Scholar's City

In a dark cave, A man covered with dirt, suddenly opened his eyes silently staring at the ceiling in disbelief "Someone saved me?.... How could it be?....Who could it be?" Despite the confusion Prad couldn't stop the joy in his heart and said curiously while squinting his eyes, "But this place doesn't look like a hospital. Just where am I?"

Prad tried to walk up to the mouth of the cave but stumbled back down to the ground, his body aching all over. Now when he had finally calmed down from his initial excitement and shock, he noticed that his body somehow felt diffrent and filled with bruises and black marks, as if he had been tortured and beaten to death by someone.

Crawling out from the cave he noticed a lake, Upon reaching the corner of the lake he forcefully sits up to wash up his face and body "Ahh.. What happened to my face." Prad exclaimed while staring at his own face in disbelief, "This... This is not my face! What happened to it? Did someone did a plastic surgery on it? No, That can't be, It feels like a natural face, not something artificially made, But how can that be possible? Now that I look at my whole body again, it truly doesn't seem to be my body."

Suddenly his eyes opened up wide "Wait where are these thoughts coming to mind from? No, These are not mere thoughts but memories! What? These are the memories of the previous owner of this body!" Prad mumbled while stroking his temples, "Ray.. Ray Mathews, It was the name of the person, whom this body belongs too previously."

"....."

Although the memories were still a bit hazy but he got a gist of the situation that he was in from them.

This place was actually not Earth but a whole different planet called Roca. He was currently in the outskirts of a city called Scholar's City.

Apparently although this planet looks similar to Earth, with one moon and one sun, and even though the days here consist of 48 hours if compared from the scale on Earth, But the major diffrence was that on this planet, the people can gain supernatural powers and unparalleled strength, Also humans weren't the only intelligent race on this place, As their were plently of other powerful and intelligent races like Elfs, Demons, Dwarves and many more.

As for the supernatural powers and unparalleled strength that people can gain was easier said than done. To get powers you would need to gather the mana, an invisible and untouchable substance flowing in the air and eventually raise through the realms of power, The realms were more commonly referred as Levels. But raising each level could take years upon years. Most of the population couldn't even reach Level 1, and have to always remain at Level 0.

Still unable to move much, He took the support of a tree to sit and rearrange the memories, to learn more about his current situation.

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"It seems like you've had a pretty hard life too. " Prad sighed, now that the memories were much more clearer than before, He knew that how did this person Ray Mathews who's body he occupies right now, had ended up at this place. Ray Mathews was a living example of a self-made genius, top of the class. With the limited resources he had left everyone of the same age group behind. He earned the admiration and envy of others through his own hardwork. His goal was to successfully enroll in the Hero Academy's Hero Class by scoring highest on both academic and Physical strength examination.

And apparently this dream cum goal of Ray was the exact reason which led to his death.

Ray had been an eyesore for the prince Sebas Williams of the Royal family of the Scholar's city for a long time. He and Prince Sebas were both role models for the current generation, but in reality Ray Mathews had always remained at top while Prince Sebas occupied the spot below him, But when Prince Sebas got the news of Ray going for the entrance exam of the Hero Academy, It made him finally lose his mind. Sebas was both furious and worried. That was because Hero Academy was not something which his Royal family can be compared too.

Although the cities and towns on planet Roca was still under the rule of Kings and Emperors, but none of them established dictatorship. This was because they have all agreed on a treaty with the Hero Academy to maintain fair rule and laws in the cities and towns under their control. The reason? ..... It was simply that the Hero Academy was too strong! The Hero Academy was apparently capable of wiping out multiple Empires and Kingdoms in a single night.

Thus, Allowing Ray to take part in the examination was unacceptable not only for Seb but the whole royal family, because although with his talent Ray could pass the qualifiers held in Scholar's City, and still never be able to official disciple of the Hero Academy in the main examination held at the Hero Academy itself, But on the off-chance that Ray succeeded, Then it would make things really awkward for the royal family because his status would've been in no way inferior to them with the potential to even surpass their status aka 'the royals', and Royal family would have to bow before him and treat him like as an equal at the very least, Which was totally unacceptable to them, How could they allow a commoner to rise so much.

"Humans are truly the scariest, no matter where you live." Prad sighed, "Although I still don't understand that how I ended up on this planet or in this body, but one thing I do know is that I'll have to be extra-carefull, when roaming around the city with this face."

At first Prad had planned to take rest for the night, but now knowing the dangerous situation that he was in, How could he have the guts to sleep. "It seems that I'll have to postpone the rest till I've secured myself."