The morning light seeped into the lonely dorm room Yoel was cooped up in, his body still slumped in the comfortable sheets of his bed.
It feels so peaceful…
As Yoel thought so, he received a rude and sudden awakening from the cube device, which was located on his desk, which had been littered with many different books and scattered pages, one book standing out amongst the others.
His eyelids fluttered, as the cube device's green light turned yellow, representing a minor and very weak ray from the sun.
Said ray of light was headed for Yoel's eyes.
An annoyed grumble resounded from his dry lips, and he hazily sat on the bed, with no motivation to do anything.
A couple of seconds passed, as he looked around his room…
Slowly, the light of realization seemed to strike Yoel like a bolt of lightning, and he gasped to himself.
In a rushed manner, he hurriedly got up from his bed and packed some of the books, along with the one that stood out amongst them into his bag.
He wore the tidy academy uniform he was given the day he woke up at the hospital.
He had been having a bit of trouble putting on the tie, which was a completely normal thing, Yoel had been of 16 years of age and he had never really been taught how to get dressed properly like this by his father.
Or what Yoel thought was his father.
After overcoming a few small, but annoying hurdles Yoel looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes tracing over his new outfit.
They also traced over his eyes, looking at their magnificent purple color that portrayed dominance, and a few memories flashed back to him.
Yoel did not have many friends in his life, the few he did, hung out with him just because he would finish their homework for them.
Not a single person Yoel had met didn't think his eyes were an abnormal color, many people even shot him with wary looks, completely alienating him from the rest of human society.
Occurrences such as these, where people had weird bodily features were much more common here, now.
Which made Yoel feel a bit better about his eyes.
His eyes then swept over the deep and dark eyebags under his eyes. For the past week, Yoel had experienced quite a few sleepless nights, theorizing, planning and training himself for the future.
Even as he did so, he could never shake off the feeling of simply not being strong enough.
His ego since the victory of his battle against the ape, had not increased at all. If anything, Yoel had gotten increasingly more humble.
Even if he had managed to beat the titanic ape, he had still been beaten in a battle with his own power.
And he had also asked of his companions to not share his feats, because he knew all too well that they were not just his.
With a heavy sigh, carrying many mixed emotions, he locked the door of his dorm and left for the Academy.
The walk towards it wasn't too long, but it was exceptionally long for a facility locked behind a huge dome.
It was something Yoel rarely had the luxury to think about, so while walking to the academy, these thoughts naturally drifted to his mind.
Who made this entire place, even?
Yoel suspected it was the headmaster of the academy, but he might as well have been grasping at straws trying to figure out who had made this place.
Shaking away his thoughts, he tried to focus on the matters at hand.
The academy was not too far away now, he could see many students like himself entering the building, many of them carrying differing insignias from his own.
Those that were wearing his own, looked around nervously and were also way lower in number than the rest of the people there.
While the ones with differing insignias from Yoel, carried themselves in an orderly manner, exuding silent understanding.
If Yoel had to guess, he'd believe that these are the students of higher grades.
And considering what had happened at his own exams, it seems that the normal acceptance rate was way higher than this year's…
Yoel eventually joined the many other students who had walked into the building, found a board describing the layout of the school and the class he had been assigned to, and navigated the many hallways and corridors in an attempt to find his class.
It was especially hard to navigate through the corridors, and Yoel actually wondered if this was some kind of setup or illusion to embarrass him.
He enabled his Shadow Sight and peered at each and every corner of the hall.
At first, he tried a few corridors that had traces of avon smeared upon them, and each time he did he ended up finding himself at the entrance of the Academy.
When he took the paths that had no motes of avon visibly swirling close to them, he seemed to grasp at some kind of invisible understanding, and it became easier for him to discern which path had been real and which wasn't.
He had expended quite a bit of his stamina trying to find his class, and when he did he was surprised to find out that nearly nobody was in the room.
He could spot only Vasil and Brandon from the familiar faces, along with a few others he had seen at the encampment of the alliance.
"Am I too early, or is attending the morning classes not mandatory..?"
Yoel spoke out, obvious confusion displayed in his tone.
Vasil tilted his head slightly, then looked at him with a questioning gaze.
"Did you not have to pass through that illusion barrier before arriving here? I'm pretty sure you're on time. I arrived here a few seconds ago, myself."
"So no one's specifically targeting me?"
Yoel responded, a bit surprised and in turn causing Vasil's confusion to grow even more.
However, the amount of people in this room could be counted on Yoel's fingers.
There had been five others, including himself in that group.
Had it really been that hard to navigate through the illusion? Yoel found it extremely easy, with the help of his enigma.
I had been able to see the motes of avon so clearly, I really do wonder if these kinds of enigmas are rare or something.
Yoel shrugged at Vasil's answer, and before thinking a bit about his answer, he responded.
"Well, at first I was kind of confused as to why there had been so many hallways and corridors, so I activated my enigma, then I tried going through the routes that had the most avon gathered at first… and when I realized that wasn't working, I simply headed for the opposite way."
Vasil, who was supposed to be someone adored by the Ones Above, a prodigy amongst prodigies, widened his eyes and stared at Yoel in disbelief.
"D-Dude, you're supposed to struggle when solving this…"
Yoel quickly retorted, trying to keep himself as humble as possible.
"I mean, you arrived here before me, didn't you? And the rest of those people did too."
Yoel pointed with his chin to the rest of the people in the class, they had been spectating this exchange curiously, trying to discern any interesting information and details.
Well, I understand their concerns. Everyone had a right to be wary, due to the proclamation of the vice-headmaster.
Before their chat could continue any longer, he felt another presence enter the classroom.
It had been Lilith.
Like the first time he had met her, Yoel was still momentarily stunned by the sight of her.
She exuded a different kind of aura, which differed quite a lot from the one she had during the dungeon.
If she had been extremely serious then, managing to sometimes even suffocate Yoel with her uptight personality, right now the sharp look of her eyes was nowhere to be seen, instead being replaced by soft liquid pools of pale gold.
Yoel did not fail to notice the slight eye bags forming under those beautiful eyes of hers as well.
Just from looking at her, Yoel could clearly understand that she had fought a few tough battles of the mind herself.
Noticing his gaze, she smiled and waved at him and Vasil, then moved over to a desk that had her name on a small and thin plaque.
Wait, a plaque?
Yoel looked around the class, and indeed, he noticed many metal and thin plaques plastered all over the desks.
I suppose this is our seating order, then?
Not too long after Lilith's arrival, Cole and Loki entered the classroom, each of them waving at my and Vasil's direction.
A few moments after that, the number of students walking into class steadily increased, until there had been about twenty people in the classroom.
After each and every single one of the people in the room had been seated, something strange happened.
The lights flickered, and a greyish mist swirled around the teacher's desk, and from the mist appeared a familiar man.
It had been the man watching over Yoel's enigma evaluation.
His blue and icy eyes stared at each and every single one of them, his gaze landing on Yoel and his former companions for a tad bit longer, and then opened his mouth.
A soft, somewhat dreamy voice escaped his lips, and the class felt an almost palpable pressure exude from him.
"Welcome to the academy, everyone. My name is Cassiel, and I will be the professor in charge of this classroom for this year."