Neither Overbearing Nor Servile

Upon waking up at eight am, Vin quickly got ready, placing on one of his sets of the same uniform from the day they dived into the gates as essentially practice. He had another thirty minutes before the first class would start, so he decided to open up the Gacha Menu.

———

[Gacha Menu]

[Points : 5]

[Upgrade : 0/2500 Editing Points]

[Uncommon Capsule : 5 Points]

[Rare Capsule : 45 Points]

[Super Rare : 650 Points]

———

He knew he wasn't obtaining 40 Gacha points any time soon so he dumped the last 5 into an uncommon capsule. Hoping for an astronomical reward.

After pressing the button, a message appeared regarding skipping the opening scene. Vin has almost immediately obliged causing a box with a deck of cards inside to appear in front of him.

A message from the system showed up, surprising Vin as it was different from past messages.

[FIRST SUPER RARE! 2000 EDITING POINTS AWARDED!]

"Bruh." Vin said aloud not expecting a super rare on a lower rarity. And when the hell did these have rarity. "A deck of cards are Super Rare? What are they limited edition collector items?"

[SR][54 Cards of Mimicry] - [A deck of 54 cards, each with simple designs. The cards can copy the ability of another, if the user has seen the skill in person. Each card is one use and downscaled to the user's level if the gap between the user and the copied target is too great. The two jokers will not be downscaled regardless of the gap. After copying a skill a picture of the person who's skill was copied appears on the card.]

"Heh…Well this confirms it, I'm just too lucky and handsome as well." Vin chuckled as he praised himself. Not bothering to stifle it as he was alone.

The deck of cards were immediately opened, four would come with him and placed the rest in a drawer.

He mumbled to himself something about being smarter than other people who would have taken none because they're rare items.

"I should probably add card sleeves to protect the cards." And so the idiot put weak plastic over an item that was much stronger than the plastic. This only took five minutes, he spent another 10 minutes organizing and cleaning his room before he decided to leave to class.

…

When he opened his door and saw the hall before him, Vin noticed four people outside his room talking to one another. It consisted of two males and two females. 'This is either about the showing off I did… or I'm being egotistical.'

The tall blonde who was startled at the door open first spoke to him, confirming his guess. "Is it true that you made a skill already?" He asked question in a tone if asking for assurance that it's a no. If it was true he would lose any bit of pride he had as a talent kid.

Too bad their pride and talent is nothing before a protagonist. Vin decided to be less arrogant than he planned to be, "Yeah, it's not much, only tier two." The tall blonde froze for a moment.

The blonde was just thinking if Vin was joking or not, then went to believe that it was impossible then accepted that his talent wasn't as good as he imagined. All that happened in five seconds. One second for each stage of grief.

If Vin could hear what he was thinking he would have burst out laughing. What would the blonde's reaction been if he knew this was an accident and could have been higher.

Vin began to walk away without giving the quartet a goodbye. However his leave was halted quickly as a tiny man, who happened to be a dwarf with ginger hair, said three words. "Then prove it." The man's tiny stature was not to be underestimated as he gave off the feeling of an giant golem capable of true destruction. To prevent bad rumors passing about him he turned around.

Vin just sighed and showed them both of his palms. "Gambler's Hands." With that his hands started to glow once again and immediately, he began doing elementary magic like he did while boasting to the two Anna's. Magic like this not classifying under actual skills.

An energy dyed an azure blue appeared in the form of a stream out his left hand and entered the body of the tiny titan. A shocked expression appeared on the face of the man. Vin turned around and shook his hand as if he was sending them away. Walking away Vin uttered a few, "Your stamina should be recovered, you're not breathing heavily anymore. Right?"

Vin had noticed long ago the way the man was breathing heavily. He didn't know why just that it was easily noticeable and since he was gonna flex he should at least help someone.

'Hehe, the girls with them should be fawning over me now after seeing how handsome and talented I am.' Vin somehow got into his mind that he was a main character capable of making every female in a one hundred planet radius fall in love with him. Sadly the girl were just thinking why is he boasting about low level stuff, other talents did this in the past too.

The arrogant and infinitely handsome Vin who was whistling down the hall would never know this though…

…

In class Vin was one of the last to arrive but when he did, nearly everyone's eyes turned to him. An old man with grayed hair and a hunched back gave a tired glance when he entered and wrote Vin's name on a sheet of paper.

Finding a seat in the very back corner of the typical classroom he put on a bored expression as he partially listened to the teacher and partially looked at the energies floating in the air. Taking note of an extremely dense energy in the room… energy of the mind. Forming an array formation that stimulated the brain to understand and remember new concepts.

But was really piqued his interest was the wisps of an energy that congregated at the teacher. He couldn't yet find out the name of but gave him an eerie feeling that no matter how much energy was put in the small wisps it would never be full.

This brought to him an unanswerable question he should have asked a long time ago.

'I wonder why my vision isn't just full of colors since there is energy everywhere?' Vin thought, throwing himself into confusion.

"…Now everybody find a classmate to partner up with. We'll began an activity showing each of you how to use group- or in your case partner spells." The old teacher said with light tone.

While everyone rushed to their friends to find their partner, Vin was still focused on the wisp of energy when he muttered its name, "Oblivion…"

Removing his focus from the Oblivion Energy he couldn't find the source of, only that it oddly spiraled towards the teacher, he instead found one of his previous party members. The lord of arrows… Master of bows… Always hits his shot… Draco!

But before he reached the great lord of arrows he was stopped by a random guy with a slim figure and short black hair, who seemed to be barely fourteen, "Uh, Vin, would you like to be my, um, partner?" With a shaky and respectful voice he took a quick glance over to four other people while making sure to avoid eye contact with Vin. Vin quickly put the simple picture together, quite amazing for a main character considering most are idiots.

It was a dare. A dare to ask the kid who is rumored to be a prodigy who is capable of using a lot of different energy types flawlessly.

With a charming smile that couldn't be hated Vin nodded to him. "As you know my name is Vin, but what's yours?" He spoke with mutual respect to him, an uncommon human trait.

Flustered, not expecting a yes for the person currently near the top of the potential for the new students, he stammered through a single word, "D-Don."

Waving a hand signaling for Don to follow him, Vin went back to his seat in the back and moved a seat on the other side of table.

A little over half a minute later the old man looked around and spoke, "Now that you all have partners let's start with the basics." The room became silent as soon as the old man began to speak and stayed that way.

Now at this point, everyone was facing anxiety except those truly confident or arrogant. Like Draco, Vin, and a few others. The basics weren't called basics because they were easy, but because they're the foundations which is why no one was optimistic.

"Now I'll be tapping into my skill so I can freely control my energy, try not to be too fearful." The old man said with smile. "Voide could you merge with me." Letting out a few words his eyes changed pitch black and body regained its youth.

Scales appeared on his arms and draconic wings erupted from his back majestically. "Now, this would be partnered skill as it uses both my pal, Voide's energy and my own energy. But let's not get into the complicated skills but let's learn a simple skill to regulate someone's energy flow. Voide come on out." With that a pitch black miniature dragon appeared. If not for the scales and wings, not to mention Vin, but the entire class may have mistaken it for a cat. "Now I'll take a volunteer."

Just about everyone's hand rose except those who were truly timid and those who were truly arrogant. For most normal schools this wouldn't happen unless it was something that could get the person out of class or was probably fun.

However for this school, monthly those who are regarded as the bravest and loyalist in the eyes of the staff receive a reward and yearly those who are regarded as the most hard working are given an invitation to a competition where just participating grants you luxurious rewards.

Such as seven years ago, the year remembered by everyone in the district who was old enough to remember, where the prodigy Jonathan Herculean rose to the top. With resources from the school, he blasted through many ranks, leaving every one of his classmates behind to become an individual now known as the Golden Paragon.

His charming personality and the showiness of his skills granted him that title. Not even a Re-Arcaned nor Complete Arcaned, yet he rose to vice-principal status and protects this place along with The Ordcaster District of Ekora City. The other districts have their own protector so he is unneeded there.

Back to the class, the teacher pointed to some chubby kid who had electrical energy sparks occasionally jump off him. But not like that matters since only Vin can see it.

"So watch, I'll destabilize his energy and then Voide and I will use our energy to stabilize it again. The concept is the same for any group skill." The youthful teacher said placing his hand on the chubby kid's shoulder causing the poor kid to completely lose their sense of orientation and make his body feel like it wasn't his own but a foreign species'.

With clenched teeth he held back the tears which kept forming at the corners of his eyes and held on to consciousness. The teacher nonchalantly continued to explain the basics while the chubby kid's partner was worried and confused. "Both you and your partner should move an equal amount of your own energy wisps to each other. Then spin and mix the two. Extremely simple right?" The teacher brought the chubby kid back from the pain he sent him into after infusing the energy into him to show it works then destabilized his energy again. Everyone began with this task including Vin who was limited by their partner's ineptitude but nevertheless put on a charming smile.

"Now. I'll be teaching you both how to stabilize ambient energies if let's say you encounter a Demon Receptor or something of the sorts. Move your energies together into four spiral shapes and slowly blend them together. Make sure to space each spiral apart from each other at first. Then over load it with energy as fast as possible. First two to help this kid on the floor currently will receive a prize." The teacher spoke slowly to make sure everyone understood.

Don with shining eyes looked to Vin with a determined look, "Don't worry I will try my best to keep up!"

Vin couldn't help but laugh, almost losing control of his energy, "Alrighty then." Letting a devilish and handsome smile appear on his face. Softly whispering in his head, a thought stream moved towards opening the quest menu.

[-Help someone unlock their potential | 500 Editing Points]

The same person with that charming smile spoke, "Before we reach the point of overloading the spell with energy, I want you to try something. Instead of using your rudimentary innate Arcane Energy control. Think of it as if you were hearing the energy, each sound representing a different energy."

Something Vin had noticed deep within Don's energy which he was analyzing was a small sphere of an unknown energy inside his body moving about. This energy being something of such high tier even Vin could only notice it after really analyzing someone else's energy- someone who likely shouldn't even have it!

Don looked to Vin confused, "Why?" Just a single well deserved word. Why.

"Just do it." Vin said putting on a persuasive yet still gentle smile that said 'it's for the best.'

Trusting his words, Don closed his eyes and began to slowly losing control of his energy. He began to slow his breathing and focused on hearing something that sounds ludicrous to even make an attempt at hearing, but his time was limited as it would only take 10 seconds for the energy he was controlling to disperse.

However it surprisingly only took him 5 seconds to open his eyes and look to Vin, while controlling the energy he controlled before with so much more finesse, as he and Vin quickly made 4 spirals. "How..?! You... I… okay. Thank you for the advice." All five stages of griefs traversed between the two people who doubted him that day.

Don was obviously confused, still focusing on hearing the sounds of energy. An entirely new sound to him unlike anything he's heard before… Until a sudden pained and fearful expression appeared on his face, almost dissipating all the energy he was controlling into the air. Cold sweat quickly drenched his face sliding down.

His breathing spiraled out of control from the genuine fear he felt. Vin was just staring at him considering if he should throw flowers for the performance. Then something suddenly clicked and he realized why that happened.

Vin looked over to the oblivion energy. Instantly he found the source of it, the little dragon.

"Sorry Don, but you probably sensed the teachers energy. Scary isn't it?" Vin genuinely spoke with empathy. Moving a sliver of holy energy into Don's body to remove that fear and pain, Vin then told him to limit the range of which he sensed energy to simply around him and the energy he controls.

"Now what I say is for after we blend the spirals. When I say go move half your entire energy capacity in one go as fast as you can." Vin told him the instructions and both of them took a deep breath and with that, "Go!"

A wave of cobalt blue light glimmered from the back of the room, attracting the attention of everyone in the room. Including the teacher and the chubby kid still convulsing on the floor. For everyone watching it seemed as if they looked away for even a split second they would miss the entire magisterial display.

The light shone with even more intensity with every passing second that felt like it was stretched to minutes. In merely 10 seconds a resplendent wave of blue light shone across the room, everyone inside felt like they were in optimal shape- other than the teacher which it barely effected not even enough so it's noticeable. The chubby kid even had his energy stabilized.

When the light show was over the room was dead silent for a few seconds until the class erupted into excitement. The teacher, being lenient, allowed this excitement to go on for an entire 30 seconds. "Settle down class and head back to your seats to continue practicing." The teacher ferocious glare was enough to silence the class, but the words added on with a emotionless tone triggered the fear to get in line.

Making a gesture for Vin and Don to follow him they went out to the hallway. A black barrier was erected to prevent others from listening in. The teacher with an authoritative look asked the two, one question. "How did you turn the skill into an area of effect skill without a skill that increases energy control?"

Don glanced at Vin who let out a deep sigh and explained in a matter of fact tone, "I told a slight lie to the examiner. My ability grants me energy control abilities way higher than my tier. To the point I can help specific people with a certain… hmm… energy signature, manipulate energy better. Which allowed both of us to overload it so fast it turned AOE." Vin spoke with an average pace, neither overbearing or servile. Without being humble or arrogant.

The teacher seemed to be lost in thought, "Alright you may be called up to the front office later. I probably shouldn't say this yet but being able to increase someone's energy manipulation without a skill book is a big deal. Go ahead and go back to your seats and patiently wait." Deconstructing the barrier the teacher allowed the two to walk back into the classroom which was still relatively quiet.

Luckily no one was focused on the two so they both went back to the corner to sit… wait both?

"Uh why are you following me?" Vin asked genuinely curious of his intentions.

Don with embarrassment spoke, "I had thought we could um just talk while they um finished learning the skill…" Simple intentions, simple thoughts.

Sadly for him, Vin had other plans, "I'm sorry but I gotta rest my head, I got a strong headache from that." A simple lie, one that was plausible.

"Oh alright! That's fine I'll just go over there and write. Speaking of writing! You should check out my novel called Exultant on this app with many novels!" Don shamelessly said self promoting his writing that was filled with cliffhangers. Even pointing to the screen with the cover that was custom made.

Vin, however, had already read the current chapters. Angered with the author killing off his favorite character twice! And doing so many cliff hangers in a row! Vin was fueled with anger knowing his greatest enemy was sitting within his reach. The only way to extinguish his rage that was even more boundless than the sky was to remember he had a heavenly cheat.

'System Upgrades'