FIRST CLASS

The gaze of every other student soon fixed on the new arrival as well. If Stare hadn't been so focused on him, he would have noticed the shift in atmosphere among the students. It almost seemed as though his presence invoked caution and fear in everyone, including the Elites.

However, the kid didn't appear the least bit bothered by this or anything else happening in the class at the moment. Instead, he simply walked towards a row at the end of the class with fewer students and took a seat there.

The atmosphere in the classroom seemed to liven up as the new student quietly settled into his seat, and everyone's attention returned to the situation at hand—everyone except Stare.

Stare was still too excited about finally making some progress with his plan after Y-204's appearance that he didn't even realize all eyes were now back on him.

Joel attempted to snap him out of his reverie, but Stare was so lost that he didn't notice any of his attempts. This immediately seemed to anger Ava more, as for the first time her cold expression was replaced with a frown.

As her mouth opened, indicating she was about to say something, the door to the classroom swung open once more. However, this time it wasn't a student.

Instead, a man in his late twenties entered. He had black, bushy hair, dull blue eyes with a listless expression, and was dressed in a white lab coat.

He seemed to scan the entire classroom for a moment before his eyes landed on Ava and the tiny bots currently hovering around Stare.

"Alright, that's enough... You can call back your toys, Miss Ava. It's against the Academy's rules to harm a fellow student, and it's against my rules to harm a fellow student... In the first class, both rules speak against your actions."

Stare, who by now had already snapped out of his reverie, wore a slight frown upon seeing the man. There was something about him that didn't feel right.

He couldn't tell if it was the fact that he was most likely a teacher or his casual tone and expression towards the whole situation. Was it just a Prime thing? Come to think of it, Guy was also quite excessively casual himself.

At first, Ava seemed hesitant, but after a while, she dropped her head slightly and responded with a "Yes, Mr. Kali." Although she continued to glare dangerously at Stare for a while, she eventually called off her attacks, causing the tiny bots to abruptly fall to the ground with sparks as she took her seat.

Mr. Kali, presumably the teacher of the class, simply nodded upon seeing this and turned to face the rest of the class, each of whom had taken a seat and were now looking earnestly at their instructor.

"...First off, I'm not a Prime Hero or some amazing role model character. I'm just an extremely bored and smart scientist who decided it might be interesting to teach a bunch of dumb aspiring heroes for a while."

"And as for what I'll be teaching, I call it Hero Theoretical Knowledge, a course you might or might not need in your life as a hero. Although it doesn't actually involve fighting and stuff like that, it does involve discussing topics I find interesting."

Kali paused for a moment, as though reading the reactions of his students to his introduction. It wasn't entirely positive; most of them had slight frowns on their faces. However, despite this, no one objected.

Slightly nodding, he proceeded to continue.

"For our first lecture, I'd like to discuss something you all will likely be quite knowledgeable about, and I'd mostly like to hear some of your opinions about it…"

"Let's discuss the event that occurred over a century ago and has been attributed to New Earth's progress so far... Let's talk about the Great Warming Calamity, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you believe caused this catastrophe all those years ago and how it could have been stopped."

For a moment, silence filled the room, with everyone seemingly hesitant to respond.

Kali's dissatisfaction was evident as he let out a loud sigh, muttering the word "boring" loud enough for everyone in the classroom to hear, before turning to Ava.

"I guess, Miss Ava, you'll have to go first."

Ava simply nodded slightly before rising from her seat.

Somehow, Stare noticed that Ava's usual aloof behavior was absent in front of the professor. He couldn't tell if she was showing him respect due to his position as a teacher in the Academy or if it was because of his intellectual prowess. Either way, at least he managed to keep that little devil in check for the meantime.

Ava had already begun sharing her thoughts on the topic raised by the professor. As expected of a young genius with a wealth of knowledge, her delivery was top-notch.

However, Stare had a small issue with her thoughts. Her information on the entire event was essentially incorrect, and Stare would know this best because he had been present during the event. Though he wasn't particularly proud of his involvement and was currently working against something similar happening again, he could also be said to have had a hand in it.

She essentially believed that the Great Warming was solely caused by the machine created by Morphine or Y-204, whichever one, and not by humanity's choice of power supply at that time and their overall carelessness.

The machine created by Morphine had acted more as an accelerant to something that could have occurred in the foreseeable future if humanity had left their situation unchecked. In their defense, they had already begun working toward resolving it.

However, Stare wasn't blaming her or doubting her intellect for this. Cases like this had, after all, occurred in previous cycles.

Humanity had a tendency to forget or edit history to fit their current narrative, whatever it may be.

For example, a few eras ago, magic was quite rampant. Then, fast forward a little, technology was invented. And even further into the future, magic had been completely replaced by this technology, with the tales of magic even existing becoming mere fiction.

So, a case like this wasn't really the first. Plus, there's also the fact that most of Earth was destroyed during the Great Warming Calamity, meaning a lot of usual information and evidence had been lost to the mass destruction. So, this might not have been a deliberate case after all.

It's not like he had any plans of butting in anyway. He had already attracted too much attention today, and publicly challenging a prodigy Elite kid would only prolong that attention, especially if it was this eccentric kid. Luckily, so far, the rest of the students seemed to agree with her presentation, judging by their repetitive nods.

He was currently more concerned about Y-204's presence and its effect on his plan. He was contemplating the right time to approach him.

Come to think of it, this Calamity event had actually been greatly orchestrated by him.

Stare pondered as he turned to look in the direction where Y-204 was seated, noticing that his expression choices were still the same as old times: very limited—it was either unreadable or outright gloomy.

Even now, when he was being made a topic—or at least a character he had played in a previous cycle—Y-204 didn't show any signs of being bothered. Or was it that he hadn't unsealed his memories at all?

Quickly shaking his head, Stare redirected his focus away from Y-204. He wasn't willing to entertain thoughts in that direction just yet.

Stare's thoughts, however, were disrupted when he heard certain words leave Ava's mouth, which he immediately recognized was being directed at him.

"...Or I might as well be wrong with my thoughts. After all, judging by this fellow student's expression so far, he seems to have a different idea than the one I had proposed." Ava said, her eyes now fixed on Stare.

"Shit."