As soon as my eyes had closed, it felt strange as if my body was no longer in pain.
Due to my eyes feeling as if it had been closed for a while, it took a while before I somewhat adjusted to the brightness as I slowly opened my eyes.
But despite the struggles, I can briefly make out that I am seated in an auditorium with a bunch of students.
Suddenly a powerful voice echoed across the auditorium.
"Starting today, you all are now students of Arcana, and are expected to do your best in the academy for the next four years!"
"In this academy you will train in order to improve your skills and knowledge, all for the sake of defending Arkesia from the demons lurking outside of our land!"
"In order to do this, you must all…"
As I was listening to the speech, I instinctively muttered the rest of the sentence: 'work together with your fellow classmates and peers…'
All of this was extremely familiar to me…
This was the prologue to Heroes of Arcana explained by the principal of the academy: Choi Man-Shik.
As I was busy trying to process why I was suddenly in the world of Heroes of Arcana, the principal began explaining what to do next after they were dismissed.
"Inside each of your student phones, it will explain to you what class and dorm number you will be assigned to."
"Make sure to properly put away all of your luggage and interact with your roommate as they will be with you for the next four years."
"Classes will officially start tomorrow, you are all dismissed!"
Everyone around me immediately got up and began checking their phones.
I began doing the same.
Inside of the phone contains all of the user's personal information such as: name, age, address, family member, and the most important part, because there is an inbuilt mana stone, it can track your stats and items.
I checked the information and it seems like the body I am in is extremely similar to mine.
We both share the same name, our birthdays are on the same month and day, and our parents died in an accident.
The only difference would be our ages and looks.
My age was 28 years old while the current 'Kim Seo-Jun' is 15 years old.
'Kim Seo-Jun' looked somewhat similar to me, as we both have black hair and eyes, but he looks a little bit better than me…
After checking the dorm number, I arrived at dorm, C-226, and bumped into my roommate.
He was a head smaller than me and had blonde hair with green eyes.
"Hello my name is Kim Seo-Jun"
"A-Ah h-hello my name is Park Sung-Ho"
As I was trying to remember if Park Sung-Ho was mentioned in the original story or not, he told me he was in class F-1, the same class as me.
People in the academy were separated based on power level; the highest being in class A and the lowest being in class F.
But not everyone in class F was weak; rarely some may have a special reasoning for being placed in there.
At the end of each semester, depending on the student's stats, they can be transfered to other classes.
After the awkward conversation of introducing ourselves, I didn't remember him as a playable character in the game, but he felt strangely familiar so I decided to be friendly and speak out first.
*cough* "Why don't we go to the school cafeteria and grab lunch."
"A-Alright" Park Sung-Ho quickly responded.
As we entered the cafeteria, there was a loud commotion.
'So it begins' I muttered to myself with a solemn expression.
In the academy, although they expect students to work together in order to protect the people from demons, there is still a huge gap between the students based on one thing: strength.
This is mainly a never ending issue throughout the game as most students from class A look down and belittle the students in class F.
The protagonists of the commotion were Lee Chul-Moo from class A and Park Ji-Hye from class F.
"Like I said the school shouldn't accommodate for the leeches from class F." Lee Chul-Moo said cockily.
Park Ji-Hye retorted "If anyone was a leech it would be you, using your family's prestige as your own in order to threaten others."
"Why you–"
As Lee Chul-Moo began releasing some magic power, someone finally stepped in to stop the two of them.
It was the main protagonist of Heroes of Arcana, Kim Hyun-woo.
"Alright Lee Chul-Moo, let's stop right there before you start using your magic power in the cafeteria."
"...Bitch you got lucky Hyun-woo intervened or I would've crippled you"
"Yeah right, you say that as if you were that capable" she scoffed.
The three of them are childhood friends—if you could even call them that—as evidently shown, Lee Chul-Moo and Park Ji-Hye have a horrible relationship with each other. If not for Kim Hyun-woo, no one would stop them whenever they fought with each other.
Soon the two of them separated and left, causing everyone to be disinterested and leave the cafeteria.
Park Sung-Ho quietly whispered "the class A students are extremely intimidating, will we be alright?"
"Well it should be fine as long as we don't look for trouble and purposely provoke them."
* * *
Throughout the night I had been thinking about what I should do from here on out, now that I have somehow entered into Heroes of Arcana.
In order to survive, the first thing that should be my top priority is somehow increasing my stats.
Although you can increase your stats by killing demons and leveling up, it is risky, especially for my F class stats.
The only other ways would be gaining stats through equipment, achieving special titles, using medicine or potions, or the most important way: getting sponsored by a god.
Every character that's obtainable in Heroes of Arcana is sponsored by a god, and depending on which god it is, they will grant you stronger abilities.
For example, right now Park Ji-Hye who's in class F at the moment, will soon enter class A by contracting with the Goddess of Wisdom and War, Athena.
Lost in thought, I quietly prepared to go to sleep in order to get ready for class tomorrow.
After waking up, Park Sung-Ho and I went to class after eating breakfast from the cafeteria.
When entering the classroom, it is noticeable that our class total is missing about 2/3 of the students.
After taking our seats, class officially started after our teacher entered the room at about 8:15 AM.
"Good morning class, my name is Han Dan-Bi, and I will be your magic and theory teacher for class F-1."
"It seems like most of your classmates had dropped out, so it will just be you 11 students for this school year."
Seems like most of our classmates dropped out after getting frightened by the students from class A…
"Today we will be learning about mana manipulation theory..."
After completing the introductions to magic theory, it was now time for our combat training class.
As we all entered the training area, we saw an extremely tall and bulky man.
Noticing that we were shocked at his large build, he laughed aloud and said "My name is Kwan Chung-Do and I will be your combat teacher for this year!"
"First of all, the first thing you need to check is your stats."
"In order to access your stats, you need to insert your mana into the mana stone installed inside of your devices. After doing so, it will grant you the ability to view information of yourself and magical items."
"As long as the mana stone is not destroyed, you can view your stats with or without your phones at anytime. However, if they are destroyed you can just rebind your mana into a new unused mana stone."
As everyone started inserting their mana, I got worried as I didn't know how to freely manipulate my mana.
After following the instructions for the basic mana manipulation that we had learned in the previous class, I finally managed it.
After inserting my mana, it had granted me the ability to see my stats.
[Name: Kim Seo-Jun
Title: Traveler from Another World
Age: 15
Level: 1
Contracted: N/A
Stats
HP: 50/50
MP: 9/10
Strength: 2
Defense: 1
Dexterity: 2
Agility: 2
Luck: 5
Skills: Dedication lvl10 (MAX)]
…
*sigh*
These types of stats are just depressing to look at…
An average person in class B would have 8-10 stat points into each of them.
It is going to be hard to increase my stat…