"Man, this sucks" Harkel said while eating. "We have to eat this plain slop while he's enjoying those sandwiches."
"Let it go" Wren yelled out, having enough of the boy whining. "You could just go down to the city and get your own."
"But I don't feel like it, and plus class is about to start."
"You're lazy."
"Give him a break, all of us would prefer those sandwiches over this… whatever this is."
"I should be the one who's mad, I paid for that and didn't even get a bite."
The loud bell then rang, telling them it's time for class. They all split up.
"You guys sure Skye's going to be okay?" Jordan questioned.
"Eh, why would we be scared for her? She kicked the other girl's ass" Harkel replied back.
"Plus, she has friends with her. Why would we need to worry about her?" Leo joined.
"Hmm, fair points."
"So how have your combat classes been going?"
"It's been alright, but since abilities are allowed no one wants to fight me. Well, one person stepped up, but he lost and after that no one else challenged me" Joey answered.
"Do you blame them? Your ability is a strange one, one that no one has seen until today. Did you use those new skill tree moves that the system gave you?" Jordan whispered.
"Some of it, but not all of it"
"We'll see you guys later"
The four then split apart, going to their individual classes
Riven, Luka, and Skye all entered the class. When they did, all of the students looked at them—or more so, they were looking at Skye. They could also see Sarah with another girl beside her. Both Luka and Skye knew who this was: Samantha.
"Hey Riven," Luka whispered, "that's her, the person who beat the dog shit out of Harkel and Wren."
Harkel and Wren felt a pain in their chest.
"Why do I feel like someone's talking about me, and not in a good way?" they said in unison.
"That's her." Riven, instead of showing fear, was instead showing excitement. When he heard about the woman's evolved ability, he knew that he would want that ability. Thanks to how the system works, Riven can't copy what his party members see—meaning if he wants an ability, he himself has to see it.
"I want it," Riven repeated multiple times in his head. He remembered, when they first told him about her ability, he instantly knew what it was technically based off of. "It's a grimoire."
"A what?"
"A grimoire—like magic, but the way you guys described it she can only really do basic things."
"Yeah, basically things that can just block people's attacks like it was nothing."
"True, but she has a weakness. When we were about to attack her again, Luka was holding her hands down. Then that white-haired boy joined in the fray. Now it could be he just got there and didn't know what was going on, but by the way he spoke, it seems like he was there probably the entire time. Which means that she needs to have her arms free to use the effect of the book."
"And most likely a MP bar as well."
Everyone in the training room looked at Riven like he was stupid.
"I mean, think about it. Everything has a limit. Heck, even the system has a limit. I have to see the ability to copy it, and it can't copy some abilities. And grimoires are usually based off of games more than magic, since a lot of people don't really believe in magic ever since evolved abilities started appearing. So yeah, games make the most sense."
Getting out of his stupor, Riven realized the teacher wasn't there. Then Samantha herself stepped onto the platform, which told most of them what was going to happen.
"Hello everyone, I am Samantha, but you can just call me Ms. Wright for today. Your usual training teacher will not be here today. She had other issues to take care of, so I'll be here in her stead." Samantha started to walk around the platform and continued to talk. "Today will be different. In a few days' time, we will be going on a field trip, as most of you heard, where we will be meeting the other academies and camps. Now you might be wondering why I'm telling you something you already know. Well, it's simple. I will not be embarrassed. I will not allow people who are weak and pathetic to come with us. Since I'm the teacher today I can make that option, but I won't do that today. We'll leave it for another day. Today, you will be doing fundamentals of training with your weapons. You can pick a partner and just spar or whatever you guys do on a daily basis. I will be over in my office if you need me. Don't bother me." Samantha then walked off the platform with Sarah walking behind her, who just stared at Skye.
"What a pathetic speech," Riven thought as the three then found a corner to sit in. None of them really felt like doing combat training, especially due to the fact they all knew what their next class had in store for them. Riven noticed a lot of people just leaving.
"Where are you guys going?"
A girl turned around with a look of disgust. "Not all of us are as talented as you people. We have to actually work for our power, unlike you." The girl then walked away.
"What did I do to her?"
"I don't blame her," a voice said. Riven looked up and could see Samantha. "If I was as weak as her, I would tell you off the same way."
"But why? I didn't say anything bad or even know her."
"Are you that blunt?" Riven was still confused by her words. She then sighed. "A lot of them are envious. Hell, some of the people in the second and third years are even jealous, especially the upper-ranked people. We worked our asses off and went on multiple outings, yet you and your friends were able to awaken not only before your second year, but even before your first outing. It's aggravating."
But in the last bit of her words, they knew that she herself was a bit envious, even though she wasn't going to admit it.
"But that doesn't really answer his question," Skye joined in. "So what, he's strong and they're weak—or just not as strong as him. Why even push yourself so hard just to be the stronger person? It doesn't really matter."
"Of course you wouldn't get it, Zale."
Skye turned at the voice and saw Sarah standing over her.
"Don't call me that," the girl bit back.
When she said that, Sarah backed off, not wanting another fight—not after what happened last time.
"Like I was saying, strength doesn't really even matter anymore. Now it's more about a person's background more than anything. It's mainly the second years who do this, most likely because their generation inserted this rule. Even though we still haven't been in school for that long yet, before the outing I saw most first years bullying and forcing students to do what they liked. And some of those students were in my training class, and I saw them fight. They were way better than those students, yet for some reason stayed under their boot. Why?"
"Because they were wallborn or came from a weak family."
"Exactly."
"You say that, yet look at me," Samantha cut in. "I am a wallborn, and a strong one at that. Hell, most of the top third years are wallborn or didn't come from a top family, yet no one tried bothering us."
"Do you really think we're fools? We know why they're not bothering you—well, most of us," Luka said, looking at Riven. "The reason none of you are getting bothered or toyed with is because you've all been scouted. Either by one of the big families, which is rare, or a guilds. And even though it's smaller than the families, that doesn't change the fact that it's a big backing nonetheless."
"Hmm, fair. Good to know not all of you are idiots."
"I'm not that stupid, I just don't really know how things really work," Riven defended himself.
"But that's not the reason I came over here. The real reason is you."
"Me??" Riven pointed at himself.
"Yeah, you. Long story short, I got into it with your friends, kicked their asses, so now it's you, your brother, and some guy named Leo to be next. So how about we get this ass-kicking over with?"
"I'm down."
"Riven!" the two with him called out.
"Chill out, I got this," the boy said through the link.
"Even if you tried to back off now, she'll most likely just attack anyway. So look, here's the plan, I'll tie down and—"
"No, I want to face her alone. I never really got to fight on my own, so this can be good practice."
"Your funeral," Skye commented.
Both Riven and Samantha stepped onto the platform opposite from each other.
"You seem eager."
"Well, it's been a while since I've been in a one-on-one fight, so I'm excited to test out my new skills."
This was a lie—or at least a semi-truth. Riven did want to test out his skills, yes, but what he really wanted was her ability. The gamer-self inside of Riven immediately screamed out when he heard of Samantha's ability. He knew it would work well with him.
"Ready," someone called out, acting as a ref for this match.
"The system itself is pretty weird. Quests don't show up if it's something like a sparring match. But that begs the question—why did the system show when Darius showed up? Unless… was he planning on killing us?" Even though Riven thought this, he highly doubted it. Darius seemed too prideful in the academy more than anything.
"Begin!" the student yelled.
The loud bell rang, with Riven waking up on what looked to be a stretcher. He saw Luka and Skye standing over him.
"Wh-what happened?"
"She kicked your ass, that's what happened," Luka laughed, with Skye joining him.
"That's what you get for trying to act like a badass."
"Excuse me, if you're awake can you please exit and go to class—or just leave, I don't care."
The three noted the woman's rudeness and decided to leave.
"Where you going?" Skye questioned.
"I just got my ass handed to me, so you really think I'm going to that class? Plus, these guys don't really care anyway. Have you seen the lot of people who just skip their classes? They do it just to do it, so why can't I?"
Riven then walked away, but the two could see he had a little too much happiness in his steps. The boy reached the training room and, thanks to Wren telling them all beforehand, he was able to enter on his own. He then changed the setting to what looked like clouds. He started jumping on them and then, with one big jump, fell on his back. While still on the fluffy clouds, he started to look through his system, going through his shop, party, and skills tabs. He then realized—
"Nothing was really added on the skills tab. Well, skills that we made up are on here, but other than that nothing. Hmm, maybe in another system awakening it can be helpful."
He then started to look through more stuff and stumbled upon the system inventory tab. There he found something that had been in the system for a while now—a key. He grabbed the key out of the system and started to admire it.
"It's been a little while since we got this, and if what the system said is true, this is a type of raid or dungeon that should give a massive reward. But the system itself gave us caution. Even though we leveled up and our strength grew, I don't think we're ready for it yet. But if we do complete it, our strength will most likely grow a lot."
"Why?" a voice called out in Riven's head.
"Jordan?" the boy asked. "I must've accidentally turned on the telepathic link, sorry. How's the class going?"
"Why do you want to get stronger?"
Riven noted how he just ignored his question.
"Well, I would say it's for Mom and Dad. We live in a pretty good house, but it has lots of flaws in it. A lot of stuff was homemade—toys, silverware, hell, even our table. All that to save money, and even then inflation's a bitch. And we've barely had food sometimes, yet I still ate it all up. I still begged for a game console. I even forgot why I got a job, which was to help them, yet still I thought only for myself. But with this, I can go far—we can go far—and get them out and about. Get them a big house a—" Riven then slapped himself in the head.
"We are such idiots, Jordan. We were worried about Joey and Jude, we didn't even think about our own family and went to help them. God, I'm selfish."
"I guess we're both selfish. But they had it worse than us, they needed more. Mom and Dad can rely on one another while they only got one parent or are in a desperate situation."
"I guess you're right. But if everything goes well, we could definitely give them the best life possible. But hey, how's class? You're surprisingly calm—is Damien not bothering you as much?"
"I don't know where I am."
"What? Jordan, what are you talking about?"
Riven then looked at the party tab and realized he never turned on the link or invited Jordan. So that begged the question—
"Who are you?"