After leaving the classroom, most of the students walked towards Block A of the academy, where the resource centre was located.
An undercurrent of excitement flowed among the students, and everyone was quite eager to see what they were going to receive from the academy.
"What do you think we will get?" Athar suddenly heard one of the boys asking as he leaned towards him.
"I do not know," he replied curtly.
"I am Jason," the boy introduced himself as he extended his hand towards Athar. This young man was slightly chubby in appearance and was a head shorter than Athar.
"Athar," Athar introduced himself.
"Where do you come from?" Jason asked.
"Zone 26," Athar answered, and hearing this, a slight frown appeared on Jason's face.
Nawarin city was divided into 27 zones. The greater the number of the zone, the further away it was from the centre of the city.
Zones like 25, 26, and 27 were infamous for their poverty, lawlessness, and being the least developed and most insecure areas of the city. In the interior of the city, these parts were referred to as slums.
The administrative buildings were located in zone 1, while the academy was located in zone 3.
Zone 3 was one of the most renowned areas of the city. Zone 3 was the largest zone in the entire Nawarin city and was five times the size of an average zone.
The academy itself occupied a humongous amount of space, which had made the size of the zone extremely large.
"I belong to zone 5," Jason said. His expression of friendship had vanished from his face and had now been replaced by indifference. It was like that he did not tell his zone, but he said that both of them belonged to two different worlds, had a vast gap in their status and they could not be friends.
Jason did not linger any longer with Athar as he moved ahead to talk to other students.
Athar shook his head. This would not be the first time he had been judged based on his status. But very soon, his strength would rise, and so would his status.
The students reached Block A of the academy, and Athar could spot four parallel lines being formed at the Resource Centre counter. One line for each year.
Although the area was a bit crowded and the lines a bit long, the lines were moving at a rapid speed. The four people behind the counter seemed very efficient in their work.
Athar joined the line for the first-year students. It took around ten minutes for his turn to come. As soon as he was at the counter, he placed his metallic ID card on the table. A middle-aged man behind the counter picked it up, scribbled the information in a register, and then placed a small cloth sack on the table. No exchange of words was needed.
Athar picked up the sack and his ID as he walked away from the line. He did not linger there any longer as he walked straight back to his room. Although he was excited to see the contents of the sack, he decided it would be better if he did it in the quiet of his room.
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Athar closed the door of his room and plopped himself on his bed, pulling the thin rope tied around the mouth of the sack, revealing its contents. He slowly took out the items.
The first thing was mana crystals. These were blue in colour. Although these crystals looked similar to what Athar had been using his entire life- F Rank crystals, he knew that these were different. The glow around these crystals was brighter, and Athar could feel that the mana inside these crystals was also denser inside these crystals.
"E Rank," he muttered to himself. There were fifteen of these crystals.
The average exchange rate of one E Rank crystal to an F Rank crystal was somewhere between 50 to 100, depending upon the quality and mana density of both the crystals.
The second thing was beast cores. These beast cores were around the size of a fist and were dark black in colour. The sack contained five beast cores.
Although this was the first time Athar had seen a beast core from so close, he could recognise them. These were the cores of a Bronze grade F Rank monster.
Different beast cores had different appearances, and it would require some experience to judge them accurately. The only reason Athar had been able to judge them so accurately was because these were the most common of the beast cores, and he had read about them.
As far as Athar knew, one of these beast cores would sell for around 5 E Rank crystals.
There was a third and final item at the bottom. It was a small rectangular thin plastic box. Strapped inside the box were three pills. Athar did not know anything about them, but their names had been mentioned below the pills.
Two of them were light orange coloured pills—F Rank Mana Pill.
The second was a bright green coloured pill—F Rank Healing Pill.
Although Athar was not sure about them, their names gave him sufficient information about what these pills were for.
As Athar studied the resources, his mind wandered about what Dervin had said. He had asked 30% of these resources. And that amounted to a lot.
Athar did not know, from how many people Dervin was collecting his 'share' or how many people were in the web he had talked about or had he been just bluffing.
Athar knew nothing but he knew one thing that very soon everything will come knocking on his door. If Dervin really had a web, someone was sure shot to knock his door when he would not be giving even the dust of the sack in which he had brought his resources to Dervin.
Athar clenched his fist in resolve and yet he constantly reminded himself to tread cautiously.
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