First Classes 2

After the events of the previous 2 days, I finally had a little breathing room.

Up until now, I was facing the 'tutorial' chapter of the first act of the game.

The first act ended with the end of term practical exam.

But the second chapter, laying in between the first exam and tutorial, gave players a lot of freedom, allowing them to shape the chapter upon their own discretion.

They could use the time they had to grow stronger or improve their bond with other students.

Right now, what I needed most was to train.

Improving my image was also important, but frankly, my best chance of doing such a thing was during the end of term practical.

During 'that' disaster, I'd hopefully be able to act as a hero, massively improving my image.

Right now, even if I were to go talk to the main cast, the vast majority would probably just ignore me.

My fame across the academy had skyrocketed, as was stated in the quest reward.

'But is this fame... or notoriety?'

Instead of gaining fame for my ability in defeating the elf princess, the opposite occurred.

Many strange rumors had begun appearing, theorizing how I had won the fight.

Foul play.

He drugged her before the fight.

He used dark magic.

Someone in the crowd helped him.

All in all, it was true that I used foul play, but they had no way of knowing that.

To noble students, my image was that of a drunkard and a fool. 

In my memories, I had made a fool out of myself in several noble events in the past.

Most of them had already heard the rumor of the fact that my father, Duke Castellan, was likely to disown me and make my younger brother Sorin the next heir.

Considering that from my memory, Sorin was an immensely talented mage who also worked tirelessly to improve his skill, it made sense as to why they would be against me.

If they tried to befriend me, they'd essentially be joining the losing side.

That was why, even as the firstborn son of a duke, no nobles had tried to brown nose me or gather around me.

As for commoner students, there were several nasty rumors about me taking commoner girls off the streets and.... doing unspeakable things with them.

This rumor was actually untrue, as after reviewing my memories I saw that Ares at the very least wasn't that kind of monster, he limited himself to prostitutes, not touching random civilians.

Yeah, so basically my reputation is fucked all across the academy.

There was really no point in having to improve it as of now, I'd have better luck moving mountains and parting seas.

Anyway, back to training.

The first fight I won with Aria was something I most likely wouldn't be able to replicate again.

Especially not when fighting multiple people.

So in other words, I had to start improving my base stats, as well as my skills.

I noticed something odd earlier when looking at my status.

I literally only had one attacking skill, not including confuse.

[Mana Bolt - Basic attacking magic, fire a bolt of mana at a target. May apply confusion stacks.

Current Rank - F+]

After the fight with Aria, its rank had increased from F to F+, but that really still wasn't something to be happy about.

No matter how shitty a life Ares may have lived, there was no way he had not learnt any spells outside of mana bolt.

After all, he was of the prestigious Castellan family, famed for their mastery of shatter magic.

And upon reviewing my memories, I realized I was correct.

Ares was gifted in shatter magic, and had several attacks based around it.

The shatter element was the inherited element of the Castellan family.

But magics are linked between the body and soul.... And of course, his soul had been obliterated, replaced by mine.

And considering my soul came from a world without magic, it was literally just a blank slate.

And that was the issue I had to confront now.

[Choose an Element!

Earth

Fire

Light

Lightning

Shadow

Water

Wind]

The panel gave me several options to choose an element.

The way that elements worked in Etherium Academy RPG wasn't simple.

There were seven basic elements, but after much work and mastery, they could be 'mutated.'

For example, fire or lightning magic could become plasma magic.

Wind or earth magic could become gravity magic.

Light or earth magic could become crystal magic.

That was why families like the Castellan or Valorian family were able to wield power and rise high, because they had been born with naturally mutated magics, passed down to them by a powerful ancestor.

Each magic had about a dozen mutations, with some some magics sharing a mutation.

So when picking an element, there wasn't any point thinking of the basic element, and instead it was better to think of the possible mutation one could obtain.

After a while, I had been able to narrow the mutations I wanted down to a small list.

Phoenix Magic - A magic which mutates from fire and provides immense support capabilities. Users may heal themselves with their own flames. It also had excellent attack power, able to effect entire battlefields. Users gained the ability to fly with the wings of a phoenix.

Death Magic - A magic which mutates from shadow and was known in the game for being one of the most powerful magics. It has terrible destructive capabilities, only proving it's usage in one on one fights, but the focused blasts of death magic were unimaginably powerful. More importantly, it was required to become a necromancer.

The image of Vice Principal Ataraxis appeared in my mind. 

Slice Magic - A magic which mutates from wind and was known for its absurd speed and power. One low power blast was able to cut through several people at once if aimed well. It was also extremely compatible to sword users.

Energy - A magic able to mutate from lightning. It was completely useless in attack, but provided the user with one simple ability, converting mana to physical energy. It basically gave infinite stamina, at the cost of losing ones magic.

All of these magics were great choices, but they also came with their own issues. 

Phoenix magic was excellent in literally all categories, but the issue was to mutate fire into phoenix, one had to live as a paragon of justice. After that, It would require them meeting several life and death circumstances, having a random chance to mutate during one of them.

Living as a paragon of justice.... Well, I didn't really intend on living as a good guy to begin with, let alone a 'paragon of justice'.

And having a random chance of mutation in a life or death situation? Yeah, I wasn't trying to die every other day.

Death magic was good, but it was troublesome to acquire. To mutate shadow into death, one had to kill hundreds of people in cold blood.

That was something I was unsure of. Death magic was in fact one of my favorites in the game, but the issue was that it was completely outlawed by the church of Solan.

In one of my playthroughs, I obtained death magic and revealed myself to the church. After they started sending inquisitors to me, I kept killing them over and over.

I turned the forces of the church into my own undead army, overrunning the empire and defeating the demon king.

But that was an unreasonable path to take. I had to reach the 'true ending' if I were to escape this world, destroying the empire could very well be a wrong choice to take.

Not only that, but I'd immediately reach the absolute lowest reputation with the main cast. Right now, it was terrible, but if I become a death magic user, I'd be put down to [Kill On Sight].

As described by the name, my mere presence would cause them to start attacking me with intention to kill.

And frankly, there was a big difference between seeing mountains of corpses and rivers of blood on a monitor and as a real person, I wasn't trying to kill that many people.

Slice magic was ruled out because of its lack of versatility. It was great for killing, but it simply wasn't as useful as the ability to regenerate or being able to raise armies of undead.

It was best suited as an assassination magic, being used to instantly kill high level enemies in sneak attacks.

Energy was best suites for physical classes, specifically classes that went under the [Brawler] tree, such as [Oni] or [Dragon Sage,]. Considering my class originated from the [Mage] tree, taking it wouldn't be that useful.

'I need a magic that would help with confusion...'

The true strength of my class lay in the last phase of confusion, and the [Winning Streak] ability.

Once enemies accumulated 33 to 42 confusion stacks, unless they had the highest mental fortitude, they were literally just a free kill. 

Hell, at that point, it was possible for an attack from an apparition to pass over into reality and harm them, like what happened with Aria.

[Winning Streak] was also important. It was the skill I had to monopolize most to grow stronger by confusing opponents.

After all of that thought, I came to a simple conclusion..

[Light Magic has been selected]

Light magic could involve into mirror magic, one of the most annoying magics in game.

I remembered fighting an NPC which used mirror magic, it was a horrendously designed fight in which the user had to try and guess where they would be attacked from, the NPC creating several mirrors and travelling in between them.

Mirror magic had dogshit attack capabilities, but it was best suited for confusion and it also had excellent transportation and defensive abilities, with users being able to freely travel between mirrors.

On top of that, light magic was also quite useful for me even without being mutated. It boasted a low damage overall, which increased massively against evil type enemies.

Another bonus was that it'd help improve my image, light was considered as the second most holy magic in the empire, the first being sun magic, in accordance with the Church of Solan.

It would increase my reputation with characters affiliated with the church, such as Saintess Cassenia Haven. 

Light could help me confuse opponents through blinding them with my attacks.

The choice was made and immediately I unlocked a new ability.

[Skill Learnt!

Name: Light Magic

Rank: F-

Allows the user to generate light element mana. This may be used as per the user's discretion. Light mana deals higher damage to evil foes.]

[Skill Lost!

Name: Mana Bolt]

I was pleased seeing this development, even if my magic was currently at the lowest rank.

As for mana bolt, it was to be expected, since I had finally received an element, I had lost the very basic ability.

My family would be extremely confused at this development though, seeing that I had originally been a user of shatter magic. 

'Ah, well, since it's light magic, I can just say I received a divine revelation and earnt it like that.'

'Or, if I'm fast enough, I can unlock my second mind later on...'

And like that, I began training my light magic.

I received some strange looks in the magic training grounds, but they became shock after seeing me use light magic.

It wasn't a good type of shock either.

"No way... Isn't he from the Castellan family? How come he doesn't use shatter magic?" 

Considering my already rising notoriety within the academy, I knew it wouldn't take long for such news to spread around the academy.

A son of the Castellan family not using shatter magic.

This meant one of three things.

A) I had opened my second mind and learnt how to use another magic, meaning I had both Shatter and Light in my arsenal. This was considered unlikely due to my reputation of incompetence.

B) I was a bastard child, which was deemed impossible.

C) A god had forcefully changed my magic to light.

But that was an extraordinarily rare occurrence, only being documented to have happened around 100 times throughout all of human history.

I looked at the random class B member who had initially exclaimed at my usage of light magic.

"Er.... See, basically, I had a divine revelation!" I announced jovially.

Such a statement had consequences I had not originally imagined.

-----------------------------------------

How could I, the Saintess, not be shocked upon hearing such ridiculous news?

A student had received a divine revelation, with their magic being changed into light.

And if that was not shocking enough, it was the same vexatious man who defeated the elven princess during the entrance ceremony.

And if it couldn't get any worse, it was the same person who her friend Iris had described as being a lazy and lecherous piece of human garbage.

How could someone like him have received the same revelation as her?

A memory flashed through her mind, of when she was a child.

She lay in a burning building, afraid of dying after a hoard of undead, led by a necromancer, had stormed her village.

At that time, she prayed to the God of the Sun and Light, Solan, to answer.

And he did.

By the time the church inquisitors arrived, all they saw were charred skeletons and a girl shining with the light of the sun.

Cassenia was well aware of the weight of her existence, being remined hundreds of times as she grew in the central temple of Solan.

The fact that another person had received a divine revelation in this generation was naturally something of concern to her.

"Hmm~~ Iris, what do you think?" 

The crimson haired girl answered back with an unsure tone.

"I... have no idea. When we were young, I know for a fact that he used his family's shatter magic."

I looked at my other friend, Evelyn, my gaze conveying the same question as before.

She was his attendant, so hopefully she had more news about his development.

"He's been completely different as of late. He barely talks to me anymore, which to be fair is an improvement from him constantly berating me like before. 

More importantly, when he does speak to me, he talks with a kindness he never had before. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on with him."

She lifted her pale hand to her mouth and scoffed. 

My blue eyes met her green, and I sensed no lies in her words.

I sighed in frustration.

"If he's been acting so differently... Then it's possible he had the revelation beforehand, maybe that caused the shift in his personality?"

Evelyn agreed and mentioned how his personality had undergone a complete 180 after joining the academy.

A huge misunderstanding was brewing up, completely unknown to Ares. 

Not one, not two, but three heroines of the main cast had begun to weave a huge narrative surrounding him...

Out of a random lie he had made up on the spot.