The process of skill creation is very interesting because awakeneds don’t actually create skills; perhaps it is apt to say that we imagine these abilities and train our minds to make them a reality. The system does put a check on this, though, and that is why no matter how hard you imagine some skills, they can never become reality, either because your spirit is too weak to handle such a skill or because it is unaligned with the core of your affinity. Remember, water cannot burn, and neither can the void create life.
Assistant Professor Claybourne.
Skill creation; awakened combat mastery.
Ragnarok, 5th sector.
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Aodhán stared at his status screen and the changes that had appeared on it. The first was his name, which had somehow changed, most likely from the fusion of the academy chip with his status interface.
He was now Aodhán Ashoka Brystion, and he couldn’t deny that a part of him loved the fact that he was connected to a family by name, even if his real surname had somehow been converted into his middle name.
The monastery had taken him in and named him after the travelers who had found him wandering in the forest. Whether he’d had a name before that, Aodhán couldn’t remember. All his memories from before he arrived at the monastery were a blur, except for the time he’d spent in the forest, which shone in his mind with vivid clarity.
With a sigh, he turned away from the sour memories and turned his attention to the other change in his status screen.
“What is—Oh, I’m coming.” Daruk muttered as the bursar called him to retrieve his own chip, and he returned with a similar bracelet, shimmering with ice blue and silver scripts. As Daruk fiddled with the chip, Aodhán returned his attention to his screen.
He mentally clicked on the map icon, and the map of the school appeared before him in 3D.
“Whoa, there’s no way we’re getting lost with these.” Aodhán muttered with a smile as he placed all the other items into his spatial storage. Following the map, they made their way to the first-year residential quadrant.
It was a walled-off area located in the northeastern part of the academy. It had high walls that were covered in blue Salinger vines. A massive black gate stood before them, with a small security outpost built beside it.
As they walked through the gate, though, a man dressed in a silver and black uniform popped his head out of the outpost’s window. He had a gruff expression, and the ring around his pupils identified him as an evolved awakened.
“IDs?” he asked, and Aodhán and Daruk submitted their newly made cards. The man scrutinized it for a moment before he smiled and returned the cards.
“Make sure you keep that on you at all times. You won’t be allowed in without it.”
“Yes sir.” They both replied, and the man gestured for them to proceed. A pathway made of cobble stones, wide enough to fit an entire bus, led down from the gate, and on either side of it, beautiful duplexes stood, each with a garden and a small picket fence.
The houses stood on a plot each, and boldly written on their front doors were numbers ranging from 1 to 20. They all looked the same, though, almost as if they were all copies of an original that was impossible to identify.
“Okay, this is nice. Weird but nice.” Daruk muttered as he walked towards the house numbered 3. “See you in an hour?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Aodhán replied and walked down the street until he got to the 14th house. The moment he identified the house, though, he realized that the front door was open, which meant someone was in the house.
“God, please let them be reasonable.” He muttered as he walked through the open door and had to dodge immediately as a bladed boomerang zoomed through the area where his head had been a millisecond ago before shattering against the wooden door.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there.” A girl muttered as she lifted herself from the couch and came to examine the damage she’d done to the door. “Hey, that could have seriously injured you.”
“No shit.” Aodhán replied with a glare, expecting the girl to apologize; instead, she picked up what was left of the boomerang and stretched her right hand out for a handshake. “Hi, My name is Imani Blackwell. Nice to meet you.”
The girl had long black hair that almost reached the base of her spine and black pupils that were ringed with a band even darker than her actual pupils. Wisps of shadow emanated from her body like smoke, and Aodhán realized she wasn’t fully in control of her bloodline yet.
Aodhán stared at her outstretched hand in confusion and slight anger, but rather than react, he decided to stay calm. It’s okay; it’s fine; maybe she’s just an airhead.
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He ignored Imani’s outstretched hand, though, but she didn’t seem to mind at all as she returned to the couch. The girl was only a little shorter than he was, and although Aodhán hadn’t noticed before, she was dressed in a short white material that exposed her arms and belly, along with a small brown short that barely covered half her thighs. For a guy who has lived almost all of his life in a monastery, the visuals were too soon.
Aodhán turned his attention away from Imani’s exposed thighs and focused on his surroundings. The living room was large, taking up almost the entirety of the ground floor. The walls were crafted with luxurious white stones, and although he couldn’t see any runes written on them, he could feel a sort of energy emanating from them.
The windows were made of Romanian glass, causing the rays of sunlight to take on a distorted blue hue. An array of leather couches and pillows were scattered around the room, and an enchanted wooden table, containing a pile of textbooks, stood at its center.
“A and B are downstairs; just through that corridor, C, D, and E are upstairs.” Imani offered, her voice cutting through his thoughts.
“Yeah, thanks.” He replied and began to make his way towards the wooden stairs, but stopped when he noticed Imani coming up behind him.
“What are you doing?” He asked with a frown, but she shrugged and simply replied. “I’m 14-A, but I really just want to see everybody’s room. Do you know you can actually customize—”
“No.” Aodhán cut in sharply. He was about to say something else, but after her expression crumbled, he’d decided to take a more polite route. “I prefer to go up alone.”
She shrugged and turned back to the couch, after which he took up a textbook and began reading.
Aodhán trudged up the stairs after that, leaving his slightly miffed housemate behind, but he didn’t really care; she’d almost ripped his head off and was too proud to apologize. It didn’t take a genius to figure out her status as nobility, not with the obvious family name, but since they’d left Sector 12, nobles hadn’t left the best impression on him.
His room was the first on the top floor, marked by the letter C in bold black ink. He retrieved his key from his spatial space and inserted the smaller of the two into the key hole. The door opened without a sound, and Aodhán gasped in amazement as he stepped into the room.
Half of the room was made with opaque Romanian glass, which caused the space inside the room to almost triple. The walls were bare; in fact, almost everything was translucent and colorless, but that only made him love it more, as for the first time in forever, he had the chance to decorate his own room.
Aside from photography, interior decoration was a profession he’d always loved, and like he’d told Master Amin, his guidance counselor back at the monastery, if he was unable to make it big with photography, he would definitely branch out into the interior decoration business.
Sadly, none of those dreams had come true, not with the transmigration and all, but now he finally got a chance. Two panels were hooked to the wall beside him; the first displayed the number 36 in gold script, while the other contained several settings for room customization.
Immediately he stepped in front of the second panel; it flashed and began scanning his features. The scan only took a few seconds before he was granted access, and without hesitation, he began decorating.
He’d always been a fan of dark colors—gray and black, specifically—and he inculcated them into the room. The walls rippled as they became dark gray, and the wooden floor boards turned black.
The curtains rippled, turning a shade lighter than the walls, and the bedposts turned black. By the time he was done, everything in the room was either a shade of gray or matte black. There were several lamps in the room, and he adjusted them to give off a soft white light that perfectly managed to cast shadows everywhere.
Half an hour later, he was satisfied, and the good thing about it was that he could change it anytime he wished. There was a closet, now made from black wood, not too far from his bed, and he opened it to hang his uniforms within it.
Surprisingly, there was a pair of black cotton t-shirts and pants already folded within it, so he added the clothes he’d bought from the 8th sector to the pile. After that, he moved on to check out the bathroom, where he found a sealed toothbrush and toothpaste that smelled strongly of mint.
The most interesting room for him, though, was the last room, which was identified as a training room, and as Aodhán stepped into it, a wave of dense energy embraced him. In the last few days, he’d gotten used to the dense amount of energy in the 5th sector, but in this room, it was almost oppressive in its density.
The room was double the size of the bedroom, which was already large by normal standards. The lustrous black floor shimmered with silver runes that gave off a sense of durability. Aodhán paused before letting out a wide smile. This was the first time he’d sensed the effect of a rune, and as he focused his core sense on the shimmering runes, he slowly began to feel other flavors and textures from the runes.
The heavy feeling of the earth element was dominant, followed by the pungent scent of wood, and lastly, the concept of immutability. That wasn’t all, though, just what he could sense at the moment, and as interesting as this was, it also made Aodhán realize just how much work and energy went into rune scripting.
He tabled the matter for now, adding it to the growing list of things he needed to work on, and made his way towards the rack of weapons in the corner. Compared to the ones he’d seen in the Phoenix’s nest, these were real and of much higher quality, but they were still useless to him as he could make his own weapons.
Just as he turned to leave the room, a ding sounded in his mind, and he viewed his status to see a message waiting for him.
—Hey, it’s Daruk. Are you there? Is this thing even working?
Aodhán searched the entire screen, looking for a keyboard to type out a reply, but after a few minutes of futile searching, he muttered. “Is there no keyboard on this thing?”
Surprisingly, the words typed themselves out on the screen, and he realized there was some kind of audio keyboard going on, so he deleted the previous message and sent another.
—Its working. How did you message me anyway?
—I used the contact menu. It contains a list of people who have received chips, as well as our coordinator.
—Pretty neat. How’s your house?
—I’m the only one in the house, so there isn’t much to say. What about you?
—There’s a noble, some Imani Blackwell. This girl almost cut my head off and couldn’t even apologize. Let’s meet at the cafeteria; I’m starving.
—Sure thing. How do you exit this chat window? —oh. Okay bye.
After successfully exiting the chat window, Aodhán locked his room and went downstairs. Fortunately, Imani was no longer in the living room, so he made his way out of the house and, a few minutes later, joined up with Daruk before walking to the cafeteria.