Weeks passed since all five teens had completed their final exams. During this time, they had thoroughly explored the city, Finn spent all of his gold, and everyone trained like hell. However, these peaceful days were bound to pass, and before they knew it, the first semester was about to begin.

After preparing as best they could, the teens cheerfully left for their first day at school, all of them except for one. Unfortunately, Finn remained in the dorm’s basement dining room, staring at the decapitated beast heads on the walls with a zombie-like expression.

Normal classes, such as math, geography, history, even swordsmanship and magic, were all held during the daytime. However, for some God forsaken reason Finn couldn’t begin to understand, Miss Olivia’s class was going to start at sunset.

Foreseeing three years of terrible, low quality sleep, Finn sipped tea while pitying his fate. After staring at a mutated cow head for what seemed like an hour, he sighed, took off his dark-blue sunglasses and cleaned the lenses.

‘Why did I do this?’ He sighed again and put them back on. The glasses were a magical tool that cost him a whopping 10 gold coins at the magical artifacts shop. Not only did they put a giant hole in Finn’s savings, but he ended up buying three of them.

Through the left side of the glasses, the teen could see everything Tommy was seeing. Through the right side of the glasses, he saw everything Annie was looking at. This, combined with magical earpieces for three people and money to buy off the local mob, Finn’s debt towards his friends reached a monstrous 50 gold coins.

‘I’ve never been this broke in my lives.’ Finn took off the glasses and slammed his head on the table. ‘Maybe I don’t have to pay off the mob.’ The boy had visited them once to buy information about his teachers, and it wasn't exactly hard. ‘If I just beat the shit out of them… No, they’re probably backed by someone. You can’t just start a gang in a city like this.’

The boy put on the glasses and watched as his friends passed the academy’s gates. His left eye and ear took in Tommy’s perspective while the right side took in Annie’s. Two earpieces in each of his ears transmitted sound, resulting in a jumbled mess of images and noise.

He had found the glasses and hearing equipment during a shopping trip last week. He tried them out for fun, but not in a million years did he think they would work like this.

Tommy and Annie found this mess of images and sounds way too much to handle, so they only agreed to help after the shopkeeper made the connection one way towards Finn. Despite this, the teen's mind somehow managed to organize and process the information, giving him a coherent story, though with a slight delay.

‘The shopkeeper said they don’t help with retention, so it must be my photographic memory. But this isn’t how memory worked back on earth, so is my brain mutating or what?’

Finn stopped thinking about it and rested his head back on the table. Sure, he could process the information, but it was so exhausting he could barely think, move, or do anything other than just stare like a pervert.

‘This is going to suck…’

The academy yard was filled with students running in every possible direction. Most of them were carrying books and entering normal classrooms to study the normal curriculum. However, there were also weirdos wearing chainmail heading into spatial distortions disguised as normal offices.

In the middle of a giant square covered in sand, Tommy and Natalie were practicing their swings. Just like the rumors, their teacher was obsessed with theory. While everyone hit the dummies, he was giving a speech on perfectionism, on how every single strike must be delivered with absolute precision and absolutely perfect form.

“By the end of this year, your technique will be adjusted and your muscles will be fit for combat. Either that or you will not pass my class. Understood!?”

“Yes, sir!”

As he watched Mr. Andrei correct Tommy’s form, Finn tried to think of how he could adapt this to his knife fighting. ‘Argh, my head…’

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His attention was suddenly forced to the right side of the glasses, where Miss Bella was staring straight at him.

“Hello mr. spy, what brings you here?”

A cold shiver ran down Finn’s spine. He was half a city away from Miss Bella, yet he felt like she could kill him with a flick of her wrist.

“Talk or I will melt your glasses along with your brain.”

‘Shit.’ “I have permission from Madam Isabella!” The earpieces were supposed to only carry sound one way, but it seemed like the magic teacher had hacked them. She took off Annie’s glasses and examined them closer.

“So that’s why they work in this dimension… Still, I don’t care if you received permission from God himself. This is my class and you should have asked for my permission first.

I am confiscating these. If you want them back, come by my office in the afternoon. And I expect a proper apology.”

The connection interrupted and the sound broke off soon after. Finn felt a weight being lifted from his mind, although he wasn’t exactly happy about it.

‘Damnit, damnit, damnit! Those were 15 gold in total. If she doesn’t give them back, I’m suing her for theft!’

He quickly finished his tea, left the dorm’s basement and went to his room. Since his access to the magic class was suddenly cut off, he now had enough brain power to properly move around.

While listening to Mr. Andrei’s teachings like an audiobook, he put on his chainmail, strapped himself with no less than six large, razor sharp knives, and went on a stroll through the city.

The majority of Phoenix city was safe and orderly, under the strict supervision of the academy. However, since it was still a place within the empire, there had to be an underworld somewhere. In Phoenix, this underworld was right behind the academy, in the north-western part of the city. It was called Vistacia district, a place which the city guards completely ignored.

Here, the streets were narrow and the ground was covered in filth. It smelled rotten, although the shops looked normal for the most part, that is until one entered their basements.

Finn made his way through the back alleys, turning endless corners until he reached a decrepit, two story building. He knocked on the door and someone cracked it open.

“How do you like it here?”

“Better than dirt.”

“Wrong password.”

The door slammed shut in the boy's face. This was the place where he had gathered information about his teachers from. It was a pain to gain entrance then, and now it was happening again.

‘Where's the guy from last time?’ Finn sighed, weighed his options, and then suddenly kicked open the door. “I don’t have time for this. You lot better take me to your leader or I swear to science…”

A dagger came flying towards Finn’s forehead, and he grabbed it midair. There were five thugs inside the room, two armed with swords, two with small axes, and a fifth one had just thrown his one and only weapon.

Finn clicked his tongue. “The last time I came here there were five other men. Did they not mention me?”

The thugs encircled him while chuckling and gripping their weapons. “Nope, but they did mention something else. Oh, what was it?”

“I know.” Another thug lifted his sword with both hands and tried to cut Finn in half. “No password, no life!”

Finn used his dagger to parry the blow and then threw it into the swordsman’s liver. The man fell on his butt, wailing, and the other four charged all at once.

‘At least the other guards tried to rob me first.’

While listening to Mr. Andrei’s excellent guidance, the sunglasses-wearing vigilante pulled two knives from his vest and went on the offensive. He slipped between the blows and cut two legs clean off, kicked the fourth guard in the gut so hard his spine almost popped, and finally threw his knives into the shoulders of the fifth and final thug.

This man was the one who had thrown the knife in the beginning. As the thug retreated to a corner of the room, a sudden thought made Finn frown: ‘Shit, who’s gonna lead the way?’

One guard was unconscious and still spewing blood, another had a dagger stuck in his liver, and the other two were clutching their dismembered legs like they had just lost their puppies.

‘Science damnit...’ Finn’s eyes turned to the first man with the knives in his shoulders. He recovered the dagger from his colleague's body and approached slowly.

“Have you ever heard of cross contamination?”

“No.” The thug was shivering.

“Well, in this case, it’s where I stick that guy’s blood into your chest via this dagger. Or is that a blood transfusion? Maybe impregnation? Biology was never my strong suit. Anyway, if you don’t want to become my test subject, then open up the Goddamn basement and take me to your boss! Shit, you've made me say the word...”

Finn noticed the man’s arms were dangling by his side. With a sigh, he walked to a nearby table, dragged it away, pulled off the carpet underneath it, and opened the hatch to the basement.

Seeing this, the thug's eyes threatened to leave their sockets.

“Move,” Finn nodded towards the hole. “Your friends don’t have much time.”