Leo shot up in a bed with cold sweat running down his back. His left arm was wrapped up in a cast and put in a sling, when he tried to move it, a sharp pain ran through his body. He looked around and noticed he was in the same place he had woken up last time, after his soul realm was unsealed.
He laid back and rested his head against the pillow. He breathed in and out a few times as sweat rolled down his head and he stared at the ceiling. After a moment of calming down, he rolled his legs out the bed and stood up.
The room he was in was fairly dark as the lights were off and the blinds were closed. He went to open the blinds revealing a dark world where the moon was slightly obscured by the clouds. He sat down on the bed looking out the window and cursed under his breath.
"You awake?"
Leo heard a voice as the door besides him opened. He saw John peek his head through and enter the room. Leo turned away from him without answering and looked back out the window.
Seeing this, John slumped against the door and slowly slid to the floor.
"They're saying your body can't handle your soul realm being channeled." He said with a depressed tone and paused briefly before continuing, "There is one positive though. You did manage to bring out the contract, so they marked you down as having a subclass."
"Any suspicions?" Leo asked with tired eyes.
"None that I know of, it's not the most uncommon thing for people with exceedingly strong soul realms. Of course, it rarely ever happens, Augusto said it's been a century since he last saw it happen with his own eyes."
"That's good."
Leo stood and looked at his cast. Before the seal it would've taken some time to heal, even with help of soul mages. But since he got the seal undone, the passive regeneration grims possessed was taking effect. He slightly flexed his arm, feeling a pain, but it had toned down from moments before.
His arm would be fine in probably a few hours or by tomorrow. Regardless, he'd still have to wear the cast since he was hiding his identity as the first prince. With his other arm Leo rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.
"They're going to make you take a backseat in class until your arm heals. And for the soul realm, it shouldn't be too long until your body can handle it." John said looking at Leo.
Leo paused for a moment and thought, then he hesitantly asked, "John, how big is your soul realm? You've got a large one, yes?"
"Yeah, my specialization revolves around it. It's probably the size of size of a closet and the core is probably the size of an apple. How big was yours? Since you're a prince, I'd assume based on some reports I've heard it's around the size of a warehouse?"
Leo watched John's face for a moment before biting on his nail, thinking silently.
"You don't have anything besides those two things, right?"
"What do you mean? I don't recall anything else…"
Grey interrupted Leo before he could speak further, "You won't find anything like me in anyone else. I'd recommend you to not tell him about me, no matter how much you trust John."
"It's not like you'll tell me anything." Leo responded.
"Incorrect. I will tell you certain things, but not everything. Let me give an example, I won't tell you the solution for using your magic without harming yourself. You can already solve it; you could use magic right now if you knew the answer."
"So why don't you tell me?"
"…" Grey was silent.
Leo tilted his head back and he noticed John with his eyes closed on the floor.
"Based on what John said, shouldn't my soul realm be much smaller?"
"You're a special little kit in this weird family. Blight has his eyes specifically set on you; I'd recommend young master to consider it a blessing despite the hardships."
"Kit? In this weird family? What're we, related or something?"
"No, I am a messenger of Blight and the gatekeeper to your soul. I am more of an honorary member."
"Gatekeeper? Messenger? Boy… you sure do love being cryptic…"
"I admit, it is pretty fun." Grey said while wagging his tail slightly, although Leo didn't see this as he wasn't in his soul realm.
Leo looked over at the slumped over John before standing up and dragging John over to the cushioned chair next to his bed. He lifted him onto the chair gently and then Leo entered his bed to go back to sleep.
TAK! TAK! TAK!
Leo eyes opened quickly at the weird noise and noticed a bright light flooding the room. His eyes recoiled and his pupils shrank. With a little flinch of his head and a moment to readjust, Leo dragged himself out of his bed. He searched for the source of the sound until his eyes landed on the window.
A crow was on the outside of it pecking at the window and looking into the room, at least that's what it seemed to be doing.
Leo mumbled with a slight smile, "Aren't you a weird one… Are you perhaps the one that's too courageous for its own good?"
TAK!
In response to Leo, it pecked the window, causing him to chuckle.
When the attendant heard Leo laugh, he opened the door and stepped in, forgetting to even knock. When he stepped into view the crow flew away.
"Awake already? That's good! Your arm seems to be healing well after our treatment. It shouldn't be too much longer until it's all healed up."
Leo saddened by the crow's departure just nodded in response.
"Oh!" the attendant flipped through his clipboard and lifted up a piece of paper, "Squads were assigned yesterday, here's your room number and a list of your squad members. You're also dismissed and can head over to your dorm anytime; class hasn't started yet today either."
Leo took the paper and thanked the attendant who promptly left the room. He looked at the paper and committed the room number to memory. He then looked over at his squad mates.
Advanced Training Squad #6.
Mathias Doe: Dealer
Andrew Griffith: Grim
Theodore Faust: Soul Mage
Luke Sharpe: Specialist.
"So, I'm the dealer… good. Luke is a lucky draw, but I'm not sure if Faust will perform well, hopefully he will. This is a pretty good team." Leo thought to himself. But he wasn't sure who Andrew Griffith was, but he assumed they were related to Augusto. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
He looked around the room and noticed that John had already left. Leo stretched slightly and left as well. He made his way over to the dorms but checking the clocks on the wall there wasn't much time until class started.
When Leo entered the building for the dorms, he noticed a few people were a bit wary of heading down the hallway. As Leo made his way to his room, he quickly found the reason why, there was shouting match going on in one of the rooms near his.
Eventually Leo sighed when he reached his room as the shouting was very obviously coming from inside. He turned the knob and opened the door to reveal sheer mayhem.
Inside the room there was a whole bunch of torn clothing and items thrown around. When he opened the room, the chaos instantly froze. To his right, he saw Luke holding back Faust, both stared at Leo like a deer in headlights. Leo slowly turned his head to the left and saw the royal from his previous room shielding his face, also frozen and staring at Leo.
"HE INSULTED LUKE AGAIN AND- AND HE ALSO THOUGHT I WAS A GIRL!" Faust shouted to Leo prompting Leo's head to swivel back over to him on the right.
"I ALREADY APOLOGIZED FOR THAT!" Andrew retorted, making Leo's head swivel back to the left.
"NOT FOR INSULTING LUKE! YOU DIDN'T APOLOGIZE FOR THAT!" Leo's head once more turned to the right without uttering a word.
"YOU IGNORANT IDIOT! YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT DEMONS AND ANGELS! STOP PRETENDING TO UNDERSTAND, YOU USED TO BE A HUMAN, YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING!" Leo turned back towards the left and Andrew continued while pointing at Luke, "HE'S FROM THE SHARPE FAMILY! THEY'VE BUCHERED DEMONS FOR GENERATIONS UPON GENERATIONS!"
"THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT!" Leo turned back to Faust and Luke choosing to just watch the scene play out, "HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE HIS FAMILY!"
Eventually Leo tuned out from their shouting and looked around the room for his stuff. He noticed his backpack on one the beds knocked over, its contents spilling out. On the floor he saw his most recent painting, the one with the crows.
In the middle of their fight, he started walking over to it, prompting both parties to shut their mouths. He lifted it up and there was a hole in the upper-right corner, a large hole at that.
Without turning he simply asked, "Who made the hole?"
Neither side claimed ownership of the accident and instead blabbered on about it, eventually turning it back into a shouting match. Leo sighed and moved over to the corner of the room and threw the canvas in the trash can.
Then he left the room of shouting in an angry mood and just went to his classes. He sat in Ethan's class with an annoyed expression and didn't pay to much attention to his class. In the class the squads were made to sit together. This ended up giving Leo a headache as Faust argued with Andrew the entire time.
In Mr. Griffith's class they were all put together once more to practice as a squad. The squad itself was mostly chaotic as the two troublemakers kept arguing and Luke tried to stop them. Leo chose to let it happen as he didn't really want to get involved; he was still annoyed by their shouting.
Because of his arm's cast, he also had to sit out for the activities and could only watch his squad crumble. All things considered, when they actually got down to it, they all excelled at their respective classes.
Andrew, the royal, had a strange obsession with guns apparently and shot them since his childhood, so they were all good on that front. He handled them with expert precision and rarely missed a shot. He even held a record around the place he grew up, for what specifically, Leo did not know.
Faust was extraordinarily talented with his magic and while Leo was incapacitated, he apparently ran circles around everyone in his respective class. Faust's magic used sound, he could manifest sounds, albeit they were quiet, or he could amplify or nullify preexisting sounds. So, if he wanted to make sounds, he could make them originate wherever he wanted, as long as they were around him. Currently, Faust struggled extremely with making sounds from nothing, it was practically impossible for him. Despite this, it was still remarkable that he could do it, even if it took everything he had to make the tiniest of sounds. Faust could also change preexisting sounds, so he started playing instruments and amplifying them.
When Leo asked why he didn't just shoot a gun to make noise, Faust said that was quote, "not stylish." Whatever that means…
As for Luke, he had almost gotten over his phobia of blood completely and took inspiration from Olivia creating serpents of blood that shot out from his injuries. Blood angels had the same regeneration as grims, so they healed faster. Much like grims, if they lost a limb or an organ, they would not be able to regrow them. They were limited like humans in that regard, it was just that their wounds would heal quicker. Blood angels also made much more blood than a regular person and they practically had to dump it out before they started having problems.
Despite his annoyance from the arguing, Leo slightly nodded in satisfaction. At this point his arm was perfectly fine but it wouldn't make sense for someone to have two subclasses.
A subclass was for when a specialist's ability built off of a pre-existing class. Technically it means they belong to a specific class, but they have an outlier ability, it's just been reversed so people know that the person is a specialist.
Since regular people only can have access to one of the four classes and rarely a subclass if they are from the specialist class, people were bound to get suspicious if Leo had two subclasses.
An example of a subclass would be if someone could create swords with mana and when using them, they have premonition, it'd mean they have a dealer subclass. This is because dealers can't make their weapons, they instead store them in their pocket dimension, but since this imaginary person can and they still have premonitions against grims, they have a subclass. This would be a very basic subclass but a subclass nonetheless.
Due to being a prince, Leo actually belonged to all classes, despite his inability to use with soul realm efficiently. So, when the book was revealed to be a specialist, Leo revealed that he had a subclass. He did this to have more room to breath when fighting, since now he could use swords or guns. He would've instead chosen to be a soul mage, but there is an obvious problem with that.
After the class ended, they attended third block where they learn squad-based tactics, then went to fourth block.
Arriving at fourth block, they separated into their respective classes and Leo and Luke went to see John. As they started discussing various things, suddenly Grey asked Leo a question.
"So, what do you plan to do for your specialization? You've shown yourself having a subclass, but what now?"
"How long until I can use magic without harming myself?"
"Young master, you could technically do it right now if you wanted."
"You know what I mean, naturally and without some obscure technique."
"Who said it was an obscure technique?"
"Just answer my question please."
"Well, it depends on how long you'll live… so probably, never?"
"…Excuse me?"
"You heard it from John himself, you have an abnormal soul realm. Most people are trying to fill a glass cup with an eyedropper, the princes get a large spoon, and the kings get a slow faucet. But you, young master, get a fire hose. I don't think I need to explain what happens when a regular piece of glass gets filled with a fire hose."
Leo's face hardened at Grey's words, forgetting to even answer Grey's original question.
The class eventually ended, and Leo found himself once more walking around the training grounds. He stumbled upon the crow again and the situation repeated itself. He followed it and was led to the forest's edge.
But this time was slightly different, this time the woman in the bunny mask was waiting for him.
"Did you get your ass kicked?" She asked abruptly.
"Excuse me?"
"Your arm."
"Oh. No, my body just couldn't handle mana conversion."
"They give you lanterns for a reason; I recommend you use them."
"I'm a specialist with a dealer subclass, not a soul mage."
He could see her eyes squint slightly from under the mask, "Really?"
Leo sighed, "Yes, I'll be on my way now."
"Wait a moment, I saw the crow this time."
Leo turned around, "And?"
"Well, I just wanted to say, there is not really anything out here, so I don't know why a crow is leading you somewhere. It's probably some parasitic magic controlling it, trying to get you killed."
"Well, I don't plan on going into the woods, I'm curious about the bird, but not morbidly curious."
"That's good." She said as she turned and left.
Leo was silent before mumbling, "Wonderful conversation."