“Jin…. Jin..”

As I opened my eyes, my surroundings were all white. Standing in front of me was a figure of an old man with long white hair and white eyes which give off a divine aura. It seemed that he was the one calling me.

“A Phantom? Who are you?”

“I’m not a phantom. I am Janus, the god of beginning, transition, and end. I am the one who blessed you.”

“Janus.. Why have you come to me now when you blessed me ten years ago?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone to know about me and you’ve finally reached the stage where you can use the first of my four abilities.”

“What? Why only four?”

“My powers are very powerful and special. That’s why, unlike other gods who have many, I’ve limited the people I blessed to four. Now to the main point, your first ability is…”

As I was listening, my surroundings got hazy and then...I woke up. While I was preparing myself for school, I thought about my weird dream. ‘What was that?’ and ‘Was he telling the truth?’ were questions I kept asking myself.

When I arrived in the kitchen, which also served as a dining room, it was surprisingly empty. I was greeted by Varelia. As the dorm advisor, she also cooked our breakfast and dinner for us.

“Here’s your breakfast : Bacon, bread, and eggs. If you were wondering why it’s so empty, it’s because the other residences had already left.”

“Eh?! Do you have mind reading magic?!”

“No no..I can tell from the look on your face.”

“Ahh I see. Thank you for the breakfast Ms. Aeros.”

After I finished breakfast, I left for the Hall of Education. There, I searched for the bulletin board which posted the homeroom of the students. It was easy to find since there were tons of people crowding around it. After squeezing through the crowd to find my homeroom, I headed to class, 1-F.

Arriving at the classroom, I saw a familiar face. It was Aiex.

“Yo! Looks like we have the same homeroom.”

“Mhm. I look forward to the school days with you.”

“Hahaha but seriously… I never knew you were so strong. To take out the guard captain, you must have been through hell training.”

“Hahaha...you can say that..”

Remembering about the training master put me through sent chills down my spine. ‘It can only be described as hell after all’ I thought to myself as I sighed. I took the seat in the back near the window, next to Aiex.

Class started, but our homeroom teacher had not arrived yet. As the class started to whisper about the homeroom teacher’s whereabouts, I felt a piercing gaze. The one who was staring at me was a boy with blond hair and blue eyes at the front of the class. He was quite handsome and popular with the ladies, judging from the many girls surrounding him. His face looked awfully similar to that of Pendragon descendant. I returned his gaze and he instantly looked away.

Then, the door swung open, and a young man of 30ish years old dressed in a sports jersey walked in. He was holding a clipboard while yawning and scratching his head. He had messy black hair and mean looking yellow eyes. On his head, he had a pair of fluffy ears out and behind him was a black tail. He gave off a ferocious aura. Arriving at the podium, he scanned the classroom and stopped at me, concentrating on me for few seconds and then proceeded with class.

“Hello everyone. My name is Harry Fenris. I will be your homeroom for this year as well as combat and magic instructor for class 1-E and 1-F. As you can see, I am a beastman of the wolf tribe. I possess the power of the evil wolf god, Fenrir. I look forward to the school year with you so lets start with self-introduction. State your name, race, your god potential, and something interesting about you.”

So far, from the people who introduced themselves, I counted twenty-five humans, two beastmen, three elves, three dwarves. None of them interesting. The blond boy was Arnold Pendragon, just like I suspected, and typical of one of the Pendragons, he introduced himself arrogantly and ended his introduction arrogantly, saying ‘I will be the one that will stand on top’ as his ‘something interesting about you’, eliciting a facepalm from Harry.

The next person was the first interesting student in class besides Aiex. She was a cool beauty of tall stature, around 165 cm. She had light blond hair and nebula-like green eyes.

“My name is Aero Alucard. I am from the vampire race and I possess the god of the underworld, Hades. Something interesting about me would be….I was originally a girl but now I am both genders.”

Upon hearing that, everyone excluding Aiex let out an ‘EHH?!” sound. It was surprising to know of a person that is both genders.

“Everyone calm down. She..or he must have learned a rare magic from Hades. Don’t worry about it too much. Every god has their own unique powers.”

As Harry tried to calm the class down, I had a conversation on the side with Aiex.

“Aiex, do you know Aero?”

“Yea. I’ve known her since we were little so you can say we’re childhood friends.”

“Ahh I see.”

“Yea. She was originally a girl. I can’t really go into details without her permission so I’ll tell you later after I’ve talked to her.”

“Next student, please introduce yourself.”

“Ah looks like it’s my turn. I’ll introduce you guys to each other later as well.”

When Aiex gave his name, people murmured ‘What is a Tsukaru doing here?’ and ‘Shouldn’t he be in his own country?’. Aiex was an exchange student similar to me but refused to stay in the dorm and got his own place in the city. After Aiex was finished, it was my turn.

“My name is Jin Crimson. I am human and possess...”

As I was about to state the god who blessed me I recalled the weird dream. ‘I don’t want anyone to know about me’ was what Janus said.

“I do not know the god that I possess... and for something interesting about me is… I don’t possess a magic attribute like most people do.”

Upon hearing that I don’t possess an attribute, many people in class started laughing and belittling me. ‘He doesn’t possess a magic attribute he says!’ and ‘He probably just got lucky during the examination then.’

After finishing my introduction Harry explained how the education schedule works at Persona Academy. The morning was general education and after lunch was magic and combat training.

The first half of the school day passed by peacefully. Lunch time arrived and I headed towards the dining hall with Aiex. After getting our lunch, two wrapped sandwiches each, we decided to go back to class. As we were walking back, we saw Arnold and his two lackeys. The moment we passed by, Arnold bumped into my shoulder with a little bit of force to make it look like an accident but I didn’t budge and he was forced back instead. He paused for a moment, then turned around towards me and exclaimed:

“Hey! Look where you’re walking!”

“I was looking. I didn’t bump into him. It’s more like he bumped into me on purpose.”

“Do you think Master Arnold would do something like that to low class nobles like you?! You’re not even worth it.”

“Hey. Let’s forget about it and walk away yeah? Pretend like it never happened.”

Aiex broke up the fight and we turned around to continue walking back. As we were heading back, I heard them mutter a few phrases.

“Who does he think he is to bump into Master Arnold and not apologize?!”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s just a coward that needs protection. I’m sure he’s been like that all his life.. His parents are probably the same. Fallen nobles who only beg for protection. His father was probably a coward and his mother, a whore.”

Before I knew it, my body reacted on it’s own. I was holding Arnold’s face with my right hand, squeezing it and lifting his whole body off the ground. As I coldly gazed upon his shocked face of agony. I asked him a simple question.

“You….what did you say?”

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“Oi! What do you think you’re doing to Master Arnold?!”

As his two lackeys summoned their iron swords, I squeezed Arnold’s head harder. He screamed loudly and his lackeys attacked. Instantly, Aiex blinked by and used his bare hands to break the swords. The two then cowered in fear and fell down pathetically. I raised my voice even louder than before.

“I’ll ask you once more: What. Did. You. Say?”

“Oi oi..Jin calm down. Let him go. At this rate, you’re gonna cause him permanent brain damage. He’s not worth it.”

“Hmph.”

I let go of Arnold’s face and he fell down. His eyes were filled with anger. As Aiex and I turned back around and headed towards class, I could hear Arnold screaming from behind ‘I’ll pay you back ten-fold!!’

As we’re about to enter the Hall of Education, I told Aiex that I needed some time alone and headed towards the roof. There, I ate my lunch and reflected upon my actions.

“Ah…. Master would be disappointed… I let my emotions get out of control. I guess I really can’t handle my mother being insulted…”

As I reflected, I took out my wooden locket. Inside it was a picture of me and my mother when I was still a baby... She was really beautiful, a woman with long black hair, black eyes, and was short compared to Aero. She was really strong. To be able to take care of me and love me all on her own was something I could only describe as strong. I couldn’t help but cry when I looked back on the past. As I zoned out, the roof door opened.

“Oh...Was someone already here?”

Quickly wiping my tears I turned around. Standing at the door, was a beautiful light blue haired girl with matching light blue eyes like the sky. She had a short stature of 150 cm and on the side of her head were two little white horns sticking out.

“I’m sorry. Did I come at a bad time?”

“Aah… No. I was about to leave anyways.”

“Hm… I know it’s not my place to ask but… Are you okay?”

“Haha… I’m fine. I’ll be taking my leave now then.”

As I left the roof, the blue haired girl had a worried look on her face. I didn’t want to involve or trouble anyone with my problems.

Returning to my classroom, I was confronted by Aiex and Aero.

“Like I promised, I’ll introduce you two to each other. Jin, this is Aero, my childhood friend and Aero, this is Jin, my first friend at the Academy.”

“Nice to meet you, Aero.”

As I extended my hand out to shake her hand, she did the same.

“Nice to meet you too.”

“Aero. It’s fine if I tell him about your ability to turn to a guy right?”

“Mhm.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I’m fine with it since Aiex seems to trust you.”

“You heard her. Hahaha. When Hades blessed her, He gave her a condition. The condition was that she can only activate Hades’s powers in her guy form. I don’t know the full details but she says it’s why her eyes are now green instead of red like all vampires.”

“Green eyes?”

“...Really? You don’t know? *sigh* Normally vampires have red eyes, but because of Hades, she has green eyes. Man, you really are a country bumpkin.”

“Hahaha...I see.”

“Everyone sit down.”

As Harry entered the classroom, everyone rushed to their seats. At the front of the class, I saw Arnold glaring at me maliciously. I met his gaze and my rage boiled.

“Alright everyone. Combat and magic training will be starting everyday after lunch and saturday morning from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. As you all know, combat and magic training will be done with two combined classes. For us, it’ll be class 1-E and 1-F. Now, let’s head over to training hall 9.”

As we headed over to the training hall, by my side were Aiex and Aero.

“But seriously though Jin, you don’t know any basic knowledge? How could you not know that vampires have red eyes? Were you living under a rock or something

I answered his question with a nervous chuckle. “You could say I lived inside a really big rock called a mountain.”

As we entered the training hall, we met up with class 1-E and were given a quick explanation by Harry.

“This is a training hall. All training halls are exactly the same. It’s around 30m by 50m. It’s pretty small compared to the arena. Here, you’ll be training your magic and combat abilities against each other. All the training halls are under the protection of Angitia so you don’t have to worry about getting hurt but of course, you’ll still feel the pain. You have five minutes to get changed. Boys changing room on the left, girls on the right.”

As everyone dispersed to their respective sides to change clothes, Aero was standing still.

“Ooh right there’s you… umm… you were originally a girl right? Use the girl’s changing room.”

As Harry instructed, Aero headed towards the girl’s changing room. Five minutes later, everyone came out dressed in the training uniform of tight shorts and shirts.

“Alright everyone, let’s start with an explanation about aura. Your aura is the measurement of your abilities. Those who have a really condensed and suppressive aura are those who have honed their skills and God’s power to the limit and are really powerful. Being able to sense and see your opponent’s aura will give you an advantage in battle. Auras vary from person to person. For example, if someone were to see my aura, it’d be black colored. It being black colored means that I possess the superior darkness attribute. So to counter my superior attribute, that someone would use light magic.”

“Mr. Fenris, does that mean a person with no aura is very weak? Because I can’t sense yours at all.”

“Yes and no. If you cannot sense your opponent’s aura, it could mean a few things; Either your opponent is extremely strong and is capable of hiding his aura from weaker foes or your opponent is, like you said, very weak. But if you’re not on near the level of your opponent, you won’t be able to sense it all.”

“Mr. Fenris, does their aura being a certain color only mean that they can use that magic attribute?”

“No. Their aura will tell you about their superior magic attribute. So don’t be fooled thinking that they can only use that type of magic.”

“Alright now that you know about aura, it’s time to learn the basics about magic attributes. Magic attributes have 4 base colors, red for fire, blue for water, green for wind, brown for earth. Those who have other colors have magic of special attribute like mine, black for darkness. Now find a partner and practice sparring with your magic.”

As everyone mingled to find a partner, Aero, Aiex and I met up.

“This is quite a problem...we have an odd number of people.”

“Mhm.”

“Ahh about that. You guys go ahead and partner up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yea. You guys have known each other longer than I’ve known you two. Besides, I need to talk to Mr. Fenris about something.”

As I departed from Aero and Aiex, I headed towards Harry. There, I met Arnold who’s talking to Harry.

“Ah… Jin. You came just in time. I was just about to call you over.”

“Hm? What is it Mr. Fenris?”

“The thing is…”

With his right arm pointed at me and his left hand placed on his hip, Arnold arrogantly announced:

“Jin Crimson!!! I, Arnold Pendragon, challenge you to an official duel, with Mr. Fenris as the witness!!!”