Jake spent an entire day with his long-time friend.
For the past two years, he has put on a face mask to protect himself. Even his class friend, Thea, didn't know what burdens he was carrying deep inside of his heart.
After learning about the darkness surrounding him, he closed his heart and mind. Everywhere he looked, he only saw a potential enemy. His thoughts started to twist. He started to feel paranoid and didn't trust anybody.
Even his only friend at school, Thea, only became his friend after she spend a lot of time trying to get him, and the reason behind it he didn't know.
Though he felt that Thea is not a bad person, his trust in others was already broken. His parents were killed by their friend, and he even kept eyeing him and his butler after killing his parents.
All that was because of greed.
His parent's friend wanted something that his parents had and so the so called friend became a backstabber, therby making Jake an orphan.
After Jake's parents died, all the relatives ignored Jake as they couldn't get anything that belonged to his parents because of his butler.
Aside from his butler, he never trusted another soul completely. Now that the butler is dead, teh number of people that Jake trusted completely is zero.
His every thought and action started to be under influence of evils prevailing the society.
Spending time with Selena cleared his heart a little. This was because though he never started to trust another soul after his parents demise and learning the reason behind that, Selena was someone that he knew long before that happened.
After a long time, he felt peace in his heart. He felt something good in his heart by spending some time with her but it also made him ashamed for what he had done earlier when she hugged him.
He swore in his heart that he would help her once if needed, so that he couldn't feel guilty about that anymore.
After his parents died, Jake had to mature faster than others. He knew that feeling guilty in his mind would hinder his growth in the future and so the decision.
They discussed many things, after all, it has been eight years since they saw each other last. Though they kept in touch with each other via phone, it wasn't face-to-face and not everything could be spoken nor felt through phone calls.
Some things had to be done when they were present in person.
After getting the ice cream tub, they walked around the city.
Selena asked, "So Jake, which academy do you want to join?"
Jake replied without another thought, "Kernal's Guardian Academy".
Selena went silent when she heard that, almost as if she didn't like the answer.
Jake observed the change in Selena. Though he may have closed off his heart for others, he was excellent at figuring out the mood changes of others. He understood that wasn't the answer she expected.
From the calls they made to each other, he knew that she joined Alkore Northern Academy last year. It is one of the top five academies that exist in Tarro.
Unlike nations that show a bit of hostility to each other, academies maintain their neutrality even when a battle rages involving its home country unless it is a beast or monster tide. They would only involve themselves in such things.
The nations can't force the academies either unless the academy is a military one.
A few academies have branches even in enemy nations as the academies' motto is to serve Tarro, not the nations. These academies possess such power to even deter nations from playing politics with them.
So, when one holds an identity of the academy, either as a student or staff, no one can do something bad to that said person without proper cause. Of course, it only stands in the human habitats where surveillance is present.
Out in the wild, it is an different matter entirely. What happens there, stays there.
He understood that she hoped for him to join the same university as her.
To mitigate the issue, "That is my first choice but with an A-class profession, they are less likely to recruit me. My second option is Alkore, which has a high chance of accepting me", he said.
A small smile immediately blossomed on Selena, which didn't go unnoticed by Jake.
She replied with a smile, "Don't worry, you will get into Kernal's Academy and I hope so".
Even though she said that he could hear in her voice that she wanted him to go to the same academy as her, not the other academies.
"Though I said those words to make her less disappointed, I would go to Kernal's if possible. I didn't lie when I said that Kernal's wouldn't recruit me. There is a high chance that I wouldn't be recruited by them but I still had to try for the best", Jake thought in his mind.
They roamed the city for a bit while and said goodbyes for now.
---
Jake returned home after catching up with Selena. Though it was late in the evening, he entered Yaros, to continue his journey of hunt.
He entered New Bastion, and like Yaros, it was late in the evening here.
It is known that there is almost no time difference between the two worlds, which made the scholars baffled. This is because they understood that Yaros is larger than Tarro, and having the same time frame should have been impossible.
They scratched their heads for years before throwing the topic in the mystery box, a name they gave to a box, which now became a room, that contains data collected on the mysteries that they can't understand even a little bit.
Yes, there are a lot of mysteries that baffled the scholars but many of those were not a priority, like why the time is same for both planets.
Tarro has much bigger issue on how to survive the 100-year mark without getting destroyed. Other matters can wait till after the safety of the world is probably secured.
Jake went straight to the mission hall to pick up his next mission.