"Did he just say he is a dud?" Students were at first confused, but before they realized that this was the same student that failed to activate the appraisal stone.
"It makes sense now why he couldn't activate the stone. This motherfucker is a fucking dud!" One student exclaimed.
"Bro must have the shittiest luck in the world, but either way, this actually works in my favor. Now I have someone to be going errands for me."
While some students pitied Nyx, others were planning on how to exploit him and make him their servant to carry out petty tasks around the academy. Little did they know that this thought process would be the cause of their dismissal later on.
Meanwhile, Emerald, who had maintained a stoic look all this while, was endlessly shocked after hearing Nyx's declaration.
'A dud that can take out supe? Is this the reason he didn't use any ability in the entrance test?' the older woman fell into deep thought.
She was still trying to believe the red-haired boy was lying and trying to hide his ability. But from the reports she got about him not activating the appraisal stone, it was only logical for him to be a dud.
Because duds have next to no talent. And the appraisal stone mainly appraises the tier a superhuman could achieve in their lifetime, something mundane duds could never achieve.
'Why didn't I think about this since; does this mean this kid scammed Momo to use his favor on him?' Emerald thought in horror.
Similar to Miss Emerald, Violet, and Ikor were also slightly surprised, and for some reason, this only made the duo even more intrigued with the red-haired boy.
Luckily for Nyx, despite this revelation, he wouldn't be expelled from the academy because although duds didn't possess any ability, they were not restricted from attending any Hero Academy.
"Okay, that's it for today; class dismissed." Emerald dismissed the class a bit earlier than she was supposed to. Initially, she was planning on making the students spar with each other and see what they were capable of, but she wasn't in the right mindset to do so again.
Nyx, unaffected by the gazes on him, started to walk towards the direction leading to his dorm room. Before he could leave, though, he saw someone jog to him.
"So…you said you would teach me how to better control my powers. How are you going to do that if you don't even have any ability?" Apollo asked, still jogging to catch up with Nyx's pace.
"Yes, do you want to bail out now just because I don't have any ability?" Nyx said, knowing this was the logical thought process for everyone. Heck, even he wouldn't be mentored by someone without any ability.
What Nyx failed to understand was that Apollo had keen eyes and an observative nature. All this while, Apollo had been studying the red-haired boy, and one thing he had come to understand was this kid was too calm and mature for his age and those eyes…
Those eyes certainly didn't belong to a teenager.
Although he didn't know what he was getting himself into, Apollo decided to gamble and see if his intuition about Nyx being far from ordinary was correct.
Having come to a decision, the black-haired boy made his decision. "Of course not. I was just curious how you're going to pull it off, that's all."
Nyx nodded, but deep down inside him, he knew he needed to eradicate any lingering doubts from Apollo's mind if he wants to turn the latter into his pawn.
'And there is still that screen… What does it mean?'
Back at the field where Nyx had just left, on a particular building, a man wearing a formal white tuxedo and a pair of eyeglasses watched as Nyx walked alongside Apollo back to their dorm.
Naturally, this person was Momo, but he wasn't alone. Beside him was a short muscular boy with a bald head; he was dressed in black uniform, indicating that he was a student of the Hero Academy. What was a bit strange about this boy was his forehead where a single red eye that was emitting faint crimson light could be seen.
The boy stared at Nyx's disappearing back with contempt as he rubbed the extra eye on his forehead.
'Hiding his ability huh?' Momo thought.
Because he had seen the Legendary black color, unlike Emerald, Momo was led to believe that Nyx was hiding his ability, and this only raised Momo's evaluation of the red-haired boy by a notch.
'But the thing is, how long can he keep hiding it?' Momo pondered as he started to walk off the edge of the building he was standing on.
"Continue your training, Training," he said before disappearing from the stairs.
"Yes, master!" The boy replied as he spared one more glance at Nyx, who was now almost a blur, before going back to what he was doing.
Arriving at the dorm room, the first thing Nyx did was to isolate himself by going into the bathroom, making Apollo think the latter wanted to relieve himself so badly.
'Been there before.' He thought as he proceeded to flip through a booklet containing information about the Academy that was handed to all the students.
"Four academic years huh?" That was the years all the students would spend in the Heroes Academy before getting their license and becoming full-fledged Heroes who would fight against villains and Mutated creatures.
'My only concern is that someone won't make my life miserable again.' Apollo thought looking at the bunker that belonged to Yiran.
Inside the bathroom, Nyx watched as his own self looked back at him in the mirror.
'Hope all this wasn't just some hallucinations.' The red-haired boy thought. 'It's a little similar to video games, now how do I call it out.'
In the past, although Nyx had never played a video game, obviously because he was too occupied and busy for that, he had seen where frequent phrases like quests and status would be brought up. So he thought the screen was similar to video games.
Exiting his muse, he decided to call out the first word that came to mind.
"Status."