Mr. Griffith waited until everyone entered and left their soul realm. Then he nodded in satisfaction, every once and a while a student would prefer to stay in their soul realm. Needless to say, that's why they kept warning the students about it.
"Now that that's out of the way, it's time to step it up. Everyone, Mathias and Luke excluded, will be showed how to visualize their power and thread it through all the necessary places, by teachers in your respective classes. As for you Mathias, since you're a specialist, you're going to have to throw yourself against the wall until it clicks, not the most ideal situation I know. And Luke, since you're a blood angel now, you need a teacher who actually knows what they're talking about.
"After today, you all will start heading to your fourth and final curriculum, to be taught about your specific classes. The teachers who teach you your classes here will be your teachers for tomorrow and onward, so get to know them well."
Mr. Griffith looked towards Leo and Luke, "As for you two, we got a specialist to come out, but they were delayed. They'll be here tomorrow. They know a lot about blood angels as well." He looked towards everyone in the class, "Every class has slight differences in extracting the power of your soul realm but think of it like this. You take a drop of water from your soul realm and latch onto it, then you guide it to the outside world where you can use it. Once you get used to it, you'll be able to do this faster and faster, until you don't need to even think about it."
"Leonardo." Leo heard someone call out his real name. Panicking he looked around but didn't notice anyone.
"Relax, it's just me, Grey. I'm floating around in your head, reading your thoughts and whatnot. We can communicate like this, it's pretty cool!" Leo couldn't see Grey, but he sounded very happy.
"What do you want?"
"It's about the problem you're about to have."
"So? Tell me the problem. Enough with the theatrics."
"Awww, you're no fun Master." Grey pouted playfully, "Well, first off, I bet you already know what your power is. Same as your father's, but I bet you don't know what'll happen if you activate it."
"Obviously not."
"Well, I'll say this, be prepared to lose an arm and a leg." Grey giggled jovially to himself.
"What did I say about theatrics." Leo replied with a hint of annoyance.
"Young master, I'm in charge of guiding you. I know things you can't even imagine. I was given permission to decide how to guide you. After thinking about it for a long time I decided, it will be a hands-off approach. No handholding unless you really need it. But, since you'll probably need a jumpstart, I'll throw you a bone just this once." Grey said with a suddenly very serious tone.
"A dealer must formulate their contracts before drawing from their soul realm, then you can directly summon them to the real world, as for the pocket dimension, it's the opposite. For that you have to take a slice of reality to your soul realm, this will open a gate where you can take things in.
"For grims, you have to create the bullets or explosives in your realm, explosives are much more advanced though. Once you do that you can take them through. As for the eyesight and regeneration, that stuff passively happens, but you can take it to overdrive by guiding your magic to the necessary parts. So, for eyesight, send magic to your eyes, for regeneration, send it to your wounds.
"Soul mages are weirdly the simplest of them all. You just take magic from your soul realm with your soul and send it to your body into the physical realm. The problem is how you compose the magic, its not easy to explain but you can alter it as you're moving it which will affect the element the magic is. That's why some people have higher affinities with certain elements or ideas, because they just alter it subconsciously. Then comes imagination, you need to know what you want to do before you do it." Although Leo couldn't see him, Grey was wagging his tail thinking of how well he explained everything. Too bad for him Leo was still confused.
"So why can only the Kings and I do this?" Leo asked.
"Leonardo." Grey sounded utterly perplexed, "You share blood with the god that directly controls this stuff! I know you are smarter than this."
"That's true. But I still don't see where the problem will be." Leo said, but Grey went radio silent and didn't respond. Rolling his eyes Leo got up and stretched, Mr. Griffith walked over to him.
Mr. Griffith stopped in front of Leo and waited for him to finish stretching. "You looked mighty annoyed there, haha. Throwing random things and hoping they'll stick is harder than it looks." Mr. Griffith smiled.
"Heh, yeah." Leo said with a smile.
"Since you're the only specialist this year, and your teacher is late, you can head to your dorm room and rest for tomorrow. Third block is cancelled for today as this is more important, just don't practice it alone, you might injure your soul. I don't think I've said this, but it usually takes specialists a while to find out what their powers are. They usually relate to the class book and the effect that happened to it, so maybe while you're resting you can think on it." Mr. Griffith suggested, he seemed nicer to Leo than to his other students.
Leo assumed it was because of their fight.
"Alright, I'll take you up on the offer." Leo said with a wave. He grabbed his backpack and started heading back to his dorm.
After he left Mr. Griffith gave the same offer to Luke, who declined, saying he was determined to practice as much as he could. But Mr. Griffith just had an awkward look because he had very, very little experience with blood angels. He wanted to help but didn't know how, in the end he gave up and let Luke do whatever he wanted.
As Leo entered his room he sat on his bed. He was about to try to activate his soul realm, but Grey gave him a warning.
"Augusto told you not to do it alone and I highly agree with him. You'll be able to try tomorrow, just rest today, you're going to need it."
Begrudgingly Leo stopped and laid in his bed staring at the bland ceiling. He pulled out a book from his backpack and started reading it. After a while he got invested before he heard a door closing.
The royal entered the room sweating completely and they collapsed on their bed. They dug slightly into their suitcase and pulled out a hand fan. Leo stopped reading and looked at the royal who was soaking their bed in sweat.
"You have a hand fan? That's pretty classy."
"Ughhh…" The royal groaned out instead of giving an answer.
"How'd it go with the grim stuff?"
The royal looked at Leo out of the corner of his tired eyes, "I've done this type of stuff before back home, but when the teacher saw that they made me do drills. I created like fifteen bullets…"
"Is that a lot?"
"For someone with actual experience, no, not at all. For us students though? Yes, a thousand percent!" He panted out as he sped up swinging his fan.
They stared at each other for a few seconds in silence before the royal coughed and looked away. He instead chose to let his eyes rest.
Leo decided to instead look out the window, he once more saw the crows that seemed to live in the area. Leo decided to see if he could befriend them. With a slightly giddy smile, he headed to the cafeteria and got some bread.
Afterwards he headed behind his building which was located where the crows loved to eat, and it was also where he painted last time. Reaching the small field of grass, he noticed the crows slightly hop away from him, some flying to the trees.
Leo didn't particularly care as he knew it would take some time for them to trust him. He took the bread and started to rip it apart and toss it into the grass where the crows could see it. He did this for a bit and eventually walked away, letting them find it by themselves. Sitting from afar, he watched the spot where he threw the bread calmly.
After a while a crow flew down from a tree and started to peck at it. The other crows were slightly apprehensive and didn't come down immediately, but the one adventurous crow eating everything stirred their spirits. As a couple more headed down a childish smile grew on Leo's face as he watched them.
He loved their little waddles and head bobbing as they ate at the bread. Eventually the first crow flew away from the food and landed in front of Leo. It looked directly at him for a couple of seconds before flying away towards the forest.
Leo was completely baffled by the bird. Crows took time to build trust, why was this one so uncaring of that process? It broke all the logic Leo had come to understand about the birds. He was surprised they went to the food as quick as they did but the bird landing in front of him defied reason.
Leo stood up and started following the bird. At one point it got outside the point where Leo could see it as it turned a corner. But when Leo turned the corner, the crow was silently pecking away at the grass without a care in the world. Upon seeing Leo, it took off again and this time Leo easily saw its direction.
It flew into the strange void that seemed to sprout from the trees. Leo, seemingly enthralled, headed towards the opening and stood before it. It was around seven in the evening on a summer's day, so he had around another hour before it got dark. In other words, he didn't have to worry about accidently falling asleep.
Leo sat there in the grass, around the same spot he sat last time coincidentally, and waited for the crow. After over an hour of waiting with no change, Leo got up with a sigh as the sun was setting.
As he turned to leave, he heard a voice behind him, "Why'd you come here again?"
Leo turned back around and saw the lady in the bunny mask standing silently in her sleek suit, contrasting with the green foliage around her, but blending in with the void behind her.
"I like birds and they keep going into the forest through here as I follow them."
"Well, it is a forest." She said with a slight tilt of her head.
"I know that, but a bird practically guided me here."
"Uh-huh. Okay, well, regardless of if that actually happened, you can't be around here."
"I was just leaving." With that, the two parted ways, the bunny went back into the forest and Leo went back to his dorms.
Or at least that was his plan, but in parallel with yesterday, Leo noticed Evelyn and Kyle again. Instead of sparring, the two were huddled around each other at a table near the cafeteria.
Leo was just going to give them space, but Evelyn shouted out to him, "Hey teach! We're just studying!"
Leo's face slightly scrunched together when she said that considering they were only a few feet apart and the light was no excuse for confusing him with a teacher.
"I'm just messing with you Mathias. But do you understand this?" She lifted up a piece of paper from Combat Tactics and Theory, the class that Leo didn't pay much attention to due to the boring teacher.
"Kyle and I are struggling, we managed to decipher everything else, but we're stuck on this."
Leo grabbed it and looked at it for a moment. After understanding the gist of it he explained it to them.
"Oh! I get it now!" Kyle exclaimed as he started scribbling away on a piece of paper, Leo assumed he was taking notes or something. As Leo started walking away Kyle asked, "Do you want to get some dinner to eat with us Leo?"
Leo looked at Kyle, before subtly turning his gaze towards Evelyn who looked at Kyle with a stupefied face.
"Oh, she must like him or something." Leo thought to himself when he saw her face.
Kyle looked at him with an expectant face and even said, "My treat!" even though the food was free.
Leo gave the answer that he would've provided regardless of whether Evelyn liked Kyle or not, "No thank you, I prefer to eat in silence, it's a habit of mine to read at the same time as well."
"O-oh I see. Well, if you ever change your mind, don't hesitate." Kyle said that and turned obliviously to Evelyn, who looked like her world had shattered. As Leo walked away, he rolled his eyes at the situation.
He made it back to his dorm after eating, this time at a reasonable hour, and found everything neatly packed up from the royal. The royal explained to Leo that they should be getting their squads assigned tomorrow or the day after. Leo didn't think much about it and went to sleep.