Vael had been laughing so hard, he didn't even notice the sun rising over the horizon.
Oh crap, what time is it?
Shoving the chimera corpse back into the cage, he glanced at the clock beside his bed. 6:24 AM. Good. He still had time.
Normally, the Aetherion Institute didn't force students to attend classes, but today was different. He couldn't afford to miss this one.
Guess I won't be getting any sleep tonight, he muttered, peeling off the plastic sheet from his table and wiping away the blood and meat splatter.
Once the room looked clean enough, he turned back to the chimera. Drawing one of his daggers, he carved the creature into manageable pieces and stuffed them into a trash bag.
Cleanup done, he jumped into the bathroom for a quick shower.
By the time Vael stepped out of his dorm, it was nearly 7:50 AM. Luckily, the student housing was close to the main campus, he didn't have to pass through any of the outer districts.
Rushing down the paved road with other half-asleep, equally late students, Vael finally reached the academy building.
The Aetherion Institute looked like a fortress sculpted by stars. Sharp-edged towers rose from the hillside, their smooth metallic walls catching the early light. Floating bridges linked the buildings above, while glowing sigils pulsed softly along the walkways below.
At the center stood the main spire, humming with planar energy, tall enough to be seen from every district in the city.
Drawing a deep breath, Vael stepped inside and hurried toward his classroom.
It was exactly 8:00 AM when he opened the door to his classroom. The moment he stepped inside, the once-bustling hall fell silent, with more than a hundred students sitting in the grand hall focusing their attention on him.
Oh yeah. Vael snickered. He had seen it yesterday on the net, but it looked like his duel with Zathiel had gone viral, which made sense. No one here knew Vael, but they were aware of Zathiel, the once-in-a-century genius born with four elemental affinities.
From having such a fearsome reputation to ending up with puke on his face, it was no wonder everyone in the classroom was snickering while sneaking glances in their direction.
Mirai looked like she wanted to eat him alive, her gaze filled with disgust as if she were looking at trash.
A couple of rows ahead of her, even Zathiel looked like he was going to blow up at any minute, his eyes glowering at Vael with an intensity Vael had never seen before. He was half expecting the guy to jump over his desk and mount him right then and there, but from the looks of it, Zathiel didn't want to embarrass himself any further, especially in front of her.
Vael's eyes slowly shifted to his side. Sitting in the front row was the figure of a radiant woman with long silver hair flowing to her side. She rested casually on the desk, one leg crossed, her posture relaxed but commanding. There was an air of effortless confidence about her, calm, distant, and utterly above the noise around her.
Now that's what a reincarnated goddess looked like. Walking past the rows, Vael slowly walked over to one of the empty seats in the back.
That girl was Elowen, the goddess of order and perhaps his biggest competitor in the upcoming year.
Since none of the three of them were doing anything, the other students soon returned to their previous chatter. Minutes passed until suddenly,
"Alright, alright, everyone settle down."
The door of the classroom slid open as a woman in her mid-thirties entered, holding a stack of papers in her hands.
Just a single look from her was enough to silence the room.
The woman, her name was Norma, their homeroom teacher, walked over to the podium and placed the stack of papers on the desk.
"Now that everyone has quieted down, I'm sure you all know about the debriefing today. First of all, let me congratulate you. Your batch has finally been assigned a world. You will be traveling to this world in one week. Every major detail and piece of information has already been sent to your student IDs."
Hearing this, Vael couldn't help the small grin that appeared on his face. Finally, he was going to enter that world again.
At the Aetherion Institute, each batch was assigned their own world to explore, with students given free rein to conquer it, hunt for treasure, or do whatever they wanted. The entire conquest game was also broadcast across the galaxy, allowing students to build their fan bases even before graduation. Whatever they did, their entire performance would be judged at the end of their three-year program, determining their final grade and whether they'd graduate at all.
"Um, Miss Norma?" One of the students in the front raised his hand. "Is there information on what kind of world this is?"
Norma nodded. "I was getting to it. This world, or as the locals call it, Taurenth, is a mid-stage world. Our preliminary scouting suggests the world's technology and magitech is stuck at the medieval level."
"Another thing, and I'm sure all of you are smart enough to understand this," her gaze lingered on Elowen, "due to your batch's special circumstances, every major TV network is vying for the rights to stream this conquest. No matter who gets the deal, you can expect billions of eyes watching you.",
"This does give you a chance to show off your abilities, but it also makes it incredibly easy to embarrass yourselves and the academy. So I suggest you tread carefully."
Miss Norma continued, going into details about the world, talking about its major powers, the universal translator, and everything we should expect.
As she was talking, Vael even got the notification that his new earth affinity had finished assimilating, immediately causing a small chill run through his entire body.
--
Affinities=
Water – 23%
Earth – 3%
--
Controlling his giddiness, he focused back on Miss Norma. Although he already knew most of what she was talking about, it had still been several years, so he didn't want to miss any information.
The entire debriefing went over for more than an hour before Miss Norma was finished. Looking at her watch, she let out a sigh. "We still have over an hour left and I have tons of work to do, so..."
She walked over to the projector on her side. "Here, this is the finale of the game on Osarid from last year. Watch this as a case study, write a report on it if you want." Saying so, she sat down in her chair and began going through the stack of papers on her desk.
As for everyone else in the class, their gaze focused on the screen behind her.
Ossarid was a B-tier world, currently under siege by Saelomar, the voidborn tactician from Sector 7.
The screen came to life with roaring explosions, spellfire, and collapsing buildings. These Inter Planar Games were exactly what they sounded like, and what their upcoming trip was going to look like.
Giant, bloody wars fought in real, living worlds. Interested players were handed a set of coordinates to an untouched world, where they were tasked with different objectives. Some short games, including battle royale and exploration formats, lasted for two to three months. Others, like the one on the screen, where you were tasked to conquer entire kingdoms while simultaneously wiping out your competition, could even last for several years.
On-screen, three commentators sat behind a desk, two with horns, and one with blue skin.
"Kyros is holding the left flank, but Saelomar's mechs are pushing hard!"
"Honestly, the only reason he's even in this fight is because of that genius move last season, marrying into Virellia's royal family gave him half their army."
"Yeah, and now he's using it to go toe-to-toe with a tactician-class. This war could go either way."
Vael remembered this game just because of how popular it had been. In fact, if he had regressed a couple of years earlier, he would definitely have placed his bet on this one.
The screen shifted to show a giant mech sprinting across scorched ground, carrying a figure in tattered robes. Behind it, a swarm of magic users and cannons converged on a distant fortress.
It looked like chaos, yet for anyone from their world, it was normal.
Vornak was one of the few civilizations that specialized in conquering, colonizing, and even selling other worlds. It had developed several distinct progression pathways over the years, the most prominent ones being Mage, cultivator, bloodline warlocks, technomancers, beast tamers, alchemists, summoners, priests, and psions.
That's when the thought hit him.
His body tensed with excitement as he stared back at the screen, eyes narrowing, not at the battle, but at the people.
Every pathway had some sort of physical requirements to walk on.
For cultivators, it was the meridians that channeled and refined qi.
For mages like him, it was the mana core.
Technomancers had neural implants. Psions developed brain folds and crystalline synapses. Even alchemists and beast tamers had altered glands and energy-circulating nodes built into their biology. It was all biological.
Hadn't he just extracted something as complex as elemental affinity with a single touch…
Then what was stopping him from reaching deeper?
Like pulling out a cultivator's meridians, or brain folds, or some altered glands before grafting them into his own body?