CHAPTER ONE

Alex gasped for air. Moments ago he had just been flung into the air, sucked up into the heavens.

'Am I dead? Is this what Heaven actually looks like?' he thought.

The sticky ice cream left on his hands filled his heart with sadness and reminded him of the treat that he had left down below.

Wiping the ice cream on his shirt, the boy looked around at this new magical place.

Students walked passed him holding books and chatting to each other, ignoring his existence like usual.

'Was Heaven just a prep school?' he thought, unimpressed.

The place he appeared to be at was an Academy of sorts, with large manors and buildings and parks. A floating city in the sky. It was glorious to look at nonetheless.

"Welcome to Aerendel Cloud Academy. Please report for orientation." spoke the voice of a stern woman in Alex's head as if someone loudly spoke directly in his ears.

"Who said that?" shrieked Alex as he fell to the floor covering his face.

Alex peered upwards from his position on the grass of what seemed to be a park on the outskirts of the Academy in the Sky.

The students in the park dressed in black blazers and white dress shirts. They looked extremely rich and sophisticated compared to Alex's boring outfit.

His bland hoodie and jeans combination felt almost embarrassing to show up for his first day of school in. His clothes were dirty with grass stains and a bit smelly, and his shoes were scuffed and broken at the sole but still semi-functional.

The girls all wore red plaid skirts and black stockings. The men wore nice black pants, like the pants from a suit, with shiny black shoes.

Everyone dressed sexy. Everyone but Alex. He felt like he was at a wedding and he came dressed in his laundry day leftovers.

Alex pouted as he laid on the grass lawn of the park.

"I'm not sure I'm gonna like it here," muttered Alex to himself as he sat up off the grass.

Alex walked over to an unoccupied bench and sat on it alone, watching and listening to the other students talk amongst themselves, laughing and having fun.

"I knew I shouldn't of had that flavour of ice cream, it must have killed me." he mumbled to himself, "Now I'm stuck in Heaven with no one I know."

Alex pulled his phone from out of his pocket and squinted, trying to see the connection bars on the display screen.

"Great. No service here either. Can't even distract myself with games with no internet."

Alex closed his eyes, bored out of his mind.

'I wonder if Grandma is here,' thought Alex, 'She might be fun to talk to.'

"Hi!" spoke the voice of a young girl.

"GRANDMA?!" screamed Alex, catch off guard by the gentle voice.

Looking back and forth, no one seemed to be there. Alex leaned over looking under the bench just to be sure. Nope, no one was around.

Alex let out a loud sigh, "Figures."

"Hi," repeated the girl, hopping into Alex's view.

Alex jumped back in his seat, startled.

"Hi there. My name is Mitsuha," introduced the girl as she nodded her head.

Alex tried to catch his breath, as he checked behind him to make sure she was actually talking to him.

"Where did you come from?!" asked Alex, having made sure no one was in front of him a second ago.

"Earth," she replied with a smile.

"I mean like... just now..." he replied.

'Uh, was she serious?' thought Alex, 'If she's as crazy as it seems it makes sense why she's talking to me.'

Mitsuha was one of the cutest girls he had ever seen face to face though. It didn't matter if she was completely out of her mind or had recently escaped from the insane asylum. But even then, why she would want to talk him when there was so many other students around to talk to.

Alex thought to himself, 'I better not blow this. A first impression is important. A girl makes up her mind on a guy in her first six seconds of meeting him. I have to impress her fast. Wait, it's already been more than six seconds. Is it too late to impress her now? I can't remember how that old saying went...'

"Uh, hey- how you doin'?" replied Alex, trying to sound cool in a deep voice.

'That was sad and terrible Alex,' thought himself, 'No way that will work.'

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"Good." she replied instantly.

Alex thought to himself.

'Now just say other words, Alex. Good words-- good other words.' thought Alex.

An awkward silence followed as Mitsuha and Alex stared at each other trying to figure out something to say to each other.

Alex had never been good at talking to girls, or anyone he hadn't met before for that matter.

Alex and Mitsuha stared, smiling, waiting for one of the two to say something.

"Are--Are these all first year students like me?" He said, stumbling to find words to say.

Mitsuha let out a sigh of relief that Alex said something, breaking the silence.

"Yes! First year students are summoned to this location every year," said Mitsuha.

"This is Beacon Hill Park. It's gorgeous isn't it. Perfect view of the cloud fields surrounding the Academy and grass great for picnics at lunch." added Mitsuha.

Alex looked to the horizon. The Academy in the Sky was surrounded by gorgeous puffy clouds like fields of cotton balls. It reminded him of what heaven looked like in television shows.

Mitsuha lightly tugged on the loose red ribbon around her neck.

"First year girls wear this red ribbon tied into a bow, see. It's like a tie."

"You're like a christmas present." mumbled Alex, covering his mouth.

'What did I just say? I'm an idiot,' thought Alex, tapping himself on the forehead.

Alex looked down admiring Mitsuha's school uniform. Her short plaid skirt with high black stockings were too adorable to look away from.

Mitsuha was a mid-teen girl. Her name and face suggested she was Japanese, but her emerald green eyes, fluffy light brown hair, and freckled face suggested otherwise. Mitsuha dressed in the standard girl's school uniform for first yearers, with a big binder of notes grasped tightly in her arms.

"You are from Earth too, right?" added Mitsuha, "You dress like an Earth-born."

"Uh," Alex paused, speechless.

The boy looked at the crowds of first year students gathered at Beacon Hill Park.

"I'm from Earth," he replied with a stutter, "B- but, we're all from Earth... Aren't we?"

"Well, no." she replied, tilting her head with her finger on her chin, "Most students aren't from Earth. These new first yearers mostly come from Alteros and Kurisaga. It's hard to find students from Earth actually. Maybe like one Earth-born out of every ten or so."

Alex rubbed the side of his neck, "Oh... so I guess life on other planets confirmed then?"

"Yeah, that and people from other dimensions and realities, of course." smiled Mitsuha.

Alex's jaw dropped wide open, "You lost me..."

'Was this girl crazy? She was so pretty I don't think it mattered if she was,' thought Alex.

"Which part did I lose you at?" questioned Mitsuha.

"You lost me at hello, and probably mostly the other-worldly student part." answered Alex.

Alex thought to himself.

'Is she actually serious about other-worldly people? The students in the park look Earthly enough to me," thought Alex as he stared at the crowds, looking for un-Earthlike features on his classmates.

Alex stared at the girls in the park searching for horns, antlers, fish gills, extra ears on their foreheads, two sets of arms, anything unordinary.

Maybe some of them had three boobs or a cow udder.

Alex looked, staring as girls walked by him.

'Nope, just normal boobs,' he thought, looking at the students.

Alex looked down at their butts looking for tails of any sort, or maybe feathers.

'Nadda. They all just seemed like normals.' thought Alex.

Mitsuha glared at Alex as he checked out the other girls.

"Aerendel Cloud Academy is a hub city for all sorts of students. It's just harder to find students from Earth here, really." said Mitsuha, waiting for his attention to turn back to her.

Alex looked back at Mitsuha, trying to pay attention.

Mitsuha crossed her arms, looking unimpressed.

'She's crossing her arms. What did I do? I'm blowing it Alex! Quick, say something smart! Ask her something! That's it!' thought Alex.

"Wait, why is it hard to find students from Earth?" asked Alex, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Mitsuha nervously smiled as she became aware of how clueless Alex actually was.

"Oh- well, Earth-borns don't really have any comparable skills to the Other-Worlders, especially none that will be useful in studying at Aerendel Cloud Academy."

"We don't?" questioned Alex as he pulled out his review card from his jeans pocket from the earlier entry examination.

"Earth-borns are good at arts and crafts and cooking, I guess." she mumbled, "not much else."

Mitsuha looked down at the review card, covering her mouth.

"Zero in Strength, zero in Dexterity, zero in Charisma... so much zeroes," said Mitsuha gasping.

The girl pulled the papers from Alex's hands and scanned the comprehensive list of stats and attributes with eyes wide open.

"A few ones and twos. These are pretty low scores." she admitted, "Charisma being at a zero is the first I've seen it that low..."

"You- You... probably shouldn't show this review card to anyone," said Mitsuha, "They'll definitely pick on you."

Alex's dumb smile turned to a frown as he snatched back his review card.

"What! They gave me a zero in Charisma?!" said Alex, distracted by the impossibility of being uncharismatic and charming.

"How dare they!" shouted Alex, "I'm charismatic and charming!"

"You think your stat should be higher?" she questioned, with her finger against her chin.

"They must of wrote this down wrong."

"These reports aren't ever wrong, but the numbers do change as the stat levels up."

"A zero is unacceptable! No way, it's possible. I'm suavey."

Alex followed his fingers down the paper as he groaned at his unimpressive scores.

A single double digit number stood out from the rest almost as if it was glowing brightly, shining in a golden font into Alex's eyes.

"Ten in Luck!" he screamed in a high pitched voice, "I got a ten! A single but glorious ten!"

Alex did a little happy dance, with his fingers pointed to the sky, "Ten, baby!"

"Yeah, but Luck isn't an important stat..." Mitsuha said, shrugging.

Mitsuha tilted her head, confused at Alex's overjoyous behavior.

"But, it's still a ten!" laughed Alex manically with his hand raised up and clenched tightly like an evil villain.

"A high Luck stat is very rare, but still garbage. It is a static stat, meaning it doesn't change. It can't decrease or increase, but it's still almost worthless. It doesn't affect your abilities like high Speed or high Intelligence would. Those would increase your casting time or increase your abilility potential. Weapons, gear and abilities also don't scale with Luck. You can't make a weapon stronger with that stat, but with Strength you could. See why it's not important?" said Mitsuha.

"Wouldn't it still be useful though? I could throw my weapon and with high Luck it might hit my target in just the right spot for a one-shot kill." argued Alex.

"Maybe... Luck is a hard stat to study. It affects so little that it's hard to tell if it does anything at all." said Mitsuha, "But a 10 in Luck is still the highest I've seen at the Academy, so I guess that makes it special."

Alex thought to himself, brainstorming uses of the Luck stat.

'Wasn't my Luck stat the reason I got into the Academy in the first place? It has to have some hidden potential. It still sounds useful to me even though Mitsuha doesn't like it. Mitsuha just doesn't see a change in numbers and thinks it's trash because of that. Would my Luck stat be the reason Mitsuha talked to me in the first place? Wait, maybe it helps me get ladies. That is why they call it getting lucky, right?..' thought Alex, grinning ear to ear.

"Time to get lucky!!" said Alex out loud, covering his mouth.

Mitsuha looked away, covering her face with her hands.

"Please don't make that your battle-cry..." she said, dreading to hear it again.

"We should really get you to orientation, uh..." said Mitsuha, pausing as she realized she didn't know his name yet.

"-Alex, I'm Alex." he smiled nervously, grinning like a maniac.

Mitsuha stroked a lock of her hair out of her face, staring with a blank expression.

"Okay... Uh, Follow me." replied Mitsuha, pulling Alex by his hand.