“And that’s how the two greatest purifiers perished, saving our beautiful world from a horrible fate.”

A middle-aged scholar slammed shut a thick tome as he overlooked the class of students.

“Ooohhh!”

“Wow!”

“Teacher! Teacher! Why do you bring that giant book everywhere?”

A group of five-year-old children excitedly cried out with a cacophony of piercing voices.

“Giant book? Nonsense! This is not merely just a giant book! This is the greatest compilation of achievements committed by The Maelstrom and The Queen of Ruin! It would be blasphemy to not have a physical copy.”

This scholar was just one of the many rabid fans that collected every bit of material they could on the two heroes. This was made even more apparent from the plethora of pictures surrounding his front desk.

The instructor cleared his throat and tapped the side of his spectacles.

Immediately afterwards, the walls surrounding the room displayed various glyphs and educational material. It turned out that almost everywhere within the class could be turned into a screen.

“Settle down children. Now, even though they are no longer with us, rumor has it that they had a child. This was a secret spawned in the final months, but no one knows who spread it. Many experts have spent countless hours reviewing footage and retracing the final years of our saviors-“

“Teacher! How can they have a child if they died?”

A high-pitched voice interrupted in a timely manner.

“Is this where babies come from…”

“My mommy said that…”

Soon a chorus of chirps spiraled the classroom out of control.

“Quiet down, I’m getting to that! Ahem… where was I? Yes, yes of course. Experts have suggested that if a child did exist, then it’d be roughly six or seven years old at this time. Obviously they would have had the child before the final fight, otherwise it would have died from the explosion. So if a child did exist then it’d be at least one, if not two years your senior. And what do we teach about being respectful to seniors?”

The children responded with a variety of answers at the same time.

“Always run away from your seniors.”

“Be kind to old ladies.”

“Always help your friends.”

“Fight the power.”

The instructor had a dumbfounded look as he heard the different responses.

Ugh, what is this? Fight the power? Who’s teaching these kids? Wait, that’s me…

“Stop, stop, stop!”

The instructor was nearly pulled his hair out when he spotted a raised hand in the back of the class.

“Ahah! A hand! See class, if you follow Little Jun’s example then you’ll go much farther in life. Go ahead Jun, what’s your question?”

A thin boy with messy black hair and sky-blue eyes stood up from his chair.

“Um… If Maelstrom and The Queen had a kid, would everyone want to be their friend?”

The kid gazed towards the man with an innocent expression. The instructor frowned as he thought about various political powers and the current state of society. Naturally, these were all things that a kid wouldn’t think about.

“If they had a child, I think…”

That kid wouldn’t have a good life.

“…that people would love to be around them.”

Of course the instructor couldn’t speak his true thoughts to these young kids. Although he spoke with a smile on his face, his innermost thoughts were concentrated on the pitiful fate that child would have.

Royalty across the world would feel threatened, government would be in disarray. The World Purification merit system would likely be thrown into chaos. Laws would have to be established to ensure equality amongst participants in certain areas. No parents are alive to protect them should vying powers see the child as a future threat…

His thoughts continued to trail on and on, even momentarily forgetting that he was lecturing a class of kids.

Meanwhile in the back of the classroom, Jun sat down with a pensive look as he stared at the teacher.

Royalty? Purification merit system? More importantly, the kid wouldn’t have a good life. That is… I wouldn’t have a good life.

Jun looked around the class with dispirited eyes. While most of the children were excited about the topic of these two saviors, other kids possessed negative trains of thought.

What’s so good about The Maelstrom’s kid? I bet I could beat him up. My dad says I’m strong.

Jun’s eyes darted towards a portly kid that wore a sneer across his face.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

If The Queen of Ruin was so strong then why did she die? Mom told me that The Queen of Ruin was just a pretty face. Hmpf!

Jun glanced at a bored looking girl who sat by the window. These were only two examples of the voices that constantly echoed in his head.

That’s correct, Jun could hear these different thoughts coming from everyone around him. Unfortunately they all had one thing in common, they were all negative thoughts!

The poor boy couldn’t hear a single positive, or even neutral, thought.

The kid grimaced as a constant stream of unfiltered negativity sounded off in almost every direction.

“All right, that’s the end of class today. Tomorrow we begin a new story for our last hour lecture!”

The instructor clapped his hands, and the children soon shuffled away.

That girl is ugly…

I hate you!

The next time he touches my bag, I’ll hit him!

Why does no one want to play with me?

A symphony of chaos quickly assaulted Jun’s mind as he made his way towards the exit. Tears slowly began to build in the corners of his eyes like a glass of water that was too full but refused to spill.

It didn’t take long before he came across a familiar face.

“Auntie!”

He ran toward a tall and beautiful woman adorned in an elegant light blue dress.

“Little Jun! W-what’s wrong? Did someone hurt you?”

Even from a distance the woman could see that the boy was about to burst. Her observations only grew more accurate as they got closer.

The boy rushed into her embrace and shook his head vigorously while sniffling.

“Auntie I don’t want to come here anymore. I want to stay home where it’s quiet.”

The kid spoke softly, but the woman didn’t miss a single word.

“Oh Jun… we talked about this, kids are normally loud and carefree.”

“Auntie you said if I tried it for a week! I still don’t like it. It’s too loud! It hurts to listen to everyone. Please, I just want to go home.”

Jun clutched his tiny, trembling hands onto her dress. She looked down at the fragile boy and placed a comforting hand on his hand.

“Okay… but you will have to keep trying school when you’re older. And you have to make friends!”

It was impossible for her to say no to the boy for multiple reasons.

The easiest excuse was because this was the son of Maelstrom and Ruin! The two greatest purifiers in all of history.

However before that fact was even relevant, she simply couldn’t find it in her heart to say no to such a fragile boy. The way he quivered and looked down at the floor with his eyes clenched tight, and the way he spoke, it was as if he was currently in pain.

She knew that Jun wasn’t the type of child to lie about something like this from the way he normally acted, so she just accepted that the boy was easily agitated in crowds.

It was worrisome that the child of Maelstrom and Ruin was possibly growing up to be antisocial, but there was nothing she could do about that. At most, she could try and compromise by letting him adjust to society over time.

How could she possibly know that the child was able to hear all the negative thoughts surrounding him?

“Alright, alright. Calm down now. Let’s head home?”

She placed a comforting hand and tussled the boy’s hair.

“Mm.”

He gave a small nod and held her hand.

As they walked away, the boy glanced back towards the enormous front gate. A single signboard mysteriously floated above the entrance.

Dongma’s Academy for Elite Children.

Floods of children were currently being led away by their caretakers and parents in a disorganized fashion. While it seemed chaotic at first, half of the mob soon formed lines in various locations.

The children that were corralled into these lines were noticeable different from the ones being led away directly by their guardians.

Was it the way they dressed? Perhaps it was the way they carried themselves? If it was neither of those, was it the way that they interacted with each other?

Although it was difficult to pinpoint what the key differences were, these children were lining up to use public transportation as opposed to being taken home directly.

This wasn’t to say that they were inherently poor.

No one that could attend this prestigious academy could be considered poor, and that was because Dongma’s Academy was one of the many famous floating islands!

In fact, the entire island was the property of Dongma’s Academy.

In the next few moments, sizeable crafts soared through the air towards the island before coming to an extremely smooth stop in front of the different lines of children. These crafts were a bus style variant of the popular cloudsplitter.

It was an age long passed, when man first conquered the skies, and the cloudsplitter was the vessel invented to do so.

They were all powered by mana, and the more expensive ones were equipped with powerful formations that enabled different features, such as automatic shielding or even creating a pocket dimension within the ship itself.

While Jun observed the mass of children, he was being led to a different section of the island. This area was reserved for parents and guardians that personally came to pick up their children. Naturally, this is where the personal cloudsplitters were stationed.

I hate that I have to grow up with those children. So poor. Look at them! Their parents can’t even send a servant?

Jun looked across the way toward a boy with blond hair. The boy seemed to walk as if he were prancing along the ground, if anything, it was comical to watch.

“Auntie, are those kids poor?”

Jun tugged on her hand and pointed toward the lines of children.

“Hmm? Oh, heavens no. Each family is unique, Jun. Every family here is definitely wealthy, but some choose to allow their children to experience a social life by having them use those buses. Why? Want to join them?”

The woman smiled with hope.

Of course, he rapidly shook his head. It was bad enough having to hear all the negativity from a distance, but being in the same cramped bus as them?

No way!

That kid is making fun of them, but they aren’t even poor? And the way he walks… it’s embarrassing.

Jun quietly thought to himself and before long, he found himself in front of a beautiful midnight blue cloudsplitter. Its design was sleek, and its size was modest compared to the others surrounding it.

The duo soon entered the cloudsplitter, and while it looked modest on the outside, it was anything but on the inside. The price of this cloudsplitter was unreasonably high, so high that it was borderline a treasure.

The inside was a pocket dimension, and the specifications of its speed and handling were borderline experimental. The interior was separated into three different rooms; two of them being the epitome of luxury and comfort, while the third was the control room.

The beautiful woman exited the control room. She had just inputted the coordinates for home and the cloudsplitter was about to take off.

“Sit tight and start on any homework, I need to make a call and then I’ll come help. Just because you won’t attend school anymore doesn’t mean you’re allowed to slack off on your studies!”

“Yes Auntie.”

After hearing Jun’s reply, the woman swiftly entered the third room and shut the door. The third room in particular had additional formations that prevented noise from entering or exiting it.

The boy sat down on a nearby couch and looked out the window.

He could vaguely make out floating island fading into the distance as the craft sped away. Island after island flew by, and occasionally he could see the ground below when the clouds dispersed.

Although he didn’t know the specifics, Jun was aware that the wealthy dominated the skies. It was almost as if the Ancestral Plane was divided into two worlds: the poor and the wealthy.

Wealth had a vast spectrum between poor and rich, and those living on ground weren’t always actually poor. Some people simply choose to live there instead of in the clouds, purely out of preference.

However it had to be said that while anyone could live on ground, not everyone could live in the sky.

Only those with money could live in the clouds.

Just as Jun watched another island float by, a noise from the center of the room caught his attention.

“And here with us today we have, long time veteran, the father of PSI World, Kahl Amstel!”