"EEEEEEOOOOOOEEEEEEOOOOOO"
An alarm clock went off, ringing in all of it's annoying obnoxiousness, robbing my poor soul of one of its greatest pleasures, which was that of being a lazy cunt.
I lay in my bed, gazing up onto the dark ceiling, being generally pissed, and for good reason. The pillow was so damn nice feeling, but the obnoxious ass "EEOOEEOOEEOO" took my enjoyment of it and my sleep away from me, and handed me suicidal thoughts and a fucking headache in exchange.
I reached my arm out towards the bedside table in order to snooze the damn thing, accidentally pushing it off the table and knocking it onto the floor.
The THUD noise it made when it hit the floor made me surrender any hope of staying awake.
So I got up out of bed and started walking to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth in hopes it would wake me up, not forgetting to take the vitamins dad had gotten me, which I had finished by now.
I took my phone out of my pocket and checked the time "5:12", it read, meaning I'd have slightly less than 3 hours to make my way to the class from the campus dorm.
Today was my first actual day in the academy "Creed", the only other time I'd even seen it was on my way to the dorm from the mansion yesterday
Creed is an Arkist Academy, one of the few. It's meant to train whoever is blessed with the powers to get in, and it's incredibly premium, like really fucking high tier, it was built on a private island for god's sake.
The only reason I was even able to attend was due to the fact that I'd been tested and had been "blessed" with having a root, meaning I'd have a Arkist ability.
I put blessed in quotations because I wasn't all that happy to receive the power, all it'd mean was that I'd have to risk my life fighting monster's or being an agent for the Arkist's Alliance, which would be dangerous as all hell, and Guilds also weren't that fantastic in my eyes, since they were just as dangerous.
Sure, money and fame did come naturally for the average Arkist, but those weren't things I chased.
My dad was plenty rich, so I wasn't very desperate to risk my life for the money I could get, and any fame would simply get in the way of my life.
The only reason I came to this damn school was because dad had threatened to disown me if I didn't, and even though I knew he wouldn't follow through with it, I was sick of being nagged at.
He said I'd probably "fall in love" with being an Arkist the more I practiced it, but he hasn't the slightest bit of experience with it, so I don't particularly trust his advice.
But it's not like the government would sit by and allow me to not exploit having a root, these things were really rare, like 1/1,000,000 rare, and they needed all the manpower they could get to fight against the monsters and villains that plagued this god-awful world, so they wouldn't sit still and let me or anyone who had a Root to not exploit it, it was literally illegal to not awaken or exploit your root.
Another reason I'd basically given up on not going to the Academy was that being an Arkist was really cool in alot of ways. Having basically the equivalent of a superpower seemed like a lot of fun to be honest.
I'd made my way to the bathroom from the bedroom in order to wash my face and brush my teeth, and gazing into the bathroom mirror, I'd noticed my skin slowly changing color, and over the course of around 5 minutes, I'd become orange enough to rival the likes of The Lorax, my black hair had also been stained at the roots, but atleast my green eyes were safe.
The waxy orange skin and hair was only one of the 2 side effects from whatever happened, with the shitty smell that started developing from it being the other.
The smell was bad, really, really bad. It was almost indescribable. Rotting, warm dog shit and the moldy, wet, crusty carcass of a dead animal came to mind when this stuff hit my sinuses.
I ran to the shower, trying my best to hold in the barf that threatened to pour out of my stomach.
I turned the temperature of the water to as hot as it could go and after emptying out like 3/4 of the bodywash into the luffa, scrubbed as hard as I possibly fucking could.
The combination of nearly boiling hot water and aggressive scrubbing was painful as all hell, but I soldiered on through the pain, trying my hardest to remove the fucking hellspawn that was the smell that stained my skin.
~After 35 minutes of perpetual, aggressive scrubbing
My arm had started to hurt, partly due to how I'd also scrubbed it, but also because it started to get sore. I hadn't stopped scrubbing, I wasn't even close to stopping, not even when parts of my skin had started to bleed or when my skin had turned dark red from the luffa's scratches. I continued through the burning heat of the water and the abrasions caused by the rough luffa.
You might ask "Why go so far?", there were 2 primary reasons.
1) I didn't want to smell like rotting fucking dogshit.
2) I didn't want to go to the academy smelling like rotting fucking dogshit.
While simple, these 2 reasons were strong enough that I hadn't a second thought when I scrubbed as hard as I didn't.
~10 minutes later
By now, I'd finished my second bottle of bodywash, half the bottle of shampoo, scrubbed aggressively and tediously for almost an hour, put the heat high enough to boil an egg, started to bleed, and turned my skin red as a tomato.
Yet even after all those horrible things that I'd went through, I still stood in the shower with a dumbass grin on my face. I'd finally completely ridded my body of the orange shit and returned to my normal, clean self.
Although I was more red than my normal skin tone of pale, pasty white, I had clearly gotten rid of stuff.
I got out of the shower and headed towards the mirror to make sure everything was gone after drying myself off, but not without noticing some changes in my body, I was....more well built somehow.
My skin also looked a little clearer, as if the acne that plagued it fucked off. After thinking about it for a little bit, I dismissed any changes, as anything that'd change me like that wouldn't be as sudden as this seemed to be. I blamed that I was probably hallucinating after the torture that I'd gone through the past hour.
I put on my school uniform and brushed my hair, opening my phone and checking the time "6:03 AM".
It was early as all hell, but I'd set the alarm to as early as 5 AM so that I'd have enough leeway that I wouldn't be constrained by time.
I checked my bag and made sure I'd brought the appropriate materials, which consisted of
{A Pencil Case, 4 Notebooks, a 'Creed' Card, Pair of Earphones, Binder}
"Should be everything, at least I hope it's everything, because it's literally all I have." I mumbled to myself.
It was "6:07" by now, and I had basically prepared everything that I needed. The path to the first lesson was at most a 30 minute walk, meaning I had slightly more than an hour left of free time to do whatever I wanted before I'd be forced to head out.
I decided to rightfully tackle the question that had confused me for the past hour, which was what in the who-a fuckin the orange shit that developed on my skin was.
I searched around the Internet and found a few different slightly relevant reasons, each detailing a number of different reasons for orange-ish discharge and a bad smell.
1) Orange Vaginal Discharge: I thought about this for a fair bit, and...no.
2) Trimethylaminuria: A disorder which leads to people smelling like rotting fish, rotting eggs, garbage, or urine. While the smell part seemed relevant, it didn't make all too much sense since this seemed to be gene based.
3) Ark-Instigated Discharge: Symptoms include stained orange skin, horrible pungent odor, clearer face, leaner body, removal of acne, ability to move faster, dramatic increase in Ark ability strength, dramatic increase in compatibility with Ark, and removal of wastes within the body. Caused by consistent usage of 'Ark Pill'.
The 3rd option seemed to be most applicable, which was fucking amazing considering it's effects.
"Increased Ability Strength, Ark Compatibility, Removal of Waste" all of these effects were nothing short of amazing.
I was a bit confused by the "Caused By Ark Pill" section, as the only pills I'd consumed in any way were the vitamins dad got for me when I was tested for having a root a few months ago.
I hadn't really looked into what exactly they were since I was busy trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd awakened a root. Who coulda thought they'd be something this incredible, I'd imagine they'd cost quite alot though, with how valuable they were for a Root-Bearers.
I went and looked up how much a bottle of them cost and found one that seemed to match the quantity of mine and low and behold, they cost a fuckton.
6,000,000 fucking dollars, I'd almost forgotten how fucking rich dad was, but this was an ample enough reminder, I guess being a CEO paid well.
They were rare as all hell too, with only a few dozen bottles being present at any given time.
They also had the restriction of only being effective when used before the activation of the
root.
Meaning that after awakening, the effect they would have would dwindle to almost nothing, and having a second bottle would also prove to be useless. Doing all this research had took me a fair bit, as the time was now "7:17 AM" meaning it was time to head to the first class of the school year.
I got out of the dorm building and went on the path the Year 1A building.
I knew the campus was big, but holy hell did this school take on alot of space, I passed dozens and dozens of buildings on my way to my homeroom class, each looking huge as all hell.
Around 35~ minutes later, I'd reached my destination, and entering the ginormous building which I'd only seen once before on my first viewing of this place, I was once again astonished and in awe of the place.
The first floor contained a shop, full of whatever a Creed student could need, though the currency wasn't dollars or anything like that. The school used it's own personalized currency "Creed Coins" which could be gained by a variety of different ways, though missions were the most efficient of them. CC's were paid via the 'Creed Card' that every student had received when they enrolled.
One could also pay classic currency in exchange, though the ratio was completely off, 100 dollars could only buy you 1 CC, and the value of a CC was only a singular dollar, so one would have to spend 100 times the CC's value if they wished to buy their way through.
The system was invented in a way that students who were from poorer backgrounds would not be too disadvantaged. The academy itself was a non-profit organization for creating Arkist's after all, with most of the money coming in from Guilds, the Arkist's Alliance, the Government and personal investments from the family's of the students, as well as alumni who paid the tuitions back after they graduated, in a system similar to student loans.
All of these different sources of income had supplied Creed with enough money to be able to rent out a private island as it's campus area, as well as build all of the facilities within Creed itself.
On the first floor, there was a reception alongside the shop where one could ask whatever questions they had, as well as a few other facilities that I didn't know the use of yet, there was a manual that the school had sent to me that detailed what they were, but I'd gotten bored and gave up on reading it halfway through.
The class itself was on the second floor, so up the stairs I went.
The second floor was completely empty except for the classroom, which took up 90% of the floors space.
The class was pretty standard as far as classrooms went, though there was a lot of space seperating each students desk and chair, likely to discourage conversations between the students.
I looked around the classroom, realizing I wasn't the only student who arrived early, since something like 50% of the chairs were occupied, and then proceeded to sit down on a chair near the back of the room, trying to choose a spot that would attract as little attention as possible.