Zen paused for a few seconds as he heard the girl's name. Any thoughts he may have had of killing the girl left his mind in that instant as he realized how ridiculous it would be.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he was majorly screwed right now. Out of the hundreds of students in this school that could have seen his mark,it just had to be a member of a pioneer family.
No wonder she hadn't yet exposed him. Someone like her would much rather use that information to help her own family rather than the military.
Zen sighed as he remembered that he was currently one of the universe's most wanted. It didn't matter that he had never been accused of a crime . The mere fact that he had the symbol on him made the bounty on his head the highest on the planet.
"Ummm,Zen?" Freya called
"Did he just say Draconyx,as in the family with the dragon ability"
"Yes" he replied telepathically, feeling something wrong in her tone
"Is something wrong?" He asked
"Oh...no,n-nothing at all" she replied stuttering.
Zen raised a brow but didn't press her for answers.
He realized that he needed to plan on a better way to deal with Zaria Draconyx, but for now, lunch.... unfortunately he was going to meet another disturbance on his way.
Zen looked emotionlessly at Celia who suddenly blocked his path.
"What?" He asked
"Can we talk?"
"We have nothing to talk about" he said as he walked past her.
Celia pouted and suddenly took out something from the storage ring on her finger.
Zen's eyes suddenly widened in a rare show of something that resembled emotion. He turned around to face her and saw what was in her hand.
"Will you now listen to...."
Before she could finish, Zen,who had no interest in her words, suddenly dashed towards her and threw a punch for her face, aiming to knock her out immediately.
Zen's fist struck through, but not on his intended target. Zen tilted his head curiously, looking at the hand that had managed to stop his attack. Looking to the right, he saw the unfriendly look of a white and black haired girl as she cupped her hand around his fist.
Zen quickly withdrew his hand and was about to try again when
"Whoosh"
Wind suddenly came up out of nowhere, kicking up dust in the process and obscuring the students vision.
The dust disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared, and when it did, Zaria,Neo, Maximilian, and Xavier suddenly realized that Zen was gone.
They all started looking around, confused as to what had happened.
"Looking for something?"
They all turned towards the source of the voice and were shocked. In front of them was their teacher, Aurora,who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, that wasn't what was shocking however, what was shocking was the image of her effortlessly holding Zen up a few feet above the ground by his collar while he blinked rapidly, revealing he was also confused about what was happening.
"Is this what you kids are fighting for?" Aurora asked as she held up a wooden box that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Celia's eyes widened as she looked in her hands and noticed it was gone.
Zen also saw the box in her hand, and it was clear he wanted it. He didn't even bother trying to release himself from her grip as it was obvious she was stronger than him in every single way. He hadn't even noticed when she had grabbed him.
"What does it matter to you?" He asked
Aurora looked at Zen who she hadn't released and an amused smile crept up on her face.
"It doesn't. Normally, military and academy personnel aren't meant to interfere in student conflicts, however,i like to make things a bit more interesting"
"Interesting how?" Zen asked
"I won't stop you from fighting. In fact I'll let you fight as much as you want. How about this? If you want this box and whatever's in it,raise your hand "
Other than Zen and Zaria,no one else raised their hand, however Zen was sure that she didn't really want it but just wanted to antagonize him because she knew his secret.
"Good then. Tomorrow morning, during class, you two will fight, and the winner gets the box. Until then, I'll keep it".
Gently she placed Zen down before walking away under the confused gazes of her students.
"Well that was weird" Xavier suddenly said, breaking the silence.
[New quest received]
Winner takes all.
[Quest objective: Win the upcoming battle]
[Reward: ???]
[Side quests]
[Quest objective: Obtain the item]
[Reward: 2 skill points]
Zen looked at the quest notice and then at Zaria cautiously. He had read a lot of fiction about similar systems, and played lots of games too, and from what he knew, rewards only had question marks when the quests were unimaginably difficult, and although it might sound ridiculous to be drawing conclusions from fantasy novels, it wouldn't hurt for him to assume it would be difficult.
*********
A few minutes had passed since then, and Zen was at the cafeteria wolfing down his food. The sooner he could get rid of this debuff, the better.
"Hey, Zen, so about what happened back there..."
Zen looked at Xavier and already knew what he was about to ask but he still waited.
"What the hell is inside that box"
Neo and Maximilian perked up as they heard this. They were also quite curious but had felt it would be weird to ask.
"A weapon" Zen answered frankly.
"More specifically, my weapon. I have no idea how she got her hands on it, considering how.... difficult the place it was kept in was"
Xavier suddenly exploded as he slammed his fist on table causing it to tremble.
"No way. You mean that she stole your gear,lost it, and didn't even apologize? What a bitch!"
Maximilian immediately grabbed Xavier's shoulder as he noticed that he was about to get up.
"What are you doing?" He asked already having anticipated the answer.
"I'm gonna go give that bitch a piece of my mind " Xavier replied as if it was obvious.
"*Sigh* that's not a good idea "
"Why? It's not like there's a rule against confrontation"
This time it was Neo who answered.
"The same reason everyone else is afraid of coming to our table"
Xavier suddenly realized that he was right, for some reason, people had completely avoided their table despite the available space.
Noticing Xavier's confused look, Maximilian and Neo were shocked as they realized he didn't know why .
Xavier only seemed more confused at their incredulous looks.
"Okay Zen, these guys are talking in riddles. What exactly is going to here?"
Zen took another bite of his food before replying
"Power hierarchy. High levels at the top,low levels at the bottom"
Xavier looked like he understood something but was still a little confused.
"The lower level students are afraid of you and Maximilian because of your levels. I hate to be the one to break it to you but this place isn't much different from the outside world. Lower levels are generally treated like trash and bullied a lot. Zen and i wouldn't even be here if Maximilian hadn't made us stay" Neo paused before continuing
"Don't get me wrong,i trust you guys, it's just that lower levels interacting with higher levels can attract a lot of attention and cause unwanted trouble, and that's the last of what any of us need right now"
Maximilian seemed deep in thought as he remembered his brief interaction with Jade and the purely terrified look in her eyes.
Stealthily looking around, he indeed noticed that the high level and low level students were separated into different sections, with them at the middle. He was able to catch a few suspicious glances and murmurs sent their way from both the higher end lower level sections.
Maximilian immediately added
"You understand now, right? If you were to do anything against another high level,not only would you be creating chaos all over the school, you'd be bringing danger directly towards Zen and Neo who everyone now knows you're close with .
Xavier growled defiantly but eventually sat back down begrudgingly. He wasn't dumb.... at least not too dumb, he was already aware of the discrimination against lower levels, he just didn't think it'd be present in a place like this.
"So what are you going to do?" He asked Zen.
"Fight" Zen spoke keeping up his habit of replying as briefly as possible.
The gear inside that box was something Freya had had made for him after personally collecting all the materials and getting a good forger. She had gifted it to him when he was ten. At that time, his inability to get an ability or awaken his aether had gotten him severely depressed. Unable to bear seeing her ward in such a slump, she had gifted hima first tier beast gear that was so taxing on its users physical prowess that it was impossible for him to even lift it at the time. It's requirements were so inhumane that they were similar to the requirements for second tier gear. She had then encouraged him to give up on abilities completely for the time,and focus on strengthening his body and skills. This had worked brilliantly as the young Zen, filled with motivation trained day and night, completely forgetting abilities even existed as he worked passionately.
Zen suddenly reviewed the word he had just used. "Passion". Such a word could barely be associated with him today.
Looking at the back of his hand, Zen thought
"They really did it. No. He did it. Hear that,Q? You won"
Zen quickly brushed aside those useless thoughts and continued eating without paying attention to anything else.
None of his roommates questioned him on his appetite as they simply assumed he was hungry after not eating last night and this morning as well.
After having completed both the food and water daily quests, Zen stood up to leave the cafeteria alongside his roommates.
None of them had realized it yet, but since they had left class, Zen had always been the one walking in the front while they followed. It wasn't that they were stupid or anything like that, Zen just carried himself with no regard for anyone or anything, like he couldn't even see them and thus had no reason to react to them.
His roommates had already realized that this wasn't a show of aggression or disrespect,it was just in his nature to be completely indifferent. He quite literally had no thoughts or opinions on something if it didn't affect or concern him.
The four of them rested for a few minutes before deciding to go check out one class together.
They chose randomly and ended up in a class called the soul gear class. Appearantly it was to help students unlock, wield, and develop their soul gears,a mysterious power closely tied to individuals' aether, abilities, and most especially aether force,a phenomenon that was mostly useless on its own.
Zen and the others walked into the special class to see that it was already packed with a large number of students.
Zen looked at the other edge of the class and noticed Jade standing together with Zaria and two other girls.
The teacher was a middle aged man with brown hair,dark eyes and a scholarly disposition. Unlike Aurora,he actually like he belonged in a classroom.
A few seconds after they entered, the class started as the man firstly began to explain the basis of soul gear and how one's soul gear was decided by a plethora factors and thus was unique to one's self.
In this class, students would focus mainly on accessing and developing their soul gear, and then on combat through the use of soul gear to increase their efficiency and the time they could use it for.
Zen actually focused during the class despite already deciding not to choose this class as it couldn't help him.
Abilities were one of the factors involved in accessing soul gear, and as he was unable to learn an ability, he would also be unable to access soul gear.
Despite this, Zen realized that the teacher was not only very knowledgeable,he was also insightful when it came to the topic of soul gear.
During the last thirty minutes of the class, the teacher told them his ability was in a way able to let him briefly access other's soul gear so he could vaguely see the outline. This would be able to help students better understand their gear and make the awakening process easier .
Today he was going to pick a random student to demonstrate this, and by pure coincidence, he picked Zen,one of the two people in the class without an ability.
Zen calmly informed him that he didn't have an ability, and other than a slight shock, the teacher didn't react much and simply said that they'd take this chance to see how the process would react to a person without an ability.
The teacher told Zen to close his eyes and clear his mind as he placed his hand on Zen's head.
Zen simply shrugged and obliged, expecting nothing to happen.
The teacher activated his ability and felt his consciousness stretching as he suddenly appeared in a strange dark place.
He looked around and seemed genuinely surprised at what he was seeing..He suddenly noticed what looked like a prison,or rather, the bars of a prison, standing strangely in the eerie darkness that for some reason still allowed him to see.
He looked at the bars with intrigue as he noticed the door was locked. He could have sworn that those bars weren't there before and had suddenly appeared.
With mild caution, he stepped towards the bars. His hand suddenly began to glow with a white light as he lightly held the lock and chain which swiftly disintegrated.
He looked on through the door that was slowly opening, unaware of the chaos he had released.
A faint glow suddenly appeared from behind those bars, and as the man saw that glow, his curious look was replaced with one of horror as he gazed at the glowing symbol, similar to the one on Zen's hand that was floating in mid-air glowing.