He had to admit. This place looked quite familiar. An all white room with a chalk board in the front, a lectern in front of the board, and a single desk in front of the lectern. The desk had a notebook on it, a pencil, and a stack of textbooks to the side of the seat. In the seat was Lucio, looking around the room and thinking that he's been there before, and there was an adult standing in front of him, writing stuff down on the chalkboard. He'd never seen that person before. At least, the person wasn't memorable enough to remember. Still, know Lucio was in a situation where she was going to be. He'd already started memorizing her black hair and purple formal dress.
Lucio could determine that the person was a teacher, and he was the student seeing as he was in the desk, without much of a choice--they had his legs tied to the legs of the chair. And, it looked like the subject he was about to be taught was world history with all of the names of different countries written on the chalk board. Which was weird because he remember taking that class already. Sure, he slept through it, but he took the class, passed it, then moved on to in-depth American history. Yet here he was, apparently going to relearn it all. It was such a waste of time....
"It's nice to see you're awake Lucio Auriemma." The teacher said just as Lucio was moving to put his head down on the desk. "Without looking at the board tell me everything you know about world history?"
Seriously, he just woke up. His head was a little fuzzy. Did he looked around the room and was awake for about a minute? Yes, but he was still waking up. He wasn't in the right mind to star spitting facts about World War II or something. Or, maybe it's because he was too lazy. All in all, he just didn't want to do it. Besides, it wasn't nice to be awake. It was nicer to be sleeping. Following such statements, Lucio ignored the teacher and continued to laying his head down on the desk to take a quick nap and wake up when he kind of felt like learning the material--that never happened--or when he was hungry. Whichever came first.
"Excuse me, Mr. Lucio. You're in the middle of class."
And in the middle of class, he's always sleeping, so it works out. It didn't matter whether he was the only student that was in the classroom, he was going to sleep anyway.
The teacher sighed, "Now I know why they put you down here."
The teacher reached for a white remote on the lectern that only had a single button. She pressed the button, and Lucio was jolted out of his willingness to sleep, literally. An electric shock ran through his body. It wasn't a short and sweet shock either, like one that happened because of kinetic energy. It was a shock that was long and could be used to bring a person in cardiac arrest back to life. It was a shock that forced a scream to pile in his throat, but the electricity stopped before he let it out of his mouth.
"I'll ask you again. Without looking at the board, tell me everything you know about world history."
Was this lady insane? Lucio's head was all over the place, he couldn't think about talking, His nerves had electricity running through them at random, messing up his own body movement. He could feel parts of his body twitching from the residue of energy.
He couldn't even recover from that without getting another shock and having to deal with the same after effects and the burning of his ankles where the electricity cuffs were.
"Mr. Lucio?"
Still twitching and with his face on the desk he managed to say something.
"I don't know if it's just me, but I was told not to talk to strangers. So, I don't think this is going to work..." he said, his voice weak.
The teacher moved her squared framed glasses up her nose, "You're right. I'm Maria Yao. I'll be teaching new material as well as going of classes you didn't pass within our criteria."
They must have an unreachable criteria because he passed that class with an A. What passing grade can you get higher then that? An A+? Doesn't that mean that they want him to pass every class with 100? Lucio sleeps in class. The exact opposite of what a try hard would do. He was lazy to the bone. Even the electricity didn't make his bones less lazy then they already were.
"Now then. Without looking at the board, what do you know about world history?"
Was this lady a broken record?
"It was the 1800's when the Impurus were first found on earth. They had a hand in World War II and other large scale events. The academy and hunters were created ten years after the first record of them. This and that happened, and we're here today. Stuck in a one person classroom." Lucio said, pulling his face off the desk.
"This and that?" Ms. Yao said, annoyed. Lucio nodded, "This and that."
"It's no wonder you didn't meet the criteria."
She pressed the button on the remote again.
Lucio, who'd just managed to pick his head up, fell back onto the desk shaking because of the electricity and twitching because of the after effects.
"This and that are not the words that you use to describe history."
Lucio didn't care. He only cared enough to pass the class. After that, it meant nothing to him. Lucio was the type to throw out information in his head when it no longer had use to him. Of course, there was a 90 day grace period for when he was about to dig the information out of his mental trash can. Which is where--he really didn't see it as a problem--came in. Lucio took and passed world history more then 90 days ago. The information on that was thrown out and never to be seen again. Well, it was in a place in his mind where he couldn't go. The place he liked to call permanent trash can because apparently everything you learn stays inside of your head, it just gets harder to recall hen other information. Still, even though that was the case, he had no intention of finding all of that information in his own head.
It was his own head for goodness sake! That place hated him and annoyed him while it belong to him. He couldn't even think about what dream he had during the night without getting a headache. He didn't want to know what it would be like to have to go into his own mind and find information from more then 90 days ago.
But, he also didn't want to have to sit at a little desk and have to relearn all the topics be decided, during tests, that he was going to make a few answers wrong so he wasn't in first place. Why did he have to be first place anyway? It's not like it's actually important. As long as you prove that you understood the material taught in the class by passing. That should be what matters. Not trying to make him into having the profile of a super genius who is actually fit to he a specialist. God, he didn't even want to be one anyway. They just threw him into the roll like it was some kind of honor when it really wasn't. Not for him anyway. If someone asked him for the position, he would give it to them in a heartbeat. He really did see what was so good about being a specialist. Not like how everyone else did.
"Are you listening to me, Mr. Lucio? The lesson has already started."
"Yes, Miss, I'm listening."
"Then start writing your notes."
"Miss, I find notes unnecessary-"
And there came another shock. Again, Lucio was twitching like a drug addict who almost overdosed.
"Pick up your pencil and start taking notes."
Lucio really didn't have a choice. He picked up the pencil, opened the notebook to the first page, and started taking notes. Although, somewhere along the way his mind drifted from the lesson--it was to be expected--and he started drawing on the side of the pages in the notebook. Mind you he wasn't an artist, so it was more or less random squiggly lines and stick figures. Still, Miss. Yao found that he student had started doodling in his notebook and pressed the button again. Leaving him twitching and drool dripping from his chin.
"Stop drawing in my class."
"...Yes, Miss..."
This is exactly why Lucio hated school. It was for this reason exactly. Class was complete torture, and it lasted all day.
Actually, Lucio couldn't tell. He was in a room with no window, no clocks, and only one door. It was like an interior classroom, so the only light he had was the one made from electricity. Then, there was the white room that messed with his sense of time in making his brain think that it was still bright in the afternoon. This room he was in was made for messing up his internal clock to make it run how they wanted it to. It was a method of torture people actually used. It made his mind active as long as the lights in the room were on, and they were on as Miss. Yao went through everything that would be taught in a world history class within an entire year. It was only when she reach the end of every lesson that could be taught in the class that she checked his notebook stopped the class.
"You get a thirty minute nap before the next subject," she said, taking Lucio's notebook and pencil and walking out of the room. And, as soon as she walked out of the room, the lights shut off. They really were trying to train him like a dog, but Lucio couldn't do anything about it besides to along with whatever schedule they had planned out for him. So, he did as his teacher said, and slept for 30 minutes.
Well tried. 10 Minutes after falling asleep, Lucio woke up and had another one of his nightmares. The walls were bloodied, bodies were on the floor whether he looked to his sides, in front, or behind him, and all of the furniture was ransacked. It was his normal night terror. However, this time, his natural instinct to run was stopped by the chair he was sitting. When Lucio shot up and rushing a step forward, he fell because of his legs. Then, because of those rushed movements, he was electrocuted again, and because of his fear added to that, couldn't move. So he laid there, trembling, while he stared at the dead people in front of him.
Then, 15 minutes later, the lights turned back on, and everything disappeared.
"What are you doing on the floor. Get up."
Lucio was in a daze. Like he was stuck somewhere and couldn't pull himself out. His eyes were clouded, but then, he was shocked back to reality.
"I told you to get up."
About to tell her that he could get up because of the restraints, Lucio heard a click, and he could use his leg individually without the weight of a metal chair. With the regain movement he stood up and got a better inspection of the electrifying device. He found that the cuffs that were tied to both of his ankles were white, made of rubber, so it was a good insulator to make sure the electricity didn't do anywhere. Then, there were cords running from each of them and going into the walls of the room in separate locations meaning that there were two devices being used to electrocute him that being controlled by the remote Ms. Yao was know keeping on her lectern. If Lucio could get his hands on that-
No, she would've expected that and prepared multiple remotes just in case. Or maybe there was a length to the cords going into the wall, and if he so much as pulled on the cord because you walked too far that might cause him to get a does of electricity. Plus, even if there was only one remote, Lucio could bet that the cord length was long enough that there was only an inch between him and the lectern. A sick joke that people loved to pull.
"Now pick up that chair and put it back. I don't want to see such a disgraceful sight again."
With his little muscles, Lucio managed to drag the chair back to it's original spot which was right behind the desk.
"Now, cast a low level spell."
Truth be told, Lucio's never cast a single spell since he came to the school. He didn't know if he had before entering the school, but he was a little kid at the time so he doubted he did. However, it was mandatory for someone's mana to be measured for them to enter the school. It was to give or taken away options for the students because being a catalyst needed a certain level of mana that not everyone had. So, because of that mandate, Lucio knew that he had a great mana capacity. He also knew, for some odd reason, he'd already developed a core which is the bare minimum to be able to cast magic. Though, he never remembered when he formed it, and it hurt when he tried.
"I don't know how."
For that statement, he got electrocuted again.
"This is why you should pay attention in class."
Lucio, again, showed Miss. Yao the disgraceful sight of him on the ground because of the shock. Again, he was electrocuted.
"I told you to never be disgraceful."
Lucio picked himself up from the floor, "Yes, Miss. Sorry."
Miss, Yao sighed, "Pick up your textbook, and find a spell."
As if knowing that he was going to need it, the textbook was sitting right on top of the stack next to the desk. He picked up the book and flipped to the table of contents. The first unit in the book, was focused on the history of magic which, from what Lucio remembered, wasn't long enough to need an entire unit. Then it was was the basic magic theory, intermediate theories, advanced theories, and mastery theories which really shouldn't be in the book since there's nothing really on the subject. Plus, there were a few people who could even get to that level. One would have to reach enlightenment more then a few times or have natural talent while having a large mana pool to reach that level, which doesn't happen often. One could have the talent with a small mana pool, or one could have a large mana pool with no talent. Basically, it was a luck thing that was decided before a person was even born. It was a destiny thing.
"Is this your first time opening a magic textbook?"
Actually, it was.
"Hurry and flip to a low level spell."
Lucio flipped to the first low level spell he found which was fireball. He looked at the page, saw the magic circle for the spell, an explanation of all of the intricate little things that happen when the spell is cast, and lastly, there was an incantation. An incantation was needed to even cast a spell because humans were incapable of using mana on their own, so they used words as a medium to converge the mana into a spell. Since humans never started out with mana words in their languages didn't work when channeling magic, so they used some language that, apparently came from God. Because of that, no one really knows that is being said during the incantations. Basically, spell casting started with a divine revelation which is information that never sat well with Lucio. Still, he had no evidence to prove it. Which gave Lucio an idea. If he was right, and the language of incantations--whatever it said--wasn't given by god, then did incantations even matter? For example, if he gave a particle form of mana in his mind, let's say a dull white color, then visualized those particles coming together to create a red fire. Could something like that-
"Oh...It worked. That's unexpected."
All he did was think about converging mana particles in his mind and boom. Now, he was holding a red fire ball, and became more curious on how this worked. What it the fire wasn't red but blue to increase the heat? He added more mana to the fire, and it to a blue color, almost hurt to hold in his hand. Now, what if he converged a whole 'nother set of mana particles separate from the fire in his hand into water? Then, a water ball would form in his other hand. So, to extinguish the fire, he moved the two images in his mind closer with the water above the fire and have the water pour down. Such happened in real life and with enough water the fireball extinguished. Then, the imagination ended and the ball of water disappeared.
And, it was in that one moment, Lucio called bs to everything that was inside of the textbook without even saying anything.