The anger continued to rise in Francis even as he got off the stage amidst the applause of his fellow students. One of his lackeys wanted to pat him on the shoulder as a show of congratulations, but Francis shrugged the boy off roughly and glared at him in anger to tell him not to try that ever again! The boy raised his hands and took a step back, and Francis went to stand in the line while glaring at the stage!
Francesca continued calling the names of the students, and after a while, the ceremony was finished. The headmaster came back and gave another small speech before the students were allowed to file out of the hall.
Outside the hall was a large courtyard that led toward the campus building. There was a hostel a few kilometers away from the campus where students were allowed to stay during the week for a small fee, but Azrael was so poor that he didn't have the money needed to pay for it, and he stayed off-campus with other orphans in a government-funded facility.
Once they were outside, most of the students formed into groups and chatted about the ceremony while making plans for what they would do next. Parents and guardians waited for their children and congratulated them on their successful ceremony.
Azrael was alone, so he didn't need to make any plans. It was still late afternoon, so there was time for one more workout session at the gym before he had to go home, and Azrael headed straight for it. He moved so quickly that he failed to notice that someone had been trying to get to him from the other side of the courtyard.
Jane Ashton watched as Azrael disappeared into the crowd of people, and she stopped heading toward him. One of her family members called for her from behind, and Jane turned around and went toward them as they waved at her with a wide smile.
…
The Divine Demigod Academy covered a wide expanse of land on the western side of City S. The school boasted the widest variety of high-end facilities and teachers that were available to the students at all times. And out of all these facilities, the most popular of them was the gym.
The gym building was almost as large as the school building. It had five floors, with each floor holding various sporting events. There was a swim track, a race track, a weight lifting arena, and even a room for meditation.
At the very top floor of the gym was a large room known as the Simulation Fighting Room, and it allowed students to fight against incorporeal daemons in order to hone their instincts and reaction time.
Azrael took off his clothes in the locker room and entered the weightlifting room first. He put 300kg [660 pounds] in the rack and benched three reps of ten before he steadily increased the weight by 50kg and benched one rep of ten each time.
By the time Azrael got to 600kg [1322 pounds], he felt his muscles failing, and he stopped and moved on to the deadlift. Azrael walked to the mirrored wall on the left, arranged the weights properly, and took some powder before he deadlifted 1000kg [2205 pounds] for two reps of ten. He then used the leg press machine at 1000kg for two reps of ten as well.
[Strength +2]
[Stamina +1]
[The User has reached a bottleneck in his stats. In order to achieve significant growth in stats, the system advises the user to defeat Daemons using his God Aspect.]
Demigods had far greater physical abilities than any human could possess, and as one of the more physically gifted demigods, Azrael was able to carry out exercises that most other demigods his age would never even dream of doing. Azrael's personal best at the bench press was ten reps of 1000kg [2205 pounds] and five reps of 2000kg [4410 pounds] on the leg press, but he had just been doing that to show off last year when he was trying to make friends. Carrying that much weight at his level was only going to slow him down.
All these exercises didn't even take Azrael an hour, and he sat on the bench in his shorts and singlet while cleaning sweat from his neck. At only sixteen years old, Azrael had a perfectly sculpted body from years of working out. Every time he moved, the muscles on his arm and back rippled with the movement, showing off just how much work he had put in at the gym. When this is coupled with Azrael's tall stature and handsome face, there was no doubt that he was one of the most desirable males in the school.
The only thing preventing Azrael from having the popularity that he should have was his lack of a God Aspect as well as who his Celestial Guardian was.
Azrael turned to look at the stats that increased in his tab, and he nodded while taking a drink from his bottle and looking around at the empty room. The fucking system was still as sadistic as ever. Telling him to use a God Aspect to increase his stats when he didn't even have one! If he had a fucking God Aspect, does it think he wouldn't have started using it already!?
The system telling him to use his God Aspect was just a horrible reminder that he didn't have one, and Azrael felt irritated every time he saw that fucking tab!
Thankfully, his mortal stats were still growing even though he was at a bottleneck. To calculate the mortal rank of a demigod, you would normally add together the three highest stats in the system. For Azrael, his three highest stats were Strength, Stamina, and Agility, so he was always working to make sure he improved these three constantly while also bringing his durability up.
The weightlifting room was empty today because of the ceremony, and Azrael didn't expect anyone to come in until tomorrow, but Azrael was surprised when he heard the gym door opening and someone entered.
Azrael turned to see who it was and raised a brow when he saw it was Maddison, the child of Hades.
Azrael wasn't surprised that she was here since she was also treated as an outcast just like him. Azrael knew that she wouldn't have any friends or family to hang out with after the ceremony either. But even though they were both treated in the same way, that did not mean that they were friends. Maddison seemed like a very introverted person, and Azrael wasn't the sort of person to extend his hand for friendship, so they both naturally gravitated away from each other.
Maddison was wearing tight-fitted workout clothes that showed off her well-developed body with a black jacket. Her hair was tied in a ponytail behind her head, making her beautiful face stand out more, and on her hands, she had on a pair of black workout gloves. Maddison also seemed surprised to see Azrael, and she paused for a moment before she gave a quiet greeting while entering.
"Hello."
Azrael gave Maddison a nod before he stood and grabbed his things to leave. Maddison watched him go with a small frown on her face, and she wondered if he was leaving because she had come. That was rude. He didn't even return her greeting, and it took a lot of effort for her to get over her introversion to greet him!
Even though Maddison and Azrael had never spoken before, Maddison knew that she couldn't get through high school without at least one friend to talk to. Maddison became an introvert because of how everyone around her treated her, and she wasn't actually trying to be alone. If there was any chance of Maddison having an actual friendship, then wouldn't it be with someone who understood what she was going through? Azrael was the best chance for Maddison to have a friend!
But Azrael just brushed Maddison's greeting away like it was nothing! Maddison felt a small blush of anger rising on her face at Azrael's action, and she huffed and turned away! She didn't care about him anyway, so it didn't matter!