Chapter 21: Mere Ants
The duo made their way through the halls of Celestia Academy until they reached a large open courtyard outside.
There, nearly two hundred beginner Summoners were gathered, along with their Spiritual Guardians.
Of course, not everyone had waited until the end to use the free benefits. Some had used them early on or at random moments. But others... Darian could tell, just from the look in about a third of them, that they were arrogant and overly confident.
Those ones hadn't touched the free benefits because they believed they'd get even more out of them by using them later. They were sure they could pass the trials without any help.
The fifteen they had seen in the hall before were just the average ones. They needed to use everything they had just to have a shot. The true elites weren't worried about any of that.
Among the crowd were that same man and woman from earlier. They were staring at Niara and Darian like they were standing in front of someone who'd murdered their parents.
Niara stopped off to the side in silence. Darian, meanwhile, scanned all the academy's new students and sighed. Back on Earth, the instructor had said that if three people passed the test from the Earth's group, that would already be impressive.
The entrance test happened once a year, and all the planets from the Divine Protection Universe sent their candidates.
Looking at that crowd, the division between the groups was obvious. They were organized in small groups, each standing apart from the others.
Why would they group up? The answer was obvious — they all came from the same planet and trusted in that shared origin.
They had only been here for twenty days, and this was a hostile universe where everything was unfamiliar. Even for the elite, trusting total strangers right away wasn't easy — just trusting their own Summoners was already enough of a leap.