Hero Academy.

The Hero Academy was a school created by the Asher Empire. It was the biggest and the most prestigious school to ever exist.

The sheer size of the school was bigger than some nobleman's territory.

The reason for creating the school was to nurture new heroes and prepare them for war against the demons.

500 years ago, the Asher Empire had suffered tremendous losses to the demons in a great war. They had managed to hold out against them and the first hero, Alexander had vanquished the demon king and finally brought peace to the world.

But the scars of war were tremendous. It didn't matter if the humans had won or not, they had suffered disastrous losses.

Alexander therefore founded the Hero Academy to make sure that the tragedy of the great demon war never repeated itself.

Now, 500 years later, the Hero Academy is the place of intense rivalry and lots of drama.

It was the place where the game, Orion, began its story.

The Academy served as the main central hub of the game. Kind of like Hogwarts Legacy.

The world of Orion was massive, with many different important places and lots of hidden content.

Anyway, within the halls of the male dormitories, one man power-walked to his destination.

The man was wearing a signature navy blue coat and black trousers. Underneath was a white shirt and a red tie.

His face was handsome enough to turn the heads of even the most proud women. With smooth blonde hair, dark skin and eyes as red as rubies, he seemed to be blessed by genetics.

However, his facial expression was a stark contrast to his handsome appearance.

His brows had a frown and his eyes seemed distracted.

Reaching the stairs, he quickly ran down them and turned right to exit the building.

'This sure looks impressive...', Harrison thought as he admired the gates of the building he just exited.

'In the game, I couldn't really tell since the graphics were stylized and somewhat pixelated, but in reality, they seem magnificent...', he thought as he gazed at the two statues at either side of the gates. They were statues of armoured knights bowing down on their knees, facing the gates.

'This is the male dormitory of the Hero Academy alright...', Harrison thought before focusing on his current goal.

He wanted to know what route the protagonist was taking.

'If he's at the training grounds... he's most probably a swordsman or a spearman... If he's at the shooting range, he's either an archer, mage or assassin...', Harrison concluded.

'Let's go to the training grounds...', he decided.

--- some time later ---

Harrison was currently lifting some weights as he secretly observed another individual.

He had distinctly silver hair and crystal-like blue eyes.

A face as handsome, if not more, than Zagan's and a body that seems to be sculpted by the gods themselves.

Sebastian Bladesman.

The protagonist of Orion.

Someone who is capable of killing the demon king.

'So... he's a swordsman...', Harrison concluded seeing Sebastian swinging his sword in the air with unbelievable precision.

[Observed]

[Name: Sebastian Bladesman]

[Level: 14]

[STR: 9]

[STM: 7]

[AGI: 6]

[MAG: 4]

[INT: 5]

[Active Skills: {Greater Horizontal Slash (Sword)}, {Greater Vertical Slash (Sword)}, {Greater Parry (Sword)}, {Sprint}, {Wrath}, {Bloodthirst}]

[Passive Skills: {Danger Detection}, {Clam Mind}, {Genius}, {Greater Sword Sense}]

Harrison's jaws almost dropped to the floor as he stared at the numbers.

'He's double the level of me! And all of his skills are already in the Greater rank! As expected of the protagonist I guess...'

Sebastian was a special human. He was born with a piece of the great sin of wrath inside of him. No one knew who his parents were. He was found in a box outside of the main church of the Asher Empire.

From childhood, he had heard voices in his head, telling him to kill, destroy and slaughter.

But, thanks to his upbringing at the church, he had managed to subdue them partially.

But even after that, they sometimes surface again, telling him to do unspeakable things.

One thing that helps him subdue the voices and the urges is sword practice. He had found out that he was quite good at it too, so he dedicated all his life to sword practice.

Before he knew it, he was admitted to the world's most prestigious academy, the Hero Academy for his overwhelming talent at swordsmanship.

He didn't really care though. He just practised with the sword to keep his sanity in check and to subdue the voices.

He didn't expect it to become such a big deal all of a sudden.

But, he didn't hate it either. Because of his talent in swordsmanship, he had been able to meet and befriend awesome people at the academy.

Harrison exited the building after an hour of exercise.

'I can't take the swordman route now that I know Sebastian is taking it... I can't take any of the sword-related items in the world for myself...', Harrison sighed.

There was no way he could take Sebastian's future items. After all, only he was able to kill the demon king in the future.

The power of wrath.

It was something Sebastian was born with. He had used the power of Wrath to win many unwinnable situations and finally used it to kill the demon king himself.

If Harrison were to take Sebastian's future items, it would mean that the future Sebastian would be significantly weaker than what he's supposed to be.

If that happens, Sebastian wouldn't even be able to scratch the first bosses, even with the power of Wrath.

Wrath was just a self-buff skill that gave Sebastian incredible powers temporarily. What good was a self-buff skill if your base was shitty to begin with?

All in all, Harrison absolutely could not take the swordsman path. Or even the spearman path since a lot of the artefacts the spearman uses, the swordsman also uses, for example, strength-enhancing artefacts.

'It's a shame but... It has to be this way...', Harrison thought.

Zagan had the skills of a swordsman. His strength and stamina was also no joke. Although his mana and intelligence weren't bad, they weren't his strong points.

But, due to some stroke of luck, Zagan passed the passive skill 'Mana Sense'.

Along with Harrison's 'Quick Learner' mod, he could most definitely make up for Zagan's lack of talent in magic.

Yes, that's right. Harrison decided to discard Zagan's mediocre talent in swordsmanship and instead focused on making him a mage.

Being a mage was the optimal choice here. Mages fought from a long distance, so they had a lesser chance of getting injured. A mage's versatility was also quite good. And last but certainly not least, Harrison himself was a mage main back on Earth.