Nirvana

Chapter Nine: I Stay Here Now

Two weeks later...

Elle busied herself with the skills she had learned from Isabelle. She wanted to use her newly acquired skills to make some pills she would use to gloat to Danté later on. She had gotten quite used to his forever bored expression and his smirking face. As she looked at the herbs on the table, she noticed two were missing. She had forgotten to pick them from their respective field gardens before coming back to her pill room.

She hurriedly went out to pick them and was on her way back when she met someone she hadn't seen for a while. She didn't feel so thrilled meeting this person again; once was enough for her.

Elle couldn't pretend not to see her as she was directly in her line of sight so she could only put on her fakest smile and say hello.

"Oh, hi!"

"..."

Diane looked at Elle without saying anything. She didn't like this "gifted" magian that Isabelle kept talking about. She was considered a genius herself at the institution being a level seven magian at nineteen years old but Elle was level five at seventeen years old without attending any institution and was practically self-taught.

Diane noticed they were both going to the direction of the west wing and snorted saying, "What are you doing?"

Elle replied, "I went to get some herbs from their field gardens."

Diane then turned her head and continued her destination to the west wing. She didn't want to say a word to Elle if she could help it.

Elle simply continued her journey back to the west wing too. She really couldn't be bothered by things that did not give her money or take money from her.

Diane didn't stop Elle from following her. She knew that the doors of the west wing wouldn't allow unauthorized people walk in through and was getting ready to gloat when the doors shut on Elle's face!

She walked a short distance in and turned back to watch but was shocked to see Elle directly walk through unharmed and even continue to walk past her like she had been here before. She sharply called out, "Stop right there!" Diane's tone was arrogant as she had been used to people trying their best to please her because of her level but most importantly because of her brother's connection with Danté.

Elle impatiently turned around to look at Diane. She didn't like this girl's tone at all and really wanted to ignore her but...

"Do you need something?" Elle asked politely.

"How come you can enter here? Did you talk to my brother or Isabelle about talking Danté into letting you in? And why are you bringing herbs in here?"

Elle was stupefied. Was this girl a guard of the west wing or something? What was with all the annoying questions? And again, the tone of her voice was really irritating.

"I stay here now" Elle simply stated. She didn't want to waste words with someone who couldn't even pretend to be nice.

In this world, being humble and respectful was the norm and very necessary. Respect wasn't earned by age but by one's power; age was definitely just a number. Most people were also hidden tigers so it was smarter to regard everyone politely if you weren't sure of neither their powers nor if they came from powerful families.

After Elle finished speaking, she immediately turned around to continue in the direction of her pill room. She made sure she gave the feeling that she wasn't going to turn around again even if something set Diane on fire.

Diane watched her disappear into the second floor. She waited a while then walked to Danté's study. She was indirectly going to ask Danté why Elle was here. She knew Danté did not have any special feelings towards her but seemed to tolerate her because she was related to Theo. Diane wasn't stupid, she always tried to show her impressive side to him so he would continue to tolerate her presence.

At first, she was really annoyed because he was the first person that looked right past her like she wasn't anything notable. She felt that if she didn't know Theo, he wouldn't even spare her a glance. However, she noticed that Danté seemed to treat everybody that way apart from this family. She started to push herself harder so she could stand out in his eyes because she genuinely admired Danté.

Diane knocked and then pushed open the doors to Danté's study. Whenever Danté actually wanted to see someone, the doors would open themselves when the person was close. The doors had only ever opened themselves twice for Diane.

Danté was sitting with his eyes closed and a bluetooth device was in one of his ears. Diane knew he was probably listening to one of his many company meetings but he could still hear their conversation downstairs.

His index finger was making circles on the mahogany table when he slowly opened his eyes to look straight at Diane. She felt all the questions she wanted to ask stick somewhere in her throat. He looked at her like he knew what she wanted to say and was directly telling her to stuff it.

"Only tell me what you actually came here for." Danté finally said. He felt all of Elle's impatience and irritation when talking to Diane downstairs. He silently applauded Elle for not being provoked at Diane's rude behavior.

Diane pulled herself together, fixed a smile on her face and said, "I wanted to know if you will be attending the Welcome Gala for the new students in the next two months."

"I'm not sure, change is constant" Danté simply said. He was listening to a little argument happening in a current meeting so he felt tired of both listening to anyone speak and also talking. Besides, he had to save his energy for the little magian's moneycrazy antics later.

"Yes, I'm sure some things come up at the last second sometimes. I'll ask again when it's closer to the time."

After Diane said that, she hurriedly took her leave. She wanted to find out more about Elle and why she even had a room here.

Danté also left his study and walked in the direction of a certain pill room...