"First, we will talk about the various facilities in this academy. The auditorium we are currently in is connected to two other hallways, one going to the teleportation room, and the other going to the main lounge..." Charlot continued.
...
..
.
"And that concludes the orientation, thank you all for listening. Questions may not be asked, after that, your respective guides will show you the way to your dormitories" Charlot bowed as she concluded the orientation where she spoke for an hour straight before finally ending the orientation.
"Nghh... Ahh, sitting for so long made my legs numb" Clay complained as he sat on a chair the whole hour the orientation was going on.
"You're not the only one with numb legs, I'm pretty sure all the other students are numb as well" Josh added as he looked at the other people groaning and grunting from the stretching, some even tried to get up but immediately sat back down after feeling their numb legs.
"She said that the training area is located in the middle of the academy right?"
"Yep, she also said that we would have to go there tomorrow for the designation of classes. I wonder how they'll decide our classes, hopefully, we can be in the same class" Josh replied.
"Yeah, it would really suck if we got separated" Clay agreed.
"I mean, it would really suck for you, since, you know... You can't really... How should I say this... You're not good at making friends" Josh struggled to choose the right words to not hurt Clay's feelings.
"Wow, ok, that hurt" Clay jokingly laughed.
"Anyway. There were some important rules we had to follow right? What were they again? I kinda wasn't listening after she talked about the facilities"
"I dunno man, I also wasn't listening" Josh shrugged.
"Oof, uhh, should we ask what the rules were again?"
"Hmm, nah, someone's gonna ask it for us, watch" Josh assured Clay.
A few minutes later...
"A lot of people already asked questions but none of them were asking about the rules, are you sure about this?" Clay got nervous.
"Relax, someone's gonna do it sooner or later"
A few more minutes passed.
"Okay, no one seems to be asking about the rules, I'm gonna ask" Clay tried getting up.
"Dude, chill, trust me man" Josh stopped Clay from getting up.
5 minutes later...
"Okay, since there are no more questions, the guides that you followed here will now lead you all to your dormitories, Rafael's line goes here, Tom's line starts here, Andwelf's line is over there..." Charlot saw that no more questions were being asked and told everyone to line up accordingly.
Clay glared at Josh as they both headed to Andwelf's line.
"Uhh, we can still ask someone else?" Josh nervously laughed.
"Screw you, let's just go to the dormitories" Clay huffed.
"Hehe"
Clay and Josh lined up behind the others who were also in Andwelf's group.
"I remember them saying that the food is free at least, but we have to pay points if we want to choose our own meal instead of the ones decided by the academy"
"Speaking of food, I'm quite hungry" Clay rubbed his belly.
"You too? All that sitting made me hungry as well, maybe we get to eat after heading to the dormitories?" A person in front of Clay in the line joined in on the conversation.
"Huh?" Clay turned around.
"Oh, sorry, I must have startled you, my name's Steve" Steve extended his hand out to Clay, much to the latter's surprise.
"Uhh, sure... I'm Clay" Clay shook Steve's hand, albeit a little reluctantly.
"Before we talk about other things though, I must ask this question. It's kind of my way of judging people" Steve stopped shaking Clay's hands.
"What's your favorite type of food?" Steve squinted his eyes as he asked in a more serious tone compared to the previous cheerful greeting.
"Uhh... I-I have no favorites actually. Maybe anything that's tasty?" Clay didn't really have any favorites since he ate anything that was on his plate, but if he had to choose a favorite type of food it would be what his Mom thought was his favorite. Though Clay never said that pottage was his favorite, he does prefer it more than other meals since it tasted better.
"Hmm..." Steve closed his eyes and held his chin for a while.
'Well, well, well. A person who is the living embodiment of boring at first glance but has many other secrets hidden. If it wasn't for my system I probably wouldn't have noticed that this person is quite interesting' Steve thought as he looked at a system message that he could see even with his eyes closed.
Steve had a system that enabled him to view 'profiles' of living beings, in a profile, he could see various descriptions of the person. At first, he could only see the name and age of a person as well as a brief description of them. But as time went on, he unlocked more abilities, and soon, he could see the stats of a person, their likes, their dislikes, and most importantly- their system.
Once Steve sees a person's profile and their system, he could temporarily copy one of their abilities and use it freely without any sort of cooldown or repercussion for 10 minutes. The only way to view someone's profile, however, was to engage in a conversation with them and ask a question that they would answer seriously. He couldn't just ask for a person's name and his profile-view skill would be activated, no, he had to make them put some thought into their answers.
At first, it was easy for Steve to see profiles of other people, he just had to ask people random questions that would make them think a lot. But as time went on, Steve realized that people were slowly getting suspicious of him always asking thought-provoking questions.
He first tried thinking of a question that would always stay consistent in making people think of a good answer, but he also had to make people think that the question was normal. Steve experimented and made many failed attempts at finding the perfect question. Sometimes he could find a question that could consistently get good answers but not be a normal thing to ask strangers, other times he asked questions that were so normal that people did not think when answering him.
It had taken Steve quite a long time to find the perfect question that guaranteed no suspicions and proper feedback. And that question was- 'What's your favorite type of food?'.