Viran got the last token and hid for the rest of the exam.
It was rather simple, rather boring.
You don’t want to hear about the powerless boy waiting around for hours, do you?
That’d make for a terrible story.
No, you want to see something interesting, you want to see action.
You want to see blood.
----------------------------------------
Apathy lazily slashed at his opponent’s throat, to which the hulking farmhand narrowly ducked under before delivering a meaty blow to Apathy’s stomach, sending the swordsman sprawling back.
Apathy hissed as his ribs ached. Strong. Much stronger than Apathy.
“Hah! I’ve had better fights with Dad’s cows!”
The red-haired annoyance bragged, causing Apathy’s teeth to clench.
Strong. But then, he’d already known that. He’d beaten physically stronger opponents before, what was one more?
Apathy slid into a more focused stance, gripping his blade tightly with both hands, right as the farmhand came soaring in at a speed annoyingly close to Apathy’s.
Both fist and blade seemed to multiply as the dirty boy threw punches faster then some commoner had any right to, forcing Apathy on the defensive.
Apathy blocked all the blows as best he could, cursing himself for his speed-based Forging all the while, but not without cost.
Warning! Durability below 50 percent!
Apathy paled at the durability percentage his sword’s enchantments gave him.
“A 23% reduction from just that exchange?! Damn that smith! Can’t even make a light blade without it snapping in a single fight. I’ll have his head for this…”
A little panicked and desperate for time to think, Apathy smoothly shifts the next block into a parry, sending the farmer off balance just long enough for Apathy to knock him away with a kick to the stomach.
A small act of vengeance, it eased Apathy’s wounded pride.
“oofh-”
Apathy watched the unfairly strong man roll for a second before landing on his knees.
“Maybe you should stick to the cows if you can’t handle this.”
Apathy mocked breathlessly. Not his best taunt really, but it worked nonetheless.
He heard a low, slightly unnerving growl and that was the only warning before the boy dashed at Apathy again.
No Power-based man should be allowed to be so damn fast.
Keenly aware of both his blade and his body’s frailty, Apathy was forced to stretch his Forging to the limit to dodge the hurricane of punches thrown his way.
Duck.
Sidestep.
Weave.
Dodge.
Dodge.
Dodge!
The farmer had abandoned all strategy, hurling his fists over and over with no concern for defense, each near-miss blasting the air out of the way.
It was so stupidly careless, and yet the man was so absurdly fast and strong that it worked.
Apathy was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders and wrenched up into the air, before being hurled into the earth with a dull ‘thud!’.
Apathy coughed, head pounding, but he hadn’t had more then 2 breaths before the sun darkened as the farmer leaped into the air.
Apathy twisted his head slightly, only barely avoiding the beefy fist slamming down right next to his head, cracking the earth.
His eyes widened with fear.
He was outclassed.
This dirty boy was so much stronger.
He was so fucking outclassed.
CRRRKKK!
Apathy didn’t even realize he’d raised his sword to block the strike, the force of the heinous blow cracking his already bruised ribs.
Wait… ribs don’t make that sound…
Warning! Durability below 10%! Retreat Apathy!
The rabid boy roared and grabbed the blade to wrench it out of Apathy’s grip.
The monster didn’t even seem to care as it cut into his hands.
Apathy tried to hold on, but he was no match for the brute strength of the raging teen.
SNAP!
Apathy wasn’t sure if the snap came from his blade or his heart, both broke either way.
This… moron.
This… imbecile.
This hick. This idiot. This buffoon. This dirty, stupid, ugly, disgusting, OAF!
YEARS OF WORK, GONE IN AN INSTANT BECAUSE OF THIS… WRETCH.
The nameless swordsman let out a scream of agony and rage, grabbing the brute and slamming his knee into the crotch.
The yelp of pain satisfied a dark part of Apathy.
But he wouldn’t be sated with scraps.
He pushed the whimpering boy off of him and stood up, a fiery black aura of dark mana overtaking him.
Apathy slowly raises a hand to wipe the fool off the face of the earth, but then…
“RULE 1; NO MAGIC.”
The words of that fucking instructor rung in Apathy’s ears.
Because of course.
Because of course he couldn’t use magic at the academy for magic.
Because of COURSE Apathy couldn’t win.
It didn’t matter how one-sided a fight was, how DARE he try and win.
He’d never get to win.
Apathy trembled as the unfairness of it all swarmed him, pricking at his skin like a beehive.
“I dare you to show your face near me in the Academy.”
Apathy threatened the blubbering fool, his grief and rage pressing down on his throat, forcing his words soft and yet ever so cold.
The dark aura around Apathy grew opaque around him and slowly slid away, the once-swordsman fading into the shadow.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
In a truly fair world, even that small act of sorcery would get him kicked out. But the magic ban only applied to fights.
All magic was fine, as long as he didn’t win.
The farmer laid there, groaning.
Oh, but he wouldn’t be ambushed at this perfect opportunity, of course.
No, such misfortune was meant for losers like Apathy.
Stronger. He had to be stronger.
----------------------------------------
Viran sat quietly in the tree, 3 tokens held in a white knuckle grip.
Almost over.
It had to be almost over.
Please be almost over.
Then the black sludge began pouring over him as it came into existence.
Being covered in a mysterious substance had never been so relieving.
The mana fully encased him, then dropped away to reveal Viran somewhere new.
It was a waiting room, oddly modern.
Though to be fair, it’s not like Oath to Godhood had ever really cared about anachronistic errors.
The fire motif had spread here, marble and obsidian strategically built to mimic flames.
Vian wanted to keep the examining the architecture.
“FUCK YEAH!”
“Damn it…”
“Seriously?!”
It helped him ignore the screen floating above the teenagers.
It was the placement results, obviously, and it dinged at his mind, tempting him to look.
He resisted as long as he could, he didn’t know if his 12 year old self could handle seeing his name as anything below Blessed Hall, never mind Remedial.
But the pricks of attention from his peers kept growing and growing, and Viran was far too nosy to not see what’s got them so interested.
He slowly looked up at the results, a billboard made of hard light.
PLACEMENT RESULTS NAME ASSIGNED HALL AARON NIKON FAILED - RETEST AVAILABLE ABAVA SONG GREATER ADA MURN
REMEDIAL
(IC - TRACK CANDIDATE)
ARIANA BL… LES…
IC? Oh that’s interesting. IC stood for Instructor’s Choice, it was the whole ‘I get the final say’ Instructor Death had been talking about.
In this case, Miss Ada over here hadn’t collected enough tokens for Remedial, but was being considered for one of the schools specialized tracks.
Ada wasn’t a named character in the anime, so Viran had no idea what track she was being considered for or what she’d done to be-
Ow.
Viran shook his head as a packet of information slipped into his head, informing him of how to properly utilize the screen.
It seemed there was a Soul Magic user around somewhere with horrible timing.
Viran cleared his head and focused on all the big names that weren’t his.
He was stalling, sure, but this was also a good way to check if he’d changed anything yet.
AVERY SHATTERBLOOD BLESSED
ERIC WINDBLADE LOWER
Good, but they’d barely glanced at him, so it was practically impossible to fuck up.
Now for the real test…
“APATHY” BLESSED
ZACKERY FLAMECLAW LOWER
Good! That’s… that’s really good! He hadn’t impacted things at all!
Okay, enough stalling.
VIRAN CATE
LOWER
(IC - VALOR)
…
…
…
Eventually Hall Leaders, Basically RAs, came to shepard the antsy students off to their dorms.
Viran quickly followed along the bustling group of his Lower hall peers.
It was the most popular hall at around 60 percent of the student body. Both Remedial and Greater were about 38 percent, while Blessed hall only had a whooping 2 percent.
It made sense once you remembered that the Blessed hall kids probably lived in individual mansions or whatever.
Unlike the Blessed Hall, the Lower hall was the land of peasants.
Hundreds of wooden boxes dotted a large forest clearing surrounded by towering trees piercing the sky.
It wasn’t a real forest of course, it was one of the false realms created by the Space and Mirror Sages. Each Hall had their own that could only be accessed via special keys.
The group walked forever, stopping at one house, dropping someone off, and then walking to the next house.
It took hours. Most of the new students looked exhausted, but the RA, a large 20~ year old man with a resting bitch face that could make a baby cry, didn’t slow his merciless pace for even a second.
Finally the group whittled down to four.
Viran, Eric, the RA, and Zack, who’d Viran had been steadily ignoring.
They… they were…
but how…
Wasn’t Eric…
Amidst his confusion, a thick arm wrapped around him in a tight, although very friendly, side hug.
”Whaddya know stranger! We’re neighbors! I’m Zack.”
Zack said cheerfully, grinning down at Viran with his perfect shiny teeth and plump lips and oh my god Viran wanted to kiss him.
“Viran.”
The smaller boy muttered, throughly flustered, before glancing back at the three houses.
Apparently something had changed.
In the original story, Eric and Zack had been neighbors, which had started up their friendship.
Now… Viran was seated in between them. Separating them.
It felt a bit on the nose.
The RA snorted, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Yeah, I really hope that whole friend thing works out for you guys. When I was in Lower hall, my neighbor tried to stab me.”
That killed the mood slightly, dampening Zack’s enthusiasm enough for Viran to be able to slip out of his new neighbor’s grasp.
The RA tossed each of the boys a key and a pink gemstone.
Both Eric and Zack easily caught their gifts, but Viran’s sailed sadly past his outstretched arms and fell on the grassy floor.
A series of barely-contained snickers followed as he bent down the pick the likely priceless items off of the ground.
“Dude, seriously? There’s multiple cultivation inputs for a reason.”
Eric chuckled and a set of two familiarly muscled arms held him close.
”Hey! Leave him alone. I for one applaud him for being one of the only people to have a worse Senses distribution then me!”
Zack countered, his low baritone making for an odd giggle.
”What is your Senses distribution?”
The RA… Jack. Yeah, he said his name was Jack. Jack asked.
When Viran just stared at him, he added.
“Me personally I’m 10, probably knock it up to 15 soon. Calm down, we’re all friends here, right?”
Eric, quicker on the uptake then poor Zack, said.
“Yeah! ‘Course! I’m 25, don’t laugh.”
Zack, only now catching on, nodded fiercely.
“Yup! No secrets here! 5 for me. I’ve always had pretty good senses, don’t really need it.”
The three men all looked at Viran curiously, which stung in a way he hadn’t felt since highschool.
It was almost like he was 15 again, bumbling through a conversation with the popular boys.
Anxiety tightened around his throat as his words failed him.
The awkward seconds ticked by. They definitely thought Viran was a weirdo. Oh god…
It didn’t help that the godly instincts he had were screaming at him all kinds of information.
Notes on Physical Cultivation, Cultivation Distributions, Kalmia Social Norms, Info on the three boys and their respective cultivations.
It was all… too much.
He didn’t know anything, but he also knew way too much.
This wasn’t how a story worked, it was… spoilers. It was cheating.
As a headache built up, Viran pushed down the instincts into a deep space within his head.
He locked them away, and the load on his mind lightened as all his Earthly info on Path to Godhood faded. It was like he’d never even read the story before.
It involved a bit of double think. He knew he knew nothing about the story, but he also knew he knew things. He knew if he just pushed against the locks he’d set up, the info would break free.
Viran took a deep breath, steeling his mind against the coming shame.
“I… have never cultivated.”
The curious looks melted into concern.
“As in… never? You’re working with your base?”
Eric asked, aghast.
“Do you know how? If it’s ignorance and not a culture thing, I can get you some instructions. I won’t be able to help you myself without a week of paperwork to get an exemption from the rules around tutoring.”
Jack offered, his expression oddly caring despite his aggressive demeanor. Perhaps it was a requirement for Hall Leaders to care, it’d make sense.
Zack perked up at the suggestion.
“Oh! Me! I’ll do it! I’m great at Forging! I’m at Gold 2!”
Eric and Jack seem dumbfounded by Zack’s cultivation level.
Jack recovers faster.
“Sure, why not. Anyways, do you need Zack to help you?”
Behind Jack, Zack flashed Viran a double thumbs up, bouncing with excitement.
Viran took a minute to gather himself before he replied.
“I… guess that’s okay… but we gotta wait until things get settled.”
Zack nodded rapidly.
“Sure, sure, it’s a date!”
Viran did his best to hold back the shiver the words brought him.
Meanwhile Jack glanced at a clock built into a tree and winced.
“Damn, I’m behind schedule. This is where I take my leave, kiddos. Key unlocks Dorm Realm, rub gemstone if you need me, have fun, don’t let Instructor Grump scare you, bye.”
Jack turned on his heel and took off, tearing through the massive clearing and out of it within seconds.
The three new arrivals stared after the Hall Leader in awe.
”Well… I’m exhausted. See ya,”
Eric took to his square, closing the door behind him.
Loud snoring could be heard soon after.
Zack looked back at Viran and smiled.
“Well ima follow his lead. We’ll have to hang sometime. I’ll make sure you’re up to speed, I promise. And I always keep my promises.”
Zack squeezed Viran’s shoulder and waved as he stepped into his square.
Even louder snoring began to rumble through the thin wooden walls.
Viran, throughly shell-shocked by all the social interaction, stumbled into the small wood dwelling.
It was a severe little thing.
Just a bed, a mat presumably for cultivation, and a small desk.
Viran collapsed onto the twin bed, praying it would hold up to his weight.
It did thankfully, albeit with a ton of creaking.
Viran sighed and turned into his back, sleep coming for him just as it had done for the two boys on either side of him.
One last thought came to Viran before he began to snore much quieter then his new neighbors.
Did I just make friends?