of magic being released from them.
Aiden arrived near his squad, seeing Ronald and the others focused on defeating the C-level monsters attacking them.
Ronald was able to defeat them with his wind element, Clarissa and Melinda helped with their earth and water elements.
It didn't take long for the three to defeat the monsters and gain significant EXP.
As Ronald opened the map, he was surprised to see another glowing dot near them. This immediately made Ronald immediately call Aiden's name.
"Aiden! Where are you?" Ronald asked.
"What? The commoner is here?" asked Clarissa, scornfully.
Helen gasped, not knowing that Aiden was the commoner that the nobles talked about so much. Still, Aiden's appearance and strength did not reflect that he was a lower-class man.
"Apparently you've noticed, huh?"
Aiden got up, emerged from behind the trees and strode over with Helen following. They stared intently at Aiden, as well as at Helen. Helen felt an aura of intimidation from them.
"With your presence, our squad's strength has increased," Ronald replied.
"How many gold plates did you manage to collect?" asked Aiden, sternly.
Ronald paused, then turned to Clarissa and Melinda. It wasn't a good question to answer when another non-squad mage, Helen, was present.
Aiden saw their cautious attitude and told them that if Helen was his servant, she wouldn't betray Aiden and the 71st squad.
"We got 19 gold plates," Ronald said.
"We need about six more gold plates to qualify as a Silk-class academy student," Aiden replied.
"Tsk!"
"I don't want to be a Silk class student, it's an insult to me and my family!" complained Clarissa.
"What then? Are you gonna go after the best team and take all their gold plates? Do you have what it takes?" asked Aiden.
"There's Ronald here, he's a high talent mage. We have a chance, after all, if we succeed, you'll also benefit," Clarissa replied.
'No, a commoner in Iris's class has no advantage at all.My goal from the start was to join the Silk class,' Aiden retorted.
Aiden fell silent when Clarissa said that. Clarissa smiled and grinned, thinking that her words had gone to Aiden's head.
"See? You also seem to be interested in being Iris' class!" said Clarissa.
"And what about you, Aiden? How many gold plates have you gotten?" asked Clarissa.
"Wait! Let me guess, you've gotten 0 gold plates, right? HAHA!"
Aiden shook his head softly. He reached into his pocket and took out the 21 gold plates he had collected.
Ronald and the two women in front of Aiden were shocked; they never thought that Aiden could get more gold plates than they had.
"21 gold plates?" Ronald was shocked.
"Wait! How did you do that?" asked Clarissa.
"I knew there was something wrong with you from the first time I saw you," said Melinda.
"I was lucky enough to find this gold plate lying on the ground," replied Aiden.
Ronald and the two women looked at each other, then they nodded. Ronald stepped closer to Aiden, but Aiden immediately summoned his magic.
[Magic Element: Fire Arrows]
Aiden raised two fire arrows above his palms, then aimed one of them at Ronald's forehead. The incident was quite shocking to Clarissa and Melinda.
"Don't walk any closer!" said Aiden.
"You can leave the gold plate to me, Aiden. I'm the squad leader, I'll guarantee your safety," said Ronald.
"I can't do that," Aiden replied, making Ronald squint.
"If I hand it over, there's no guarantee of my safety. Besides, the three of you have been ignoring me from the first, so why would I give up my gold plate?" Aiden asked.
"Why are you so stubborn, Aiden?!" snapped Clarissa.
"Do you want to fight with us?!" shouted Clarissa.
Aiden narrowed his eyes to stare at Clarissa, then shot his other fire arrow right in front of her breast.
"I can kill you easily!" threatened Aiden.
"I'm not going to fight together with you. I just came to see how many gold plates you got!" said Aiden.
"We fight in our way."