Jay stared directly at a copy of himself, both immediately understanding the other. He sat down, watching his clone. "I'm your assigned help," the guide said.

  It pulled out a list. "This is the list of classes you have available."

  The list condensed to a single class. "This is the one that will best fit you."

  It tossed the class to Jay, and he accepted it. This was the right class.

  After the experience, he was suddenly blinking, tossed out of the selection. Jay frowned. Why couldn't he remember what the surroundings were when he was in there? He just remembered the guide, and the class he had chosen. He mentally shrugged. It didn't matter.

  Jay turned to the sky, watching it roil. A final set of words boomed out, "YOU WILL REGRET THIS," before the sky suddenly calmed, returning to a placid state. The kid he had defeated lay on the ground, his leg cut off. Jay walked over to Millie, ignoring him. "So... the gods are after you," Millie said.

  Jay nodded. "Do you want to avoid me now? I won't hold it against you," he said.

  Millie turned. "Do I seem like the kind of person who would attempt to kill a god, or bow to it?," she asked, a dangerous tone to her voice.

  "Attempt to kill it, and probably fail," Jay said, patting her on the head.

  "Hey!"

  Millie started attempting to reciprocate, her hand reaching for Jay's head. He suddenly ended up on her other side, the reached-out hand finding nothing but air. She got more head pats, sighing. "I'm never going to get you back for those, aren't I?"

  Jay nodded. "I'm never letting it happen."

  Eventually, they returned to the training room, Jade yawning. "Well, that was interesting. Kids, what are your classes?"

  They all started announcing their classes, one by one. Jay was, once again, at the end of the group. He pushed Millie behind him, temporarily taking her position. She didn't resist. Apparently, the kid who had called down the gods on Jay was a Paladin of Lumenia. Eventually, Jade got to Jay, asking the same question. "Class?"

  Jay looked her in the eyes. "I'll tell you in private, not in public."

  He heard a few members of the crowd curse, for not thinking of hiding their information from others. Jade nodded. "Plus one point. Think the information hard enough, and I'll pick it up."

  Jay thought the name of his class, letting Jade pick it up. She nodded, continuing to Millie. "Class?"

  "Same as him, I'll think it," Millie said.

  Jade nodded, and after a second, continued. She stopped in front of everyone. "Now, we're starting physical training. Whether you're a mage or warrior, your body needs to be strong. No matter how high your strength stat is, you can't use it without your body having trained enough. Everyone, run twenty laps. Anyone with a physical class, run one hundred."

  Everyone groaned. This would be painful. This was the warriors' time to shine, while the mages would get their moment later. Jay started running, quickly flying ahead of the competition. With his physical stats, laps around the courtyard could be completed in less than a second. The mages were taking a fair amount of time per lap, while the warriors, though much faster, couldn't catch up with Jay. Some of them ran half-heartedly, not expecting to get one hundred laps done. They underestimated the difference between physical classes and magic classes. Jay quickly completed his set, returning to Jade, who handed him a massive stone. His knees nearly buckled as he hoisted it, feeling the strain. "You get an extra-large," Jade said. "Carry it in one hundred more laps."

  The rest of the day was hell, the intense physical exercise leaving Jay's body destroyed. He didn't use any of his class skills, seeing the need to improve without any crutches, though some people used them. The class lifted weights, did complex puzzles, practiced energy control, practiced martial arts, and then did a cooldown run. Jay ran next to Millie, finally asking the question he'd wanted to ask for most of the day. "What's your class?," he asked.

  Millie turned, her face red. She did not reply. Jay nodded. "Later, then."

  As they reached the end of their cooldown run, Jade lazed in an earthen couch, holding a glass of wine. As they approached, their instructor stretched and got up. "Finally! Now, stretch. Someone else will be teaching you tomorrow, but I guarantee you I will be back."

  Jade waved goodbye, falling directly through the floor, which parted as if it was water. It closed behind her, and the class stared dumbfounded at the display. Jay turned to Millie again. "Class?," he asked.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Monsters of the Desolate Depths," Millie said. "It doesn't just deal with things like krakens, but everything you can find down there.

  They nodded, walking to the dorm building. Jay told Millie his class as they walked. When they reached the dorm building, they found the barkeep standing outside with a list. "Right. Sira, Lauren, Keidn, Fristl and Soid moved places. Sira and Lauren, you moved up rooms. Keidn, Fristl, Soid, you dropped."

  He found all the people he had listed, tapping their arms. Jay felt the touched peoples' soul keys, change, their frequency becoming that of another room. "The rest of you, get some dinner," the barkeep said. "The meals are already on the tables."

  Jay walked to the table in the corner, which had two bowls on it, each filled with vegetable soup. Millie grabbed one, and Jay sat in front of the other, and they ate in silence for a while. He watched the kids come in from outside, noting that the alcolyte had been one of the people to drop rooms. Millie leaned over. "This school is kinda weird."

  "Agreed. A godess and her alcolyte attempted to kill me today, and it was just an annoyance, not any kind of big event." 

  Millie nodded. "What'd you do to get the gods to hate you?"

  Jay shrugged. "Be too powerful?"

  Millie picked up her pace of eating. "This is good."

  "Why the random change of subject?," Jay asked.

  Millie blinked. "Why can't I change the subject?"

  Jay shrugged. "I don't know. It's just generally considered that you're avoiding something if you change the subject."

  Millie started eating even faster than she was before. "This is good though."

  Jay nodded. "The soup is tasty, I can't lie."

  They finished their food in companionable silence, dropping their bowls off with the barkeep before they walked up the flights of stairs to their room. Jay's muscles barely felt the walk, though his muscles were incredibly sore from carrying the giant stone around. Millie struggled a lot more, slowly trekking up. Eventually, they got to the top floor, and let themselves into their rooms. Jay went to find his bed, flopping down in the incredibly soft mattress. He felt he had to do one last thing before he went to sleep. Jay raised his middle finger towards the heavens. "This is for you, gods."

  The next day, Jay once again went to the training room. This time, he found other people there, hammering on dummies, attempting to break them. He watched someone put a hammer and chisel to a dummy, attempting to slowly chip it away. Jay pulled a sword off the racks, cutting through a dummy. Was it really that hard?

  One of the other students attempted to replicate his feat, attempting to cut a dummy in half. They angled their blade wrong, their technique miserable, and the blade shattered as they swung it at the dummy. He shot Jay a dirty look, and Jay shrugged. He pulled out a pair of daggers, wincing as more forms rushed into his mind. Stepping in front of a dummy, Jay started to train once again, the new information he had ingraining itself in his body.

  Eventually, Jay judged Millie to be awake, and walked into the eating area. Millie sat at their usual table, coffee cups stacked in front of her. Jay stepped behind them, watching Millie chug another cup and carefully stack it on other ones, building a fort. "Are you sure you should be drinking this much coffee?," Jay asked, as Millie casually drank another one.

  "You have to stop me. I can't control myself," Millie said, chugging another cup of coffee.

  Jay grabbed the cups that still contained coffee, giving them back to the barkeep, as he dragged Millie outside. In the cool morning air, she finally seemed to regain control of herself. After a couple minutes, Jay led her back in, and they returned to the now-dismantled coffee fort table. Sitting, they waited for their new instructor. Eventually, a man with a topaz pinned on his shirt entered. "I am Topaz, master of Light. Follow."

  They followed Topaz to the training room, but found a completely different interior. Instead of dummies and weapon racks, the entire place had turned into a classroom. There were bookshelves all around the room and desks lined in neat rows. Topaz pulled out a sheet of paper, pointing to each seat. "Sera. Destiny. Nolan. Soid."

  He continued, telling each person where to sit. Soid refused to sit, citing "I will sit next to my friend, thank you."

  As Soid started to move towards the back of the room, light enveloped him. Soid started floating, landing directly in his assigned seat. Shackles of light formed around his ankles, connecting him to the floor. "Minus five," Topaz said, not even pausing before continuing.

  Jay and Millie were eventually separated, sitting on opposite sides of the classroom. Jay watched Topaz move to the front of the room. "First, this school's leadership," Topaz said. He pointed at the front of the classroom and words started appearing in midair. "We have the Gemstone Council, formed only of people strong enough to warrant titles as Master of something. These are the people who make all the decisions, and I am one of them. We decide whether to kick out students, which students to take in, grades, everything. Normal teachers rank below us, and have no say. Below them are you, the students. Remember. The Gemstone Councilors are given titles for a reason. They can destroy any of you at a moment's notice."

  Topaz waved, and a glowing map appeared in midair. "Now, let us start the lesson. Geography. First, you have to know where everything is. We live on a planet that no one has named, mostly because of laziness. We have shipping routes to a lot of places, and we do a lot of trade. The empire we live in, the Crystalline, is directly in the center of this map. We are an island empire, surrounded by sea. However, we do control other random areas around the map, because of trade deals we have made."

  Jay attentively listened to the lesson, though he felt most of it slip in one ear and out the other. In the end, he just stared at the map, memorizing it.

  After the lesson, Jay walked out of the room, Topaz walking out with them. "You are free," he said, walking away. Soid had been released from his shackles and now walked with less confidence, staying at the back of the pack.

  Jay immediately walked back into the room, Millie following him. It had reverted to a training room, and Jay and Millie walked in front of a dummy. Millie formed a tentacle out of water, crushing it slightly faster than before. "Millie. You can whip things with your tentacles. You don't have to crush everything."

  Millie blushed, whipping a tentacle around in a small arc. The dummie broke immediately, the middle section pulverized by the blow. Jay smiled, nodding. He continued to advise her with the use of her abilities until Millie tired.

  "Lord Onyx."

  "What have you found?"

  "There's a kid the gods hate. He's the best. No one knows his class and no one thinks he's revealed the extent of his abilities. He also claims to have no Gift."

  "Hm. Watch him."

  "Yes, Lord Onyx."