By the time he arrived at his room, a massive heap of papers lay on his study desk.
This was a month's worth of work.
With a stifled curse, the teenager opened the first book.
"Affinities, a guide to summoning."
He then read through the book on a couple of hours, and picked up another.
"Item type summoning, and how to use the Sorcery of Names."
A few hours later, he picked up another, then another, and another. Such that by night fall, he was done with almost all the books.
With a groan, Tai went over the points he had picked up.
Firstly, he was a person with the Summoning affinity.
The summoning affinity was one that allowed the user to manifest objects.
There were three types of summoners; Item type summoners, beast creature summoners, and an unknown third type."
"That was all the information i could get from a month's worth of resources?!!"
***
Soon monday had come by once again and everyone was heading to the assembly hall.
Since Tai had not been officially introduced as a student since he had missed the induction ceremony on the first day, Sir Carnuni had chosen to reintroduce him.
"Good morning, students..."
The white haired old man began.
"Today, we will be having yet another student joining us, by the name of Tai Leong!"
The students applauded, as he stepped down the podium.
Almost as soon as Tai came down, he was swarmed by students.
"Are you new?"
"What's your affinity?"
"What system level are you?"
The red haired teenager felt bombarded by all the questions.
"Uh, I'm a summoner."
But as soon as he opened his mouth to say those words, the entire hall froze.
"Did you just say that you were a SUMMONER?"
"Aww, how unlucky!"
"Yeah man, tough luck."
Tai was confused.
Yes, the Summoning Affinity was rather weak, but as per what he has read, it was pretty strong when used by a proficient person.
"Ha..."
A voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Poor bastard probably won't survive one year.."
This voice belonged to the single best student in the entire academy.
Hal Burnne, the first person to unlock the fire affinity.
Even if he was not the only one to unlock fire, he was most certainly the strongest out of them all.
Heck, he could already manifest flames on the very first day!
Students were usually able to manifest an ability by the end of the term, so that made him extra special....but not as special as the Ice Queen though.
She had hurled Hal across the room and could already manifest ice on her first day.
The room dropped by a couple of degrees as the blue haired girl snapped her fingers.
"What kind of Summoner are you?"
Her question made the pitying students regain their interest in him.
Before he could answer, Hal spat back.
"What does it matter, he's bound to be useless anyway."
The blue haired girl smirked.
"A beast creature Summoner is more powerful than every other Protector.
They can summon almost any beast of their choice and are able to control them."
It sounded really amazing.
"Whoa, a beast controller?"
"That's so cool!"
However, Tai already knew what he was.
"Sorry guys, but I'm actually an item type Summoner."
The hall went silent once again.
"So,...you're a walking backpack?"
After Hal Burnne had said this, everyone began to laugh loudly.
"A walking backpack?"
"He's going to be so useless."
"I bet he wouldn't even survive the monthly Assessment."
"How could anyone be so weak?"
Tai frowned as he glared at the laughing students.
He wasn't angry at them for laughing at them, instead, he was angry at himself for having such bad luck.
***
Soon after, the bell had rung and class began.
He already knew the classroom by heart, and when opening the door, he saw only four people.
One was the blue haired girl with an affinity to ice, another was the blonde haired girl who had a revelations affinity, and the third was a strange looking fellow with no hair and brown eyes.
Noticing him, Athena lazily stood up from her swivel chair.
"This is Tai Leong, he will be joining us for today."
She had not even bothered to tell the students to introduce themselves.
Awkwardly, the bald kid stood up from his seat.
"Uh, nice to meet you Tai.
I'm Auro Vagrenn, Affinity to beast type summoning."
Tai felt like screaming.
Why did the bald kid get beast type summoning while he was cursed with the item type?!!
However, he smiled and shook the boy's hand
"Nice to meet you, Auro."
He already knew the blue haired girl.
Who didn't know about the Ice Queen, Nikolah, who could already manifest ice on her first day and hurled a guy across the room?
And the third was the blonde girl that had ignored him when he tried to start a conversation earlier.
Standing up, she wrote the word, "Claire."
on a sheet of paper.
Athena spared her a glance and sighed.
"Leong, meet Claire, affinity for revelations."
It was there that it hit him.
The blonde girl was speech impaired.
After making a gesture for Tai to sit, Athena spinned on her swivel chair.
"Throughout the last month, we had been discussing about breaking the previous limit of your Affinity.
Today, you will now learn how to break your new current limit..."
Once again, Tai felt like crying.
He had just barely learned how useless his affinity was, and now he was supposed to summon something when he had zero experience in summoning whatsoever.