—"Hey that's him right."
—"I still don't understand why a giftless like him is attending this school."
—"Can't believe after all that's happened, he still tries to act like an arrogant young master."
—"Guess he's still riding on the coattails of the Ainsworth family. Pathetic."
—"Hey did you see him in combat class. He challenged Aaron to a duel and got schooled."
—"Really? Guess all he did have was the Ainsworth name. Hahahaha."
These were the type of gossips that floated around Ryan as he walked past the students coming inside the training hall.
Hearing what his classmates and seniors were gossiping about him made him pissed. Pissed to the extent of clenching his fists so tightly, it almost bled.
But still, against his own desires, he chose not to make a scene and rather walked out of the hall, his head down with anger.
Ryan walked all the way to his dorm. It was a ten storey high building for the first year students.
Consisting of ten floors excluding the ground floor. Each floor had about thirty rooms, so the dorm all round had about three hundred rooms.
Ryan, upon getting to the dorm building, got into the elevator that took him to the third floor.
Upon arriving at the third floor, he got off the elevator, and walked toward the door of room 88.
He brought his key card and swiped it against the door. Following that action, the door opened with a soft click before he stepped in.
The room was quite spacious. It looked like the average hotel room of a five star hotel. It had everything one would need.
And yet, Ryan was aware, it could be better. This was just the first years dormitory and even then, this was not even close to being among the best rooms in the first-year's dorm.
The best rooms were in the top floor reserved for the top 30 first year cadets.
"Haaa. What a shitty day." Ryan muttered as he plopped on his bed and simply stared at his ceiling.
He was toast. After today, his already shaky standing in the clan would waver even more.
The clan had been barely tolerant of him so far and now he did the unthinkable. He lost to a grunt that wasn't even from a prevalent noble house.
He had lost to that urchin Aaron, and it wasn't even a close fight. He had been manhandled by Aaron thoroughly. So much so that he had to be sent to the infirmary afterwards.
RING! RING! RING!
A ringing sound echoed in the room, drawing Ryan's attention. He thought it was his phone at first, but it wasn't.
It was a circular device on his desk with light blinking in the center as it kept ringing. Seeing that was where the ringing was coming from, Ryan's chest tightened.
He already knew who was calling. Ideally, he would rather not answer but, he had to now. 'Answer and just pray for the best.'
He thought so as he pressed the center of the device that was flashing the light.
Immediately he did that, a hologram of a man in his early forties popped up. He had snow white hair with red streaks in between, that stretched all the way to his back.
He had pitch black eyes, and an almost unfriendly look on his face.
"H-Hello. Father." Ryan stammered out nervously.
The man didn't say anything as he simply glared at Ryan, looking at him from head to toe, almost in disgust.
"Hello, 'son'," The man responded back, his voice as he called him 'son' sounding almost disgusted.
"I heard about your little 'duel' today." The man added.
"Y-Yeah." Ryan replied nervously, as he rubbed the back of his head with his left hand while trying to avoid eye contact.
"Haa. You foolish boy." The man sighed, seemingly fed up with his incompetent son.
"Do you even know what you've done? Do you? You, the heir to the seat of house Ainsworth fought a no-name commoner and lost. Do you understand that?" The man asked, his voice still somewhat calm compared to what Ryan braced himself for.
"Do you?!" The man exclaimed as powerful aura erupted from him pushing Ryan down to his knees.
"Urgh!" He grit his teeth as he tried to endure the pressure.
"I have tolerated you, defended you before those bastard elders, even when you failed to awaken a gift, I told the elders to have patience.
So long as you awakened aura, you would definitely get your gift and yet... And what's worse is instead of you to even feel a little remorseful, you're out there gloating that you're the heir to house Ainsworth.
Going to brothels, doing drugs, you fucking waste! Haaa." The man sighed at the end of his rant.
"Enough. I now see that I have been a fool all this while to defend you. You're irredeemable scum. Losing to a peasant is a new low. It is a pity it came to this, 'son'."
Ryan's head simply remained lowered as his father spoke. The pressure had long been lifted, but he remained on his knees, his head lowered in shame.
The man then turned his back on Ryan as he spoke. "By my authority as head of the Ainsworth family, I, William Von Ainsworth, hereby strip you, Ryan Von Ainsworth, of your title as heir of the Ainsworth clan, and exile you.
Furthermore, you will be banished from District 5 upon your graduation/expulsion from the academy and shall no longer be allowed to bear the name, Ainsworth."
As William said all this, Ryan could feel his whole world just crash down in this very moment.
'No longer to bear the name Ainsworth', that was what rang in his head. All his privileges, the privileges that came with being the young master of one of the nine great families.
"Your remaining tuition fees till your third year have been taken care of. You may choose to stay at the academy. Or leave. Whichever suits you best." William added, his tone so nonchalant like he wasn't exiling his own son.
"That is all. Begone." William said as the hologram disconnected, leaving Ryan to wallow in his thoughts.