The outside was dark with wandering and stationary lights but the classroom was unaffected illuminated by the fat bugs producing yellow light attached to the ceiling and walls.

Murmurs and distant sounds of conversations were louder than usual in this large school holding tens of thousands of students.

Seeing a light flash above him the old professor ended his lecture to the joy of the youths.

“Hey Freed, what ability do you think I’ll awaken? [Three Step Invisibility]? Maybe [Stone Reinforcement] or even [Man-Beast Fusion]!”

Jellal, Freed’s best buddy chittered as they collected their bags from the back of the classroom and began to head home. Today was a half-day due to the upcoming Awakening Ceremony.

They had learned all they needed to from youth till now and the prior months were a revision marathon so it was unnecessary to cram in any last-minute information.

The only reason they were even at school today was to go over the boring details of tomorrow, like how to line up, conduct themselves, etiquette in front of the gods, and so on. However, It was only a relatively short series of lectures.

The teachers and school saw it fit as the youths were too excited to focus. Who could blame them? For most, this was the only opportunity to change their fates!

“I think you’re painting your face a bit too bright with that last one. That needs a battle beast companion to be effective. Pure Mystic Beasts are expensive since they have to be specially born, I doubt you could afford one if you mortgaged all of your organs. And isn’t [Man-Beast Fusion] a Bright Spark talent? You don’t want an ordinary beautiful wife but a rich one at that.”

Freed chuckled, he had felt a bit uncomfortable at first getting this best friend out of nowhere but as an ordinary man living in society he had made friends quite a lot in his past life although many ended up pursuing different paths, and separating it was a good experience.

He decided to treat this cheap friend of his the same as he would a normal one.

“Hey hey a man can dream, can’t he? It’s not like we’re completely hopeless either right.” Jellal was about to shine some positivity on his friend’s bleakness when someone waved at him from afar. It was a few of his siblings. After whispering to Jellal to wait for a bit he hurried over.

He knew his friend’s personality and Freed didn’t get along well with his siblings so he didn’t ask him to accompany him.

–‘This guy, so popular.’

Freed nodded as Jellal left, taking a seat on one of the wooden hallway benches.

–‘Still no matter how I see it the architecture sure is beautiful, if I was born as some other race I wouldn't have been so surprised but humans embracing such a natural school of architecture and design despite having mechanical creations is sure surprising.’

Freed caressed the smooth finish of the wooden bench’s armrest as his thoughts churned. Of course, the level of wood refinement and processing in this world was far ahead of his previous life and the structures such as walls, floors, ceilings and style of buildings were quite refined even at the most simplistic levels and were not as rough as a treehouse or birdnest, and several qualities ahead of even the finest wooden and antique finishes he had seen.

It was like the upgraded version of a mix between Victorian and Art Nouveau styles of wooden architecture.

It was something he would expect from a race of humanoid wood elves with a deep history rather than from humans. Of course, based on where they lived and also the influence of gods and strong men, Freed had some idea why things developed the way they did.

“Oh look what we have here. Feeling nostalgic already dirty sinner?”

A mocking jeer echoed from the left, and Freed’s expression darkened.

“After all, tomorrow is likely your final day in this school, it's about time, having dirty sinner trash like you souring up the hallways is quite the spectacle, amusing at first but now the joke has grown old.”

A blonde-haired young man with ordinary features but dressed in luxurious garments appeared before Freed, not even bothering to hide his distaste.

“What do you want Harold?” Freed calmly replied.

‘This gutter trash has been different these days… well whatever.’

“Oh, I’m just expressing my joy at the garbage being cleared out. It brings happiness to my heart.”

Ptoo~!

He spat in Freed’s face.

–‘This son of a–’

Freed wiped his face off in disgust in a seemingly calm manner but the bulging veins in his hands and tightly clenched jaw revealed his real emotions.

“I’ll give you a warning pretty boy. After you leave tomorrow I don't want you anywhere near my sister even if she’s the one approaching you then run the other way, as for Carmen… if you even so much as look at her I’ll dig out your eyes and cut off your tiny little thing and feed it to you.”

“Now for your daily treatment.” Harold waved to his wingmen who were waiting on the signal and violently punched Freed in the stomach giving him several kicks and backhands until he spat blood.

“Hey, boss he’s glaring at us.”

“How scary, I might die from the intensity hwack~ oh nooo, my head is exploding. Save me! Save me!”

The two lackeys mockingly teased Freed but their hands and feet didn’t stop.

Only after they kicked out two teeth and a certain someone noticed and was rushing over did they stop.

“Remember this dirty sinner. You and I are in different worlds, you shouldn’t even think to touch or even glance in the general direction of anyone in my world. Otherwise, if I see it then I’ll punish you.”

With a final spit, Harold placed his hands behind his back and walked away.

–‘Those bastard pieces of shit!’

Freed was absolutely furious, but he knew he couldn’t do anything to them. At least for now. Harold was from a noble family, and even though it was the lowest rank and he wasn’t even a direct line it wasn’t something he could touch even by accident.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

In school, he might live if he did but the moment he went outside he would disappear. Although there were unspoken rules for the nobility and higher classes and they weren’t allowed to target or kill awakening candidates according to the decree of the Gods, these laws were in the end enforced by men.

The churches had a lot on their plates so even then they hardly took action directly and it was left to the local police.

Freed could still die and even drag his family with him if he insulted or injured a noble however thin that nobility was. Although the nobles would be punished and possibly even suffer divine punishment for going against the gods' decree, just killing one unawakened teenager was nothing.

They would pay a fine get a warning and that would be the end. Of course, if it was several unawakened teenagers then the matter would be bigger and inquisitors from the church could get involved so they didn’t dare go too far but just one sad person dying was nothing.

Freed knew his best chances of survival were to keep quiet and not resist, even if he wanted to his weak body couldn’t beat even one of them. As long as he didn’t cross the line as a low-class ‘slave’ then he would be safe, Harold would have been warned by his family not to cause a scene and bring them trouble.

And he wouldn’t if he wanted to keep a lot of his privileges as a noble descendant. However, if Freed were to resist and really piss him off then in anger he could defy the warnings and kill him and his family then Freed would be too dead to do anything in regret.

This was even just the best-case scenario if they caused a scene when dealing with Freed, otherwise, even Harold wouldn’t be dumb enough to do it himself and hire others to do his dirty work then the blame would fall on their heads if pursued and not his.

The school didn’t care and although Freed had certain privileges as a student, if he were to use them then it could also piss off Harold which was why he never reported it. He was just a statistic to the school and they wouldn’t care much about his well-being as long as he was alive.

It was such a cruel society.

***

“Hey, boss are you sure we should still keep, you know, ‘prettying him up’? What if a repeat of Dillon happens? Then things would be really bad.” One of Harold’s followers, Josh couldn’t help but ask nervous from the eve of awakening with the many stories replaying in his head.

“Dillon? You worry too much that was a rare case.” The other follower, William replied.

“Sir Yuhan was a super rare case and he happened! You can’t ever be sure.” Josh replied sharply unconvinced.

“Quiet down you two. Dillon? Yeah right, even Sir Yuhan is too much of an outlier to compare to that dirty sinner trash. They were once the same sure but that kid is different. Do I look like an idiot to you of course I checked his background. Yuhan and Dillion have the blood of nobles and heroes although they were Class F and their bloodline was never ordinary.” Harold snorted as he turned to his wingmen and explained.

“That kid's genealogy is clear, he has no trace of an awakener at all for 6 entire generations nothing! Definitely no Plant Controllers and even the ordinary extraordinaries are absent. It’s difficult to trace further back but that’s unnecessary, the best he has is a distant cousin who is a D-class citizen already 45 years old who took an ability potion to become a false transcendent. He has no money to even obtain the cheapest curse material!”

Harold was naturally aware of the unspoken rules not to touch an awakening candidate about to awaken in the event they awakened a powerful ability and retaliated for past grievances but he wasn’t too worried.

“Even on the off chance he has shit luck and awakens without a curse material to help and awakens an innate ability at most it will be Fading Ember level. Even if it's a Bright Spark it will take a while for him to grow and I can still handle it before then. My Litmei family is a verifiable knight family, even as a branch in the White Star District no one dares to do anything to me in the event it alerts the main family even more so after I awaken with my ability.”

Harold and Freed’s conflict was actually something quite simple but nevertheless harmful for the pitiful Freed as a Class F citizen forbidden to strike upwards with few human rights.

Freed was actually quite handsome, not the best looking in the year but within the top twenty. Therefore a lot of women were interested in him as a potential partner. This included Harold’s sister which was already enough to irritate him but even Harold’s fiance had eyes for Freed which sparked his hate.

Naturally, this wasn’t something like love at first sight or even puppy love. It was common for women in equal relationships or strong women to have male pets or a batch of secret lovers in this society and their commitment to their partner depended on the power and class gap between them. Freed was a prime target for these young girls for such a male concubine position due to his looks.

Therefore although he didn’t initiate anything he somehow ended up making an enemy for no reason for Harold felt it was insulting for women near him to be interested in a lowly sinner.

“Freed! Freed! Are you ok?” Jellal rushed over and asked in concern seeing him bruised and beaten.

“It’s fine. Let’s go we have a big day tomorrow and should prepare.” Freed got up and dusted himself off without changing his expression. He had already accepted his current situation and forbearance was his current mantra. Doing something stupid in a fit of rage would cause possible drastic consequences if it could be avoided then he would avoid it.

“Those sons of bitches, I’ll go fuck them up!” After making sure Freed was ok Jellal was furious and was about to chase them but Freed stopped him.

“Leave it be. I’m fine, they were lighter this time or maybe I’m used to it after a night’s sleep I’ll be as good as new. I’ll skip Goddess El and just go home. Come on.” Freed tugged him.

Jellal bit his lower lip in silence, looking at the three figures in the distance.

‘I can’t cause any trouble before the eve so I’ll let it go for now but once I’m a Class C citizen that bastard better count his days. He’s just a branch family and only the eighth son of the 5th in line, he’s the branch of the branch, a fucking twig and I’ll snap him like a twig!’

Jellal wouldn’t tolerate his best friend being beaten before him and would usually go fight them but he decided to bide his time and take care of them for good when he had the chance.

–‘Those fuckers will feel really pretty after I get my hands on them just wait!’

Jellal gritted his teeth and thought.

They spent the next ten minutes of the journey to the train in silence before they began chatting as if nothing happened. Freed wryly smiled seeing Jellal circle back to his fantasies and was staying silent until he heard something outrageous like [Six Element Outfit] then he couldn’t help but ask his friend to take a piss and look at his reflection if he was worthy.

“Well, what about you, what do you want to awaken?” Jellal pursed his lips in annoyance being shut down from his high fantasies. He jumped down from the ‘centipede’ train cabin clutching his bag and Freed did the same.

“Me?” Freed stared up at the giant white pillar in the distance, whose luminous body brought light to the eternal darkness of the underground, “I’ll be satisfied just awakening, unlike you I'm lucky or unlucky enough to know my lineage. None of my relatives except a very distant cousin have been favored by any god to awaken based on just looks. And as you know we are the bottom of the barrel of the poor amongst our classmates.”

The cousin Freed spoke of was already dead and even then they didn’t have much of a connection.

Freed examined his washed-out student robes his family had purchased cheaply. No doubt it belonged to a student from 10 years ago or more based on the appearance when it fell into his hands,

“Extraordinary Cursed Materials are just too expensive and too difficult for poor folk like us to obtain so we just have the base probability of awakening. Since I have no close ancestors or current relatives who have awakened, my chances are even worse. I’ll be content with just awakening, I don't need to get an ability.”

It's said by some law of conversion or something of that nature, that the extraordinary properties from cursed materials could be transferred to one’s person through the awakening ceremony with the help of the gods, if you were compatible with the material you had an even higher chance of awakening and with a good ability at that.

If the normal awakening probability was 10% (without an innate ability) then just a basic Black Iron Material could increase the chances of an ability awakener from 3% to 33%% and 43% chance of a normal awakening.

A Heroic Brass level curse material was said to bring that probability up from 3% to 63%~83%. And almost guaranteed normal awakening as a Mystic Master.

As for the above-ranked curse materials, rumor had it that it was guaranteed success. Therein lay the advantage of the wealthy with their generational wealth and the secret to maintaining the rigid class system.

Tigers gave birth to tigers even if they birthed a puppy they could still paint stripes on him and turn him into a fake tiger.