Portal Catastrophe

Quickly leaving Alvin's training room, Yune arrived in front of the lecture hall of class five in the nick of time. Entering the lecture hall, Yune was amazed at the sheer size of the room. This being the lecture hall of class five, it had two thousand seats in it, which were almost all filled with students already.

As Yune saw the teacher entering, he quickly sat down in an empty seat somewhere in the back row. With so many students there, it had become quite noisy. Luckily it quieted down a bit when the teacher began to speak, but it was still pretty noisy for Yune who had a seat in the back of the lecture hall.

"Good morning students, I am the teacher of class five, Gerald Moyer. Every day, starting from today, I will teach the theoretical classes from 8:00 till 12:00. You two thousand students are the lowest ranked this year, which means that you are the weakest students. Because of that, I will teach you starting from the fundamentals again."

Saying this, the students began to show their displeasure, the lecture hall becoming a little noisier.

"As you can see and hear, with two thousand students present, it will be difficult for personal interactions, so I will not be taking any questions, ever. If you think this is unfair, or you think you deserve better, don't take it up with me. There will be a reevaluation every month where you can advance to better classes."

These harsh words of the teacher left quite an impression on the students as it suddenly became more even noisier. Some students could be seen becoming more motivated and determined by the teacher's last statement, wanting to get stronger to advance to a better class, and some students just complained, thinking they deserve better.

With the lecture hall still being noisy, the teacher continued his lecture. But unlike before, it didn't quiet down. With Yune sitting all the way in the back, where most students seemed to be complaining, Yune could hardly hear anything the teacher was saying.

Yune became quite annoyed by this as he genuinely wanted to follow the lecture, but simply couldn't hear a word the teacher was saying. But after a few minutes the lecture hall suddenly became increasingly quieter as the teacher's voice became more serious, and suddenly Yune could hear the teacher's words crystal clear.

"Out of nowhere, around a hundred years ago, six portals appeared on earth. One on the Nort Pole, the South Pole, the United states, Europe, Africa and Asia. Unfortunately, humanity soon found out what these portals were. Through some of these portals came creatures unlike anyone had ever seen before, quickly running rampant on earth, destroying numerous cities, even entire countries as they dyed the world red."

"That same day the gates appeared, something else also appeared with it, which we now call the marking phenomenon. With people getting marks on their body bestowing upon them supernatural powers, humanity's combat strength increased, but even with this new power, and the advanced technology that earth had, humanity was losing this war."

"Only about twenty years later, twenty years of brutal war where nearly half of humanity had perished, a change in the tide appeared. A scientist named Theodore Harrell had made the most significant discovery till date and had managed to copy a mark of someone and grant this power to another human, thus creating the first artificial marking."

"With this discovery, the number of marked people skyrocketed as the government tried to spread this technology to everyone, creating such a big combat force that humanity could finally fight back. And now, eighty years later, we have managed to completely eradicate the creatures that have invaded earth, and are now on the attack, going through these six portals ourselves and invading other worlds."

Hearing this left Yune speechless and baffled as his eyes looked at the teacher in disbelief. 'How can something so major have happened, no, is still happening, without me having even the slightest knowledge about this.'

Hearing this filled Yune's mind with many questions, but at least he finally knew why the academy favored strength over anything else.

For the remainder of the lecture, the class remained silent. Most students already knew that portals to other worlds had appeared on earth and the war that had taken place, but they couldn't help but be silent as the seriousness of the teacher's words hit them once again.

Yune hadn't managed to follow the remainder of the class after this revelation had left him speechless and deep in thought.

With class over, Yune met up with Alvin at the cafeteria as everyone's schedules aligned. Having grabbed some food, they sat down at an empty table, Yune still being speechless and not having said a word to Alvin.

As Alvin was unsuccessful to start a conversation with Yune for the third time, he looked Yune in his eyes and saw the look in his eyes having changed.

"What's wrong Yune?" Alvin asked, tapping Yune on the shoulder to get his attention.

In the first time in over three hours, Yune had finally snapped out of thought. Only now had he managed to somewhat organize the thoughts in his head, but not completely yet as these thoughts would alter his very mindset.

Even yesterday Yune wasn't the slightest bit interested in becoming stronger, but his opinion on that had now changed completely. With the feeling he got just this morning when he managed to gain a little control over his mana and using his powers for the first time, a small spark had started to form inside of him. A curiosity which wanted to explore this power more.

And now having heard that six portals have formed on earth, the tiny spark had already become a flame, changing his curiosity to get stronger into a desire to get more powerful.

Yune explained to Alvin that he just found out that there are portals to other worlds and about his feelings of wanting to become more powerful. Yune also told Alvin that, at the same time, he felt disappointed that he didn't know about this before, and that he was angry at himself for being weak, both physically and with his control over his powers.

Alvin couldn't help but be surprised that Yune didn't know about the portal catastrophe, and was also a little surprised that the previous emotionless Yune was expressing his feelings to him in such a way.

"Yune, don't you know how good you are already doing? Okay, you might be ranked 4956th, but don't you remember that you only received a mark few days ago? Not to mention how impressive it is that you have already learned the fundamentals of mana control." Alvin said, trying to show that Yune wasn't weak at all.

After looking around for a bit, Alvin leaned in closer to Yune. "You also have a unique mark with the power over gravity, which in my opinion could be one of the strongest marks if used correctly." Alvin whispered.

"Thank you." Yune said. Having heard this had lifted Yune's spirit a little bit, but he still knew he was behind the other students and he also had doubts about how useful the power over gravity was in terms of combat strength.