in the distance a girl slept soundly, only to be rudely awakened by her mother
"Aria, if you don't get going now you're going to be late for your first day in the academy!"
her mother grumbled in annoyance
"this is the third time i have tried waking you up" she sighed "If i didn't know any better id think you're dead"
Aria finally opened her eyes, still half asleep she rubbed both of them lazily
"Just five more minutes.. it's still early.."
"early?" Aria's mother scoffed from the doorway "honey, the academy seminar begins in 15 minutes"
THUD
without warning Maria fell on the ground hitting her head
"owww" she exclaimed loudly as she rubbed her head
"what?! What do you mean fifteen minutes?!
she looked around in panic trying to find her uniform
ahh, why didn't you wake me up mom!?"
her mom chuckled before replying "Excuse you young lady, that's what i have been trying to achieve for the past hour"
in a hurry Aria got dressed and tried to eat breakfast however time was too short for such pleasantries so she took a piece of bread her mother had prepared earlier for her and ran down from the slums all the way towards the academy
as the academy was getting closer and closer a sigh of relief came out of Aria
knowing she wasn't late for the seminar she lowered her guard and accidentally bumped into someone making both of them fall down on the ground
"oww!" she exclaimed, her eyes darting towards the face of the person in front of her as she was saying her apologizes "I am so sorry i was going too quickly and didn't notice you..." recognizing who she had bumped into she felt her soul leaving her body "your royal highness?!!" for a second she wondered if her academic life would end before entering the front entrance of the academy
"excuse me im so sorry for this your royal highness-" suddenly a translucent blue hued window she was eerily intimate with appeared in front of her eyes
[Another user has been identified! synchronizing both systems!]
before a "huh?" can finish exiting her mouth another message appears this time a warning
[Warning! Warning! unidentified user found! a virus has infected the system!]
as her eyes finished reading the last word indescribable pain started flooding her and Adrian's entire beings
"Aghh!" "ahghh!" both of them yelled out in clenched teeth as to not take too much outside attention
'w-what is this? this pain please someone make it stop' Aria thought to herself as she reached out towards the system window
[user has been identified! synchronization with user "The Chariot" has resumed!]
then the pain stopped.
"Who.. are you?" was the only thing that came out of Aria's mouth after the pain stopped
Adrian clutched his head and replied "that's what i should be asking you"
the moment he finished speaking people started crowding around them
but weirdly enough no one went to check on Adrian, rather everyone went to check up on Aria
"Hey new girl, are you okay?" one asked, "I heard you're a new second year transfer student right? Was Adrian giving you trouble" another student asked.
aria stared at Adrian sitting on the other side through the amount of people blocking her eyesight
"huh..?" aria muttered from the sight in front of her
Adrian, who had every right to be mad, was smiling rather than frowning
before she could point that out a third student intervened "well that's obvious is it not? its Adrian after all, that donation student was most likely just jealous of how much talent the transfer student has to come here"
Aria quickly waved her hands to disprove these rumors "ah no that's not it, i accidentally bumped into him and my headache just happened to flare up, it's nothing really!"
the students all looked at Aria then at each other and came to the consensus that it must really have been nothing "your name is aria right?" one of the students says as she points towards her name tag on her uniform "if anything happens tell me okay? we should be in the same classes"
Aria nods and waves goodbye to the students then looks at the area where Adrian was "hey you!" she said to no one..? "huh? wait where'd he go??"
----------------------------------------------------
'bingo', Adrian thought to himself upon reaching the seminar
"that's the person who i have been searching for, one of the main characters in the novel, Aria"
Adrian gave a slight chuckle while looking at the skill section in the status window
'that unknown skill..' Adrian sat in deep thought ignoring the seminar entirely
'i don't know if it helped me again or if its the root cause of the pain, well whatever the case since i didn't get attacked by the system again after that last time it should also mean that the next couple of characters i meet aren't all going to end up in the same gruesome way'
"that will be all for the entrance seminar, i hope everyone has a prosperous future with magic" said the dean while examining everyone in the seminar
"It's time for the first class... it's the principles of magic is that right?" Adrian said while sighing
'I can't believe I have to go back to these boring classes again.. i already mastered the theory in magic but I can' t just skip my first class of the semester'
while Adrian was heading towards his class he could feel the amount of stares on him, ridiculing stares meant only to disrespect him 'hah, no matter where i go the same look always follows, i guess this is what i get for being a magicless student in a magic school'
he laughed at the stupidity of it all leading to some students giving him glares to think he's too weird and stop
"i didn't miss this class at all." Adrian pushed the door open and closed it behind him, heading to his seat
in the corner of his eye he saw a familiar face, Aria was in this class as well 'huh i never realized that she was here, i always was just too preoccupied trying to survive that i didn't notice those around me..'
"attention class!" a tidy professor whose looks can be best described as serpent like entered class
"..." his eyes scanned the class "it appears we have a new classmate with us from now on" he pointed at aria
"up." he commanded
"yes sir" aria replied almost instantly
"explain the main magic types" he said with calculative eyes
"yes sir, there are 5 kind of magics in the world starting from earth, water, fire, air, and lastly light"
"Is that all?" the professor looked at Maria critically
Aria with a smile continued talking "of course not professor, there exists many subclasses of magic the reason why i stated only 4 was due to the sheer amount of subclasses ranging from darkness originating from the absence of light to electricity originating from fire plus air resulting in a pyrocumulonimbus clouds"
the professor looking content with the answer aria gave gestured her to sit down
"hm very good, okay then lets start the first lesson of the semester shall we?"
the professor had a sinister grin on his face and continued
"what do you call the absence of everything?"
the students looking confused replied "nothingness..?"
The professor stared at the student for a second "very good however that is not the name that is accepted in the empire, the actual name of it is the void"
the students looking confused reply "what is the void? shouldn't there only be five main elements?
"we always since birth had something, whether it be our body our parents or the very ground we stand on so humans never thought about the absence of such a critical thing however recently in a cataclysmic event humans figured out what the 'void' is"
the professor scanned everyone in the room once again and asked the following
"if anyone can tell me the name of the event in question they will be given a 100 in today's class and will be excused if they so wish it"
everyone in the class remained silent only whispering amongst themselves trying to know the answer
one student whispered "truly this is unruly, how can he expect any student to be one step ahead of the best curriculum in the empire?!" another student replied "he's always like that it's his carrot and stick method however the carrot is literally impossible.."
even Aria was stumped from this question
then in the silence one singular person with green hair replied
"The first maelstrom which is the first recorded instance of the gate phenomena."
That person was Adrian.