"Sit down and stop the noise, please!"
After a gruelling two-hour wait that felt like an eternity, a teacher finally stepped into the lecture hall. Physically, he was cut from the same cloth as the examiner from the night before, but the energy he radiated was fundamentally different.
He had broader, more imposing shoulders, a nearly bald head that reflected the overhead lights, and a face that seemed permanently etched into a fierce scowl.
Just one look was enough for John to realise it: this man didn't know how to smile. If the examiner from the test room had felt like a stern but caring father, this man felt like a cold-blooded military general. He looked like the type of person who prioritised cold, hard results over the well-being of the individuals achieving them.
The only real perk of the teacher's arrival was that it finally cut off the incessant, burning glares John had been attracting.
John had timed his arrival carefully; the class was scheduled for twelve o'clock, and he had made sure to slip in a few minutes late to avoid unnecessary friction or spying eyes. He wanted to blend in and let the dust settle from his battle with Alfred.
To his misfortune, the teacher had arrived even later than he had, leaving John as the focal point of the room's hushed whispers for far longer than he liked. The shockwaves from last night's victory were still fresh, and he could feel the weight of his classmates' expectations and suspicions pressing against the back of his neck.
"Today is your first ever class in the academy," the teacher barked, his voice like grinding stones. "I will explain in great detail the general structure of this institution, how the Military Department is organised, the specifics of your curriculum, and the expectations for your future over the next seven years."
The man wasn't just stern; he was a terrible educator. Within mere minutes, he transformed into a data-dumping machine, vomiting a relentless stream of information without any discernible order or logical flow. He spoke in a monotonous, rapid-fire voice that made no concessions for the students' ability to process the information.
He didn't look for feedback, and he certainly didn't acknowledge anyone raising their hands. Even John, who had arrived hungry for any scrap of information about this mysterious future, felt his interest begin to wither. After ten minutes, the lecture had become a white-noise blur.
'This is mentally draining me,' John inwardly sighed. He had already lost track of the teacher's rambling about "tactical resource distribution" and "meritocratic advancement." Even when he tried to concentrate, he felt his mind being dragged into a swamp of boredom, as if he were falling into quicksand.
'There goes my chance to learn the easy way,' he thought. He resisted a powerful urge to yawn and decided that the only way to stay conscious was to use his ability. He needed something to look at besides the teacher's moving lips.
The moment he activated his Frame Recognition, his consciousness was jolted awake. He was becoming more adept at navigating the peculiar green vision of the world, and now, with his mind focused, he began to see things he had missed in the chaos of the arena.
The first thing that grabbed his attention was the teacher himself.
Amidst the twenty-four students in the room, including himself, the man looked like a glowing sun in a sea of dim candles. In the wireframe world of green code, the teacher's body was a masterpiece of complexity. His structure was dense, woven from shimmering lines of data that featured dozens of intense, pulsing blue points.
John's eyes widened. He focused his full attention on the man's structural integrity, staring intently at the swirling patterns of blue light.
The teacher, noticing John's unwavering gaze, mistakenly interpreted it as the ultimate sign of a dedicated student hanging onto his every word. For entirely the wrong reasons, the stern teacher made a mental note of John as a "promising student."
'Fascinating!' John remarked to himself. The more he looked, the more he realised the blue spots weren't just random lights; they were "hubs" of high-density energy or data. 'It's like he has a different set of codes than everyone else in the room.'
The man's structure wasn't shining on its own, but there were small clusters of code embedded within him that emitted that intense blue light. These were fundamentally different from the codes that built up his body—the same standard codes John saw in the other students sitting around.
These special segments looked like small worlds of their own, dense and layered. John couldn't discern much from his current distance, and he felt a pang of regret for not moving to the front row.
He had tucked himself away at the very back in a desperate attempt to escape the burning gazes of his classmates, but now his caution was costing him the loss of knowing more.
'Oh, what do we have here…' As he spent the full ten minutes of his first activation examining the teacher, he decided not to waste another Mental Point on him. He needed to broaden his scope.
When he triggered his ability for the second time, he performed a slow, horizontal sweep over his classmates. That was when he spotted not just one surprise, but two.
Almost everyone in the room shared the same general structure of green code—the universal base-layer colour of everything he had seen so far. Yet, out of the twenty-four other students, two stood out with a glaring difference: shining codes.
One was a male, sitting rigid and attentive near the centre; the other was a female, leaning back with an air of bored elegance near the window. Both possessed codes that shone with a dim, ghostly white light. When John flicked his eyes back and forth to compare their structures with the teacher's, the differences were stark.
First and foremost, there was a massive disparity in quantity. The two students had fewer than five of these specialised codes integrated into their bodies, whereas the teacher had at least fifty.
Aside from the count, the quality was on a different level entirely. The teacher's codes burned like miniature suns, fierce and overwhelming, while the light coming from the two students flickered like dying stars. Not to mention the clear difference in their colours!
Yet, the fact that only two out of the entire class possessed these special codes made it clear they weren't ordinary.
John still knew nothing about the power scaling of this world or how abilities were gained, but it went without saying that having such unique power came with strong backing. It was the universal law of the world, regardless of the century: power followed the money and the bloodlines.
'Do they have systems like me?' his first thought was a surge of paranoia, but he quickly ditched the idea. He had already grilled his own system about this, and the answer had been crystal clear: he was one of a kind. No one else possessed a System; they only had simple AI assistance guides, like advanced versions of smartphones of his time.
This realisation made him itch with a new question: was his own body structured like theirs, or was he something else entirely? He felt a sudden, impulsive urge to stand up, walk out of this mind-numbing lecture, and sprint back to his room to examine his own reflection under Frame Recognition.
However, he refrained from doing so. He couldn't afford to do anything abnormal, especially since the teacher seemed to have taken a peculiar, approving interest in him.
'I still want to know what's so special about those two…' He was lost in these thoughts when he suddenly froze. A golden notification flared with a chime that felt like a physical tap on his brain.
[Ding! You got a new Quest!
Part1: Investigate the Two Anomalies!
Please note: This is a serialised mission!
Details: You spotted something unusual about these two students. There is something fishy about them.
Requirements: Get any information related to these two students by any means.
Bonus: Any extra information you get beyond the standard will be considered in evaluating the reward of the quest.
Time limit: 72 hours!
Reward: It depends on your performance!]