Struggle

Another day of school had begun after yet another night filled with practicing my abilities with Ms. Zito. Now that I had already completed two days at the academy, my courses would now rotate, meaning I would have the same courses as on Tuesday.

My current schedule looked like this:

Tuesdays and Thursdays: UCPC in the morning and mana manipulation at the end of the days.

Wednesday and Friday: Monster elimination class in the morning and the self-study session to end the days.

Of course, there were also the more traditional classes filling in the gaps during the days, but this was more or less how my entire school year would look like.

Then we also had Mondays which were a bit of a special case.

Most of the time, Mondays only consisted of a homeroom session in the morning, and if there wasn't some kind of special event or test, we were free to use the rest of the day however we wanted.

In my head, I assumed that all of the ambitious students would use this time to train or study, while the not-so-ambitious students would just loiter around, spending their time having fun or relaxing.

Now, today, I had already learned from the mistake I made when trying to learn from my mistake.

I had been foolish from the start, thinking that walking through the academy grounds in the morning could bring me anything but misfortune.

So this time, I just jumped over the high walls that separated the academy from the outside world, letting my body float to the roof immediately by utilizing my zero gravity mode.

And just like that, my infiltration was complete!

Sort of.

*Bam!*

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

Three black-suited men stormed out from the rooftop door, all of them glowing as a result of activating their blessing, fully prepared to engage in battle with the intruder.

'I might be an idiot...'

Thinking about it just a bit more, the reason why they had come here was quite obvious. Because someone had infiltrated the academy by jumping over the walls.

Raising my hands into the air, I had a feeling that I would be forced to have yet another conversation with Ms. Zito about my behavior tonight.

"I'm a student..."

=======

"-Hey, that's the one that got caught this morning by security...

"-I wonder what stupid shit he was doing to even force security to have to move...

Coming back from my lesson with Mr. Faer with my arms hanging limp, as I had continued to solely practice punching for three hours, there was no way for me not to hear the whispers coming from the students standing around in the hallways.

Mr. Faer himself had just laughed as he heard me explaining why I was late to class, saying something along the lines of joys of youth, but I still felt quite bad about the whole thing. Mainly because it was going against my plan of laying low until the other students stopped caring about me.

Ebbs and flows. Just like waves on the sea, opinions and rumors would eventually fade, as long as someone didn't accidentally trigger the alarm in the school and make security have to run there to see what was going on.

Although I hadn't ever met the principal of Augustus, I had a feeling he would not like me very much, as I had already caused quite a bit of trouble in these three days that I had spent at the academy.

Having finally arrived at my destination, the homeroom classroom of 1-A, I comforted myself with the thought that I was at the very least getting to attend this academy.

To be honest, just being here at a prestigious academy was more than I could have ever dreamt of as a child. For most people, their potentials were so low that there was no use even trying to apply to any of the awakening schools, not to mention Augustus.

A normal person with a normal potential would go on to live a normal life working normal jobs. However, what would I have done as the sole unawakened person in the world have done when I grew up?

Even in normal jobs, it was much handier to have someone stronger or faster, even if it just made printing out papers a bit more efficient. It didn't matter that I believed myself to be quite intelligent and quick-witted because most jobs where your brain was important were already filled by high-potential humans.

Politicians, scholars, professors, lawyers, etc, all of these usually had some kind of restriction on what rank you had to be to become one. The general explanation behind this was for safety, as they didn't want weak people to handle important data or documents, nor would they want a politician to risk dying at the hand of a nobody.

Naturally, I didn't buy it. The only reasonable explanation that I could believe was that it had to do with status. And not the status board that all humans had, but a social status. Without at least some individual power, there was no place for you in this world.

So, walking into the classroom, where all of my classmates had already taken to their seats, I looked over the room of people who would eventually go on to become part of the upper echelon of the world.

Turning their eyes to me, I knew that I didn't belong here with these people, but I also knew that I didn't care. Because I would struggle, struggle enough so that in the future I could show the world that I survived.

So sitting down in my seat, I prepared myself for one of the worst struggles of all, a struggle that instantly began the second our teacher started talking.

"Today we will be explaining market economy and how this might bear overbearing effects on the extent to which we can explore the wastelands."

'-You can do it, Aarick! Though I am not sure what she is talking about, I am sure you can do it!'

'Thanks...'

==========

"Are you sure it's safe for me to attend that class? I mean... with what happened last time..."

"It's going to be fine. Last time, you reached out to your core for the very first time, and it isn't rare for a demon to lose control during their first interaction with their own power. Just do as we practiced yesterday. I will also be there this time, just in case something does happen. So don't worry too much."

"Alright..."

With that, we exited the classroom and headed to the mana manipulation class, where I would once again have to try and refine my mana. Hopefully this time without going crazy...

While it could be said to be quite strange that Ms. Zito forced me to attend the class despite what happened last time, I could also kind of sense what she implicitly wanted to tell me by forcing me to go there.

Coexistence could only be born out of trust, and this did not only apply to the other party but to trust oneself to keep to the boundaries that were set.

Now, we had already had a conversation about how I could go about it without diving too deeply into myself, and having tried it last night, I didn't necessarily believe it would be a problem to stay in control.

Yet, it was still scary. It was scary because it was so incredibly comforting to isolate myself in the dark with Lucifer, and so I wasn't sure if I could hold myself back.

Now, on to a completely separate topic that I was equally stressed about.

Having already made quite a name for myself, it was hard to judge how the other students would view the fact that I was currently being escorted by a teacher to my next class.

Although I don't remember having a mother and my father had left before I was born, I imagined this feeling was quite similar to having your parents accompany you in school. Embarrassing. Even more so when thinking about the fact that we were all already adults.

So, when we walked into the entrance to the mana manipulation class, where all the other students had naturally arrived, I could feel my face heating up.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for the granny that was Mrs. Bright to handle everything like a professional and just start the lesson.

"For the ones that didn't know, Ms. Zito is just here to inspect and see the material that this course is dealing with. So just imagine that she isn't here. Now, we will begin where we last left off, by making sure that each and every one of you is at least somewhat proficient in mana circulation. For some of you, this might seem trivial, but if you want to stay in this class you will have to bear with it for now."

With no one protesting, it didn't take long until we were all sitting down cross-legged on the tatami mats and started meditating.

So once again I dove into myself, this time making sure not to get too engrossed in the comfort of the dark.