The adrenaline pumped through his body as his brain raced into figuring out a solution. With a *woosh*, he had turned into a cluster of smoke using Billow, as the lilac lightning passed through his body, “Fuck that hurts!”

As the smoke quickly reconstructed his body, he used Inversion, as his eyes changed color. Almost instinctively, his energy ran up to his eyes, as his vision changed, he was able to see how the Natural Energy was flowing around him and how it moved through a person. Even nanotechnology couldn’t map out the movement energy in a person this fast!

Everyone was shocked when Kezner showcased three of his ability’s skills, first it was the flames, then it was Inversion, and now he used Billow. All of them were in the 2nd Foundational Stage, with the exception of Kezner and Arlean. These were all untalented and poor students, they weren’t guaranteed a stable future, even if you were untalented, as long as you had money, you could even pay the devil to work.

After instantly realizing how to truly use Inversion, he stared at the movement of Body Energy in Arlean, and saw that it was slowly starting to coil around her arms as she moved to connect both of her fingertips' lightning, aiming it at him. This had left the scope of a single exchange and Mr. Flanigan didn’t try to step in to stop it, the madman was dead set on having them fight each other to the fullest. He had to think even quicker now, what other trick did he have left… But he could use that.

No, it was too dangerous and he couldn’t expose it, if he did, he would be thrown in an underground lab somewhere and be cut up into pieces, he wasn’t going to risk his life to win a small battle. By the time he chose to act, Arlean’s fingertips had sent out her decisive attack, with a ray of lightning as thick as an arm shooting at him, aiming for his chest.

---NCHS - Lunchroom---

The fifth bell had rung as everyone made their way into the lunchroom, some were ecstatic, others were depressed, while a few were happy to see a fight like that. Kezner sat down behind a rectangular table with a neutral expression on his face, while Arlean walked up to him. Everyone had their eyes glued at this scene, some wanted to get closer to Arlean, some wanted to disconnect themselves from her to avoid offending her, while a few were infatuated with her. The latter few had their eyes burning in the heat of passion and envy at Kezner as they realized that the pure and untainted Arlean was going to approach a brute like Kezner. They were also in Arlean’s Team, however it was “pure coincidence”.

Sticking her arm out to shake Kezner’s hand, “I know that you would have beaten me again if it wasn’t for Mr. Flanigan, so I just want to apologize for that unfair win, you aren’t mad at me, are you?”

Arlean gave Kezner a charming smile, causing him to be a step away from falling under this two-sided coin’s enchantment, but he swiftly collected himself. Though he seemed cool and indifferent on the outside, he was apprehensive on the inside and didn’t know what to do. In his view, she was probably here to subtly insult him, so under his suspicious gaze, he nodded, and gave a grunt as he shook her hand.

“Well, I’m relieved.” Arlean started walking back to her table.

Many were taken aback as they eavesdropped the situation, “He would have beaten her again? Does that mean that they have fought before? Does that mean they knew each other before today? What’s their relationsh-…”

The group of fanatics didn’t want to continue that train of thought as it may lead to a stop they didn’t like. Arlean was pretty much a celebrity in the city, as she belonged to one of the big Families that ran amuck in politics and the underground, she was bound to have fans and suitors.

As Arlean walked to her own table, everyone raised an eyebrow as they looked at Kezner, one brave person decided to walk up to him, Gareth. Gareth sat down next to Kezner as he put down his book bag next to him. “Hey, I saw you all alone, so I wanted to sit next to you. You look pretty depressed, man.”

As Kezner was opening his own book bag to take out Grandmaster’s Guide, he thought it would be pretty disrespectful to ignore Gareth so he gave a reply, which was pretty rare, “Yeah.”

“Say man, why do you always look so sad, like, you probably have everything you could ever want at home right? Don’t you come from some rich Family or something?”, Gareth decided to just say what was on his mind, though he was blunt, at least he wasn’t roundabout. This conversation caused everyone to look over and pay attention, including Arlean.

It was Kezner’s turn to be taken aback now, what in the hell gave him the idea that he was some rich scion, so he could only sigh and shake his head, “You’ve got the wrong idea, I wish I came from a rich Family, I wish I had a family.”

Everyone’s evaluation of Kezner dipped as he admitted that he was just an average person, but Gareth wasn’t going to give up questioning as he was skeptical of the simple answer, “Really? How are you so smart and powerful? Plus you have a master and stuff, you have to have some powerful backer or tutor…”

“Nah man, you’ve really got the wrong idea.” Though that didn’t really answer Gareth’s questions, he didn’t like where this conversation was going. Gareth knew that Kezner was starting to get uncomfortable with his questions so he decided to stop while he was ahead and ask about other things.

“So what are you learning from your master? Some cool Martial Arts?”

“Metalsmithing.”

“Wait, what? You mean like tools and jewelry?” Everyone had to do a double-take as this was a pretty rare yet useless profession.

“Tools, weapons, jewelry, all kinds of stuff. I usually only work with jewelry but I’ve been learning more about weapons. It started as a job, but then I took an interest in it.” Kezner spoke more as to answer any further questions Gareth had, he didn’t like long back and forths like this either.

“Why would you take a useless job like that, is the pay that good?” Gareth’s question, although it seemed disrespectful, it was true. 3D printers started varying in materials, moving away from plastic to metals. If someone wanted to make a common steel ring, they just had to put in some data, the shapes and engravings, then you were set.

“Orphan Opportunity Program.” Kezner only had to give one statement for that portion of the lunchroom to turn somber. Though it was large enough to accommodate hundreds of students, the senior schedules were different this year, most likely to the upcoming draft, so only the senior classes were sprinkled across the lunchroom. They had all come to realize that he actually didn’t have any family and that was why he didn’t have a family name, this also led Arlean to confirm her suspicions.

Seeing where that question went, Gareth decided to stop digging as he was finally realizing he didn’t need to invest himself where he had no business being. This led to an awkward silence to creep over everyone for a few seconds until they all took out their lunches to finally start eating. They were tired from Mr. Flanigan’s excessive torture.

Kezner, on the other hand, didn’t bother with eating but also didn’t feel like reading his Grandmaster’s Guide. After thinking over what had occured in the past hour in the gym, he realized that he needed to get stronger. Since he was guaranteed to be thrown into the frontlines, he had to rise in ranks as fast as possible, or else he would just be another number in the casualty statistics.

He put back Grandmaster’s Guide and decided to read The Overlord Weapons Art. Who knows, maybe he could even tie the theories of his Grandmaster with The Overlord. Deciding to fully focus on the book and not be caught in its manipulation, Kezner’s stare tried to pierce through the book.

Seeing Kezner so focused, Gareth looked over his shoulder only to find that his eyes stung from a small glance, while Kezner was staring at it like his life depended on it. “Dude... What the hell are you reading?!”

Everyone looked back at Kezner in curiosity as Gareth was rubbing his eyes in pain. They noticed that Kezner was acting strange again, so a few of them peered over only to fall like the poor Gareth. “Ow!”, “What the-”, “Holy shit!”

This now attracted the whole class’s curiosity as they also try to look at it, only for the fools to fall like dominos. Only Arlean was able to look at it, and even then, she couldn’t make out any of the words as they appeared fuzzy, causing her to frown. She was the only other person that knew what was going on, it meant that she couldn’t comprehend the texts, but she didn’t say anything else as she sat down.

After everyone recovered from the pain they looked at Kezner like a monster, once again. Though they learned he wasn’t from some affluent Family or Clan, he was still strong enough to prove himself as a talented young man, so nothing really changed at the end, only his status. If anything, this made him more approachable as he didn’t look down upon them, he just didn’t know how to act in certain social situations.

They continued eating their lunch but tried to include Kezner into their conversations, asking about his past and how it felt like to be an orphan. Kezner, being uncomfortable by the attention, moved to a table away from the buzz to continue his reading peace. And peace there was.

---NCHS - Sixth Period---

The six bell rang throughout the school, talking and whispers died down as a lanky man with a cane entered the room with a slight limp. His eyes carried a glint of sharpness and sophistication, but the sharpness was different from Mr. Flanigan’s. Mr. Flanigan’s sharpness was like a battle axe, reeking of brute force and savageness. This man’s sharpness was more of a rapier, there was a sleekness behind it and contained a lot more premeditation. It could be said that he was the philosophical opposite of Mr. Flanigan.

Putting his folders and papers on the table, he raised his head to look over all of his new students. Giving a slight amiable smile as he addressed them, “Hello students, I’m Mr. Bancroft. I will start off by giving you all a simple briefing of what will go down in this class. You see, this class will be a little different than the other history classes… What you’ll be learning here is predominately about the military and strategies used in combat.”

Everyone frowned as they heard this, first it was Mr. Flanigan talking about a military training program, now it was Mr. Bancroft teaching about the military. Britt raised his hand in a nervous manner, “Sir, are we gonna get drafted for a war or something?”

Mr. Bancroft gave a sigh as everyone’s heart tried to steel itself for the incoming news, “Listen up guys, there’s been an invasion detected and in a few months, you’ll all be sent to boot camp to train then be drafted into the military.”

Mass panic ensued in the class except for Kezner and Arlean, who knew about this beforehand.

“Silence!” Mr. Bancroft barked as he slammed his cane against the floor. Though it wasn’t as loud as the students, for some odd reason, it startled them all. “Now listen, it’s not as bad as you think, you’ll most likely be assigned to the backlines. Even if you are put in the frontlines, you’ll be placed into a support company for either the infantry or the mechanized divisions. They’d rather lose the war than trust greenhorns like you with their armored divisions!”

Though it was a little harsh, it at least calmed them down a bit. But in the back of their minds, they knew they were just going to be thrown as fodder for the real battles.

Deciding to play good cop, bad cop, Mr. Bancroft moved the papers on the desk aside and sat on it while leaning forward. “I’m gonna let you guys in on a few secrets but I don’t want you opening your mouths about it, capiche?”

All of the students nodded at the same time, they had a suspicion that this entire day had been… different, to say the least. For some reason, all of their teachers had been shuffled by all of these new teachers, which was suspicious for all of the teachers in this class to just quit.

“Alright, let me start off by saying the most public one. Governor Vanya is currently preparing to be judicially supervised over her abuse of power in using the government’s intelligence agency to look for an unknown man without any probable cause or suspicion. Usually this would kick the governor out of office, but what complicates the situation is the man’s contradictory history and the fact he couldn’t be found even with the government’s intelligence. It’s said that he left his shop yesterday and left his apprentice to oversee it in his absence but it was as if he vanished with the wind after that.”

All of the students were confused as to why this would happen, as Governor Vanya was fighting for justice… right? Kezner’s heart dropped as everything started making sense, Luna came back to look for his master in a rush, the fact that his master left in a hurry while leaving him his inheritance, the indefinite amount of time his master was leaving for… it all started to add up, “This had to be a coincidence, it just happened to take place around the same time, right?”

Arlean looked at Kezner’s expression and suddenly thought of something and raised her hand, “Mr. Bancroft, what kind of shop did the man run?”

“Oh? Actually that was also another topic of debate, the man was running a forge meant for smithing anything ranging from jewelry to cold weapons. The thing was, he used traditional methods with less reliance on modern technology, meaning he inherited it from some affluent figure. Only the elites have such archaic traditions that they pass on, some by blood, some by connection. This basically means that this mysterious man is probably related to some Noble Clan, maybe even a House.” While Mr. Bancroft tilted his head and looked towards the ceiling in thought, everyone’s expression turned stranger as they stared at the bewildered Kezner.

Looking back at his students, Mr. Bancroft was left in the dark of what was happening but from the looks of it, it was pretty damn interesting. “So uh… what’s up with that student?”

Gareth still felt somewhat wronged after looking at Kezner’s Weapons Art, so he did something out of his character, he was the first to explain, “Kezner earlier said he was a metalsmith apprentice, and that he obtained his grandmaster’s inheritance!”

Mr. Bancroft slightly squinted with a weird glint in his eyes, “Oh? So you should know the most about this mysterious figure, what was it, Kezner?”

Kezner could only shake his head as he recalled his master, “I don’t know much about my master, we never spoke much yet we understood each other.” Kezner was definitely not going to snitch on his master, so he kept it short, sweet, and simple.

“There’s gotta be more than that, right? I mean, you’ve known him for about a year or so right? You can’t tell me you’ve rarely talked to him in a year.” Mr. Bancroft tried to dig deeper only to realize he hit a thick wall, as Kezner could only shake his head and shrug.

“Then Kezner, there’s one warning I have for you, when you reach the shop today, don’t answer any questions from anyone, the more you get involved the more they chase after you. Play the same silent game with them.” Mr. Bancroft smiled as he gave his seemingly unimportant advice. Though Kezner took it with a grain of salt, he kept it in the back of his head.

“Alright, onto the other piece of news, it’s a lot closer than you may think. This school is riddled with experts. Actually I served in the military as a top strategist in the last Galactic War, though Bancroft is a common family name, you should recognize the Hidden Dirk, right?” Mr. Bancroft flaunted his cringey nickname only to find that his students didn’t even know what he was talking about.

“I think this guy is going senile.” Never had a collective had the same exact thought at the exact same time until then.