Georgina took a hair tie from around her wrist and slipped her long hair into a bun. Many eyes from the group of A rankers ogled her figure and glossy hair as she went through the motion of readying herself for the match. Rhys could only marvel at this strange behaviour, it was just like Aria said it would be. Georgina and Kataru acted weirdly. It was hard to explain but now that he had seen them both in action he could point his finger on the root of what made the two stuck out so much from the others. It was in the way Kataru was so shocked that Sampson would try to trick him to gain the upper hand. And it was in the way Georgina comfortably tied up her hair, leaving herself wide open to attack but expected Rhys to wait for her.

They expected people to have the same values as they did, and therefore they expected too much. Rhys sighed solemnly, already predicting how this college and the people here would change them. He had already given Georgina quite a shock by not accepting her hand earlier, so he would leave disillusioning her to someone else. For now, he would wait for her to get ready. While he waited for her, Rhys pulled up his stats to check on his progress.

[Name: Rhys Anson]

[Race: Enlightened Human]

[Level 4]

[Exp: 313/400]

[HP: 39/40]

The last time he checked his numbers was during the tournament, so he was glad to see that his EXP was almost where he needed it to be. Level 5 was near.

[Intelligence: 13]

[Strength: 8]

[Agility: 10]

[Stamina: 6]

[Spirituality: 9]

Although he put stat points into Agility during the tournament, from now on he would be working hard to improve his Spirituality stat.

[Spectre Form Lvl 5:

The User's body has upgraded from the spiritual level to the spectral level. Once the user applies this skill, the user's body will hold the power of a spectre. Spectres are metaphysical beings whose bodies are the result of spiritual energy and mental capability.]

•Intangibility

•Physical disruption

•Aura extension (dormant)

•Spectral manipulation (dormant)

•Spectral movement (dormant)

•invisibility (dormant) ]

He didn't pay much attention to it before, but now that he was thinking of stretching his aura over his chain weapon, the 'aura extension' application looked very useful.

[Energy Absorption Lv3:

The user is able to absorb small to medium sized plants as well as a few plant variants such as mold and types of fungi.]

[Aura detection Lvl 3:

Allows the user to see the energy fields of living things.]

"Do you want me to hold that for you?" Aria pointed to the wrapped chains in Rhys's hand.

He nodded and handed her the bundle gratefully, which she placed in her lap as she sat down again on the grass surrounding the concrete slab. Rhys suddenly felt lighter, relieved that Aria was still acting friendly towards him.

"What are you two waiting for, get at it already!" Instructor A huffed from the grass.

Georgina glared at him, disgusted by the attitude he was showing that was so unfitting of an educator. This sector 5 military college was certainly lacking in qualified educators, unlike the refined institutions that she had attended in District 1.

Interested, Rhys watched as Georgina whipped out a small golden spray bottle from her side. He squinted at the expensive-looking bottle and caught sight of three cursive letters engraved into its side 'G.F.C'.

Rhys guessed that the bottle contained water because from reading the scripts he knew that people with the core often relied on water to create their crystals.

"I hope we have a good match!" She energetically thrust her bottle into the air and pressed down on the head. To Rhys's surprise, liquid sprayed out of the small bottle with a reach of at least two meters.

He jumped back, but not before some water particles stuck to his clothes. Before he could react, the mist in the air solidified and turned into a curtain of tiny sparkling crystals that reflected the light beautifully. The floating crystals immediately fell to the floor and scattered around the concrete, sparkling as they travelled across the floor.

Rhys looked down at himself to see patches of his clothes sparkling and felt small shards scraping against his skin. The liquid she had sprayed on his clothes had crystallised making Rhys's uniform look like some sort of Opal ornament.

['Be careful now, this human's power is weak but still tricky.']

Without a moment to lose, Rhys dragged his shoe on the floor, collecting the crystal shards against his foot and kicked up, sending crystals flying back at Georgina. She instinctively flinched backwards, bringing her hands up to her face to stop any shards from entering her eyes.

Rhys saw his chance and dashed at her, raising his arm and poising his hand like a spear. He was aiming for her right arm, he wasn't going to sever it but he was definitely going to injure it enough so that she would not be able to hold the spray bottle anymore.

[Spectral Form used + 5Exp]

He saw the stunned look in her eyes as she realised that she was moments away from being attacked. Like a dear in headlights, she was frozen, but Rhys knew better than to hold back against someone just because they looked weak.

"Enough!" Instructor A shouted from the grass as a light blue barrier materialised just in front of Rhys's attacking hand.

"Woah!" Rhys tried to stop himself but his momentum pushed him forward, all he could do was use his spectral form skill on his entire body so that he would not slam into the blue barrier. In a second, Rhys phased through the barrier and through Georgina and came to a stop on the other side.

['What was that pathetic human thinking, putting up a barrier all of a sudden? I say you kill him for his stupidity.'] The teacher sneered inside his head.

'The way he's stopping the matches before they get good, it looks like they don't want anybody to get hurt today. The instructor must not have realised that I can phase through barriers as well.'

The A-rank students who had not seen Rhys in action during the tournament blinked in surprise at what they had just seen. Even though they read a brief description of his ability in the newspaper, it was still weird to see it in person. Even weirder to think that his ability worked on barriers as well.

"Show off." Sampson muttered as Teacher A was seeping his green aura into Sampson's legs.

Kataru stared at the scrawny dark-haired boy who had insulted Lady Georgina by not taking her hand earlier. Besides his obvious lack of manners, it seemed that the commoner had a very useful power.

"What-" Georgina spun around, confused at seeing there was nobody in front. "Where did he go-"

She spotted Rhys behind her, heading over to the grass to take his seat.

"How did you do that?" She trialed off as the uncertainty of what she had seen took over.

"Oh." Instructor A stared down at Rhys who took a seat next to Aria and Connor. "So barriers don't have an effect either? How annoying."

"Here you go." She handed Rhys his bundle of chains. "These will make a cool weapon once you get the hang of it."

"Yeah?" Rhys sighed staring doubtfully at the pile of silver in his hands. "I'm not so sure."

"Let's get on with it then." Instructor A cleared his throat. "You and you, get on the concrete. And don't make it so quick like the last round." He huffed folding his arms.

Connor reached over and picked up the small jagged blade attached to the end of the chain. He curiously swiped his finger over the blue gem embedded in it.

"Gem gear?"

"Mmh." Rhys nodded. "Professor Killian was my weapon consultant but he forgot to tell me what type of property the gem has before he left."

Connor's face sunk disapprovingly. "I don't trust that guy, and I don't want him as my weapon consultant. I thought he was a researcher, what is he doing messing around with Gem gear anyway?"

"Apparently he worked on weapons before he even got into cores."

"That sounds like a lie." Connor abruptly fell back into the grass with his hands folded behind his head. "He looks too young to have switched industries and still have reached a high enough level where he's affiliated with the military."

"That's true." Rhys hasd to agree that the Professor's story was a little suspicious, however, the Professor did seem skilful and knowledgeable when thinking of a weapon for him.

"Forget about that guy and focus on yourselves." Aria broke them away from their suspicions. "I used to do a lot of training with whips. I know it's not the same as a chain, but I can still give you some good pointers about how to get started with gaining balance and control."

"That would awesome, thanks." He beamed down at her cool brown eyes hoping there wasn't a catch to that offer.

"And what kind of weapon are you hoping for, Connor?" Rhys looked back to see Connor enjoying the sun.

"I don't need one."

Rhys chuckled at the guy's confidence. "But I'll take one if it helps me focus my currents."

"Yeah, surging a room full of electricity is cool and all, but you're screwed the day that you have to go on a rescue mission." Rhys smirked, satisfied that he could take a dig at Connor.

"And how exactly would you rescue someone? Every attack would go straight through you and hit the person you're trying to save." Connor dragged his hand through his blonde hair with a grin.

The two of them chuckled and Aria giggled beside them. Rhys felt oddly content at having people to laugh and chat with.

Rhys's face scrunched up as he remembered the kind muscly sledgehammer wielding doofus who he met during initiation. He wondered how Otis was doing and which rank he got. He would be sure to contact him soon.

After a few more fights, the bell rang around the school and it was time for the next class. Aria was off to the science block, Connor was headed to his private session with Professor Killian while Rhys was off to a different training ground where he would learn to control his new weapon.

The second class was not just A ranking students, it was a mix of everyone with a majority of C students which was also the largest group on campus.

Out of all the students, only Rhys and the B ranking students already had weapons. The other students had to go up in order of rank to choose weapons they thought would suit them from a wall of scraps. By the time the F ranking students got to choose, all that was left were the common weapons like aged swords, and a few strange weapons that the others did not want to touch, such as nunchucks, single ball flails and fencing sabres.

The groups were quickly divided based on their weapon types. Rhys found himself surrounded by a bunch of people with whips, chain whips and the person with the flail.

The instructor who was focused on their group showed them a few videos of experts using weapons like there's. Rhys blinked in surprise to see the people in the videos easily pinpointing small fruits with perfect accuracy and slicing trees with the formidable swings of their whips and chains. One video, in particular, made Rhys swoon, it was actual battle footage from the invasion of a human with a thick chain facing off against a Xerserth soldier with a long sword. The way he caught the soldier's sword in his chains and then lurched him forward to deliver hard kicks to the face was so cool. Rhys was practically drooling as the large chain whip was cracked down on the soldier's head, which immediately put the alien to sleep.

The video ended with a close-up shot of the Xerserth soldier's head. Red blood seeped out from the wound on top of his skull and dripped off the tips of his little horns.

Rhys was a little disappointed to see that the Xerserth's horns were relatively small. As a race, all Xerserth people had horns on top of their heads. Rhys knew from school that the horns were proportional to age and strength. He knew that Saints and Xerserth commanders had much larger horns while the soldier in the video's horn's only protruded from his head a few centimetres. It meant that particular soldier was either young or weak. However, the human guy still managed to defeat it with a chain.

Rhys was getting excited about his weapon. 'It's like Killian said, right? I'll be able to use intangibility on it when I get strong enough, won't I?"

['Most definitely. You will be able to reinforce it in a number of useful ways once you get to the fifth level.']

Rhys put his soul into the next hour of class, learning how to swing the chain around his hand steadily, learning how to catch the chain under his elbow and use that thrown off momentum to change the direction of his swing. He nicked himself with the blade at the end of the chain a few times when he swung the weapon too close to his body, but other than that the motion of the weapon was coming easily to him, probably because he was enjoying it.

After the class ended he was headed to the dining hall to down another steak, he made sure to take the long route through the open grass next to the forest so he had space and time to swing the chain in his hands. When he swung it fast enough he felt like he was arm wrestling someone, but when he swung it slowly he could manage it around a few fingers. He imagined himself swinging the blade end down on someone's head as the guy in the ideo had done to the Xerserth soldier.

Once he devoured the last morsel of his delicious meal, he was headed off to his afternoon classes. Of course, he practised his chain skills during his walks in between his classes.

Finally, the bell rang for the last class of the day and Rhys immediately went running back to his dorm room where the Book of the Dead was waiting for him.

He carefully changed out of his clothes not wanting stray crystal fragments to scratch him as he changed. He then stuffed his water bottle, the Book of the Dead, his chain and his protein shake flask into his duffel bag. He raced back out of the dorm and into the forest where he had the privacy to complete his mission.

['And so it begins.'] The teacher chuckled darkly. ['Which part of the quest will you attempt to complete first?']

"I think reading the chapter will be faster, then I can get into trying to level up my energy absorption skill."

Rhys sat crossed-legged on a nice patch of wild grass and spread the large book out on his lap. He eagerly opened the cover, desperately wanting to absorb the knowledge from within. As if he had been slapped across the face, Rhys stared down at the first page in horror.

He flinched as the distorted kackling of the teacher sounded in his head.

"What the hell is this?" His jaw clenched in frustration.

['It's a book from another world. You didn't think it would be in English did you?'] The guffawing of the teacher only proved to irritate Rhys more as he stared down at what was an alien language.

Swirling loops of ink that resembled art more than a writing system covered each page, making it unreadable.

"Wait-" His temper cooled as he remembered the teacher's words from yesterday. "Didn't you say I would have to absorb some parts of the book?"

['I did.'] The teacher cleared his throat in an attempt to push back his laughter.

['Tell me, what exactly is this book made out of?']

"The aura of the plants." Rhys thought back to the huge circle of plants the book absorbed to become the book of the dead.

['And are you capable of absorbing plants?']

"Yes."

['Then get to it!'] The teacher snapped making Rhys jump.

Of course, he could absorb plants, but this book was no longer a plant. Rhys tried to use his Aura Detection skill, but since it was not a living thing, he could not use the skill. So he decided to try a different method. He thought back to the previous night when he saw the book being created. He remembered the familiar green aura of the forest plants being pulled into the book. He visualised the process and tried to imagine that same mixed green aura surrounding the book. Even if that energy had been changed into the form of a book, it was still in there somewhere.

When he looked down at the pages again he refused to see a book. Instead, he willed himself to see the product of absorbed plant energy and overlapped his memory of what happened with what was in front of him.

He flinched and covered his eyes as an icy tingling feeling pricked at his pupils. He waited for a moment to regain his calm and then blinked open his eyes.

Rhys immediately broke out into a grin when he looked down at the book again. It was faint, but it was there, glowing around the book. He could see a shallow, almost transparent green aura. The longer he looked, the clearer it became, until a satisfying ping came from the system.

[Aura Detection used +5 Exp]

[Congratulations. The skill Aura detection has levelled up.]

[The user has recognised the aura of an object.]

[Aura Detection Lv 3 >>> Lv 4]

[Allows the user to see the energy fields of living things and objects.]

"Huh?" Rhys laughed out loud in surprise. "I levelled up a skill! I mean it's the wrong skill for my quest, but its still good news."

['Yes, my idiot pupil managed to level up the wrong skill. Well. Done. Now focus on the quest.'] He taunted Rhys dryly.

"It's a level 4 skill now. One more level up and it will evolve like how my Spiritual body skill turned into the Spectral Form skill." He licked his lips excitedly thinking about the possibilities.

Rhys zoned back in on the book, now that he was able to officially recognise the energy of the book, he would be able to absorb its power.

[Energy Absorption used + 2 Exp]

Even though it was in book form, the energy was still that of a plant so the system still only gave him 2 Exp.

The pages of the first chapter of the book shivered as if they were alive. The green aura of the object became unstable and trembled along with the pages. All at once the first chapter burst apart into tiny glowing particles of aura that rushed at Rhys's face. The green aura flowed in through his open mouth, nostrils, ears and eyes. The sensation it gave was incredible, like breathing in a gust of crisp air. As the aura burst through his head, Rhys heard a thousand voices whispering to him at the same time, bludgeoning his brain with secrets and revelations. When it finally came to a stop, Rhys found himself longing for that sensation again, craving it almost.

He looked down at the book and saw that the pages of the first chapter were gone. There was only a gap in the book where those pages had been.

['Tell me, Rhys. What have you learned?'] he chortled mischievously.

Rhys rose from the ground with a wicked grin on his face. He had absorbed all the knowledge from that first chapter and now everything was clear.

He checked his surroundings for a suitable place. When he found the ideal spot, a patch of large knee-high ferns that created a bed of coverage for him, he picked up his belongings and walked over to the spot.

"What I've learned-" Rhys's eyes were alight with a strange madness. He knew he wasn't acting like his usual self but he couldn't bring himself to care, in fact he reveled in his new state of mind.

He dropped his belongings at his feet and threw his head back to look into the sky. He wondered if they would ever look the same again.

['Rhys…?'] The teacher urged him.

"I've learnt…" He relaxed as a cold wind slithered past his body. "That death is the beginning."

[Spectral form used + 5 Exp]

Rhys pushed his intangible arm deep into his chest until his fingers were visible from his back. He stared in a daze up at nature and the small creatures that called this place home.

The lively forest suddenly went deathly quiet as he phased his arm back into a solid, destroying his heart and its neighbouring organs with physical disruption.

His health points plummeted so quickly that it looked like the numbers where rolling.

The light filtering down from the tree tops darkened, the colours of blue sky and green trees paled and distorted as his vision faltered. He fell back into the ferns, a lifeless body.

[0/40 Hp]

[The user has died]

[…]