3. I dream of coffee fumes

I am late. I slept a little in the car but that doesn't eradicate the mental exhaustion and stress that I am currently experiencing. I rush through the hallways. The students who were walking in the hallway heading to their class seemed to make way for me as I strut quickly to the Crimson Classroom.

Once I see the 7-foot-tall crimson door, I speed up my pace and burst through the door. The students who were talking amidst themselves immediately stood up in attention.

"Sit down."

They all immediately get seated and they start to murmur amidst themselves. They are probably making fun of me for getting to class late but they'll stop talking once I give them their work.

"Who's the class assistant here?"

A girl who was sitting at the very end of the last row slowly raised her hand.

"Good, go get me a glass of coffee."

"Umm professor?" The auburn-haired girl tilted her head, causing her glass to slink down to her nose as she looks at me confused.

"Coffee. I'm not asking you to go to the staffroom. Just get me a coffee. I'll give you a 1% bump in your next project."

The girl immediately got up and rushed out of the classroom. Realizing that I forgot to ask her for her name, I ask her fellow classmates for her name.

"Her name is Aster Garcia." A green haired boy said with a grin that was quickly wiped off of his face when he got smacked in the back of his head by a blue haired young man with glasses.

"Her name is Valia Osiris Professor."

"Probably best that I ask her when she's back with the coffee." I get seated and hang my satchel on the chair I'm seated in. I pull out my Holotech tablet while the students look at me inquisitively.

The students might have been expecting an apology for showing up late but I really need some caffeine at the moment. My body doesn't really feel exhausted but that doesn't apply to mind.

Simply put, I did too much research. I began uploading my work at the student's portal, I mark the timeline as an assignment.

As soon as I do so, all the students get a notification and open up their Holotech tablets and began opening the attachment. It was at this moment that the door swung open and the class assistant walks in with a cup of coffee, I thank her and take the coffee off of her hands. I blew into it for a while before sipping it slowly. The girl remains in front of me as she looks at me apologetically.

"Ummm Professor, is it okay?"

"It's enough, what is your name recruit?"

"It's Valia Professor. Valia Osiris." She said immediately.

"I apologize for not remembering your or any of the other names of the students in this class. I am going through some type of mid-life crisis."

The girl again tilted her head, she was about to ask me a question but I cut her off.

"Head back to your seat and look into your assignments list in the student portal."

She does as she's told while I sip my coffee slowly. I clear everything on the table while thanking the Old Man for sending me the instruction manual for everything sooner than I thought he would.

I open up the desk drawer and pull out what appears to be a tv remote and there's a big red button in the center of the remote. I press it and wait for a few seconds. There's a sound that resembles the crashing of waves before a holographic keyboard shows up where the desk is. A floating password bar shows up above the holographic keyboard. I hold my hand out and place my thumb on the password bar. I feel like I'm committing a crime but it quickly shudders and lets me in.

The Prism Platform is a lot like a social media site but it has a lot of features that make it the primary tool for teaching, assignments, grading projects and viewing the material in class. It's also used as a social media site by the students by allowing them to post about their daily life and such.

The reason why the Prism Platform added the social media feature was because of the demons aligned with the Devil of Sloth. The devil of sloth is a very weird devil. Out of the seven devil commanders, only 3 of them have managed to escape their dimension and reach earth. Pride, Greed and Sloth. Compared to the other devils, Sloth is very open about his existence. Sloth can be seen by anybody.

if you were to search up yoslothhere.sin, you'd find yourself at a site that is livestreaming the Devil of Sloth and his daily life. The Devil of Sloth doesn't have a fixed form however. What made the Sloth so scary is that he doesn't sleep, eat, drink and sometimes doesn't breathe. He inhabits the bodies of 24 and 25 year olds and possesses them till they break. All of this can be witnessed on the livestream. Sloth would play vintage games or sometimes paint the walls where he lived until his body collapsed of dehydration. Then his new body would show up and drag the corpse of his previous body off of the camera and he would continue gaming. This has been persisting for 6 months now and Sloth would possess different people if he couldn't find a 25-year-old body.

What made the devils so scary were the fact that they were in a sense immortal. It was their souls that held their strength and the only ones who could fiddle with souls was the angels and the protagonist, Kayde.

Governments have rallied together to shut down the site but the site continued to exist with a new address every time but what didn't change was the .sin as its domain. This pushed the government to promote internet security as though their lives depended on it and it led to the Prism Platform coming to be.

I opened up my files and clicked on the timeline attachment. It took a minute to open but then a giant line showed up across the classroom. The width of the classroom was around the size of 6 men standing on each other's heads so I was really shocked. When I was fucking around with this universe's version of ms paint, I didn't think it would turn out so clean and pristine but holy shit, I almost feel proud for pulling an all nighter.

The students look at the line and see the notches on the line, representing dates.

Choosing to talk to them while I had their attention,

"I made this last night and it covers everything that is there in your syllabus."

I walk up to the notch that represent march 28th 2137.

I click on the hologram and the timeline disappears, an article shows up in front of the class, choosing to make the article bigger for the class to read the title, I stretch my hands out in front in the shape of photo frame using my thumb and index fingers stretch them out so that the gap between my hands widens. The article becomes bigger and so does the smile on my face as I start fucking around with the article with just the gestures of my hands. and widen the size of the article until it's the size of wall. I was about to shrink to the size of my pinky but then I realized that there were students behind the article and so I stepped through the holographic wall that the article now created and started talking to them.

"This is the article that talks about the passage of the Yinsin-Kodein Bill that prevents the mass production of HYTE Capsules."

I scan the students, hoping that they didn't find out what about my tomfoolery but by the looks of it, they were more interested in their tablets through which they looked at the timeline.

"You can click on the notches and it'll send you to articles so you can find the relevant data regarding the events that this timeline covers. It has every single relevant event from the day of the awakening until this moment right here."

I take a pause, the students all raise their heads and look at me.

I regret not writing more about the students in the other classes. I have no idea what their names are and that needs to change.

"Your assignment is simple, you need to make a timeline of your own, ranging from the very start of your life until the moment you have to submit this assignment."

I minimize the article and return the hologram back to the timeline. Planting my ass back into the chair, I take a sip of my coffee and gaze at my glorious creation. I had a lot of pride for creating something this beautiful in a software that

"Professor we can access a timeline just like this from the internet." A green haired boy called out. For a moment, my head went blank and I considered strangling the young man in a similar fashion to that of a yellow-colored cartoon figure that depicted domestic violence in a humorous manner but then my morality bested me. It definitely wasn't the fact that I am the weakest individual in the school due to my inability to use mana.

"Every event that is covered in your syllabus is red. Events that aren't in the syllabus but should certainly be researched are blue. Events that I personally like are green."

This time it was the blue haired boy who wacked the green haired boy previously who spoke up.

"What about the black sections sir.?"

I look at the timeline and think for a second before saying

"Those are tragedies."

The tragedies contained articles that had details of places that suffered massive death tolls and it is the perfect place for Kayde to get his army. I continued sipping my coffee.

"What about the deadline?"

This time it was a blonde boy in the front who spoke up.

"You'll have to submit it by the end of this week so Friday."

After pulling that all nighter, and shifting through all of that info, I realized a few new things. It didn't matter whether I wrote about it or not, the universe held the ideas that I didn't get across writing and this has some good and bad.

Firstly, I have hidden a lot of dungeons and extra juicy monsters that give heaping rewards. There's even a few heroes that I came up with as a joke who also exist. There powers are incredibly overpowered but clearly, they wind up getting nerfed or even killed before the final showdown. I'm not allowed to change the story. Wait, why am I not allowed to change the story anyway?

Aren't the angels just changing fate by bringing me here anyway? The devils are quite unlikeable but the angels aren't that great either….Hmm, the angels essentially gave birth to the Lord of Devils anyway so hmm. Should I just, nah, not worth the effort.

I keep sipping my coffee while looking at the students in front of me who seem to be at work already on the timeline. My eyes scan across the classroom and spot one dark haired kid sitting in the middle of the last row.

"You there."

I point at the black-haired kid. The students in the last row perk up and look at each other. Turns out he's not the only one with black hair.

"The one in the middle. Get up and follow me outside."

The kid gets up with his eyes looking bewildered

The moment both of us go outside I ask him what his name is.

"Waj-"

"crap wrong kid." I mutter out loud immediately.

I have no idea what his name is but I remember him having black hair and his name starting with M. Realizing that it became awkward.

"You can finish telling me your name."

"Wajax Hogan Professsor."

"Do you plan on joining the military after Prism?"

"No sir."

"Mercenary perhaps?"

The boy laughed. He quickly realized that I wasn't joking and he straightened himself out immediately.

"Definitely not sir."

"Well, your performance in my class is showing signs that you'll be fit for joining the mercs." I say immediately, choosing that as my excuse for making him follow me outside the class.

"Bu-"

"No buts, I brought you out here so that I wouldn't embarrass you in public. Now go inside and send a student whose name begins with M and sits in your row. He must have black hair."

I was about to tell him that I'll give him a 1% hike in his project score if he does what I ask him to but then I realized that I can't really be throwing that around. Wajax looks at me strangely before nodding and going back into the classroom.

People really do name their kids anything these days is what I thought as he left my presence.

-x-x-x-

'Wajax looks mad.' Masud thought as he looked at the youth makes his way back to his seat while grumbling about how he's in the 23rd position.

"Oi Masud, Professor is calling you. Head outside."

Masud gets startled, he wonders why the Professor has called him out but he gets out of his chair and makes his way outside the classroom.

He finds the professor leaning against the wall. The professor first stares at his chest before his eyes head upwards and finally makes contact with his eyes. The professor looks shocked for a moment before he makes an uneasy smile.

"Walk with me."

-x-x-x-

"Could you tell me what your name is?" I asked the fucking giant who was next to me. Mortillum is quite tall but this lad was something else. It's a shame that basketball has become kinda redundant in this period. With people having superhuman abilities, sports has just turned into people playing capture the flag with guns and swords.

"It's Masud Professor."

"Well Masud, I went through your file and I read that your aptitude tests had revealed that you have a rather high affinity to beasts."

Children below the age of 13 would have to undergo a lot of tests before they reach the age of 13. Based on their scores, they will be given placements into Cadet Schools. The aptitude scores test the children on the basis of their mana affinity, strength, agility and intelligence.

"Yes professor." He replied timidly.

"You are rather curt in your answers, did you not want to have a conversation with me?" I asked flat out.

Masud took this the wrong way as he began talking hurriedly.

"N-no professor, I was just shocked. Did I do something wrong?"

"I'm going to be frank with you. The faculty here suck in regards for taming."

Masud stopped walking alongside me, there was a tinge of hesitation across his face before he flat out said.

"I've come to realize that sir."

"Does that frustrate you Masud?"

Masud got weary for some reason, his eyebrows creased and he took a step back.

"N-no profess-"

"You're allowed to feel what you feel kid." I say as I reach halfway to my coat pocket before realizing what I was doing. I drop my hand with resignation.

Masud immediately said "It's fine Professor, I'm sure that my elective might allow me to figure out-"

"Knowing the innards of beasts doesn't make you more likeable to beasts." I say cutting him off. I really want to go back to my office and sleep before I have to go teach the teal class so I got to make this quick.

"What if I told you that I could get you to figure out how your taming works?"

Masud's eyes go wide and he stares at me till I wave my hand in front of his face.

"Places like this" I say while gesturing at the hallway. "..aren't cheap. I know that tuition is very difficult and you'd be better off capitalizing on the opportunities given here as quickly as possible. "

Masud's eyes immediately became sharper and I got a little frightened. For a moment I forgot that all these kids can use mana and could break my bones with their fingers if they wanted to.

"Tell you what, if you are still interested, What day of the week is it? Wednesday?"

Masud nods.

"Show up in front of Warp Tunnels at Caladrius City at 6 PM tomorrow and bring 3 bottles of water with you. You'll need it."

Before Masud can respond, I walk away.

"Professor, I-"

"I'll be waiting for you tomorrow."

Guys like Masud are very bad at saying no. Luckily, I can use this in my favor before Jeremiah, a demon of wrath uses this same tactic to get him to sign a contract and attack Prism after 8 months.

As I approached the Crimson class, Maeve stood by the side of the door and smiled upon seeing me.

"Professor, I need your help with something."

I felt a chill run down my spine as I saw her smile. My first thought was whether I did something wrong but then I quickly dismissed it. They were quick to respond. I thought I would have another day but my actions yesterday must have alerted them a lot faster than I thought it would.

I flash a weak smile and say.

"How may I help you today, Instructor Maeve?"

-x-x-x-