Chapter 111.

PART 1.

James is back to his full strength. It is a good thing that he could recover in the room in peace since time is very fast compared to the world outside here. When they come out with the potion formula, Hatori and James have spent a month in the room, while outside only a day passed.

‘This room has to be one hell of a cheat device. This makes me wonder. Why did the sorcerer leave it here?’ thinks Hatori.

“Hey guys, you look haggard. What happened?” asked Josh.

“We found the formula,” said James, “But I need some time to rest, preferably sunbathing.”

Josh agrees, both of his friends look pale like they have not seen the sun for days. Taking the formula from James, he leaves to show it to Dhiraj, leaving James to relax. Hatori didn’t wish to relax since he still had enough energy, he just looked a little bit pale, so he came with Josh to see the professor.

“Hey professor,” said Josh, “I think we have the formula.” Josh hands over the note.

Hatori sees a corpse in the room and immediately jumps to a conclusion. “You got sick of Sultan, and murdered him!” he said with horror.

“What? No,” said Dhiraj. “This is just an alchemically created body which I used for the class today. Something which you will know if you ever bother to attend the class.” He grumbled.

“Who murdered who now?” asked Sultan, coming out from the lab.

“Nothing.” Said Hatori with a straight face. “No one murdered anyone.”

“Hmm. the formula seems right, but we cannot say anything without testing it. did the sorcerer note the details?” asked Dhiraj.

“No. there was only this incomplete formula, which apparently can nullify the effects of this potion permanently. James says he has completed it.” explains Hatori.

“Normally, I would explode with rage here, but truly, the formula has no problem. We have to brew it to know whether it works or not. my slave will help you in brewing this potion.” Said Dhiraj, not asking for the opinion of Sultan.

“Only because the potion is unique, not because you order me.” he made it clear.

“When should we brew it?” thinks Josh.

“Wait for tomorrow.” Said Hatori. “I think the person in question should be there so we can observe the effects immediately.”

“Makes sense.” Said Josh. They agreed to brew the potion tomorrow.

PART 2.

Hatori left the letter on the fifth bed, telling the person to be in Professor Dhiraj’s lab at three in the afternoon. “Okay. but how do we confirm that they are here?” asked Sultan.

Chalk starts to hover, which only Josh and Hatori can see. “Where is it?” asked Sultan, unable to see the object hovering right in front of him. “Let’s say we have the confirmation, shall we? And let’s begin the brewing. I hope you two are ready to prepare the ingredients.” Said Sultan with a smirk.

They follow the formula, heating the potion, adding the ingredients to the simmering liquid, letting it cool down, and preparing more ingredients in the meantime. Josh and Hatori learn why Sultan was smirking, their arms started to ache after hours of chopping, grinding, pealing, and other preparations they had to make with the ingredients. But their effort paid off, and the potion was ready after a grueling seven hours of brewing.

“You think that is difficult? There are potions which can take days to brew.” Said Sultan.

“Yeah, not interested in those.” Said Hatori, and Josh agreed.

“How will it take effect?” asked Josh.

“According to the formula, it should start steaming, and spread around the world through magic,” said Sultan.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Said Hatori.

“That is because it is magic,” said Sultan, as the potion begins to steam. The steam touches Shin, and he pops into existence, and the memories related to him hit everyone as if someone opened a dam in their head.

Hatori and Josh stagger from these memories. coupled with their exhaustion, they are not ready to see a girl appear with Shin. Hatori, ever the paranoid, prepares a spell to attack her, but Shin manages to stop him.

“Stop, she is not a threat,” he said to them, coming in front of her protectively.

“Whatever, I’ll deal with it tomorrow.” Said Hatori.

“Huh. I didn’t expect the reunion to be this dull.” Said Sultan, as the boys leave for their dorm.

But the girl was stopped by Sultan. “You should come with me miss, professor Dhiraj will like to see you.” said Sultan, ‘And Slaughter, probably.’ He added in his head.

He is disturbed by her look, the girl looks no more than twelve years old, but she gives him a look like she is his great-great-grandmother. Thankfully, Professor Dhiraj and healer Slaughter take the matter into their own hands, relieving Sultan from looking after this strange girl.

PART 3.

After one and a half months of wild campaigning, the time of the results is here. This moment is producing the same tension as the results of the exams produce, except that only a few students, who participated in the elections are feeling this tension.

Professor Bali is put in charge of making sure that the voting process is fair, and that there is no funny business during the counting. The professor is likely to kill any student who tries to cheat the system since Corvus very publicly told him to do so. Therefore, the chances of cheating are very low.

“Alright, quiet down. Here are the results!” the board which usually shows the rankings of the students at the end of the year is showing the candidates, who are ranked according to the amount of votes they have received from the students.

Josh is at the top with seventy percent of the votes, while Kangana is at the second rank, with only twenty percent of the votes. the gap between the second and first ranks is huge, and this gets even bigger with the third rank and beyond. However, Josh’s supporters started to celebrate, and their candidate won quite strongly.

As Professor Bali leaves, considering his duty to be done, Josh assumes the office of the president, which has sat empty since last year when Hatori killed Ramesh in front of everyone. The next day in the newspaper, everyone gets to see who he has chosen for the membership in his council. the readers are not surprised to see students coming from lower families or even nameless ones. However, they are surprised to see even noble students, represented by Avinash.

“I have been given this responsibility for a reason, not because I come from a noble background.” Said Avinash when questioned about his position in the council. “I fully intend to fulfill my responsibilities.”

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Hatori throws the paper aside. “Well, he is already good at producing empty word salads.” He muttered in disgust.

“Now now, don’t be so harsh.” Said Shin, “That is part and parcel of the job. Besides, I thought he would refuse since he wouldn’t want to serve under anyone. The king does not serve anyone or some other bullshit.”

“I thought that too. But Josh has an even harder challenge in front of him. juggling all these different personalities in the council, and running it without splintering into another chaotic situation.” Said Raven.

“I doubt the professors would tolerate that. they are likely to finish the idea of students doing politics entirely.” Said James.

“That is a possibility.” Agreed Raven.

“How is Lavanya doing, by the way?” asked Hatori to Shin.

“Oh, she is doing fine. It is hard to adjust in this new environment, she is very unlikely to get along with the girls of her own age.” Said Shin.

“Probably. She may not look it, but she is much older and more experienced than them,” said Raven.

“I hear that the professors tested her on various subjects.” Said James. “Did you know about the result?” he asked Shin since he is the one who has remained in contact with the girl.

“Oh, she did good. apparently, attending classes for 300 years can turn you into a topper.” Said Shin with a smile.

“Or a most boring person in the world, with a dead soul, who has nothing when it comes to imagination.” Said Hatori.

“She isn’t like that.” protested Shin.

“I’ll decide that for myself when she decides to talk to us,” said Hatori.

Lavanya has not made any contact with Shin’s friends. This actually caused a lot of grumblings by Raven and Josh, but to antisocial guys like James and Hatori, it doesn’t make much difference. That girl will talk to them when she is ready, or she will never talk to them. whatever she decides to do, it doesn’t make any difference in their own world.

Professor Dhiraj has told them that the news of people appearing out of nowhere is coming from various parts of the world, and so far, 300 people have appeared from various eras and times. the historian mages are hounding these people since not only do they come from specific periods, but they have witnessed a lot of events happening directly, or have seen its impact.

But the boys decided to keep it among themselves that they were the ones who were involved with this nullification of the potion. It works as well, Professor Dhiraj has tested it on some lifeless objects already. He is hesitant to test it on living people or animals, deeming it to be too cruel, even by mage standards.

PART 4.

“Man president, you are really working hard.” Said a head coming out of the wall. “Here’s some coffee for you.” a hand comes out, and gives a cup full of coffee to Josh.

“Yeah, thanks Hatori, looks like the previous council was ignoring a lot of the issues, which I have to handle.” Said a bleary-eyed Josh. He sips the coffee and chokes after realizing he is talking to a head in a wall. “What…” he wheezed, “What happened to you?”

“Oh, nothing. I just acquired a new ability to turn into a ghostly form, and go across the objects.” Said Hatori, coming out of the wall, and the smoky cloud congeals into the humanoid form of his friend, who just hovers above the ground.

He moves from near the wall to next to him, looking like he is walking in the air. though Josh observes he is not moving his legs. “You’re flying. How?”

“Oh, I’ve been working on this since the last year.” Said Hatori. “This isn’t the effect of a spell or some runes. This is just pure magic applied.”

“Ug. That entire thing never made sense to me,” said Josh. “Besides, flying is illegal, the airship companies outlawed it years ago.”

“Do you think I give a damn?” asked Hatori.

“Language!” chastised Josh. “Is that a way to talk to the president, huh?”

“If the president is my friend, then yes.” Said Hatori.

Josh throws the empty cup at Hatori, which he dodges by smoothly shifting his position in the air. “I do think it helped that I spend a lot of time with crows. Maybe my magic picked something from them,” said Hatori, ignoring the shattered cup behind him.

“Dammit, now I must clean.” Said Josh.

“Language!” mimics Hatori.

“Oh, don’t you start now.” He spoke.

“Well, here’s some help for you.” without even turning around, the shattered pieces of the cup disappear. “You’ve learned the Vanishing spell I see.” Said Josh.

“It was very hard. All the time my instincts were screaming at me that I could end up leveling the whole school by a mistake.” Said Hatori. “But nothing happened when my spell failed.”

“Of course, nothing happened. This is one of those spells that have safety built into it over the years, much like the shrinking spell,” said Josh.

“By the way, I heard you raged a lot today, nearly taking the head off of Praduman.” Said Josh.

“Come now, it wasn’t rage, it was just friendly competition. Which do get a little out of hand when he actually dares to use the things which he learned against me last year.” Said Hatori darkly. He is still sore over how the previous council showed all his memories to the students.

“Look, you have to calm down. Your anger is not healthy. You need help.” said Josh.

“I don’t need any help,” said Hatori, using the three dees: deny, deny, deny.

“I knew you would say that. therefore, we have decided to take the matters into our own hands.” Said Josh.

Hatori shivers. “What did you morons do?” he asked, not liking where this is going.

PART 5.

Kangana lost the election, but she is not broken up about it. she is pragmatic enough to acknowledge that Josh is just better than her when it comes to manipulating the public’s emotions. She also shouldn’t have listened to her advisers, who actually told her that unrealistic promises do work. She got a lot of flak for promising better marks while knowing fully well that is something not in her hands.

But she has learned a lot from this entire experience. And she is sure that it will only going to help her in the future. She opens the newspaper, and skipping headlines about her public appearances (she is not vain enough to read about herself all the time unless she needs to know about the public perception of her), she sees an ad.

“Help wanted!” screamed the banner. “Are you good with public relations? Can you handle difficult clients? Do you know how to control your anger? Then Hatori Eagle needs a person just like you! Please contact Shin for further details.” Said the ad.

‘Well, looks like another chance to show my talents has come so soon already.’ She smiled.