John held a hand in front of his mouth as he released a yawn, the wooden chair underneath him creaking as he leaned back with his arms stretching behind his head. He stared at the dimly lit fresco covering the ceiling, where a massive banner composed of a golden sickle and sword crossed over a black background greeted his tired eyes.

A pale somewhat strangely tinted moonlight shone through the only window in the room, located opposite from his bed. It was, perhaps intentionally so, positioned so that the sunlight would shine directly onto his face when the morning sun rose.

John could already tell that he would curse that window a lot in the future. Perhaps he should cover it up?

He shook his head. Ever since he had arrived in his new home, his thoughts had started straying more and more. Not to mention that it had been a long day, filled with all sorts of annoyances and formalities, but it seemed like it had been worth it. After all, he was at least not stinking anymore. Ruffling his now soft and oil-less hair, he stood up and threw himself onto the hard wooden bed that was big enough to accommodate a tall adult.

He closed his eyes. Now that he was finally alone for once, the reality of the situation was slowly catching up to him. He was in a foreign land, far away from New Pandora. It seemed to be a medieval world with a ridiculously low level of technology, lacking some of the comforts people would have considered basic for a decent standard of human life. Like toothbrushes. Or toilets that didn’t stink to the high heavens.

And yet, he somehow understood the spoken language here. Furthermore, he was in the body of a child after having stayed in some strange dark place for an indeterminable amount of time.

John opened his eyes again, turning his head to look out of the closed window. Three moons, one blue, one red and one yellow, were illuminating the night sky. Behind them, thousands upon thousands of glittering stars were piled up in a strange but beautiful formation that resembled many forms. Some banded together to form a shining disk whilst others made a gaseous multi-coloured nebula.

Together, they shone down from the cloudless night sky that practically invited him to go out and take a breath of fresh air or two.

The probability of him being in the milky way was horrendously low. He would recognize it otherwise, in one way or the other.

The mismatched cluster of stars that was in the sky, though, was certainly not part of it. Not to mention the strange colour of the three moons, which, surprisingly, didn’t affect the lighting on the planet he was on. Maybe they just combined perfectly and turned into a normal white light? Or perhaps it had something to do with the mysterious aether John had heard so much about.

Not to mention that the feeling it gave him was frighteningly close to the one he got from those strange beings he seemed to have heard shortly before waking up in this strange place.

John had to admit that he didn’t know anything about this new world he had found himself in, and he didn’t like that. If there was one lesson decades of living in a war-torn galaxy had burned into his very soul, then it was that information was crucial in any and every situation.

Speaking of souls, he still didn’t know why he had suddenly become a small child again. He should, at the very least, have the memories stored inside its brain that could have given him some clues in regards to his identity here. But whenever he tried to remember anything, he came up blank. It was as if someone had erased any and all things concerning the life his body must have had until now.

Perhaps he had just replaced the old owner of this body? If souls really did exist, then it was very well possible that memories were stored in them. There would, otherwise, be no reasonable explanation for him keeping his memories despite being in a new body.

‘If, and only if that were the case, then who did that?’, John thought. Though he couldn’t deny the pang of guilt he felt whenever he thought of that possibility, it was negligible. After all, it beat being dead by an unlimited amount of times. He had to admit it was selfish, but there was nothing wrong with being selfish. After all, everyone was selfish. It was unreasonable to expect anyone to be a Samaritan when you weren’t any better yourself.

A sigh escaped his lips as he basked in the strangely comforting moonlight. He stood up, walked through the room and opened the window, inhaling a mouthful of refreshingly cold air.

His thoughts were too adrift. It would be best if he could focus on doing whatever he could to obtain more information about this new world he was stranded in, but there were so many questions swirling inside his head that he didn’t even know where to begin.

‘What would you have done, old friend?’, he mused.

Thinking of the havoc his late friend would have caused upon his arrival, John couldn’t help but chuckle. He turned around and dragged a chair from the corner of his room over and placed it in front of the window, promptly proceeding to plop his rear end on it.

‘I guess you would have started a gang or something similar. You always wanted to be someone important, someone that people would read about in history books. Even if it would kill you.’ He released another sigh whilst watching the beautiful moons. Goosebumps had already appeared on his skin from the strange warmth he was receiving from their light. Was this normal? Perhaps. He didn’t know in any case.

‘But I guess you died a happy man, huh? After all, you fucked those bastards from the Alliance over big time. Just the way you said you wanted to die.’

As he pondered, John couldn’t help but wonder if his late best friend was somewhere out there. After all, if he was able to reincarnate, who said that he couldn’t? Not to mention that he was always an exceptionally tenacious person with a life force exceeding that of a cockroach. If anyone was able to do so, then him.

John pushed the chair away and went back to his bed. He was probably just deluding himself again. The dead stay dead. John didn’t know how he had been able to defy death, but he was sure that it wasn’t common.

Derisively laughing at himself, he chided himself for not having gotten over the past yet. He was in a different world with a magic-like force almost in his grasp, but he still couldn’t help but think of the things that had happened in a completely different universe.

‘Pathetic. You should be better than this!’ he screamed inside his mind before wrapping himself in the comfortably cold bed sheets. Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep.

In the end, it took two hours until he was able to drift off into dreamland.

“Good Morning, children,” an elderly man said.

He was tall, taller than most people John had seen until now. His completely white hair hung loosely over a set of broad shoulders. A pair of piercing amber eyes carefully watched over the dozen children gathered in small room without windows.

Despite the lack of fresh air, the room was comfortably warm. Like the other children, John was sitting in a chair that was far too big for him. In front of him was an old wooden table filled with all kinds of marks and scribbles. It reminded John of those old classrooms in the movies in the 20th and 21st century he had watched, which, if he had to be honest, made him unsure whether he should laugh at the similarity or sigh at the uncanny resemblance.

“Today is the long awaited day we’re going to learn about aether.” The old man moved a muscular arm that stood in stark contrast to his elderly appearance and drew some symbols on the massive blackboard spanning over a whole wall. As he turned his back towards them, John was able to observe the dragon with a scar on its face emblazoned on the back of the old man’s white tunic.

The same dragon was also painted on a metallic emblem that the teacher proudly wore on his chest, causing John to think that it probably a medal of sorts. Underneath the picture, there were also some scribbles too small for John to read. Not that he would be able to understand them, anyway.

In the last few days it had turned out that those mysterious scribbles were the written language of the country he was now in: Frumentum. John briefly asked himself what this could mean since he was able to speak it just fine, but quickly pushed the thought to the back of his head. He had more than enough time to learn the written language, however long his now far younger brain may take.

Shortly after that, the same symbols appeared on the upper half of John’s table, which had looked like a normal block of wood before. John quirked an eyebrow at the mismatched level of technology.

‘So they have a table that can display whatever is written on the blackboard, but no real sewerage? Are you fucking kidding me?’

He looked around, seeing that no one seemed shocked or even remotely curious about the wooden displays. The children around him seemed annoyingly unfazed by it.

“Aether is a wonderful, omnipresent substance. As you all probably know, warriors use it to strengthen their bodies and create weapons that are capable of driving the beasts and other humans back. Since you have had the qualifications to be accepted into this class, I assume that every single one of you has the potential to become a warrior. As such, I have to warn you to never, and I will repeat it just in case one of you is too stupid to properly listen, NEVER absorb aether from the surroundings, with the exception of your Awakening, of course.”

John leaned forward, the tiredness from not having slept enough instantly disappearing. This was the chance he had been waiting for. Who knows when he would ever have such a lesson that explained the very basics that everyone else seemed to know to him?

“By the way, which of you have already embarked on the path of a warrior? Everyone who did, stand up.”

Only three stood up, the rest remaining seated. They were fairly unremarkable, seeming like normal children to John. There was nothing that could have made them stand out amongst the crowd. Not even an excessive amount of muscles. Perhaps being a warrior was more about aether than fitness? He would probably find out soon.

Including him, 9 people didn’t seem to have started doing whatever it was that warriors did yet.

The elderly teacher nodded, the results seeming to be within his expectations. “Good, now sit down. Everyone else aside from those three will stay here after this class has ended. You shall awaken under my supervision.”

Although John once again didn’t understand, he guessed it was a kind of initiation ceremony that would make him into a true warrior. There was nothing else that could explain the clear rise in mood the whole room had experienced after the teacher’s words.

The old man went back to the blackboard, drawing the outline of a roughly human figure onto it. Then, he marked the middle of the head with a big dot. “This is where the core is placed. The core is the reason we are able to accumulate aether and cultivate. But right now, it wouldn’t really matter if I explained its special characteristics to you. We will discuss them after all of you have awakened.”

After that, a multitude of fine lines originating from the core were drawn through the whole body. Instead of the initially hollow outline of a human body, it now looked more like a depiction of venous system inside a human if all those veins and arteries were to connect at the brain instead of the heart.

“These are the so called channels.” The old man gently traced one of the many lines. “They are mainly used to transport aether to the various parts of your body, strengthening your body both actively and passively wherever they pass. We call the process of aether slowly but surely strengthening your body permanently Meditation. Giving your body a temporary boost at the cost of immense amounts of aether, however, is called Aether Burst.”

He turned around to face the class. “To be honest, there’s not too much of a difference between them. They’re both basically the same process, with the exception that Aether Bursting consumes far more aether. The amount your body is strengthened is dependent on the quantity of aether you pump through it, as well by how much your channels can handle at that moment of time. Slow but steady Meditation strengthens your body and channels in the long term, whilst Aether Bursting is far more suited to actual combat. Now some of you may ask themselves why Aether Bursting doesn’t strengthen the body too, right?”

“It’s quite simple. When you are Meditating the aether is slowly saturating your body, taking its time to restructure it from its very deepest core. By Aether Bursting, however, you pump far more aether in than your body can handle. As such, the excess aether is used as a fuel of sorts that powers your body up far beyond your normal limits.”

The old man swept his piercing eyes through the class once again, checking whether they were properly listening. Seeing that no one was sleeping, he continued with a smile hovering at the edge of his lips, “Of course, it’s not quite as easy as I have explained it, but those details can wait until everyone’s awakened. The lesson will end soon, anyway, since the rest of it will be spent with awakening each of you.”

After saying that, he shooed the children out of the classroom.

Exiting the classroom in an orderly manner, John soon found himself standing next to a kid with curly black hair. Around them, the kids were chatting in the uniquely annoying way that unnerved John to no end. He had never been able to stand the mischievous and overly energetic nature of children, and that hadn’t changed even though he was now in the body of one himself.

As such, he simply leaned against the wall whilst anticipating the upcoming Awakening, whatever that may entail. It couldn’t possibly be worse than standing next to a bunch of hyperactive kids.

The black-haired kid imitated him, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning onto one of the walls. Whilst doing, his bangs shifted to cover his eyes. His chaotic mess of a hair sprawled onto a pair of thin shoulders, where it curled up into small rings.

John sighed internally, having found another outsider like him. He was already way past the age where he could comprehend the thoughts of these little devils, so he had intentionally excluded himself.

He wasn’t so sure about the kid, though. Perhaps he just seemed strange in their eyes?

He shook his head for what was probably the hundredth time on that day. It wasn’t his business. Sticking his nose into the affairs of others rarely ended well, so he should just keep his distance.

It didn’t take long for them to be called into the room again. When John entered, he saw that the tables and chairs had been pushed to the walls, leaving a wide-open space in the middle. The wizened old man was standing in the middle of it, beckoning them to sit down around him.

Soon, they were arranged in a half-circle around their teacher. “Okay kids. You’re going to do this all at once. Follow my instructions, and I can guarantee that nothing will happen to you,” he said. “Well, nothing really serious,” he added after a moment of hesitation.

Ignoring the strange looks the children were sending his way, he clapped his hands and silenced them with a serious look on his face, but the smile hovering at the edge of his lips seemed to have been plastered on his face permanently. “Anyway, let’s start.”

“Do you still remember the time where you had to feel the aether one of the guards released? Try doing the same now. But this time, it will just be the aether in your surroundings.”

The children did as they were told, closing their eyes to feel for the strange substance that they had felt not too long ago. “Okay, now focus on your surroundings. You should, after some time has passed, feel some faint aether scattered in the air.”

John did as he was told, and repeated the process of trying to feel the aether in the air. At first, the only thing he felt was an enormous amount of aether radiating off the old man’s body. But then, as time slowly went by, he realized that there was indeed a small amount of aether scattered in the air. It was faint, but still noticeable if one felt closely.

A shiver ran down his spine as he felt a warm sensation come from the aether. At the same moment John realized its existence, the aether in the air began slowly moving towards him. He shivered as more and more of it started to surround him, enveloping him from every direction.

The teacher, noticing that quite a lot of children had already managed to sense aether with a pleased expression, gave them further instructions, “Good, now try to move as much of that aether as you can into your body. Don’t worry, this one time you can absorb as much as you want. It may try to resist a little bit, so remember to not lose concentration.”

John gulped as he felt the mass of aether around him become denser by the moment. He somehow had the feeling that absorbing it wouldn’t be difficult at all, but the fact that it seemed to have a consciousness creeped him out.

Suppressing his fear, he took a deep breath and tried to manipulate it into seeping into his body.

The huge mass didn’t resist, wildly rushing into John instead. It stormed into his body from all directions, seeping into his channels until they were about to burst. John only felt a piercing pain erupt from every part of his body as almost all the aether in the whole room forced their way through his channels.

He didn’t even have the opportunity to scream as he blacked out the moment the crazed mass of aether reached his brain, where it rushed into his core like a starved beast.