Chapter 12: Fan Club
"There are two types of energies circulating in the air." Professor Neil's voice reverberated leisurely in the classroom as he spoke in a low tone.
"Mana and radiation," he said.
Mana has existed since ancient times, even before humans came into existence.
It's the natural power of the planet Talus. Only those who possess a mana heart can wield it, and only the nobles in the past were allowed to learn and practice magic.
During that era, the world was heavily reliant on mana, resulting in a stagnation of technological development.
Any research not related to magical formulas and not verifiable with mana was strictly prohibited. However, everything changed 4,000 years ago.
The collision of a mysterious meteorite, known as 'The Destroyer', with the planet Tellus falls into the western continent.
This caused the destruction of half of the West, killing 267 million people who were unable to evacuate in time.
The impact of The Destroyer did not end there. It started to emit radiation that killed 1.09 billion people all over the world, and many animals went extinct, making 47% of the land mass uninhabitable.
Furthermore, with every misfortune came another, as people started to emit strange energies and abilities started to appear.
"And that's how radiation, the second type of energy in the air, came to be in our world," Neil commented.
Mana users and ordinary people began to discriminate against those with abilities, calling them freaks, monsters, and devil followers.
The government tried to contain them, but it was not successful, as the number of awakeners kept growing.
Resulting in an increase in bloodshed, madness, and wars.
Organizations both good and evil formed in the hundreds, appearing and disappearing; the Farris hero union was the only organization that defended ordinary humans, while magicians and ability users were busy fighting each other, not willing to compromise.
That is, until 'The Destroyer' exploded 50 years later, turning 99.99999% of ordinary people into awakeners, which made up 70% of the remaining world population.
The world called for the fire to cease as humanity finally realized how much damage and destruction had been done.
A peace treaty was signed afterward, and since then, mana and magic have been in decline as the abilities of users have soared.
The western continent was called the Fallen Land, with 42% of the western continent submerged underwater.
The rest, 11%, was turned into multiple islands, one of which is where the current Erou Academy resides.
The place where the 'Destroyer' hit is now a highly restricted area, filled with radiation that could kill anyone below S-Class.
The total number of deaths reached 3.073.605.901, and that period was later referred to as the Bloody Era, the most devastating in Talus' history.
Ding Dong_!
"Class dismissed." The history Professor Neil closed his book, and as soon as he said that, the bell rang, and everybody got up from their seats, yawning.
Ryan left the classroom, followed behind by Jacob.
Tracy checked her makeup in the mirror before following as well.
"Did you sleep well?" Jacob was anxious all night since Ryan's roommate was Astin, the protagonist.
Ryan nodded. "Yes."
"What about your roommate? Did he bully you?"
"No. My room- mate wasn't... The...re when. I went... to... sleep," Ryan said again briefly as he stood beside the door of the classroom; he didn't need a brain to know that Jacob was Hiro's fan.
Jacob certainly knew that Astin wasn't in his dorm all night; he saw him leave the academy in his supervillain suit yesterday.
Curiosity got the best of him, so he hid behind the department's gate and was excited to see the events in the novel unfold before his eyes.
'Professor Mia was sure to become his first victim.' Jacob was excited but held it in.
He coughed, a little embarrassed, and asked.
"How about in the morning?" He was still worried nonetheless, even though he knew that Astin wouldn't bully Hir- Ryan as long as they were still in the academy.
Ryan shook his head.
This morning, the two mainly exchanged pleasantries and walked to class in silence; nothing worth mentioning happened.
"Good morning, Ryan," Tracy said happily.
She hooked Ryan's hand, plastering her boobs onto his arm, and said with a pleasant smile, "You waited for me."
Ryan raised the corner of his mouth into a small smile and said, "Friends."
Tracy's smile turned wider, while Jacob was annoyed, grumbling inwardly, 'How dare a mere mob character try and stick to my hero?'
Jacob wasn't the only one who was angry; a group of girls looked at the trio and started to gossip.
"Look at her; it's that famous Tracy; she's at it again." A girl spoke.
"Again?" another girl asked, confused.
"In the entrance ceremony, she tried to seduce young master Damion."
"How dare she..." The girl, who was about to badmouth her, was scared of Tracy's sudden stare.
"I bet that if she took off that makeup, all that would be left was an ugly ogre." The other girls didn't notice anything and went on.
"But he's still handsome," another girl said, blushing.
"I think so too."
"I mean, a stuttering boyfriend sounds cute."
"I don't know; it sounds weak."
"It's not like stuttering is incurable." The girls chattered excitedly, pouring their hearts into the discussion.
"I wonder what's his current rank?"
"Probably an E rank, most students here are between F and E."
"I wonder if he's stronger then young master Damion."
"Well, I don't think so, after all young master Damion is the only heir to that 'Oxlicir' family."
"Come on just think about it, if Ryan is stronger then..."
"What are you talking about? We are FDFC, the Forever Damion Fan Club, remember?" A girl interrupted, looking at her friends in disbelief.
"Yeah." The girls changed their tone and cheered excitedly following their leader's stern orders.
'But he's so untouchable.' One of them grumbled inwardly; she felt that it was too late for her to leave the club now.
"What about Astin?" A boy who was listening unintentionally asked— he wasn't even jealous because those three were high-level compared to him.
"Astin already has Lisa," the same girl who grumbled responded. There had been an established rumor since their middle school days that the two were dating.
"I see." He nodded and turned his head to stare out at the corridor.
'Why aren't they jealous of Lisa? Weren't girls always supposed to be jealous of each other?' The boy, Eddie, wondered, then shrugged it off.
"They already have a fan club; look it up in the forum."
"Ah, I see it now," He made a quick search and then closed his phone.
'So Lisa being with Astin was okay, but Tracy being with Ryan wasn't welcomed? Oh well, not my business...'
-Kyaa
The girls' excited chatter attracted Eddie's attention, and he looked back.
Another group of girls looked at Tracy with hatred and said, "How dare she show off her boobs in front of young master Ryan?"
They were looking at him fondly and saying, "Look, he doesn't even look at her."
"Good job, Jacob; you should separate the two." They cheered as Jacob took the middle position between the two.
"How dare she try to sexually assault our innocent baby?"
Eddie almost spat out blood. "You've only seen him yesterday; how did he become your innocent baby?"
"It only takes one look to know; besides, he's handsome and cute."
Eddie realized he said his thoughts out loud and smiled sheepishly. "If you like him so much, why don't you approach him too?"
The girls shook their heads, embarrassed.
Eddie didn't understand this fan mentality, but he still nodded.
"Our Ryan, he's so innocent."
"He's cute."
The girls all over the place were either talking about Damion, Astin, or Ryan, the top three most handsome guys in the academy's first year.
Ryan, the guy in question, was oblivious, and just like Jacob, he was thinking of what happened yesterday and if the events in the novel repeated themselves.
'Professor Mia and Astin's second encounter would be taking place next week,' He thought, 'I need to plan my next step carefully before the tug-war between the two ends.'
---
"Why are you being so difficult?" Mia stood up from her seat in the main lobby and stared at Professor Neil.
Thanks to yesterday's incident, he had replaced her by giving a lecture to her class.
"The class distribution is not in any way related to your skills or your capabilities as a functioning human."
Professor Neil gazed at Professor Mia; his words then whispered through the air as she snapped her fingers, causing his eyebrows to completely disappear from existence, but he remained composed: "Remember, you might be here to compete against us, but that's not the actual purpose of a professor in this academy."
"Shut your mouth and hand over the detailed information of all the students in Erou."
She frowned yet kept her cool, throwing her hair back.
"No," Professor Neil simply responded, and with a simple spell, his eyebrows were back in place.
"You're acting childish and suspicious about wanting the students' information. Did anything happen?" Neil was suspicious, as Mia was being rather annoying about the whole ordeal.
It looked like she was going to murder someone, and if that someone was a student, then he by no means could hand her their personal information.
"..." Mia blushed.
She suddenly felt flustered at his question and didn't know what to say.
"Professor Mia??" Neil was taken aback by her blushing expression.
"You can't b-."
Vroom!!
Something snapped in her as the whole office shook, and gravity pushed Neil's chair down, however, even under the pressure, he just smiled.
"... F*ck, just give me my students' profile then." She demanded, and Neil could only give it to her, as she was soon about to supervise a practical training with a first-year class.
Taking the file with much hatred, she stormed off, and soon after, Neil wiped the blood off his lips with a handkerchief.
"What a fierce woman."
Chapter 13: The Fight
Back in the middle of the hallway,
Tap! Tap! Tap!
As the radiation around him suddenly moved in a twisted manner amidst the chatter of his classmates, Ryan subconsciously glanced back to see an angry guy with a water bubble in his hand moving toward him.
"... Already?" He mumbled in a low voice, as the first character that would spark prejudice against Hiro in the academy was heading toward him with the same expression and wrath mentioned in the novel.
With a thought, Ryan made that water bubble burst, wetting the guy's entire shirt and making Kevin, an average looking guy with an impressive build that would make girls flock his way, feel extremely embarrassed as he went back, asking Eddie to dry his shirt.
Eddie grumbled in a low voice, "Why should I-?"
He fell silent, swallowing back his words at Kevin's hostel eyes, and silently started drying him with his fire.
Ryan couldn't move his body properly for two seconds. Since it was his first time trying to control the flow of someone else's radiation, he felt like he was struck in the heel, it was practically the same as a baby trying to stand up the moment he learned how to crawl. Fortunately, since the radiation was weaker then his, the backlash was less severe.
It was also fortunate that Jacob and Tracy stopped in their track, otherwise, his weakened state would have showed if he were to be left behind.
Jacob looked back at what happened as the current interaction pushed people aside, scurrying to their classrooms, and spat, "Karma."
Ryan looked at him cluelessly.
"He's the guy I told you about, the one who hit someone with his twin brother because he bumped into him; that guy over there who's drying him with fire became his bullying target," Jacob said, touching the back of his neck, feeling a little bit confused.
According to the novel, Hiro was bullied by a mob character and splashed with cold water; not fighting back caused him to be looked down on.
'It must have been due to me and Tracy being around Ryan that caused the change.' Jacob shook his head, but a feeling of the bubble of water bursting, which was a bit odd, stuck to the back of his mind.
"He must have been jealous of you; his crush must have taken a liking to you or something," Tracy added.
Tracy and Jacob certainly saw him aiming at Ryan.
They talked for a few minutes as they continued walking toward the training hall.
Ryan could see his classmates looking around.
As Professor Mia entered, casting a glance at everyone's head with a thoughtful expression, her eyes paused on a few people before she said, "It seems like everyone is here."
"Probably most of you here don't know how to operate your ability or can't even manifest it yet," Professor Mia said, checking each of the people's profiles with a frown.
Most of the students were F-ranked at most.
"In here, you'll have to have a match with someone else to know your level and to stimulate your power."
"But they haven't taught us anything yet." Someone was quick to talk disapprovingly, sparking discussion amongst the rest of the students.
"I don't know how to manifest my power yet."
"Isn't it dangerous for us mages to fight against ability users?"
"Stop being pussies. This should be a good way to test our strengths with each other."
"Stop this useless discussion immediately." Professor Mia clapped her hands and looked at her floating notebook that Neil told her to read from. "Before anything drastic could happen, I would make sure to stop it. You can challenge anyone you want--."
She stopped mid-sentence and then bushed the notebook aside, saying, "Your useless discussion wouldn't change the content of this class, so stop cowering and get on stage."
"Student Astin Buer and Student Eddie Reed, get on stage and fight."
She lazily called out two random names and used her power to push the rest of the students to the edges of the room, creating space for the two to fight against each other.
"Fight."
Mia's cold voice reverberated throughout the arena.
Hearing this, not only their class but the students of the other class as well looked at each other.
Although there were some glares and curious stares, all eyes were fixed on the two that set foot on the stage.
'A confident demon king and a scared little rat,' Jacob swallowed, he was anxious about this event the whole night and almost lost sleep, except he slept like a sloth but was nonetheless excited to see the villain protagonist in action.
Astin's mouth rose in a strange arc as Eddie trembled under his stare.
It was glaringly obvious the person in front of him was weak, so he decided to make this fight quick: "Don't worry, I will make it painless."
He spoke to Eddie's nervousness and held out a butter knife from his pocket, whispering out a spell, "Reinforcement."
As soon as he said that, a whistle once again whispered throughout the entire hall as the knife shot straight toward Eddie's head.
Seeing this, the only reaction that Eddie had was a slight shiver of his body before closing his eyes in fear of what was to come.
However, before the knife could lodge into his head, it completely stopped and fell down with a low, yet powerful metallic sound that thundered in everyone's ear as they stared at him in awe.
Ding! Thud!
Eddie stepped back as he found that his frozen legs had completely gone weak under the threat of death, and he fell.
Astin meant every word he said when he declared he would make it painless.
The fight ended immediately with Eddie falling off the stage, and Mia looked at her students and asked.
"Who's next?"
This training's main purpose was to see if the ranking displayed in her hand matched the skills they would display in a real fight.
So far, Eddie didn't disappoint, a weakling, just like he promised.
On the other hand, Mia couldn't help but notice Astin's impeccable control and speed.
She thought it was slightly better than what an E+ ranker could offer, and she reckoned he was about to break through very soon.
She planned to use this opportunity to assess their powers because the only thing she knew about the mysterious young man was that he was her student.
She scribbled an F- on Eddie's name and a D- on Astin's, waiting for her hesitant students to come forward. She asked again, "Who's next?"
'I must go next.' Jacob's eyes shone in admiration; no matter how much he feared and wanted to kill Astin, he couldn't help but be awed at his strength.
'No, Jacob, focus, Hiro, no, I mean, Ryan, has been humiliated at that stage in the novel because Damion didn't show any mercy, damaging Hiro's reputation. Hiro has the mental age of a child; being hit made him cry, and he has become a laughingstock since then.'
'By no means, I'm going to allow that to happen. I'm going to protect Hi- Ryan.'
Jacob was planning to be the first to hop on the stage when Kevin raised his hand and asked, "Can we choose our opponents?"
Professor Mia said, "Since you're so enthusiastic, get in and select someone to be your opponent."
Kevin hopped onto the stage and said, "I want Ryan Cassier to be my opponent."
"Alright." Mia looked sideways at Ryan and asked, "Do you accept the challenge? You only have one chance to refuse."
Ryan was relieved as he accepted the challenge, "Yes."
Damion and Astin are still tough opponents for him to deal with, and it's not like he was planning on crying, but he still didn't plan on getting a beating for no reason.
After Ryan got on the stage, Mia declared, "Fight."
Kevin instantly launched multiple water bombs, which Ryan sidestepped with ease.
In no time, Ryan was channeling the radiation across his body to enhance his overall strength in front of Kevin.
Managing to move the single dots of radiation in the air was hard enough, but to use them effectively to create some sort of effect, it was exponentially harder. To pull such a feat, he had to painstakingly pull each dot together and create a long lasting pattern and engrave it in his radiation flow.
Enhancement was an ability he made observing one of his tutors pattern of movement, otherwise it would have been more difficult. Without his energy vision it would have took ten times the effort.
But it still consumed a lot of energy to use. So, it was more advantageous to end this fight as soon as possible.
With a powerful step that sent a small shockwave into the miniature arena, he appeared in front of Kevin, grabbed him by the collar, slammed him to the ground, and delivered a swift kick to his stomach, sending him off the stage.
The entire fight took less than 10 seconds.
As he looked back, Ryan's eyes met Jacob's momentarily astonished eyes. Reacting quickly, he dove down just in time to avoid an ice spear that narrowly missed his head.
Kevin stood in the aftermath, his mouth stained with saliva and vomit and his arm covered in frost as he collapsed due to exhaustion.
The nearby medic arrived swiftly and escorted him to the infirmary.
"Next." Meanwhile, Mia's voice called out soon after she scratched Kevin and Ryan as F+ and E rankers, respectively.
Damion stepped onto the stage, his eyes fixed on him as he spoke. "Ryan Cassier, I want you to be my opponent."
Ryan, who was about to leave the stage, paused, his gaze shifting from Damion to Mia. He then said, "I refuse."
Mia nodded. As much as she wanted to make things difficult, she also wanted to see other students' performances.
Moving closer to Ryan, Jacob commented with shining eyes that he was fully aware that Hi- Ryan was physically strong, but he still felt the need to express his admiration.
"That was impressive; you didn't even break a sweat in smashing his head to the ground."
Eddie nodded in agreement as he chimed in, "The way you kicked him all the way across the stage, smashing him onto the wall until he vomited his breakfast, was so satisfying."
Tracy added flatteringly, "And the way you dodged his attack as if it were nothing was cool."
Ryan, surrounded by the three enthusiastic fellows, acted as if embarrassed, his face flushed.
"I want Jacob Duncan to be my opponent," Damion announced, interrupting the chatter with his words.
His finger settled on Jacob.