Another day

"Ugh!"

My whole body screamed in pain when I woke up.

'Why?! Why is my body so sore when I haven't done any physical training?!'

Having somehow managed to force myself to sit up in my bed, there was no logic behind my condition whatsoever. All I had done yesterday was practice my magic, so why was it that my entire body felt like it was on fire and my muscles were spasming out?

*Bing!*

'Really? Right now?'

==========

[Act 1, chapter 2: The duty of a student!]

Reminder!

Daily mission:

- Complete 4 hrs. of personal training!

Penalty:

- Curse of the mummy.

Timer: 17hr 32 min 42s

==========

'Oh, thank god...'

Turns out that the mission that I received was just a reminder of the daily mission that I had got yesterday. However, this time I had for some reason a lot more time to complete it compared to yesterday.

'It's currently 06.28... So, the timer is related to the actual time of the day? This means I would fail the mission if I didn't fill the hours of training before midnight. Makes sense, I guess.'

I did spend quite some time yesterday hanging around the library looking for books that might help me understand this world a bit better, and one of them even made me a bit thankful for receiving this daily mission.

It was a book talking about levels, skills, and talents.

Turns out that most average adults in this world were one-stars, meaning the average levels were between 10-20, although most were on the lower end of that spectrum. The issue with this was that not only was my level a lot lower than the average adult but I was also supposed to be an elite student at the Stellar Academy.

See where this is going?

That's right! I was still super weak! And this weakling was somehow supposed to stand together with the elites of Estaria!

The only saving grace that I had managed to get a hold of from that book was the fact that levels didn't necessarily equate to strength. It did in the sense that levels depicted one's stats, as they would only grow in tandem with levels, but how proficient one was in using one's abilities was also very meaningful.

Needless to say, it was still of utmost importance that I increased my levels despite that, as the stats were the basis of everything. This brings us to talents.

Just like a person was born with a class, one was also born with inherent talents. Some of these talents were present from one's birth, and others needed to be developed before they would be shown in one's status.

An example of this would be me. Right now, my only talent was mana control of a very low rank, even though it did go up a rank yesterday. The stronger the rank, the more aligned one was in regard to that talent.

This did not mean, however, that it would be impossible for me to awaken a talent like swordsmanship if I spent a lot of time swinging a sword. No, as long as I had even an inkling of aptitude in regards to using a sword, I would be able to awaken it as a talent.

The issue was that the prominence of that talent depended on my inherent traits and, from the looks of my stats, I wasn't suited for it. Which in turn meant that even if I did awaken it as a talent, it would probably take a very long time and even then I would probably never be able to raise it to an especially high rank.

To summarize: Stats depicted the quality of the vessel itself, while talents were the contents of the vessel. These contents depicted in turn what the vessel was suited to do, which produced skills.

Skills in and of themselves were just a collective word for abilities, spells, techniques, and so on. If you learned how to produce a fireball, it would be recognized as a skill. If you learned how to spin really, really fast, it would get recognized as a skill.

There was no differentiation in one's status about what kind of skill it was.

Another quite interesting thing that the book taught me was the fact that people couldn't bring out their stats as I could. No, they would have to go to something called a recording stone to see it.

This was interesting because I knew as a fact that George was also able to conjure his status panel just like I was, it was just that I hadn't realized that in the novel, he was the only one able to do so.

'Thinking about it, wasn't there a lot of things that made George different than everyone else?'

Some might have thought of it as obvious that the hero would be different, but I hadn't given it much thought until now.

Not only was he able to see his status no matter where he was, but he was also able to choose which stats he wanted to increase when he leveled up for himself. On top of all that, his dreams would act as a compass for where he needed to go and what he needed to go. A bit similar to my missions, only a bit more pleasant and not as lethal.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to think about the mysterious hero anymore, as I knew I needed to get going if I didn't want to get late for homeroom. Homeroom, which we would start every day off with except for Fridays.

Biting the bullet, I tried my best to ignore the soreness of my body, and through the power of a thousand men, I managed to plant my feet on the cold floor and stand up.

==========

With all of the freshmen now sitting in our usual classroom again, our teacher had simply arrived and left in a matter of a minute, telling us that there was nothing on the agenda for homeroom today.

Therefore, we were all now waiting for our next professor to arrive, who would be conducting a lecture about the economic structure of Estaria, which was part of the social studies course.

Already, even though it was only our third day at the academy, I could see that small groups had begun to form within our class.

Without a need to mention Mike and Fred, who I believed were friends even before arriving here, a lot of my classmates had now become part of small cliques.

Samantha, Suzan, and Julia were happily chatting away at one of the desks, similar to how Steven and Thomas appeared to have also befriended each other.

Currently, the ones that were left out of any cliques were me, Eva, Lya, George, and, unsurprisingly, Robert.

Eva and Lya both looked like they didn't care much and they both appeared to be quite comfortable sitting by themselves. Robert, however, still acted like a scared little animal, holding onto some book with the strength of a titan due to nervousness.

While I did feel a bit sorry for the small, brown-haired man, I also didn't feel like I was in a position to care. I had my own set of worries, after all. One of which was the pressing issue of never knowing when a new mission would suddenly arrive, creating a situation where I always felt a bit on edge.

When it came to the hero, though, who once again sat in the very front of the classroom, with his desk being to the right of where Robert was sitting, I was a bit surprised to see that the friendly young man still hadn't made any friends.

After a second of pondering, I felt compelled to attribute it to him having to go through some sort of events to acquire friends. I couldn't remember if that was the case in the novel, but it felt cliché enough to make sense to me.

Situations like fighting with Thomas only to then garner his respect, or saving the princess from a monster. You know, normal, fantasy novel stuff. Yet, I still couldn't get rid of the notion that it was weird.

Just a couple of days ago, he had approached me, making sure I was alright and even going as far as to help me find the imaginary key that I hadn't actually lost. So, how could it be that he was now struggling to make friends?

****

[George's Pov]

Staring at the blackboard in front of me, I tried my best to ignore my classmates who were happily chatting away behind me, simply biding my time while waiting for the teacher to arrive.

I had already learned my lesson during the first day at the academy that I shouldn't trust anyone, so there was no need to even try and make friends. For the first time in my life, I had tried to act friendly toward someone, but it turned out that he was just another coward.

Not only that, he had even helped that disgusting Mike get the class president post, completely ignoring the fact that we had caught him in the act when he and Fred were bullying Robert.

'How stupid I was... to even believe for a second that these people would be different...'

It had been a silly notion from the start, a silly notion born from the fact that someone had saved me when I was ambushed by a Gray Wolf on my way to the academy. Even if I was grateful for the mysterious savior, it was still not enough for me to change my mind about the students around me.

In reality, they were the same as everyone else. Snakes who cared for nothing but themselves.