The system wasn't trolling me.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be sitting in the middle of this classroom at 6 am in the morning waiting for my first lesson.
Who wakes up this early!!!
Never mind, I usually did wake up this early in my previous life.
Being one of the youngest successful CEOs in the nation comes with being disciplined.
But, but, but.
That was my own choice.
Not with a damned system blaring sounds of nails scratching on a blackboard to wake me up.
Sadists.
But there was an even bigger question to be answered. I turned to the person sitting to my right.
"Why are you sitting next to me"
"Oh, come on. Didn't I tell you I would hang out with you guys yesterday?"
Yes, you did, but you also seriously called yourself AbyssalFlameLord. I just don't really know what to believe anymore.
"What about her?"
Both of us turned to look at Raven who was sitting to the right of FlameMaster.
Raven "…"
Of course, she was going to give us the silent treatment.
"I don't know, she just followed me here."
Reasonable.
She seems to have her eye on us.
There doesn't seem to be any hostility yet, just curiosity.
"That makes sense but what about this guy?"
Sitting to my left was the hunky Mad Wolf.
"I am just keeping an eye on the girl in front, don't think too highly of yourself."
You say that but are you sure it's just because you do not know anyone else in the class?
When I first came to class, I thought it would be fun to sit behind Mary and Jake.
That way I could keep an eye on them and mess with them a little.
Unfortunately, it seems, I ended up bringing along three stowaways with me.
I am pretty sure ours was the biggest 'group' of masks in the entire class.
The rest of them seemed to be mostly lone wolves or groups of 2 to 3.
Despite all of us being adults on the inside, the younger bodies and classroom-like atmosphere seemed to make the entire situation seem incredibly childish.
It was like the first day of high school when you socialize and form your cliques.
And somehow, I ended up with this lot.
Mind you, I am not someone who doesn't like to socialize.
My plan was to analyze the personalities of everyone in the class and string together an alliance with useable pawns and like-minded individuals.
But before I could put it into action, I had somehow found myself in the midst of this strange combination of individuals.
Well depending on the situation, this might not be a bad outcome.
A dysfunctional and quirky group would easily help mask my individual sense of presence and threat.
Moreover, since they are masks they must have something superior to have been able to win the test. In addition, I have personally confirmed the skills of Jake and Mary. Well, not personally but I know that they can pull their weight.
Right now choosing the right members for an alliance is extremely essential.
Even if we end up betraying each other, the inter-class contest will be an extremely important event involving teams.
Seeing the instructor come to the podium, I decided to stop worrying about trivial matters and focus on the lesson at hand.
"What is the biggest difference between Level 0 mortal worlds and every other world out there?"
"That was a rhetorical question, please put your hand down."
"Anyways, the biggest difference is the absence of any form of supernatural energy."
"There are 5 main types of supernatural energy commonly found in this multiverse."
"Qi, Mana, Ether, Psions and Elemental energy."
"No matter which type of energy you cultivate with and even if you are cultivating in multiple systems at the same time, there are 5 major realms to any sort of cultivation system."
"The first realm is core strengthening. This involves sensing the energy you want to use and using it to strengthen the core within which you are planning to store the energy."
"For Qi, it's the body as a whole, for mana, it's the heart and blood, for psionic power it's the brain, for ether it's the soul and for elemental energy, it's the elemental core."
"However no matter which energy you are using and where the core is related, you first need to have a strong and healthy body as a foundation."
"Strengthening the body will also strengthen the other cores in turn."
"This is why physical training will be a major part of your training regime."
"As a matter of fact, because 16 is the best age to start heavy physical training after the body's development is completed that we have de-aged all of your bodies to this particular age."
"It's the most optimal stage to begin your cultivation journey."
"Anyways, after the core strengthening realm, is the energy manipulation realm. The focus is to increase the quantity and quality of energy you can store in your core and improve your skill in using it."
"After that, we have the avatar realm, the domain realm and the unity realm."
"Once you reach the unity realm you will have the chance of becoming a transcendent, which is one of the requirements of graduating for the 5th year."
"I won't explain the details of the higher realms to you now. It will only distract you. For the time being, all you need to do is train hard. You will be informed about the energy used in your mission world 3 days in advance during your briefing. You can then spend your hero points to purchase training methods and resources to take with you."
"Now that I have finished explaining the basics of supernatural abilities to you, I will go into the details of the geo-political structure of this multiverse and the world tree."
"… World tree…5 main limbs…"
.
.
.
The theory lesson was finally over after 5 gruelling hours full of pain.
Of course, I was paying attention and absorbed all the information about the multiverse given to me.
It was all useful for my survival in this new vast world.
It's just that I am more into self-study.
I was never an obedient student at school.
I skipped class most of the time and just showed up for the exams, which I aced of course.
"Are we going to be tested on this stuff?"
AbyssalFlameLord leaned over and asked me.
AbyssalFlameLord is a real mouthful to speak, or even think, I am just going to refer to him as Flame from now on.
"I don't think so. They probably don't care. But we will need to know the common sense of the multiverse if we don't want to end up dead for some inexplicable reason."
"I know right? Some of this stuff is just batshit crazy."
We chatted a bit before heading to our next class.
Physical training.
I will skip this part.
Just know that it was sweaty and tiring and by the end, everyone felt like they wanted to kill themselves to get out of it.
There were some who lasted a bit longer than the others but there wasn't any significant difference.
The point was to break us down by pushing us to the limit.
They even made us drink some disgusting-looking liquid after that.
I guess it was some sort of alien protein shake, but don't they even have funds to make a recipe that doesn't taste like an abomination unfit for human consumption.
It did help us get rid of the fatigue, so that's that.
After PT, we went to another hall for the combat drill.
It was circular shaped like an arena with a training dummy in the centre like the one from the test.
The difference was that this one moved.
Apparently, we would go on stage and have a duel with the bot.
The instructor would then point out our mistakes and give us some basic combat sense.
It wasn't a big deal for everyone to see your fighting style as it was going to be completely different once you were done with the specialized training for your chosen combat class anyways.
Sitting on the bleachers and waiting for our turn, I decided to ask Flame about the others.
"Did you investigate the rest of our classmates yesterday?"
Given Flame's curious personality, there was a high chance that he had done so.
"You bet I did. We have a lot of interesting people in our class. The masks especially. They stand out the most."
"Heh, I bet they all avoided you like the plague and you couldn't get any useful information."
"Don't underestimate me, my information-gathering skills are nothing to be scoffed at."
Of course, they aren't, that's why I am just asking you instead of going through the trouble myself.
This way I don't need to expose myself to potential enemies and still get their information.
If I tried gathering information myself, I would even manage to make them spill the colour of their underwear.
I totally, absolutely didn't forget about it after getting distracted from seeing Jake and Mary alive.
"Well, just tell me about the ones I need to look out for."
"Sure thing. Let me introduce them to you as they go up on stage."