In the end, it only took them about 10 minutes to arrive at their classroom after healing themselves at the healing pavilion. With the help of the healing formation, it took less than a minute of soaking their entire body in the pool of rejuvenation for their body to be healed completely.

Opening the door of their homeroom, they saw that all their classmates were already inside. There were 4 long desks in a 2x2 position inside, the back row 30 cm higher than the rest of the class. The long desks are shared between the 3 roommates, with two desks on the left designated for the girls and the right for the boys.

While many of their classmates are already occupying their seats, some are still standing beside their friends' desks and seats to chat with each other. There were only about 5 minutes left before the class began so Ari and Opet stepped inside before long.

As they were about to walk to their seat, a boy raised his pale muscled hand and walked in our direction, his blond ponytail swung back and forth behind him. "Ah! Opet, there you are," Thrainn said, his pale blond eyebrows creased in worry.

"What's up, Ren?" Opet greeted him. "You searching for me or something?"

"No nothing like that. I just heard from an upperclassman that they saw you hurrying to the healing pavilion with a battered body. I was quite worried," Red answered. His bright blue eyes inspected Opet up and down before continuing, "but it seems you've got that dealt with. What happened tho?"

"Yeah, about that. I've decided to have a duel with Ari here," Opet replied, indicating at Ari.

"Is that so?" Thrainn inquired, his arms folded in front of his chest. Even covered in the gray blazer uniform, his medium-sized build showed signs of his well-developed muscle. Thrainn looked in Ari's direction, seeing Ari nod in response to his unasked question, he couldn't help but sigh at them.

"I see. Right, you must be Ares. I'm Thrainn. You can call me Rainn or Ren if you want. It's easier to pronounce," Thrainn, or Ren as he calls himself, said with a small laugh. "Anyway. Should I call you Ares, or Ari just like Opet did?"

"Yeah, Ari is fine. It helps with differentiating between the late Ares and me."

"Ah... I see," Ren responded, unsure how to react to what Ari just said. There was an awkward silence, but Ren continued, "I've heard of the rumor going around. But, getting to talk to you like this, I can't think of you as any different from us."

"Thanks. It was a bit hard to get to talk with the others what with the rumor going around about me, but I guess it can't be helped."

"Yeah. After talking to you, I can't help but hope that everyone can look past the rumor and get along with you."

"Yeah. Me too," Ari faintly agreed, a smile crept up his face at Ren's sentiment.

"By the way, about the duel," Ren started, going back to their earlier conversation. "That's kinda questionable of the two of you. It was almost time for the class to start and you had a duel? What would you do if one of you were to die and must skip the entire day?"

"Well, between Ari and me, we've got a bet going on between us," Opet replied. "And it'd be no fun if the bet has no consequence, isn't it?"

"The duel was Opet's idea. It was a bit too much excitement for me, considering it was just before class. I'm fine with talking it out with him."

"Do you, though?" Opet countered, and Ari had no answer to that. "Would you be fine if I just rejected your request like that?"

It took Ari several moments before he could verbalize a response. "Not really I guess. In the first place, we met at the cafeteria so that I could hear your answer to my request. No matter how you rejected my request, I will still feel bad. But at least don't need to risk myself to skip the whole day if I lose and get killed if we were to just talk it out instead."

"What request?" Ren asked, looking at Ari and Opet's direction. Opet was unsure how to respond, so he looked at Ari's direction to see his response.

"Well, I asked Opet to help me with something, but it seems a bit hard for him to help me so he made a bet with a duel."

"Oh? Do you need help for something, Ari?" Ren asked.

"No, it's fine, at least for the time being. After the duel, I thought that while it would be hard to accomplish my task, I'd try to do it on my own.

"Is that so? If you need any help, just ask me. I'll hear you out."

"Thanks," Ari replied, glad that Ren was offering his help. But Ren and Opet are in the same situation. Even having only known him for this short period, Ari already liked Ren. He wants to be his friend, and he can't help but feel guilty if he were to take advantage of him and ruin his relationship with his childhood friends.

"So, who won?" Ren asked, interested in the outcome of the duel.

"I lost," Ari replied, but Opet disagreed with him.

"Technically, I was the one that lost the duel," Opet explained. "But I was the one that won the bet. He was a bit of a softie, you see, unwilling to kill me because he didn't want me to skip the whole day, so he surrendered."

"And why don't you surrender yourself then, Opet, if you were defeated?" Ren asked.

"Principle," he replied, and Ren couldn't help but sigh at his childhood friend.

"At least the two of you are fine," Ren said before being interrupted by the sound of the school bell. It was 7 o'clock and the homeroom period will start any time now.

Walking towards their shared desk to take their seat once more, they were stopped by Ren calling out to them. "Oh right, Opet" Ren said from behind them. They turned around as Ren reached them once again. "Can I talk with you during lunch break, Opet? I'm trying to help one of the girls, but it seems like I need a bit of help as well. I want to talk to you about it."

"Well, I was planning to have lunch with Ari. Can he join in the conversation? Or is it between just the two of us?" Opet responded, surprising Ari. While the two of them had been spending their breakfast together this morning, they had never talked about having lunch together as well. It's as if Opet already considered Ari as his friend, and spending lunch break together was nothing but normal.

"Hmm. I'm not sure about that. I'll need to talk to her about it, so I'll inform you later. Until then, you two."

"Yeah, see ya," Opet replied.

"Until then," Ari responded.

----------------------------------------

Reaching their shared table, they saw their other roommate, Udin already in his chosen seating, the one on the right of their table. As usual, he was already absorbed with his books and left the real world behind.

"Which seat would you take?" Opet asked him.

"I'll take the left one," Ari answered, taking his seat. Compared to the middle seat, his seat is closer to the girls' seat. While he was uncomfortable to be closer to them as they watched him in wary and whispered rumors about him, at least he didn't have to endure being right next to Udin.

While it was uncomfortable, Ari was fine with the girl avoiding him. It can't be helped, so he better get used to it. But for him to be outright ignored, by his roommate at that, he felt it was a bit too much. While the boy had said nothing to him, it was clear that he wanted nothing to do with Ari.

With his slightly chubby arms on the desk holding his book, his body hunched forward to read it. It was evident that the boys were a bit under-exercised for a sorcier-in-training. While magic helped sorcier to accomplish fantastical feats of athleticism, a trained physique is still needed to maximize their output.

"Why did you refuse his offer?" Opet asked Ari after they took their seat. Looking at their surrounding, Ari was concerned about getting overheard by the other classmates so he retrieved a sound barrier talisman and erected it, isolating and preventing them from being eavesdropped.

"Well, I thought about it a bit. Just like you, Ren was also friends with Sunny. While it would really help me in getting closer to the other classmates and mending my reputation, ultimately I don't want to take advantage of him. He was a good person, I can tell, and having him helped me just to have his friendship with his childhood friend ruined, I can't bring myself to do that."

"So it was fine if it was me instead?" Opet teased him.

"I-I... haven't thought that far when I approached you," Ari stammered, his blood rushing to his face in embarrassment.

"Hahaha! Relax, relax," Opet laughed, slapping his back as he couldn't contain his laughter at his reaction.

After some time, Opet was able to calm himself down. "You are right that Ren is a good person. If you were to ask him to help you get along with the others, he would gladly do that. Because that's how he is, he likes to help."

"Is that why you asked him to include me in the talk regarding helping him help the girl? So that I can reconsider and ask him for his help then?" Ari asked, curious about Opet's reason.

"Yeah. I guess it's up to you whether to take it or not, but I would rather have you had the opportunity to ask him than refrained yourself because you felt bad about it."

"But that doesn't change the fact that he would be at odds with the others if he were to help me. From what I gather from your reluctance to cross Sunny, I thought that she was a bit vindictive if he felt someone was betraying her.

"That's why you want to test my fighting skill, isn't that right? So if you were to help me, you are certain that I would win. Then, you could prove your points about her without making a fool of yourself."

"The thing is," Opet started, "while it's true that Sunny is quite vindictive if someone were to betray her trust, she can't really do that with Ren.

"Even if you ultimately still compete against her to become the class leader if Ren were to only help you with mending your reputation and getting along with the other classmates, then she can't blame Ren. Because she knew it was in his nature to help you with that, moreover considering that we're classmates.

"In fact, even if you don't directly ask him out to help you get along with everyone, I bet Ren would still do it on his own, albeit to a lesser degree compared to if you asked him directly."

"So what you are saying is, I better ask Ren for his help if I were to have a chance to mend my reputation in a timely manner?"

"That's what I said, yes. When it comes to helping you get along with everyone, Ren was the most suitable person to do it. Not only is he good-looking, making it easy for him to get along with the girl, but he is also a good person at heart.

"Sunny won't hold a grudge against Ren if he helps you 'cause it was in his personality to help you with that. But if you were afraid that she was to hold a grudge anyway, I will stand by his side to reason with her."

"I thought that you wouldn't help me at all," Ari asked Opet, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"While I will stand by my principles and won't help you with the two requests that you asked, I can at least give you some advice and encouragement, can't I?" he replied, winking at him with a smirk. "It's not like I have any ulterior motive at all."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say," Ari responded, chuckling at his roommate's antics.

'So he still wishes for Sunny to lose, huh?' Ari thought. While he is reluctant to ask Ren for his help, Opet's advice helps him realize that he doesn't have to worry about Ren's relationship with the other if he were to ask him at all.

Seeing their homeroom teacher enter their classroom, Ari resolved himself for their lunch break.

----------------------------------------

"Morning everyone," their homeroom teacher greeted. "My name is Budianto Cokroadikusumo. You can call me Instructor Budi, mister, sir, guru, or whatever title you want to call me. The only thing to remember is that your preferred title to call me must acknowledge the fact that in this school, I'm your instructor. I'm here in the capacity of your class homeroom teacher, advisor, and overseer regarding your magical training and your progress.

"You are here, in this high school of Bayupati Academy as a Sorcier-in-training. Your class, in particular, is specially trained to become a future Psychopomp. Any question so far?"

"How do we get chosen to be this class, Budi-sensei?" asked Himawari, or Sunny as her friends call her. She sat with her back straight, her shoulder-length hair framed her face as her electric blue eyes stared at the instructor. "Me and my friends specifically chose this class so that all of us would be placed in the same class, but only 7 of us are in this class."

"Good question. As all of you know, you were given a choice of 9 classes to list in the order of which class you most want to specialize in.

"But in this school, there were only so many students a class could contain. While there were more than 12 students that chose this class as their 1st choice, only 12 were that can be chosen to be in this class. And that choice belongs to me.

"I'm the one that chose each of you to become a member of this class. While it's true that having a class full of students who are familiar with each other is an advantage, there were some disadvantages as well.

"Having a class that had known each other for so long only makes any expulsion were to happen, it will be more heartbreaking for you all. And unless you as a class were so strong that you were unbeatable, an expulsion of one of you is not a matter of if, but when.

"As you battle against each other for points to determine which one become the number one class among the student your year, there are others that have to battle just to survive and stay enrolled in this school.

"Moreover, having a class full of students who have known each other since before enrolling here will only make it so that the one that is promoted to replace the expulsed student finds it harder to fit in.

"So, I choose to balance between having students that had known each other and also new faces that have the potential to help the class to become the number one class."

As everyone absorbed this new information, Ari couldn't help but thank instructor Budi for choosing him to attend this class. After he had learned about the Classes League System and their prize of being invited to enroll into Nagapati University and the class leader role, he trained his Separation magic and Fortification magic to get a head start on everyone. He even was able to use Manifestation magic as well. If he were to not be chosen to attend this class, but another class instead, he would feel devastated.

"If anyone has no any other questions, then I will start to explain the curriculum to you," their teacher said as he operated the magical artifact that acted as their blackboard.

"As a student of the Bayupati Academy, you were expected to become a competent Sorcier when you graduate. Whether you will be invited into the Capital's Nagapati University, or continue to attend other Universities doesn't change anything.

"Your class in particular will be specialized in training to become a Psychopomp," the teacher said as the blackboard began to show the badge of Sorcier Society. In the middle of the circular shape is a five-pointed star that divides the five primary magical techniques.

Augmentation, Modification, Conception, Domination, and Observation. Those were the five most basic mana techniques a sorcier can use to perform magic. Beneath each of these five primary magical techniques, there are the two sub-specializations of each magic technique.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"As a psychopomp trainee, your focus would be to master the Augmentation magic and Conception magic, all four of their sub-specialization, and all nine combinations of those six basic mana techniques."

As he said that, besides the badge of the Sorcier Society, a table containing the nine combination magic that a psychopomp has to master appeared.

Conception Fortification Stabilization Augmentation Manifestation Catenation Lamination Amplification Intergration Concatenation Lamellation Separation Differentiation Absolution Funeration

"As a member of the psychopomp class, you will learn how to wield these nine techniques across the three years you will attend this academy. Each year you will learn three, and this trimester in particular you will learn to wield Manifestation magic, the most basic of the nine combination skills."

Psychopomp are a class of Sorcier that deals with the matters of lingering spirit. Exorcist, soul reaper, mortician, there were many names that people called the psychopomp class. But the name psychopomp, the guide of the souls, fits the nature of the class perfectly.

As a psychopomp, it was our duty to hunt for lingering spirits that stayed in the mortal world after their death and cleanse them so that they could return to the cycle of reincarnation. The most important skill in the psychopomp's arsenal was Absolution magic, the ability to cleanse any evil spirit of any of their lingering resentment and the sins they committed during their stay in the mortal world.

Manifestation magic, on the other hand, is the most basic of the nine. It was a skill that allowed the user to manifest their spirits, either their spiritual domain itself or other objects that they contain within their domain.

By using conception to emulate the power of augmentation magic, a sorcier can manifest their spirit outside of their physical body. The sorcier can augment themselves with their manifested power, and achieve their goals.

"As a student of the Psychopomp class, you were expected to learn to use manifestation magic during these three months of the term, or trimester, whatever you wanted to call it.

"On the other hand, you are also here as a Sorcier-in-training, not only as a Psychopomp. That's why you needed to at least learn how to use the most useful magic in the arsenal of the other eight classes."

Operating the blackboard, the teacher showed them a 3x3 table with each of the nine classes' names on it. Besides the classes' names inside each cell, the names of the most useful magic of each class are written.

"During your three years in this academy as a sorcier in training, you are also expected to learn one of these ten magics during each trimester, with the exception of the Empath class where you would learn two instead.

Empath: Echolocation and Dissimulation magic Martyr: Provocation magic Champion: Predation magic Pastor: Invulneration magic Psychopomp: Absolution magic Hunter: Absorption magic Potioner: Equalization magic Puppeteer: Termination magic Tamer: Diversion magic

"According to the curriculum, this first trimester the entire first-year student must learn the magic of the Psychopomp class, the Absolution magic. You are fortunate that this trimester, you can focus on only wielding the augmentation magic and conception magic and their sub-specialization. But prepare yourselves, because next trimester you will be learning the other classes' useful magic."

Operating the blackboard for the third time, the teacher showed the class another table full of combination magic.

Observation Projection Remanation Domination Prevarication Fragmentation Incarceration Direction Remediation Hallucination Naturalization Reduction Spectation Execration Exploitation

"Lastly, as a student of Bayupati Academy which specializes in training the wind-attuned magic, you will also be needed to learn the nine magics of the wind-attuned Nephomancer class. This trimester, you will learn the most basic of these nine, Prevarication magic. Any other question?"

At the teacher's question, no one responded, busy trying to digest the information and the fact that they had to master these 27 combination magic these three years of their high school life.

"If there's no other question, then that's it for the curriculum explanation. This trimester, you were expected to learn and master Manifestation, Absolution, and Prevarication magic. You will be tested on these three combination magic at the end of the trimester, so prepare yourselves. Class dismissed."

----------------------------------------

"How is it? You liked your high school life so far?" Opet asked Ari. It was the lunch break, and they had one hour and twenty minutes before their next class, Augmentation magic practice, would start.

After their weekly homeroom period ended, they continued the day by attending Indonesian language class and General science class.

While they are training to be the future Sorcier of the country, they still need to learn general education to complement their magical training. The Ophiuchus colony, their home country, is located in the location of the former Indonesia. In fact, the founder of the colony, Pandji Sosrodiharjo, was an Indonesian.

That's why even though the country is now inhabited by people of ancestry from all around the world, almost half of the population is still of Indonesian descent. And also the reason the language is chosen as the lingua franca of the country.

"Aside from the homeroom period, the general studies are still quite similar to how I was taught in the Simalolong clan manor. Besides being surrounded by other students instead of my cousins, it was not that different from being home-schooled," Ari responded. Placing his tray of food on an empty table, the two of them took their seat inside the same cafeteria where they had had their breakfast this morning. The difference is that instead of being deserted, the place is now full of hungry students, a cacophony of sound washed over them.

"I see. So, how about your request then? Have you decided to ask Ren or not?"

"I've thought about it. And while I felt a bit guilty for doing this, I think I will ask Ren for his help after all."

"Nice. I wish you all the best then," Opet replied as he dug in on his lunch meal. A variety of Padang cuisine was served by the cafeteria, and the rich smell of spices and coconut milk made his mouth watery.

While they could wait a bit for Ren to arrive and join their table, the blond boy had asked them to have their meal first as he went to talk with the girl that he wanted to help and inform her about it.

They were in the middle of enjoying their meals when another presence joined them at their four-seat table. Raising his head to acknowledge the newcomer, Ari's expressions turned sour. Instead of Ren, it was Udin that joined them.

"What's up," Opet greeted their third roommate as the situation turned awkward between them.

"I'm good," Udin replied, placing his book on the vacant seat beside him as he began his meal.

Seeing the anti-social boy reply to Opet's greeting, Ari couldn't help but feel incensed. He has tried to talk to Udin several times in the last week, and his greeting always went unanswered, the worm of the book trying his best to ignore him.

'But it's still progress,' Ari convinced himself. 'If I can get him to at least start to talk with me with Opet as the catalyst, then he can see that I was also a student and he doesn't need to avoid me like I would infect him with a disease just by talking to him.'

"What brings you to join us?" Ari asked, initiating a conversation. With Opet around, he hoped that their conversation would go somewhere now.

But his hope is dashed as Udin continues to ignore him, moving his spoon bite after bite so that he would have an excuse to not answer him.

"I would also like to know that," Opet supplied from his side. He was seated right across Udin, with Ares facing an empty seat.

"There were not many empty tables anymore, and I thought it would be bad if I were to join a table full of strangers rather than the half-filled table of my roommates," Udin replied.

"What the fuck do you want, Udin?" Ari snapped. "You ignored my question like I don't exist. Like you were absorbed in your own world. And yet you answered Opet's question without problem. Why do you want to avoid me that much, huh? Scared of the sight of a bald man?"

As if a spell was cast on them, the cacophony of the cafeteria was gone in an instant. While most of the student are busy with their own conversation partner, they can't help but be intrigued by the subject of the rumor that swept the entire school by storm.

Ares Simalolong, a member of the main branch family of the renowned Simalolong clan, is declared dead, and someone is studying alongside them in the school with his body. And the clan is fine with that.

While they were apprehensive about the boy's presence, they can't help but be curious about him. And for him to snap in the middle of the cafeteria, where most of the student are gathered to have their lunch, they can't help but listen in. Even someone by the wall is able to hear their talk in this silence, their enhanced hearing helping them to hear the juicy drama happening among them.

"You smell like a problem," squeaked the chubby boy. "No, you ARE a problem. I knew that much."

"As far as I'm concerned, YOU are the one that started all this problem Udin," Ari growled with a hard look on his face.

Like before, Udin didn't respond, but now his silence was due to embarrassment as he averted his gaze from Ari's direction. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Say it again," Ari demanded.

"I SAID I'M SORRY, OKAY?" he shouted into his meal, his hands clenched against the table.

"If you are sorry, say that to my face," Ari replied, his head almost bursting with frustration at his roommate's attitude.

Udin froze still looking down, before finally looking at Ari's face. "Sorry..." he whispered, his eyes darting around even if his face looked in Ari's direction. He was scared, scared of Ari, and scared of the consequences of his failed attempts at avoiding him.

"Why are you scared of me, Udin?" Ari replied. Ari thought that his roommates are arrogant assholes that designed his existence as an annoyance to his world. An unwanted existence that he loathes to acknowledge its existence. But seeing him like this, cowering in fear, he can't help but resent the rumor for the boy's behavior.

"I don't want to have anything to do with you," he squeaked. "I'm afraid that if I were to become closer to you, I would inevitably change the course of fate and do irreparable damage."

"What fate?" Ari asked, incredulous at the boy's puzzling reason.

"The fate of the world. The future events that will happen someday," the boy explained.

"And how did you know of this 'fate,' Udin?" Ari asked, apprehensive at the boy's answer.

After being abandoned by Dom to become Ares' substitute without any supervision, he had been drifting around aimlessly. He has searched for a new purpose, and it brought him here to this school. For someone to say something about his fate, he was apprehensive yet excited at hearing about it, whether it was fake or not.

"Err... This fate, these future happenings, it-it was... It was revealed to me in a dream!" Udin declared, his eyes darting away.

Ari wanted to groan and cover his face at his roommate's absurd antics, but his reaction after making that declaration paused him. He had averted his eyes in embarrassment, true, but there was something else.

He was afraid. Everyone knew that he lied about the source of his prophecy, but it didn't matter to almost everyone if he even told the truth.

As far as everyone knew, there was no fate. The Oracle, the sorcier class that was most attuned with Time-mana, had proved that fate doesn't exist. The future is ever-changing, and they are in a superposition where anything can happen and no one would know until it happened and it appeared in reality.

The only thing that can affect the future is the karmic bond between objects in the universe. The oracle can't foresee the future or change the past, but they can manipulate the karmic bond to make sure that the future that they want to achieve will be more likely to happen.

Udin makes a fool of himself to cover the true origin of his prophecy, and he believes it would hold true. He believed it enough to make a fool of himself because he was scared that someone would talk to him about it. 'But why would he talk about it in the first place?' Ari thought.

"Bwahaha! That's a good one!" Opet laughed aloud, slapping the table in between him and Udin.

Ari can't help but chuckle as he saw Opet's unrestrained laugh. "So, you believed that fate exist, then?" Ari asked Udin. While he is amused at the situation, he can't help but pry at Udin's stout belief in the prophecy he has foreseen.

"I mean, yeah I did," Udin started. After the tension between the two of them, the absurdity of Udin's claim was able to break the spell that put the whole cafeteria hostage as the cacophony of voices returned to its rightful place.

"How's so? Most Oracle would agree that there was no such thing as fate. The future is not determined, and the only thing that can affect the future is the karmic bond."

"It's... because of the Charismata fruit," Udin replied, with hesitance.

"Oh? How so?" Ari inquired, intrigued about where this was going. He was interested in Charismata fruit due to his goal of having a physical body of his own in case he was to ever be booted out of the body by Dom, Ares' Oculi familiar and the previous controller of this body.

"Kairos fruit," Udin whispered. "Or the fate fruit, as some would call it."

Hearing Udin's answer, Opet couldn't help but stop his amused laughter, intrigued at where this was going.

But there was no follow-up from Udin, hesitant about revealing any more. "I can erect a sound barrier around us if you want?" Ari offered.

"Please," Udin accepted, his shoulder lowered as if he were a puppet cut off from his string.

Activating his sound barrier talisman, Ari used the third talisman of the day. His dwindling supply vanishes quickly, the single-use spell proving to be quite in high demand. "It's up. The wind barrier blurred our visage a little, so the other people were not able to read your lips."

"Isn't this usage of soundproofing only made other people more interested in our discussion about fate though?" Opet asked as he watched the edge of the blurry wind barrier.

"Well, the thing I'm about to tell you is not that secret I guess. Most of the older generation already knows about this, so if someone powerful were to hear about it, this was nothing new to them.

"The thing about Charismata fruit is, their name comes from the Anesthetist herself," Udin disclosed.

"What does that have anything to do with your belief in fate?" Opet asked, puzzled.

"Well, it means that the mythical Kairos fruit, the fate fruit, has something to do with fate, just like what she intended. The moment she brings the world to sleep, she forces humanity to see that magic exists and the fate fruit was also created."

About three hundred years ago, society was brought to a halt by a single person. Anastasha Corbuzier, also known as the Anesthetist, brought humanity to sleep with her devious plans.

Using cutting-edge technology to connect millions of gamers to share a dream of playing the newest virtual reality game she developed, she managed to create a shared consciousness of millions of people. Using this newly formed consciousness, she convinces these amalgam of mind to envision their shared dream, the virtual reality game they are about to play, into reality.

The future is undetermined, and every possible future is in a state of superposition as they all have non-zero probability to come true, no matter how outlandish. As an entity that lives in this universe, humans have no ability to affect the future. That's why the Anesthetist created the shared consciousness.

It was an entity outside of the universe, watching the world that they inhabit from behind a veil of reality. From the place where anything is possible if someone willed it to be. The place where every matter has not differentiated from each other, in unity. And from that place, they dreamed of the earth with magic in it. A world where everyone, even those who don't play the game, is now sleeping and dreaming the same dream as them. And that's how magic comes to be, all of humanity brought to sleep to share the same dream where magic as the Anesthetist designed in her game exists.

If the mythical fate fruit were to be named by the Anesthetist herself, then it really means that the fruit is related to fate.

"Moreover, the name of the fruit types: Logos, Ethos, Pathos, and Kairos, they were the names for modes of persuasion," Udin added. "They were the ways for us Sorcier to persuade the fate to do our bidding. To affect this shared dream that the Anesthetist placed us in, to persuade the narratives that she had built to respond to our will."

"So what you're saying is, that fate is undecided, and those that consume these fruits are able to change it?" Opet asked, confused about Udin's tale that seems to contradict his belief in Fate.

"No, no. The future is unfixed, but the fate is inevitable. Fate is where we are headed if we were to stay as it is, it is a quagmire that sucked and would overwhelm us if we were to stay as we are, flailing blindly without purpose and have no power to influence it."

"And the only way to have influence is by consuming Charismata fruit, you say?" Ari asked, and Udin nodded in confirmation.

"While human was born with a small influence on fate, they ultimately pale in comparison to those that have consumed the fruit. Those fruits are a legacy left behind by people who had died. They are no longer in this universe, and that's why they are able to grant the consumer a huge increase in someone's influence on fate. Because the fruits let them affect fate from those places of Unity."

The more Ari hears about Udin's explanation, the more agitated he becomes. While he ultimately is already trying to get his hands on a Charismata fruit, he has a feeling that he needs it more than ever. The fate of his that Udin talked about, while he dreaded hearing about them, he needed to know it. "And how about my fate? Where did you actually see it? And why did you believe it so much?"

"The thing is, I don't even know what happened to YOU at all," Udin started, and Ari felt an irresistible urge to strike him in the head.

"But I know what will happen to your body, Ares' body."

Ari's breath caught, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"What did you see?" Opet asked as Ari was unable to utter a response.

"My vision, my prophecy, it only started about three years from now, when all of us should be in Universities," Udin started. "And in those visions, Ares Simalolong is a fugitive. During his high school, a ghost that haunted this school managed to take over his body and turned to a criminal organization."

Ari's heart skipped a beat, his worst nightmare prophesized by a boy that he only just started to talk with. And not only that, but for Ares' body to be defiled, and his name tainted as the body hijacker tarnished it by becoming a criminal.

"Where did you see it, Udin? And why did you believe it so much?" Opet asked, upset at what he had just heard. While what he felt can't be compared to what Ari is feeling right now, he had known of Ari's fear that he can't help but wish that all of this wasn't real.

"The thing is, I have consumed a Charismata fruit, a Kairos fruit," Udin said.

"SO WHAT?!" Ari snapped. Seeing Udin reeled at his harsh response, Ari felt like cold water was poured on his emotion, and he was the one who poured it. "What does that have anything to do with my fate?" Ari whispered.

"My fruit," Udin started, his hand reaching over to Ari's clenched hands on the table "They are given to me by the Anesthetist herself."

And with that, the cafeteria was no more, and Ari found himself in a space of pure white.