Owen woke up to the sound of the blaring alarm. He had not adapted to his new environment enough and couldn't get rid of his old habit of sleeping late, which was something he would definitely need to work on.
Although very sluggishly, Owen slowly sat up in his bed and massaged his temples to get rid of some of his fatigue. The fading image of his parents quickly left his mind as he slapped his cheeks with his palms in an attempt to force himself awake.
In the other corner of the room on the lower bunk, Akai, who had been watching Owen since he got up, looked at him with a weird expression as he saw Owen hit himself.
Akai furrowed his brows a small bit and thought to himself.
'This guy… isn't he too carefree?'
He quickly dismissed any distracting thoughts with a shake of his head and got up to go take a shower. As he was the first to fully wake up, no one stopped him.
With a bang of the bathroom door and a twist of the sign hanging on its handle, a loud humming sound rang out within the dorm room, while the others began to bring out their military outfit.
The military outfit was quite ordinary, to say the least. The students wore a black jacket that was laced with a vibrant red color on its edges and interior. The material the jacket was made from was extremely comfortable and the jacket perfectly fit each individual to not hinder their movement.
On the left shoulder of the jacket was a medium-sized golden badge in the shape of a circle. The badge had one red star in the center of it. The star revealed the jacket owner's rank. The ranks went from 1 star which was the lowest rank to the legendary 9 stars. The only way to increase the number of stars you have was to increase the number of mana circles one had.
One would have the opportunity to add a mana circle onto their heart whenever their current circle had a certain amount of mana condensed within it, once that happened the circle would not be able to fully contain any more mana and excess mana would constantly leak out of their body. One would have to create an additional circle to help share the burden. Though it sounded simple, it took a lot of time for a magic circle to reach its capacity limit, and it wasn't by any means easy to form a magic circle.
To create a magic circle one would have to take their mana which was in a constant loop in their magic circle, and flow it around their body until it reached their heart, once it reached their heart they had to gradually guide it to form the shape of a circle that could be larger than the one before it and imprint it directly on their heart. Not only was it extremely uncomfortable and draining to take mana out of your magic circle, but it was also excruciatingly painful to form a magic circle on one's heart, and the lingering fear of knowing that making any mistake would lead to severe injuries if not death.
The higher-grade the mana circle the more mana it can contain, ones third mana circle could contain ten times the amount their first circle could, and their fifth circle could contain over one hundred times their third circle.
Of course, increasing your circles gave you extreme benefits other than just increasing your mana capacity. Things such as control, familiarity, insight, sensitivity, power, and explosiveness would be greatly influenced by the number of mana circles one had. Even one's own mana could take on a qualitative change if the fusion between mana circle and heart was extremely successful and compatible. Though it was rare for occurrences like that to happen, it wasn't impossible by any means.
Those weren't the only benefits, ones body would also benefit tremendously from an increase in mana circles. Their body's capabilities would increase dramatically at the fifth circle and at the seventh circle one would even be able to fly! Someone with two mana circles would be able to lift around 100 kg of weight while a third circle would be able to lift about 150kg. Not only that but, one's organs and body durability would become increasingly tough to the point that at a certain level, mere knives and blades wouldn't be able to puncture their skin.
This was the reason that the mages were revered around the world as upper-class beings no matter what their background may be. But of course, humanity can be the only thing to evolve like this. At the same time that humans began to sense 'mana', so did animals, some animals even mutated and became even wilder and more ferocious.
Higher class species' only heard of in legends such as elves and dwarves also began to appear throughout the world with the appearance of mana, apparently, they had been on a different planet, but noticed the abundance of mana on earth and began preparations to co-exist with humans.
Humanity and earth itself had witnessed immense changes over a span of one hundred years. Compared to hundreds of years ago, humanity was now a haven. Although humanity regressed in some aspects such as violence and old traditions such as slaves and wars, humanity's technology had skyrocketed and had even advanced in spatial technology.
***
After a short 10 minutes Owen, Akai, Obe, and Hu Tao had finished preparing and had exited their dorm room. At first, they were confused about where to go, but after walking down the hall they found signs placed all around the building pointing them in the direction of a hall.
They arrived there in about 5 minutes of walking which wasn't too far from their dorms. They were greeted by a luscious hall that seemed to be endless in space. It was about the size of one soccer field, just a bit longer and wider. Countless students filled the hall with a stage at the top.
The students were in five rows, each row was filled with about 20-30 students. Each of them looked unique but they all had two things in common. Their uniform and their ranking of one star.
All the students were currently looking toward the stage right now with confused expressions, countless murmurs and whispers were going on between the students, some were making new friends while others were discussing their dreams and so forth.
Owen and his dorm mates on the other hand had stayed completely silent as they were in the middle section of the fifth row. Countless students stood out to Owen as he looked around the hall, there were all sorts of people. Some were burly, while others were skinny. Some looked powerful, while others were weak. Unconsciously to Owen, his fighting spirit had been ignited as he stared at the students which he labeled as 'stepping stones.
A few people specifically caught Owen's attention, at the top of line two there was a girl with beautiful long white hair that came down to her back. Her skin was as smooth as jade and her bright blue eyes revealed a bitter stubbornness and determination as she stood with her head tall and back straight. There was no emotion on her face which made her come off as extremely cold, people subconsciously kept their distance from her as they felt the temperature drop when they were near her.
There was another boy who he had seen, his neat brown hair came down to his neck and his scarlet eyes were practically shining as he stood there with a carefree aura. His skin was quite clear and smooth but in comparison to Hu Tao or the white-haired girl, he was lacking something. Either way, Owen saw him as a sort of wild beast as his aura was quietly raging even when there was a smile on his face.
The one who had taken Owen by surprise the most was a girl with venom green hair, she stood at the top of line 1 and her hair came down to her back. Her military outfit couldn't hide the curves of her body which left a lot of the boys in the room exasperated, some even ranking her the number 1 beauty in the room. The thing that caught Owen wasn't her beauty, but the feeling of suppression she gave him, she was like a lion looking down at a rabbit. He could only see the side of her face yet that was enough to reveal not only her terrifyingly cold expression, but it also revealed her stunning beauty.
Owen could only think of one thing as he stared at the side of her face his mouth ashen.
'Strong!'
"Ahem!"
At this point, a loud cough snapped Owen out of his trance and it appeared to be the same for others in the room. The reason behind this was that the cough was made into a microphone positioned at the center of the stage at the top of the hall.
Standing behind the microphone was a tall handsome man who looked like he was in his thirties. He had short brown hair that came down to his neck and his dazzling black eyes seemed to contain a void within them.
Unlike the students this man's military outfit was a bright vermillion red in color, its edges laced with gold. The badge which should be on his shoulder was on his chest. The badge on his heart was a bar of bright gold, on it were 7 scarlet red stars, giving the man an imposing stature.
As he stood there his cold glare flew over all the students, taking him only a glance to determine everybody's strengths and weaknesses. It felt like you were telling him your whole life story.
The man smiled to himself internally without changing the cold expression on his face. He exhaled sharply and folded his hands behind his back giving him a more refined aura. A bright red light flickered in the depths of his eyes as he opened them once more.