Victor Cruz opened his eyes slowly, feeling a wave of dizziness hit him. He instinctively grabbed his aching head.
'...Where am I?'
Despite his dizziness, he still found the time to observe his surroundings. The room was wide, and it reminded him of a lecture hall in a university.
No, Victor's gaze turned strange. Let me rephrase that…
The room was indeed a lecture hall. He saw many students around his age seated across the room.
They were dressed rather formally, in blue and yellow hues that created a neat, coordinated look.
He looked down instinctively, noticing the same streaks of blue and yellow—the Skylar Academy uniform.
'This…'
It should have been an unfamiliar name to him, yet he somehow knew exactly what it was and its significance.
"Victor Cruz."
The middle-aged man seemed to have noticed him from a long distance.
"Are you alright? You look deathly pale."
It was at this moment that everyone in the room turned their gaze to Victor. Their eyes seemed to have narrowed, showing a bit of pity.
It was odd. Victor noticed that despite the pity on his classmates' eyes, they seemed largely apathetic to his state.
It was more like…
Victor shook his head. This wasn't the right time to overanalyze things—there was something wrong with him, only now did he notice.
He was doing his best to stay calm as much as possible. Waking up in an unfamiliar place, feeling a bit uncomfortable, and having a set of different memories in his mind…
He had a guess in his mind.
"Professor Manhattan, may I go to the clinic?"
Before the silence could lengthen, Victor stood up and looked directly at the middle-aged man.
Professor Manhattan nodded.
Seeing that the professor approved of his request, Victor couldn't wait to go out and solve the dilemma in his heart.
***
The bathroom was deathly silent. The mirror glass reflected an unfamiliar face to Victor, one that he had never seen in his life.
He put his hands over the mirror, and the reflection changed as well. The unfamiliar face… the person he couldn't recognize…
It was him.
Victor didn't know what to say. He was in a different person's body, in an unfamiliar place to boot.
This type of situation could break an ordinary man's mentality to smithereens.
"Skylar Academy…"
Victor closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He needs to review the memories within his mind.
The place he was currently in was called Skylar Academy, an educational institution that fosters future beast tamers.
Beast tamers… they were the heroes of mankind. Defenders of tomorrow. The idols of society.
They first appeared in the 250th year of the Blackthorn Era.
It's now the 550th year of the Pulsing Sea Era.
The world here had three different eras: Skyreach Era, Blackthorn Era, and the present, Pulsing Sea Era.
The Skyreach Era lasted approximately a thousand years, but the Blackthorn Era ended in its 440th year.
In the 240th year of the Blackthorn Era, the world changed. Humankind had just finished their first great war, and a nation finally united the world for the first time in history.
However, not long after, the peace that people were expecting didn't come. Something far more terrifying arrived instead.
In the midst of preparing for the unification ceremony, the sky turned red and the two eternal moons in the sky blinked.
That's right, blinked.
The ancient beasts slumbering since ancient times awakened, bringing with them terrifying magical beasts.
These beasts killed humans as if they were ants, eating and stomping humans with ease. This situation continued until the arrival of the 250th year.
That year, humanity made a breakthrough and learned how to make use of the power the ancient beasts hold.
'Beast taming.'
A throb coming from his head stopped Victor in his thoughts. He remembered that he was supposed to go to the clinic.
He only stopped in the bathroom to satisfy his curiosity…
[Ten thousand eras will fade, billions of world will perish, and even the legends who founded paths of godhood disappeared.]
[Only the Ancient Gate, separating reality and fiction, can withstand eternal time and the threat of erasure.]
Victor's head throbbed even more loudly, causing a change to his expression. He stumbled across the room, holding onto the walls.
[The Ancient Gate welcomes its successor.]
A ringing voice erupted in his mind.
'Wh..'
Then, overwhelming pain struck. Victor let out a bloodcurdling scream as he fell to the ground, turning unconscious.
Hearing the scream, a student right outside the bathroom immediately came when they heard something wrong.
"What happened?!"
The student looked over the bathroom and saw Victor unconscious on the ground with a deathly pale face.
He recognized Victor and suddenly hesitated, as if fearing for something. This was a moment of life and death, every moment counted...
After a while of thinking, the student came to a harsh decision and didn't move an inch. He coldly watched Victor's body on the ground before taking a step back.
He was planning to run away and act as if he didn't see anything.
But at this moment!
The student's heart shook, and a cold chill crept up on his spine. He looked at one of the bathroom stalls, a wave of mist escaping from the door.
The mist slowly gathered on the room. He didn't know what the mist was, but anything unknown was everything dangerous.
The student trembled, a bad feeling taking over him. He didn't even notice that the door behind him had already disappeared.
When he did try to get out, he realized that he was already cornered with no way out.
Before long, the bathroom had turned into a world of mist. The mist was pure white, giving a heavenly feel to it.
"Stay away!"
The student saw that the white mist was approaching him. His expression changed as he shouted across the room.
Unfortunately, the white mist was everywhere. It slowly crept up to his position, threatening to devour him and turn him to "nothing".
The student stumbled, falling on the ground pathetically. His heart skipped a beat as intense despair welled up in him.
The terrifying mist grabbed ahold of his leg. He felt no pain, but when he turned around, he saw that he no longer had any legs.
"Ah... AH.. AHHHHH!!!!"
The student screamed in terror. On the corner of his eye, he caught the sight of Victor being carried away by the mist.
No, not by the mist. The student didn't notice it at first, but below Victor, he saw a pair of orange eyes.
The pair of orange eyes slowly turned to stare at him.