Project J and the Time Walker

Chapter 8 Ronnie's Eyes are Burning

Chapter 8
Ronnie’s Eyes are Burning

C A D E N C E

As I stared at the chart that Professor Villa, I noticed how the others looked so bored while doing our job.

Three hours had passed since we started inspecting the list in Dad’s chart. With Finn and the principal’s help, we managed to inspect all of the things in the chart except the last one.

We were sitting in the principal’s office in our Nightingale Academy uniform, along with Finn who wore a plain white shirt and black pants.

The room was as large as Professor Villa’s. The walls was painted with white while the pair of long couches in the center were made of dark oak wood. There were bookshelves and cabinets in the room just like Dad’s. Other than those, the rest of the interior designs looked like the designs in Principal Althea’s room.

“Let me see.” Nicky scooted towards me and looked at the last list in the chart. “The last thing in the chart is the pillar thing.”

I narrowed my eyes as I stared at the last list in the chart. Since Professor Villa and the others told us not to dig deeper about the pillar, we didn’t know anything about them. I just deducted that the principal would inspect the last thing in the list for us.

“Don’t worry about the pillar. Our pillar is good as ever,” the principal told us as she was sitting in her seat.

The eleven of us were sitting on the couches as we were staring at the principal with our curious eyes. Even though that the professors told us not to dig deeper, I couldn’t help myself but to think.

“I see.” I took the chart and handed it to the principal so she could personally wrote the details about their school’s pillar.

After she wrote the report about the pillar, she folded the chart like a letter and inserted it into a long envelop that she got from her cabinet. She sealed the envelope with a stamp that contained a high-quality enchantment.

“Only Professor Villa is the only who can open this letter. Make sure to give this letter to him. Even with the stamp’s enchantments, the envelope’s protection can still be broken.” She handed me the letter while I received it with my eyes narrowed.

“Understood.”

“By the way, Professor Villa told me a couple of minutes ago that you will go back to the Nightingale Academy two days from now. He told me that you can spend your free time here as you wish as long as you follow the rules. As for the crystal ball he ordered, here it is.” She brought out a metallic box. The box’s width, length, and height was about one foot long.

“I appreciate your hard work.” I gently took the box, while I was caring not to drop it.

The land where the Crystal University stands on had the richest special energy in the ground—except for the capital at least. Because of their special energy rich land, the land beneath the campus had many high-quality crystals infused with special energy.

According to Professor Luke, the crystals beneath the campus contained massive amounts of special energy that was very valuable. Because of the high value of the crystals, the principal and the governor of the Silangan Region were doing their best to protect the land from illegal mining.

The crystals also produced massive amounts of special energy, which were very dangerous if it weren’t under control. To keep the special energy in the soil beneath the campus under control, the professors who specialized in mining and ecosystem carefully extracted some of the crystals that were growing under the campus.

“That is the made of the most high-quality crystal that we harvested this year. It contains the highest amount of special energy we ever seen in this generation, so keep it safe.”

“Understood.”


“So what are we going to do now?” Ronnie asked as we were walking in the hallway.

It was Monday in the after and everyone in the campus was busy. Finn couldn’t come with us because of his schedule was always packed every Monday. He told us that he would join us after his afternoon classes.

Without Finn around, we discussed some things about Adrien Rondo in the morning. Nicky tried to get more information about Adrien Rondo, but it seemed that his background was pretty clean for me.

According to Nicky’s investigation, Adrien’s mother was a single parent, but even so, she did her best to take care of her sons. Unfortunately, she was killed during the Great Demon War, which left Adrien and his little brother parentless. Luckily for them, a man adopted them and took them to his home in Silangan Region.

Even with Nicky’s investigation, I still had suspicions about Adrien Rondo. I could feel that he had a massive special energy capacity that was comparable to a champion’s, which gave me even more reason to be suspicious.

“How about we wonder around just for a bit?” Sally asked with a wide grin in her face.

“Without Finn or any guide, around we couldn’t just wonder around the campus,” Riesa commented.

“But it is sooo boring here.” Harvy stretched out his big and muscular arms after he yawned.

While discussing what we should do, my eyes caught a familiar girl wearing a Crystal University uniform. Her wavy, red hair looked like a red flame from a burning wood. She was walking in the hallway towards us while carrying a bunch of books.

“Calyx!” Tiara immediately ran towards Calyx the moment she saw him.

“Wassup?” Calyx asked.

Harvy’s eyes darted at Tiara with an awkward smile in his face. Ronnie and the other guys’ eyes were also darted on Tiara, but unlike Harvy, they all just smiled at her normally. The girls and I on the other hand just looked at Tiara with our eyes filled with surprise.

Unlike the time last time I saw Tiara, this time she was many times more beautiful. I knew it was because of her special ability, but I still couldn’t deny the fact that she was truly beautiful.

“So what are you carrying there?” Calyx asked.

“Just a bunch of books that I need to bring to my professor.”

“Let me help ya.” Calyx took all of the book from Tiara’s hand with a smile in his face.

I couldn’t tell if he was doing it because of Tiara’s special ability or just because of pure kindness. Tiara, on the other hand, looked surprised, which was pretty odd if she was using her abilities. I just narrowed my eyes on the both of them while I dug deeper in my thoughts.

“You don’t need to do that, Calyx. I can do it myself.” Tiara tried to take back the books from Calyx’s arms, but Calyx avoided her hands.

“It’s no problem .”

Tiara pouted at him but Calyx just laughed at her. Tiara attempted to take back the books many times, but Calyx just avoided her hands. As both of them were flirting, I heard Ronnie and others were laughing at the both of them.

“Why you suddenly became a gentleman, Calyx?” Sally asked after she took a photo of the two of them, but Calyx just glared at her.

“What are you guys doing anyway?” Tiara asked with a smile in her face.

“We were just wondering what we should do. Since Finn is in his class for the entire afternoon, we couldn’t just wonder around the campus without any guide,” August answered.

“You guys haven’t memorized the entire campus, aren’t you?”

Calyx nodded in response.

“Since Calyx is going to help me return this books, I should tour you guys as a thanks. I just finished all of my classes and things I need to take care of, so I think it would be just fine.”

The others rejoiced after hearing her proposal. Harvy and the others rejoiced and looked at Calyx with their eyes, like they were saying the words: Go help her or I will tear you into pieces. With the eyes targeting Calyx, his left eye twitched as he wore his awkward smile.

“Let’s go then, Calyx.” Tiara looked at us with her blue eyes sparkling with joy. “You guys wait here. We will come back just in a bit.”

Together with Calyx who was carrying the pile of books, Tiara walked towards one of the faculty room. The rest of us who were left out waited for them while Harvy and the others talked about Tiara and Calyx.

“Those two looked like a couple,” Sally whispered.

“They are not,” Harvy disagreed, with a pout on his face.

“You’re just wasting your time, Harvy. It is pretty obvious that Tiara got her eyes on Calyx. I mean, look at her smile. There are still many cute girls out there.” Ronnie patted Harvy’s back with a smile on his face.

I couldn’t argue with them though.

As I looked at Calyx and Tiara happily walking towards the faculty room, I couldn’t deny the fact that they looked made for each other. I was sure that Calyx liked her too. With her pretty face and cute smile, she had the blessing of the spirit of Beauty.

“You are jealous, aren’t you?”

Chills ran through my body after I heard those words. I faced Nicky with an scandalized face expression.  My eyes widened as they were both raging like an angry furnace.

Despite facing her with my death glare, Nicky just sighed and faced my with her calm smile. She then looked at the two before she moved a little closer towards me.

AWOO!

After I heard the weird howl that seemed to be similar to the one that I heard back in the Cave of Truth, I immediately searched for the source of the howl. Nicky and the other were searching as well, with their cautious eyes.

“There!” Mike shouted.

I and the others immediately looked at Mike, who was pointing at the grey wolf in the hallway. All of us immediately drew our weapons and pointed them at the grey wolf. Since there were no students in the hallway because of classes, no screams could be heard in the hallway.

Since I didn’t had any weapon like Sally and the others, I just created a sword made of ice in my hand. The wolf lunged towards me, but with just a single swing, the wolf turned into ashes.

“What was that?” Harvy asked.

Before I could even answer, I heard footsteps that were rushing towards us.

“Are you students okay?” the principal asked as she was running towards us with an alerted expression on her face.

“We are okay, ma’am.” Calyx answered.

“Thank goodness. Just a few seconds ago, I noticed a corrupted special energy in this area. After I noticed it, I immediately rushed here to check it myself,” the principal said while she was looking at the dust that the wolf left in the ground, “But it seems like you students already handled it.”

The principal then stared at us observantly, as if we had done something wrong. I immediately figured out that the principal was probably confused by how we killed the demon easily. If some other students were in our shoes, they would run away.

“Is there any demons in the area, ma’am?” Nicky asked.

“No, Miss Alcantara.”

“If you can sense if there are demons in the area, why didn’t you notice it before it even entered the campus?” August let his spear to return to his bracelet, while he was staring at the principal cautiously.

“That’s the most confusing thing, the demon just came out of nowhere. Just a few minutes ago, I didn’t notice any strange activity, then suddenly, I noticed that there was a demon in here.”

I fell into thought as I was staring at the principal with my confused eyes. The fact that a demon just appeared at the middle of Crystal University out of nowhere was both suspicious and confusing.

“Me and my staffs will investigate things later, so you students don’t need to worry about this. You already showed your help by eliminating the demon. Leave the rest to us.”
“Understood.” I used my abilities to disintegrate the ice sword on my hand, just like what I did after I save Calyx when he was attacked back in winter.

The principal then left us to meet with the other professors due to the appearance of the demon in the campus. Even though she already left us, I still knew that she was suspicious about us, especially that I killed the demon with just a single slice.

“Danger always follow us, don’t you guys think?” Ronnie ordered his weapon to return to his bracelet, like what mike and the others did. May also hid her knife, so no one would see them.

“Sorry for keeping you guys waiting!” Tiara and Calyx ran towards us with their cheeks blushing for some sort of reason.

I noticed that both of them were wearing a troubled expression. Calyx looked like dead plant, while Tiara looked even cuter than before. I wondered what happened to the both of them.

“What happened?” Harvy asked with a concerned expression on his face.

“The professors in the faculty were just surprised when they see me helping Tiara. Some of them glared at me with the same death glare as Cadence’s. It’s really annoying,” Calyx answered with a defeated smile on his face.

Even though all he just did was to carry a pile of books, it looked like an exhausted farmer from a farm. 

“Even some of them were . . . some of them were teasing the both of us.” Tiara said without making any eye contact to anyone of us with face red beet.

“There you are.” Tiara’s elder brother ran towards us with a smile in his face.

He looked just the same as the last time I saw him. He was still wearing his pair of sunglasses, but he was now wearing a Crystal University uniform. From my back, I heard Sally’s squeal the moment she saw Tiara’s older brother. Nicky and the other girls were blushing also, except for May who was busy looking around that hallway.

“My name is Travis. I’m Tiara’s big brother.” He smiled at us with as he tiled his head.

I could feel the heat building up in my face as I stared at Travis’ perfect face. I averted my eyes and took a deep breath. His special ability surely was powerful. I couldn’t sense the special energy flowing around him, but I was sure that it was all because of those glasses.

“My name is Nicky.” Nicky stepped forward and offered her hand.

“Nice to see you, Nicky.” Travis and Nicky shook their hands, but suddenly I noticed something weird. Ronnie’s eyes were staring at the both of them with his eyes raging like an angry furnace.