New School Year

The first thing Shivan noticed when arriving at his dorm building was how extravagant it was.

The establishment he was arriving at was. one of the four dorm buildings that was a five-minute walk away from the school.

He had overheard that the rooms that his year level was going to use had recently been vacated by the fourth year after graduating. 

(AN: The dorm rooms go through a four-year cycle where the dorms of the fourth years are taken by the new first years.)

'So this is where I'm staying for the next 4 years. It's even better than a 5-star hotel. And I don't have to pay a cent.' Shivan mused while analysing the building.

The lobby had a tall ceiling and had marble floors. On the side, there was an indoor waterfall and several exotic fauna were growing on the sides.

At the front desk, he collected his keycard, took the elevator to his floor, and then entered his room.

Shivan had been told he could connect his keycard to his phone, so he could enter the dorm with only his phone. He kept that at the back of his mind while he explored his dorm.

The dorm had a massive TV, with a big kitchen, a bedroom, a walk-in closet and a bathroom that contained a spa. 

Shivan went to the bathroom, and looked at himself in the mirror, running my hands through my unkempt, shaggy grey and black hair. He hadn't cut his hair in a while, so it was very dense.

Shivan saw his yellow-golden eyes in the reflection, displaying no emotion.

He took a shower before heading to his bedroom to unpack and change.

In his bedroom, there was a large king-sized bed and next to was a massive desk that had a laptop and a tablet. These were given by the school for free.

He quickly scanned the devices, ensuring they working as intended. Then he changed into new clothes and went into the kitchen

In the kitchen, there was a wall-mounted phone where Shivan could request dishes to be served or receive groceries from the kitchen if he wanted to cook.

'I could get used to this.'

That's what Shivan genuinely thought after checking out the room and seeing the landscape from out the window.

***

The months quickly passed and soon it was the end of January when the school year started.

During that time Shivan did nothing but eat, sleep and game, though he occasionally cooked and cleaned. Early on during his holidays, he bought a GS6 (Game Station 6) and connected to the TV as well as a high-spec PC. 

During the break between December and January, students could either live at the dorms or return at the start of the school year. Most decided to live here, so he saw some of my future classmates mingling about. 

On the 30th of January, the first day of the school year began. When walking to school, Shivan saw several excited classmates gossiping.

Though they were extremely loud, he had gotten used to the many noises by going to CBD a couple of times during the break, so it wasn't much of a bother.

Also, due to their excitement, they were leaking a lot of mana, raising the overall mana density of the environment.

'Seriously, these guys are strong. How much mana do they have?' Shivan internally speculated the answer as he watched on with astonishment.

When he arrived at the class, he noticed most of the students were already there. A handsome man with black hair in the front row noticed him and started waving at him.

'Have I met him before?' Shivan questioned himself. He believed he would remember someone who looked like a protagonist.

Shivan tried to recall him but nothing cropped in his memories. Even though he couldn't remember him, he waved back so he wouldn't appear disrespectful.

Shivan, looking at the rows of seats, decided to sit at the back so he wouldn't have to deal with other people. Selecting his seat, he placed his hands on the table, his head resting on top of his hands.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Huh?"

A girl suddenly appeared in front of Shivan while he was dozing off. But a girl talking to him wasn't the most surprising thing about the situation.

The most unexpected thing was that she was able to approach him without triggering his senses.

Though Shivan quickly brushed it off. He was at a school where people had a variety of abilities so getting snuck up on shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

After getting over his shock, he looked over at the girl who was talking to him. The most obvious thing he noticed was her long, beautiful red hair.

It was bright red, with a hint of purple. Her eyes were piercing red as if they could see through souls. Shivan felt like if he stared at it for too long, he would be hypnotised.

When looking at her, all he could see was perfection. Her perfect nose, eyes and charming smile. There were no blemishes, no scars, and her face was perfectly symmetrical.

It was almost eerie in a way. Something so perfect couldn't be natural. She seemed isolated from reality.

Though, several of the boys in our class were staring at her with infatuation. Even Shivan to had to admit, she was hot.

"Hello? I asked what's your name? Don't tell me you're like everyone else."

While he was in the midst of his thoughts, the girl interrupted him again.

"Oh yeah, my name is Shivan."

"Nice to meet you, Shivan. I'm Alexia by the way."

Alexia sat down next to Shivan, with him earning the ire of most of the boys in their class. He thought he felt a murderous gaze, though it didn't bother him.

Both students then engaged in a conversation. Shivan gave mostly one or two-word answers as Alexia primarily took charge of the discussion. However, she didn't seem to mind his lack of engagement. In fact she was smiling throughout the entire conversation.

Like Shivan, Alexia was unconcerned about everyone's stares, probably because she was used to the attention.

A couple of minutes later, the teacher eventually came in and did a roll call. He went from the lowest rank to the highest rank. Shivan's rank was 1438 out of 1500 while Alexia was 1326. That made Shivan the lowest in the class.

There was laughter all around the class, making fun of them, but Alexia brushed it off while Shivan was indifferent to their reaction.

Surprisingly the class also had the rank 1 in Ryan Coeruleus and rank 3 in Tobias Gravonide.

Then the teacher introduced himself as Vincent Wells. His backstory was that after graduating from PCA and enrolling in the military, he eventually decided to return and become a teacher for this school.

After his introduction, he explained the facilities of the school. The class was then brought to the training ground where everyone could train in any way they wanted.

Shivan believed the teacher wanted everyone to get used to the facilities at the school, such as the hyper-gravity room, the combat dolls and other equipment.

While everyone excitedly went to try out all the facilities, Shivan leaned against the tree confused about what he should do. It was not like he didn't understand the instructions, but he had never trained in his life. He didn't know how mages trained.

So, he just started doing basic stretches, jumping jacks and push-ups, all things he remembered doing back in PE class.

But that seemed to garner attention towards him.

"You're hopeless. Those types of exercises barely matter to us gift users. Even the non-gift users in our school don't practice those exercises." Alexia walked up to me while speaking in an exasperated tone.

She was holding a katana. It was smaller than the katanas given out by the school but looked more expensive. It seemed too small for her.

"Then what should I be doing?"

"Seriously? You should be practising mana control or how to use mana in conjunction with weapons."

She started covering her body in mana and extended the mana to her sword.

"This is the basic mana enhancement technique. You should know this."

Shivan started copying her technique, covering his body. But unlike her, it didn't cover his entire body and there were still holes.

"You can't even do that? You need to relax. Don't try to forcefully control your mana. Just guide it."

After listening to her instructions and letting his mana gently flow through my body, Shivan could feel his control over the technique improving. 

"Wow! That was fast. You already managed to master the technique."

Though Alexia spoke like she was shocked, her smirk conveyed otherwise.

"Now what else?"

"Well, you should focus on increasing your mana output first. Like this."

Alexia focused her mana at a single point, trying to condense her mana and adding more mana without it exploding.

"But your mana output isn't great either."

Shivan copied her and his mana density at a single point was barely lower than hers.

"Yeah... I guess you're right." She then started laughing. One thing he'd noticed about her mana control was that it wasn't fluid like everyone else here.

It was a bit janky as if she hadn't used mana before. She was just like him for some reason.

'I guess we might get along quite well.' Shivan mused with a smile on his face.