Severin walked to class unhurried. Some of the information of the former host was still in his head. Random things like where classes were and the way to the underground black market where he once tried to buy a miracle drug that would increase his Talent Ability Rank.
But instead, he was robbed.
"What a pathetic guy," Severin muttered. "Shit, I guess I'm pathetic as well now that I'm in his body and using his name."
He took his time so he could look around and try to process everything.
He looked around and knew that the author had underexplained something, or maybe he was the one who was too eager for the actions to read through properly.
Zenith Hero Academy was too stunning for an academy that prided itself on using unnamed methods to weed out the weak and invest in the strong.
It was so very big. So big that students could even own territories inside the academy.
He saw massive buildings and statues, bridges that connected places in twisting lines. He sighed, his head becoming clearer. "Good, good. Who says you can only be strong because you can throw fireballs across the academy?"
"I have some deep access to information about this world," Severin smiled with no warmth. "We'll see."
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The class that day was a combined class of all the Year One students. And it was because it's history, so it was taken in a large auditorium instead of the different classes.
The professor was an elderly woman with white hair and drooping eyes. She stood in front of her table like a dead thing until it was her time, and she jerked awake. With a gesture from her hand, the door closed, sealing the latecomers outside.
Severin made it even with his little tour of the academy. And he sat in the last place in the back. By some informal rules, the students from Class One sat at the front, and then they arranged themselves until they reached the back.
The last place was where Severin sat.
He looked around and studied the other students, noticing that Derrick had sat close to the Class Four place, trying to distance himself from Class Five.
Severin shook his head and focused on the professor.
"I believe we all know the history of our world and how we arrived at this point in time." The professor's voice was surprisingly sharp and clear for her appearance.
Without waiting for the students to reply, she continued. "It can be divided into six or seven stages. The Age of Shadows was when we hid in the shadows and guided humanity from the side. We Etherion users did this because there was very little Etherion on Earth back then. We were weak, very weak, that some of our powers were even known as tricks."
Severin nodded along. The author of the book based his worldbuilding on an alternative Earth. "But then, close to six thousand years ago, a pure Etherion resource, condensed for hundreds of millions of years in space, crashes to Earth. This set off a chain of reactions that caused natural disasters and made the world fall into chaos.
"We, the Etherion users, came onto the scene to help humanity, and with our help, things were stabilized. This is the beginning of how we were also being called 'Heroes.' We rose to prominence, establishing dominion over civilization.
"And then came the Etherion Renaissance. With the condensed Etherion right here on Earth, we achieved what we couldn't for ages. We broke the chains of low ranking, and we began to climb the Advancement Stages."
The Advancement Stages are the level of Etherion that an Etherion user can hold in their core at a given time, which roughly translates to how powerful they are.
Severin muttered in his head. "...Initiate, Awakened, Refined, Ascendant, Eminent, Sovereign, Mythborn, Paragon... there are a total of nine ranks as far as I'm aware, but the author never revealed the last..."
The professor continued. "We Etherion users created wonders and artifacts, most notably The System, a planet-wide artifact that links everyone and regulates growth. It made more of us reach higher stages.
"Humanity entered a golden age and launched into space. Over the next centuries, five planets were conquered and terraformed in the name of humanity!"
"But then the War of Crowns happened. Because of the call that echoed light-years away. We had been regarded as a rising force in the galactic world. A call was issued, but the question remained—who would represent humanity in the galactic council?
"Civil war erupted between high-ranking Etherion users from different planets because all the powerhouses wanted to be the absolute ruler. The System was sabotaged, causing it to malfunction and collapse.
"This triggered something terrible. Remember that our world and corners of the universe were very low on Etherion. This was the reason why something was sealed in our space. It's called the Aberrant Singularity, an ancient conceptual entity sealed beyond the stars, and it was awakened and freed. Also known as the Father of Monsters.
"Endless waves of monsters were released by it, and we were quickly overwhelmed because we were already weak from the civil war. The five planets fell. Earth was invaded."
The professor stopped talking suddenly, her head tilted up as if she was listening to something. "Oh? It seems this month's monthly combat assessment list is out. We will stop our lessons here.
"Next time, we will continue about how humanity survived and we found ourselves here."
With that, she began to walk toward the door, opening it with a flick of her hand.
Severin's heart skipped a beat. "...Monthly combat assessment... it's a sort of bloody battling duel between students of the same year where they would try to kill each other, no questions asked..."
It was Zenith Hero Academy's way of telling the students that the weak would be forever thrown out as the trash that they are. Those who lost would either be expelled or crippled.
Severin stood up to leave the class. Just then, his attention was drawn to a commotion.
A short boy with brown hair from Class Four was sneering at Derrick. "You fucking bastards of Class Five who don't know their place just keep bringing their stink to our space."