Fate

After seeing Vorden perform well on the test, Quinn couldn't help but think about what Vorden's ability was. When Vorden went to shake his hand when they first met, his system had informed him that Vorden had tried to use his ability on Quinn. Yet for some reason whatever he had tried to do had been unsuccessful.

If Vorden's ability had been ice, surely his hand would have just frozen. Unless Quinn's ability was to block all types of other abilities, but that seemed highly unlikely. Not only that, but Vorden had a very strange reaction about it, even asking Quinn what his ability was.

Thinking about it, Vorden noticed another strange thing in the other boy's behaviour. For some reason, he had been very adamant about shaking the hands of everyone he had just met. Although Erin had refused his gesture, in the end, hadn't Vorden still ended up touching her on the shoulder? At that time, it seemed like a weird thing to do, but thinking about it, it all made sense.

Touching had to be like a condition for Vorden's ability, and the last person he had touched, had been Erin. It couldn't be a coincidence that both of them had the same powers. In that case, Vorden's ability was most likely the kind to copy other people's abilities.

And it hadn't worked on Quinn because his ability wasn't straightforward. Quinn couldn't help his curiosity, so he asked Vorden.

"Hey, Vorden is your ability..." Quinn whispered to the boy next to him, "Are you able to copy other people's abilities?"

Vorden looked at Quinn and smiled slyly.

"That's the first time, someone has figured it out so fast. How did you figure it out?"

"When you shook my hand, you seemed surprised that nothing happened."

Vorden had believed he had given himself away by insisting on touching Erin, yet Quinn had seemingly deduced it by the earlier handshake. He had to give him some credit for that, after all, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that Vorden had coincidentally obtained the Ice ability from an ability book as well.

Quinn's brows were furrowed in thought as he stared at his new friend. He had never heard about an ability book that could grant one the power to copy the abilities from others, which could only mean one thing.

"Are you an Original?" Quinn asked for confirmation.

Vorden didn't say anything but simply winked back at Quinn, which pretty much confirmed his theory.

Although all abilities were derived from Originals, nowadays it was used to refer to a person belonging to one of those families who had decided against sharing their abilities with the outside world. It was even rumoured that the strongest Originals had the power to easily surpass the power level of 8.

Once the test had been completed, the hooded man teleported the students to the front of the academy where they would be staying. The academy was huge and the tallest building in the entire city. It was as if someone had put together three hotels.

There were ten different teachers in total who stood in front of the academy. Once in a while, a group of five students would be teleported in front of one of the teachers and told to wait until all the students had finished conducting their tests.

Eventually, there were a total of 20 students in front of the teacher Quinn and his group had been assigned to.

"Okay, all of you need to follow me as I take you around the school." The teacher upfront told them. Del was a middle-aged man with blonde curly hair who wore glasses.

While Del was walking around, describing the various places in the vicinity of the academy, he had a perpetual, easy smile on his face, like nothing would be able to upset him.

"You guys should start to get to know each other as much as you can," Del suggested. "After all, the people you are with now will be your classmates."

All of a sudden, everyone started to get chattier, talking to each other as they were being shown around the school. However, there was an annoying thing that Quinn noticed. The level 2s were trying their best to befriend the level 3s, while the level 3s attempted to do the same with the level 4s.

Quinn and Peter appeared to be the only two level 1's in the class. Without even realising it, they had been pushed to the back of the group, and Peter was plodding along with his head held down. It seemed to have affected Peter a lot more than Quinn, but the latter had already predicted this outcome during the examination.

This was no different from regular school. He still looked around for his new friend and discovered that Vorden was nowhere to be found.

"There you are!" Vorden called. "Man, suddenly all those students just started jumping all over me. Next thing I know, I look to my right side, and you're gone. Come on! Let's look around together, buddy."

Quinn truly considered Vorden to be a strange person, yet that wasn't a bad thing. Vorden noticed Peter next to Quinn. "Oi, you, stop being a downer and come with us."

Peter looked up and pointed a finger to himself. "Yes, you, Peter. Do you see anyone else beside Quinn?" Vorden asked in his boisterous voice.

The three of them continued the tour at the back of the class while the teacher kept leading them around the school. In the midst of the tour, a battle arena was shown to the students, where they had similar testing equipment to the ones in the wasteland, as well as several square fighting platforms.

They were also shown their homeroom classes, battle classes, sports rooms, and all sorts of facilities. Del never failed to provide a little bit of explanation about each area of the school they visited. However, Quinn was uninterested in most of them until they had finally reached the library.

"As you can see, the library here is split into three floors. First-year students are only able to access the first floor. Second-year students can access the second floor. Finally, the upper floor is only for authorised military personnel."

Quinn was interested in the library because it contained books that weren't available to the public. In this place, Quinn just might be able to find some information about his ability, though he earnestly hoped that it would be on the first floor.

Eventually, the tour came to an end just outside the school's dorms. "And this is where you will be living during your stay here. Once you have dropped off your things, feel free to explore around the academy. There will be no lessons today, so enjoy the free time and make sure to be in your rooms during the curfew."

Each student was then handed a number written on a piece of paper. These papers displayed which room they would be staying in.

From the corner of his eye, Quinn noticed that Vorden was coming towards him.

"Hey, Quinn what room number did you get?" Vorden asked.

"Err 23."

"No way! What a coincidence. I got the same number! Seems like fate is really bringing us together," Vorden noted excitedly.

"Maybe" Quinn replied.

****

Somewhere down the hallway, two other students were having a conversation.

"Woah! What happened to you?" A student asked as he looked over to his disheveled friend.

"I don't know man, some guy just appeared and hit me out of nowhere, forcing me to swap room numbers."

"Man, should we try to get it back?" The student suggested.

"I'm pretty sure I saw his wrist showing a 5. It's best if we just leave it. It's just a room after all."