"Huh? You almost scared me man, are you here to register? Then show me your ID," The man said lazily.
Kale showed his ID.
The man took his ID card then swiped it in the scanner near the computer. A page containing the information related to Kale appeared on the monitor screen.
After checking through the details, the man nodded and spoke "You are registered in a 2-Student Dorm on the third floor, your room number is 303. You will have one week to confirm if you like it or not, if you are not stratified for your roommate then you can apply for a room change in these seven days after that, it will become permanent. Your ID card is also the key for your room,"
The whole dormitory was divided into four rooming categories starting from 4-Student Dorm, 3-Student Dorm, 2-Student Dorm, and the last Private Dorm which are only for one student each. The whole dorm is like the first comes first serves after the different prices are not taken into account, except the private dorm, because the private dorm is more like a blind auction, one can place the price for booking it, they won't know what prices did their competitor placed. In the end, the one with the highest price would win.
Riyan didn't get the private one so he had to do with the 2-Student Dorm.
Kale used stairs instead of the lift and headed to the third floor.
Room 303 had a normal wooden door with a card scanner on the right.
Kale scanned the card and entered the room. From inside the room was quite spacious.
There was a bed on both right and left side with a well-designed table and shelf beside the bed, in the front was the balcony. There was a mini-fridge on the left side just before the bed and opposite to it was the door to the attached bathroom.
Kale checked it too and was quite satisfied, he didn't think that even the dorm would provide such a big bathtub for just students.
'From what dad said, the early days of the academy would be elimination period designed to filter most of the student that either lack the capability to walk on the path they chose or the ones who got in through the back door,' Kale thought as he took out a cigarette from the second chain of the bag, he lit it up then took a long puff while walking towards the balcony.
The view from the balcony was quite good. He could see the first mountain, the Beast Peak, it's the mountain that homes the beast raised by the academy or the students.
Kale looked at the lit cigarette in his hand and sighed 'I caught the habit of smoking when I was training my inner body using the poison smoke cigarette, but using this one won't do me any good,'
In last life, Kale as Lancer, cultivated the ‹Demonic Poison Body› and to do that he had raised the poison immunity of his body to a whole different level, to cultivate it faster he came up with an idea. He used some low-grade poison herbs to make a cigarette, he would smoke most of the time and let the poison smoke go in and out of his body, for others it was suicide but for him who had already cultivated ‹Demonic Poison Body› to Intermediate Level, it was a booster.
"Haa? I got a neighbor," A voice interrupted his thought.
'Not again,' Kale thought when he realized that it was a girl's voice but when he saw the girl and her dress up, he sighed in relief.
The girl was standing on the balcony next to his. She had orange hair, she had an unusual hair cut, her hair were shoulder-length from the front while the ones on the back were breaded together to reach her waist. She was in her sportswear, the loose top was covering her chest and black elastic shots was sticking to her legs. Her waist and stomach were exposed but it wasn't soft, plane, and tender like any other girl instead she had well-toned abs clearly visible, they weren't overly tight to not affect her mobility but were in a well-balanced form.
Kale eyed her rest of the body, her body built to be more precise and his favorability of the girl rose.
He didn't have some muscle fetish for girls but favoured hardworking people. From her body built he could see that the muscles she had built weren't focused on strength and defense but stamina and mobility, the abs were just a bonus, similar to the female athlete runners. If flexibility is added in her stamina and mobility build-up type then it would be the same as the setup Kale goes with.
"Quite a few people have come early," Kale said, he guessed that the girl was a straight forward type from her behaviour and he wasn't planning to act like a loner until graduating from the academy so he replied.
"Huh? There are others here? I didn't see another resident in the building this whole week except you," The girl said in a surprised tone.
"A week?" Kale was surprised, he let out the smoke then said "What is the use of coming this early?"
The orange-haired girl stared at the cigarette in his hand then said "I heard there are a lot of domesticated wild beasts on the Beast Peak, so I came early to take a look and befriend them if possible, what about you?"
"Just wanted to have a look around when it's not crowded," Kale said.
"Hey... Can I try that?" The girl said while looking at the cigarette in his hand.
Kale shook his head. The girl didn't look bothered when he was smoking so he could guess that such a thing caught her interest, people often caches bad habit faster than good habits so it was a given but Kale refused because he didn't wish to share his bad habit, he said "It's not good for health, don't waste the body you trained for so long,"
"I just want to try one, I'm just curious what is so good about it?" The girl said again.
Kale still shook his head.
The girl was dissatisfied. She was about to say more when a beast cub came to the balcony and rubbed his head against her feet.
It was a male fox, a young cub with red fur, the different parts of his body were in different shades of red.
"Uncommon-Grade beast?" Kale raised his eyebrow.
The cultivation system of beasts was the same as that of humans, they started from Mortal to Enlightened Mortal then Elemental Mortal, and above.
But unlike humans, beasts are also categorized based on their quality, it has nothing to do with the cultivation stage but their lineage.
It starts from... Common >> Uncommon >> Rare >> Epic >> Legendary and so on.
The same system is also applied to magic weapons, after all, many magic weapons require the use of parts of different kinds of beasts to be crafted like claws, bones, scales.., etc.
"Yeah, he's an Uncommon-Grade Fiery Fox cub. I found him when I was venturing in the forest behind the academy, isn't he cute?" The girl said she lifted the fox cub in her hands.
"You're a Beast Tamer?" Kale asked again.
He was aware that the beast with the highest population in the Evergreen Fox Paradise was without doubt foxes, but when was it that easy to coincidentally encounter an uncommon beast cub and be able to tame it without even becoming a practitioner.
The girl smiled, she said "I haven't started cultivating yet so how can I became a Beast Tamer but yes, I'm aiming to become one,"
Kale nodded while he thought 'This girl is a talent,'
Although he didn't show it on his face, his favorability of the girl increased again.
He didn't ask what method she used as it was rude. Moreover, he did want to have connections with a Beast Tamer.
'I can enslave beast with the help of contracts and in some ways, I have more advantage compared to Beast Tamers but overall if I fight a Beast Tamer using that method then it would be idiotic. Beast Tamer have techniques than can even allow them to share thought and senses with the beast at times, I don't have a way to do that.
She must have knows a lot about the beast and its nature to be able to safely venture into the forest and subdue one, the one who taught her must be an experienced Beast Tamer, it won't be bad to learn some things about the beast from this girl,' Kale thought.
Kale wasn't the arrogant type who would like to belittle others just because someone was far younger than him in age, if he could learn something from a kid then he will throw away his pride to learn it. In his view, knowledge doesn't have an age.
No one randomly aims to become a beast tamer because, without a good foundation, it's like throwing money in the well. From the girl's achievement of subduing an uncommon beast cub, he guessed that an experienced beast tamer had guided her in the past.
"What was your name again?" Kale said.
The girl looked at him and smirked "You finally asked? Is it because I'm aiming to be a Beast Tamer?"
Kale nodded in agreement, he didn't deny it.
The girl raised her eyebrow, she was amused by his response.
Being a Beast Tamer is not easy as they need to feed and train a lot of beasts, it was very costly and space-consuming but as a result, they had the strength to alone go against a group, so many people would try to form connections with them. She was the same, when the students in the academy knew that she was from a family of Beast Tamers and she too was aiming to become a Beast Tamer, many 'coincidentally' met her wherever she went, whether it was cafeteria or the forest while being completely 'unaware' of the fact who she was.
She was surprised after seeing Kale, as he was bluntly smoking in the student dormitory and had no change in expression even when she caught him red-handed.
"Quite straight forward, aren't you? Well, we are going to be classmates anyway. I am Layla, someone aspiring to be the greatest beast tamer, what about you?" Layla asked.
"I'm Kale, someone aiming to be the greatest... Mage," Kale said, he only said that much and didn't say anything that would sound funny but after thinking that such vague details like just a mage might not leave a good impression on the girl, so he added "I'm also a mutant, specializing in close combat so I will likely go with Mutant Mage class instead of just Mage,"
When Layla heard his first words she was somewhat confused as it was out of her expectation but when she heard his later words her eyes slightly flickered.
Beast Tamer's greatest weakness was close combat because they have to put all focus on controlling their beast they cannot fight on their own, it is the reason why their enemy always aims for them instead of the magic beasts around to finish the battle.
So having a close combat expert as a comrade was always good, although she wasn't sure about Kale's combat strength but all he asked was her name, and not even her phone number so she wasn't bothered in any way.
When she was still thinking, Kale spoke "You said, you were here for a week so you should know quite a bit about the academy?"
Layla smirked "25 Contribution Point,"
Imperial Academy provides almost everything starting from weapons, spell formulas, techniques, body strengthening drugs, and potions... etc, but they cannot be bought with money and instead needs contribution points. A newbie like Kale is given 100 CP when entering the academy, it is up to him how he uses them.
When Kale asked for quite a bit of information, he didn't actually mean basic information because the Assistant-Bot can provide that to him. Layla understood his meaning that's why she set a high price according to the information she could provide.
The Academy was known for playing word games and organizing several types of hidden events for students, the events are usually time-limited, those who discover and complete them in time can get quite good rewards, while those who aren't can only remain in the dark.
Kale thought for a second and nodded. He took out his phone and after scanning the QR code from her phone he transferred 25 CP.
After checking the transfer message, Layla started explaining "The entry dates the academy gave us were not for session's start, the session had already started since the day the result of examination were given out, the date they gave us was for the time our classes would start.
Meaning although you cannot acquire the secondary cultivation technique until you join the classes but you can still go to the Grand Library to choose your main cultivation technique..."