Into The Rift

"Dude, it's almost time! We're finally getting to enter a dungeon!"

"Yeah, we'll be able to increase our level."

"Could you at least sound more excited...?"

At the present time, Colt and Nathan were seated together at one of the tables within the cafeteria. With the first half of the school day over, it was now time for everyone to have their lunch. Speaking of school, today was the fifth official day of school here at Royal Academy.

During those days, new students such as themselves have yet to participate in going into dungeons. Instead, they have been focusing on their studies as well as learning proper combat strategy and technique, and that was all to prepare them for today.

Although it would only last for the entirety of the second half of the school day, it was still an incredible opportunity for students like them who have not experienced a dungeon before. It was a good chance for the school to get them some form of experience on the field.

"Even so, I don't think we'll be able to level up much." Nathan spoke after swallowing his food, to which he then pointed his spoon at Colt. "From what I've heard, the dungeon is only an F-Rank. At most, we'll probably only level up like two or three times."

"It's better than nothing." Colt shrugged his shoulders. "I doubt the school would put us into a dungeon that could seriously threaten us. Then again, a dungeon is a dungeon. Never let your guard down even if its an F-Rank."

F-Rank Dungeons were the easiest of all, and while incredibly dangerous for ordinary humans, newly Awakened are more than capable of taking down the monsters inside. Especially those with decent Classes, they'll find it even easier.

"I'm just glad we can go in solo."

"You sound like a loner..."

"Shut up. I'm just saying as that way we'll be able to gain as much experience as possible individually, going in teams means dividing up the potential levels." Colt explained in his usual blank tone before taking a sip out of his glass of water. "Solo does mean the level of danger increases though. If you somehow fail in the dungeon, I'll try my best to laugh."

"Wow, I'm feeling the love, man..."

As the two of them conversed, the sudden appearance of another individual standing beside their table caught their attention as they turned their heads curiously. When they did, they both saw none other than Ariana Fromese staring at them with her usual cold expression while holding a tray of food in her hands.

Opening her mouth, Ariana spoke in her usual cold tone. "Can I sit here?"

"Uhh, sure." Nathan was the one who responded first after a bit of a pause as he looked at Colt, to which the latter merely nodded his head casually. "None of us mind, feel free."

"Thank you."

With that, Ariana sat down on the same side as Colt while leaving a small space between them before placing down her tray onto the table. Both Colt and Nathan blinked at each other, they honestly had not expected her to sit with them.

"Is something wrong?"

"No... if you don't us asking, why are you sitting with us?" Nathan scratched his cheek with his index finger as he asked the question. "Not that there's any complaints here! It's just that I've always noticed you sitting with of other girls, why the change?"

"They're idiots." Ariana responded in a blunt and cold tone. The response made Nathan and Colt stare at her in silence, Nathan's jaw dropping slightly while Colt blinked in confusion. "They said they wanted to be my friends, but I can tell they just want to use me to become popular. So, I left them."

"I-I see..."

"Why choose us though? We look like a bunch of loners over here in the corner." Colt spoke nonchalantly as he took another bite before swallowing. "I assumed females would want to make friends with other females."

"You both seemed much better to be acquainted with."

"I mean, I am a pretty friendly guy. But, are you sure you mean both?" Nathan responded as he leaned over the table before poking his finger and pressing it against Colt's cheek, earning a deadpan look from the latter. "Look at this dude! He's as emotional as a piece of paper."

"Him and I are similar then, I don't show much emotion either." Ariana responded clearly. She then seemed to turn her head to look at Colt, who blinked after noticing her gaze. "I've been meaning to ask, could I have a look at your status screen?"

"..."

Both Nathan and Colt went silent after hearing this, it was commonly considered a rather disrespectful thing to ask a person to show their status. After all, looking at a person's status screen can reveal a lot of secrets about a person.

In fact, even Nathan hadn't seen Colt's status screen yet and they were considered best friends.

"Of course I'll also share mine as well." Ariana quickly added before swiping her hand. "Here."

The two males watched as Ariana's status screen soon materialised in front of them, giving them a clear view of her available information. Although a bit surprised by the sudden reveal, they both looked at the screen curiously.

-

[Status]

➣ Name: Ariana Fromese

➣ Level: 1 (0%)

➣ Class: Frost Maiden (S)

➣ Class Ascension: ☆☆☆☆☆

➣ Skills: [Ice Shard] [Frozen Shield]

➣ Health: 100%

➣ Mana: 64/64

➣ Strength: 20

➣ Agility: 20

➣ Vitality: 20

-

"Frost Maiden? Wow, a suitable class for someone like you..." Nathan chuckled slightly as he saw the info. With a swipe of his hand, Nathan also summoned his own status screen. "Since you showed us yours, I guess I'll show mine too."

After Nathan's screen appeared, Ariana gave it a calculative look before widening her eyes slightly when she saw the S-Rank Class. With how many students there are at this school, there were only very few who could awaken a high level class like she had.

"Ascendant Swordsman? A new kind of class then..."

"Yep, and it seems to be the same for you too."

"Frost Maiden..." Colt muttered under his beath, though the others heard him as they looked at him. "I've heard of Frost Mages, Ice Gladiators, and so on. Does your class perhaps differ in any way to them at all?"

"I'm not too certain, but with the skills I have, I may have a multi-role Class."

"Then it may have quite a lot of protentional." Colt nodded his head before closing his arms over his chest. Silence continued for a moment as Colt saw both Nathan and Ariana giving him expectant looks, blinking once, Colt gave a small sigh before swiping his hand. "Here."

-

[Status]

➣ Name: Colt Azrael

➣ Level: 1 (0%)

➣ Class: Grim Reaper (SSS)

➣ Class Ascension: ☆☆☆☆☆

➣ Skills: [Black Scythes] [Reaper's Touch] [Death's Blessing]

➣ Health: 100%

➣ Mana: 120/120

➣ Strength: 20

➣ Agility: 20

➣ Vitality: 20

-

Nathan and Ariana wasted no time and quickly scanned their eyes carefully over every detail on Colt's status scree, their eyes gradually widening as they noticed a certain few pieces of information.

"You managed to awaken three whole skills at the start?!" Nathan muttered in shock as he inched even closer to the screen, prompting Colt to push his face back. "Not only that, what's with your mana?! It's over one-hundred at level one!"

"You really do have an SSS-Rank Class..."

Unlike Nathan, Ariana was more focused onto the main thing she wanted to see. She had obviously heard the rumours about Colt having awakened an SSS-Rank Class, and she wanted to confirm for herself. Now that she was seeing the proof, she honestly wasn't sure what to think.

"I'm sure you both know that such information is to be kept behind closed doors?"

"Y-Yeah, man..."

"Of course..."

[O]-----------------------[O]

For the rest of the lunch break, the trio had just done some idle chatter while they ate. After lunch was over, the four freshmen classes were all brought to their separate areas where their individual dungeons were located.

For Class 1-A, that being Nathan and Colt's class, they were now all seen standing around in what looked to be a grassy plain with nothing particularly special about it. The one abnormal thing though was the circular white rift with a swirling black and white inside.

As everyone was waiting, their attention was soon all gathered onto their class instructor who was now standing next to the dungeon's rift.

"Pay attention now, everyone! I'll soon be sending you into the dungeon individually one by one. While this indeed is a mere F-Rank dungeon, absolutely do not lower your guard! It's carelessness like that which will get you killed in the actual battlefield!"

"Colt, he said the same thing you said at lunch!"

"Cause it's a given."

"The task is simple, you will need to successfully defeat the enemies located within the dungeon and make it to the end safely. Keep in mind that there is a one hour limit, and should you surpass this duration, your score is nullified and I will enter to bring you back."

Hearing this, a number of people were already looking somewhat nervous, and while a few others were unconcerned, most likely due to knowing the difficulty of the dungeon they were going to be facing. 

"Without further ado, the first challenger is Colt Azrael!"

"Hm?"

Colt blinked in surprise when he was suddenly called up first, to which he soon felt Nathan place his hand onto his right shoulder. Glancing over to Nathan, the latter gave him a smile. "You're up first, dude! You totally got this in the bag!"

"We'll see."

Colt calmly stepped forwards under the gazes of his other classmates before approaching the portal, and looking towards his instructor, he received a nod before nodding back as he stepped into the portal and disappearing from view.

[O]-----------------------[O]

As soon as Colt stepped into the dungeon, he immediately narrowed his eyes before glancing around at his surroundings. He knew that the threat level of this dungeon was very low, but it never hurt anyone to be cautious.

After all, he had always been taught to never underestimate anything or anyone.

"Let's begin."

Saying no more, a veil of black light seemed to envelop Colt's entire body, the light lasted only for a few quick seconds before expanding and shattering in a similar fashion to that of glass. After this was done, Colt's transformation was revealed.

He was now wearing a dark grey body-tight outfight, outlining his athletic physique rather well as both his arms, legs and a part of his abdomen seemed to have bandage-like wrappings tightly wrapped around them with a few longer loose ends hanging down. 

Over the top of this clothing was a pitch-black hooded cloak where the bottom of said cloak looked to be ripped. The cloak itself also looked to have multiple silver attachments, mainly at the beak of the hood, the shoulders, the outer edges of the cloak and the tall black boots he had on. The cloak was currently wrapped around his body, obscuring most of his body underneath it.

Looking closely underneath the hood, you could see that Colt's originally purple eyes were now shining a vibrant blood red. The eeriness of those eyes magnifying even further due to the fact that most of his face was veiled in shadow.

Finally, in his right hand was a large scythe thirty or so centimetres taller than he was, tightly gripped where the black body of the weapon was resting against the back of his arm and the scythe's singular crescent blade was pointed forwards a few centimetres above his head.

-

[Status]

➣ Name: Colt Azrael

➣ Level: 1 (0%)

➣ Class: Grim Reaper (SSS)

➣ Class Ascension: ☆☆☆☆☆

➣ Skills: [Black Scythes] [Reaper's Touch] [Death's Blessing]

➣ Health: 100%

➣ Mana: 120/120

➣ Strength: 100 (Base: 20)

➣ Agility: 100 (Base: 20)

➣ Vitality: 100 (Base: 20)

-

After glancing silently at his status screen for a moment, Colt switched it off before he quickly sprinted forwards. Looking at the surroundings, this particular dungeon looked to be located in some kind of cave system.

Fortunately, Awakened have enhanced senses, which obviously included sight. While it wasn't completely clear, he could still see fairly well in this pitch black darkness. Honestly, in his opinion, it may be a bit much to put newbie Awakened in such an environment straight off the bat.

As Colt continued running, he narrowed his eyes when he saw two rats suddenly jump at him from behind some rocks. Unlike normal rats, these rats were easily more than three times the size. Without stopping, Colt swung his scythe, cleanly slicing them both in half.

The death of those rats seemed to trigger any others that were in hiding, prompting a large group of them to suddenly emerge from other areas before rushing at Colt. The latter did not panic though, instead calmly glanced around while slashing any that jumped at him.

'Although scythes are amongst my lesser practiced weapons...'

Colt thought to himself before his eyes seemed to flash, the scythe in his hand then being spun around his body, immediately slicing more than eight of the rats that tried to attack him at once. The small splashes of blood from killing them dancing in the air as their bodies slowly fell to the ground.

'I'm not too bad.'