"Aiiiiish, did she really have to hit me that hard?" I massaged my head as I walked through the hallways of the dome.
–Ha look, it's him.
–You should have seen the way his head snapped to the side.
–Really? I wish I was there.
– Even I, would have owned him up, hahahaha!
The mocking voices of other students in the hallways reached me. You could have guessed, but my recent bout against Rose had already spread to the other classes.
I kinda of expected it, but even I was shocked how fast it spread.
But still, the audacity of these extras. Do they think they could do any better against her. I knew about her techniques and how she executed them, but I was still on the back foot the entire time. Not to mention she was holding back on me, which was quite unusual.
Normally, she would have tried to finish me in the first five to ten seconds.
If she tried that currently now though, even with all her strength, it wouldn't be possible. After all I was only a minor rank below her.
'Not to mention if I used my ability.'
"And what stopped you from using your ability?" Bubbles materialized before me. "You could have had a much better chance with it."
I shook my head.
"It wouldn't have mattered either way. Rose would still have won, and I'd have end up showcasing my ability to everyone." It was a risk I couldn't take, my ability worked better when the opponent wasn't aware of it.
Unlike Alistair's unique physique that boosted his stats and gave him more strength, mine was more utility based.
"And you're also forgetting something." I snatched the floating cat out of the air. "Even if I made three durable reflection with 90 percent of my aether where each had 60 percent of my stats, at most they would only be a bit of an inconvenience to her."
Rose was stronger and faster than my main body, so my reflections with sixty percent of my stats would be even weaker and even slower in her eyes.
Bubbles looked at me weirdly.
"But then couldn't you make a single reflection with I don't know, 90 percent of your aether?"
I froze.
A reflection with 90 percent of my aether? I hadn't thought about that before. That would make it have what, a hundred and eighty percent of my stats?
My eyes widened.
"Bubbles, you're a genius." I momentary forgot about my splitting headache at that moment.
"Ehem, praise me more peasant." he chuckled.
Normally, I wouldn't recklessly make a reflection with 90 percent of my aether. Aether takes hours to recover. But since the institute was a relatively safe environment, I could try that.
"We're going to test this theory after lunch." I declared.
Bubbles soon disappeared back into his mark, and I made my way to the exit of the dome.
Because today was apparently the first day, we only had two classes. The last class which was sorcery and spellcasting was forgone.
And mind you, sorcery was different from spellcasting.
Sorcery is the more volatile and unstable part of magic that mainly had to with rituals, inscriptions, and creation.
Spellcasting meanwhile, is a more stable, and organized system of utilizing aether to bend the rules of the world to your favour.
Spellcasting let's aetherials manipulate the facets of nature like, fire, water, wind, earth, etc.
Aetherials were divided into weapon users, and spellcasters.
Though, 90 percent of aetherials were weapon users. That was mainly because spellcasters were the weaker of the two.
Unlike techniques where one would simply channel their aether as described in the technique and get physical, casting a spell required range, and took longer.
Spellcasting cost a shit ton of aether, and not to mention, most spellcasters were weak in close combat. Imagine waiting for a fireball to form when your enemy was already speeding up towards you.
Yep, I would rather not want that.
I followed the walkway back to the dorms, but this time, I went full speed ahead.
I reached the dorms a few seconds short of two minutes. I was moving at speeds that wasn't even considered possible for a human back on earth. But here it was the norms.
In fact Alpha, or even Beta ranked aetherials could cross a continent in seconds. As the ranks progressed, the difference becomes higher and higher, until it becomes unmeasurable.
I went up my dorm, and changed out of my uniform. Lunch was at 2pm, and I didn't have much to do, so I began to rethink my plans.
The first event doesn't happen for another six days, when the first years would be allowed access to the mission center, so I had quite a lot of free time to plan my involvement.
The mission center was a hall where missions were placed either by the institute or by other students who needed something for some of their projects. Students could undertake any mission during the weekends for extra points. Not to mention, they get to leave the institute.
The first event happens when Alistair undertakes his first mission. The mission he took required him to head to a small city at the northern reach of the Kamar continent.
It was quite far, but courtesy to the institue's exclusive teleportation matrixes that were littered across almost every city in the human domain, he reached the city in a few hours.
The human domain also once had teleportation matrixes across every city a few centuries back, but there was just one problem with that. The problem being, it was public, everyone could use it so long as they paid the due at the station.
It was also convenient, convenient enough for the Heretics to constantly launch surprise attacks anywhere they wished, then disappear the next moment. It dragged on for a few years, until the human domain finally had enough, scrapped the matrixes, and made them forbidden.
The institue's meanwhile, could only be accessed by the student band/ID each student possessed.
Anyway, Alistair's mission was just to procure a rare herb, a third year student posted for one of his projects. The thing now was that, after Alistair found the herb, he decided to stay in the city for another day.
That was when he noticed that something was wrong with the city. He realized that the population looked somewhat barren, so he investigated a bit, and discovered that there were Heretics hiding in the city, and they ran the underworld there, and were trafficking children and adults alike.
Alistair couldn't take it, his righteous fury wouldn't let him. He decided to take them down, but before that, and courtesy to the horrendous plot, Delilah, Rose, Elsa, Fabian, Damon, Dion, and a few others happened to have 'coincedentally' chosen missions in that same city.
"Bullshit!" I spat.
Anyway, Alistair called their attention to the situation. And when they realized that the heretics' here were just a rag tag group, they decisively decided to attack the Heretics themselves.
Instead of doing the logical thing, which was them going back to the institute to report it, after which the institute would either post a mission itself that the stronger upperclassman could take, or alert the authorities in that area to take care of the threat.
Though, Damon did not follow. He knew he was weak, and didn't want to risk his life, so he refused.
When the students attacked the heretics' base, Alistair got up to a rude awakening.
His childhood friend, who he had got separated from two years prior, was now a heretic, and she was the one leading this rag tag group.
During the fight, she killed the few extras that were also in the mission, but Alistair still let her escape because 'apparently', he couldn't bring himself to kill his childhood friend.
And during her 'escape', she mercilessly cut down Damon who was just going around minding his own damn business.
"The hypocrisy." I scoffed. You righteous fury can't let you take it, but it can let you let the preparator escape, after killing some of your classmates nonetheless. Just because the preparator was your childhood friend?
It was another one of the reasons why I didn't like Alistair. His hypocrisy, I just can't stand it.
"For now though, just knowing has already changed my determined fate." I muttered. I could decide not to go, but that wouldn't fit into my plans. In fact, I must be there, after all, it was central to my plans in this world.
Not to mention, I wasn't as weak as the Damon in the novel. As I was now, even if I got into a fight with the heretic, I would most likely not get defeated.
After finishing my recap of the event, and what I planned to do, I began channeling. The sooner I broke into the Eta rank, the better.
The bastard had already broken through to Theta- rank. I could sense it earlier in the class today. In fact everyone could. Alistair was not one for subtlety after all.
It was easier to sense the rank of those lower in rank than you than that of those of a higher rank than you, especially if they were trying to hide their rank.
But Alistair, he didn't care about hiding anything, he flaunted his aura during the two classes we had today. And no one even bat an eye as if it was expected of him.
Not to mention the bastard was eagerly trying to flirt with the beautiful girls in class, including Rose.
"The nerve of that bastard."
"I thought you said you didn't care about your sister." Bubbles who had been slumped on the bed eyes closed suddenly opened his eyes.
"I don't." I replied flatly. "It's just that Alistair kind of rubs me the wrong way."
"Yeah, I believe you." Bubbles nodded sagely before closing his eyes again.
I scowled.
This little shit just pulled a sarcasm on me didn't he.
***********
THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE, AND ALSO, DAMON'S CHARACTER ART HAS BEEN ADDED, SO GO CHECK IT OUT.