From the depths of the earth, what looked like a collosal swirling cylindrical terror of wind rose, except it wasn't swirling wind.
Looking around one could see what looked like windows made entirely of lights of different colors, swirling around the raging monstrous tornado that looked like it extended all the way to space, and spun with enough fury to rip a planet in half.
***********************
Zen looked around and found himself in an unknown location surrounded with thick and eerie fog .
"Where am i? Wait, where was i before?....w... what's going on?"
Zen couldn't help but feel like something was missing. His mind felt murky and he felt like he was only barely conscious.
Zen felt himself begin to move involuntarily through the fog. He felt like something was wrong here but he couldn't get enough of a grip to actually try to think about what it was. He kept feeling like someone or something was exerting some sort of pressure on his mind.
Zen walked around in the fog. Not at all sure of what was happening. Ever since he started moving, no other thoughts had entered his mind, almost like his only purpose was to keep moving forward.
After an unknown period of time, Zen somehow found himself in front of a lake....or was it a spring? A river?
Zen's mind was too muddled to think about it,all he knew was that it was a body of water.
"I.....i know this place!" Zen spoke as he looked into the reflection. Zen looked closer into the reflection and suddenly noticed something. In that moment his mind suddenly became clear again.
"This is...."
Zen's eyes slowly fluttered open as he awoke to the sounds of Xavier trying to wake him up.
Zen looked at him and noticed he was still wet and although clothed,was still cleaning his wet hair with a towel.
"Zen! Buddy, get up. Were almost late! Everyone overslept. We already missed breakfast,if we don't leave now, were gonna be late for the first day of class.
All traces of sleep disappeared from Zen's face, however for some reason he still felt much weaker. He quickly checked his watch and realized it was 7:45 am in the morning. Classes started at eight, and although Zen wasn't exactly worried about being late, he wasn't exactly keen on it either.
Zen quickly got up and went into the bathroom, noticing his legs seemed heavier and his steps were slower. He decided to just take a quick shower since he hadn't brought any of his things with him, but before that, he could finally focus on the system notification.
[Good morning host]
[Strength: 11.6](+0.4)
[Agility: 13.5](+0.5)
[Endurance: 12.4](+0.6)
[Intelligence: 12.8](+1.2)
[Detected that host failed to complete daily quest]
[Assigning punishment: Exp will be reduced to zero]
[Error. Unable to subtract Exp]
[Punishment 2: All stats will be halved for the day]
Zen didn't know what to say. It seemed the system was very strict when assigning quests. He wasn't surprised though. The system could make him much stronger in seconds, it would make sense for it to be able to make him weaker as well.
Zen looked at the stat increase and was just as clueless about it. He had no idea why his stats had increased, and it seemed the system wasn't planning on telling him.
Zen decided to ignore it for now. He quickly got undressed and took a shower while ignoring the teasing laughter of Freya in the process.
He also took the time to feed his energy to Black. Appearantly, everything he had given him last night wasn't enough and he was already hungry again. Zen didn't complain. Without an ability,it wasn't like he had anything he was using the aether for anyway.
Once he was done, Zen left the bathroom with only his underwear on and made his way to the wardrobe which, like the bed,was shared by Xavier and himself.
The only clothes which belonged to him in there was his uniform, so without further ado, he put on the academy uniform for the first time.
Zen couldn't help thinking that the academy uniform was very well made. The material was not only comfortable but durable as well,he even suspected that it was fireproof, but there was no way to test that . Zen finished fixing his uniform in the mirror and had to admit, it wasn't exactly bad. Zen tried throwing a few punches and realized that he wasn't held back by the uniform at all.
"A uniform and battle suit in one,huh?"
Out of nowhere, Xavier suddenly appeared next to him and wrapped his arm around his neck as he dragged him to the door
"Dude, enough! Let's go"
Zen didn't resist and let Xavier pull him out, noticing that he seemed to be quite a straightforward person.
Outside the dorms, Xavier and Zen met with Maximilian and Neo who had left while Zen was in the bath, and waited outside.
"Alright, let's get going" Maximilian said, leading the way.
Half way through the walk , Maximilian, Xavier and Neo were talking about the perculiarity of the situation, meanwhile Freya was questioning Zen
"Okay,how exactly did you oversleep? I know you. You don't oversleep,or sleep in, not even on weekends "
Zen was unable to give her an explanation. His mind was still on the dreams he had, but he didn't tell Freya, not because he didn't trust her, but because he still felt like he was missing something.
Freya decided to leave Zen alone for now. She knew she couldn't be disturbing Zen all the time. She understood that he still needed privacy and she couldn't mother him all the way through school.
They finally made it to class after a few minutes, and luckily, the teacher hadn't yet arrived. Checking the time, Zen realized that they had made it literally one minute before eight.
"Well look who we have here"
Zen groaned in exhaustion and looked up to see Gary walking down towards him.
The class was arranged like a downward slope, with the chairs behind being high, and getting lower the more you moved forward. Gary didn't waste the opportunity and gladly, figuratively and literally looked down on Zen.
Gary walked up to Zen until the two were only a few inches apart.
Zen looked into Gary's eyes, utterly indifferent to whatever grudge he might have against him or whatever it was that was going on here.
Zen's roommates watched on, completely clueless as to what was going on here. Xavier had actually wanted to step in but had been held back by Maximilian.
Zen suddenly noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He immediately averted his attention from Gary who was in front of him and towards a certain seat in the class where a certain white and black haired girl with silver white eyes was sitting quietly with her gaze directed at him.
"Go talk to her" Freya urged.
Zen internally nodded. He just had to do something first.
He quickly turned his head back to Gary and looked deep into his eyes.
No one noticed, but under Zen's glove, the symbol that was under his black gloves started glowing and burning.
A strange wind suddenly came out of nowhere and blew Zen's hair around. More specifically, the few strands of hair that covered his right eye.
Gary suddenly froze in place, his body started trembling, and every strand of hair on his body suddenly started tingling.
To everyone else it seemed like Zen and Gary were just staring at each other, but no one noticed that Maximilian had a similar reaction.
In his eyes, behind Zen, he saw a terrifying unidentifiable beast made of black malicious miasma that was flowing out of his right eye. The beast had its claws wrapped around Zen tightly as it growled furiously at Gary.
Zen's hair, after a few seconds fell back down, covering his right eye.
Zen casually took a step back before attempting to pass around the motionless Gary.
He was right next to him when Gary suddenly clenched his fist and swung his hand towards Zen in a claw motion. A shimmering green line of surging wind energy came out of his fingertips and rushed directly towards Zen's neck"
Zen's could feel the energy in this strike , and although it wasn't enough to behead him,it was more than enough to cut halfway through his neck. He quickly bent backwards, only narrowly dodging the strike as it passed directly in front of his face.
Zen hurriedly took a few steps back to establish some distance between them, ending up a few steps behind the door frame. His eyes suddenly shifted to the side as if he saw something, and shifted back to Gary who looked like he was preparing to attack again. Zen suddenly made a beckoning sign to Gary, taunting him to bring it on.
Gary clenched his fist and a swirling green wind materialized around his arm, rotating like a drill as he punched towards Zen with a fury that died as soon as it rose when he heard Zen speak.
"Perfect"
Zen suddenly rolled out of the way at the last second, not even bothering to look at Gary. It was all over now.
In the split second that Zen dodged, Gary's eyes suddenly went wide as he saw his drill strike charge forward.
A soft thud sounded throughout the class as everyone looked in front of where Gary was standing, and saw a woman with black hair with blonde tips and highlights,a woman who was familiar to Zen and most people who had taken the test.
She leisurely had her palm in front of her face and in it was Gary's fist which had lost all it's raging power the moment it came into contact with her hand. All the dangerous energy and momentum that Zen didn't dare let touch him was instantly nullified the moment she blocked it.
"What do you think you're doing?" She asked looking unamused.
Gary instantly looked to his side to look for Zen but noticed he was gone.
Gary,in disbelief began to frantically look around until he finally noticed Zen who was properly seated at the back of the class, looking at him with the same emotionless gaze. Xavier who was sitting next to him,flashed a cheeky smile and discreetly gave him the finger.
"So?"
Gary started stuttering, unable to find an excuse.
"Just go to your seat. At least your hits are pretty decent"
Gary gratefully walked back to his seat, glaring at Zen the whole way, meanwhile Zen didn't even look at him. He was more occupied with the woman who was in the room.
[Name: Aurora Alaric]
[Species: Human]
[HP: ??/??]
[Str: ?]
[Agi: ?]
[End: ?]
[State:???]
This was a first for Zen. The only explanation he could think of was that she was too powerful to be assessed by the skill at this level.
The woman somewhat lazily introduced herself as their new class teacher.
Aurora looked around the class with a deadpan expression on her face, but inwardly she couldn't help thinking that quite a few of her students weren't too bad, but there was one in particular she was looking for.
She finally spotted Zen in the back. Looking at his blank expression she couldn't help remembering the previous night.
*********
"We've got nothing on him".
The man in front of her suddenly slammed his fist on the table.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean"
Aurora simply shrugged.
"That shouldn't be possible. There's info on literally everyone in this thing. The fucking first daiper i shit myself in is in this system. How can we have nothing?!"
Once again, Aurora simply shrugged, looking completely unbothered.
The man looked like he had had enough of her and simply massaged his temples while telling her that he was in her class, and she should do her best to convince Zen to take the ability, mostly because his anonymity might be a useful asset.
********
Looking at Zen now,all she could do was smile, knowing fully well that the task was impossible.