Chapter 26: Orientation 1
Dante woke up suddenly, feeling like he was late for something. However, his AI chip reported that he had no pending engagements except the orientation at 7 am, and it was only 5 am.
He rubbed his face and entered the bathroom to soak in the tub for a few minutes before coming out. He simply willed his exosuit to come out of his flesh and his attire reformed around him, being the jacket, shirt, pants, and boots that formed his vice-admiral's uniform.
After checking himself out in the mirror, Dante decided to head out and reach the location of the orientation early. Luckily there was a private teleporter right in front of his room, so he stepped into it and was given access to the destination he sought, the Assembly Hall.
Still, Dante did not directly teleport over right away. After all, one thing about the Eternal Academy was that the teleporters did not give you full access to all exits nor did it download the map of all such entrances and exits to your chip automatically like public teleporters.
Rather, you only had access to those that were given to you at the time. As far as Dante was aware, he currently only had 3, the spaceport, the assembly hall, and his residence. He naturally guessed that he would receive more, if not the rest, after orientation was completed.
Whatever the case, he arrived at the campus area quite easily after taking a Quick Transit Vehicle after stepping back from the teleporter after careful thought.
As for these Quick Transit Vehicles, it was a fact that the entire Eternal Academy had a lot of them, and they made many students, as well as workers, use them. It would seem like, in this academy, access to teleporters was a luxury.
Dante would not be too surprised if it were even treated as some form of a status symbol, used by students and workers here to show how 'different' they were from the rest.
Dante put it in mind to restrain how often he used it in order not to attract hatred. It might seem like he was overreacting but anyone who had worked in an office space, or with co-workers, knew how easy it was for another person to hate you.
You could be a nice person, and because of that, someone hated you. You could be tall and handsome, and because of that, someone hated you. You could be favored by the boss because you were hardworking and because of that someone hated you.
It wasn't that Dante wanted to live in fear of other people's dislike, but that usually, people could do very dangerous and stupid things out of hatred. Avoiding flaunting his usage of teleporters was such a small sacrifice for peace of mind.
At least, until he was sure that the consequence of a random person's hate-filled actions could not affect him negatively. At that point, why would he hold back?
The campus was large and expansive. He came from the residential side, and even there, he was allocated his own residence in a sort of villa-like area. Behind the Assembly Hall's gates was a bustling school area with hundreds of different species walking about.
What was interesting though, was that while everyone was wearing diverse clothing and attires, they all had distinct color-coded badges placed on their clothes. Probably something to distinguish students from each other and then students from teachers?
Dante noticed that he wasn't the only one in the square of the Assembly Hall. Many other students had come here using different means, most using teleporters as the authorization to this location was given freely since students would likely often be required to report here quickly.
Dante noticed many from the spaceport when he came for the test, and he also saw many others. The Eternal Academy had hundreds of spaceports for receiving, sending, business, pleasure, and military functions.
The spaceport Dante came in was far from the only one for new students. Of course, how many passed the initial tests and entered would not amount to even 5% of the total number, but he counted around 2000 people at least.
The crazy part was that more people were coming!
As Dante surveyed the area, he noticed a bunch of pure human youths gesturing at him. They grouped up in a large bunch, numbering almost 50. As usual, they were separated from the other aliens and mixed-race humans who made up the bulk.
Dante naturally walked up with a smile to the pure human group. Now that the troublesome Beatrice wasn't around, he was free to be more natural and less guarded. Of course, caution would not be discarded, but living like that 24/7 would shoot his stress levels to calamitous degrees.
The pure humans made way for him and introduced themselves one by one. Most were in the Elite Batch, numbering around 46. Only 4 were like Dante, recruited into the Unique Batch. Among them, of course, was Louisa who stood like a swan among a flock of ducks, the entire social group seemed to be orbiting around gathering her attention.
So it was to no one's surprise that Dante got heavy and envious looks when Louisa brightened up at his appearance and began chatting with him in a friendly manner. After all, Dante was a pure human with natural superpowers like her, not to mention he was sort of a 'family friend' since he was associated with Beatrice.
Even though his status as a discovered pure human was lower than hers within the pure human ranks, it was offset by his overall backing. As such, Louisa did not treat him like a possible lackey but as a sort of equal.
However, her attitude was still there, nothing particularly rude or offensive but just a slightly superior tone, like an intellectual talking to an average person. The others noticed this and among other reasons, began to inquire on Dante's background in a seemingly harmless manner.
Louisa seemed to have a playful expression on her face as she first revealed that he was recently found and brought here. Immediately, the attitude of many of the pure humans here changed, and while they were still willing to 'allow' Dante into the group, they became less equal and more condescending in a polite way.
Louisa let them make fools of themselves for a bit before 'casually' adding that Beatrice found him and was tied to the Portinari family. Not only that, but his military rank was Vice-Admiral of the 34th Fleet.
The fellows were left speechless.
Many felt extreme resentment towards Louisa. This was a fellow with a background no less than hers and could be someone they would socially orbit around as well. However, due to her prank, the relationship had gone cold and their futures with Dante as close friends were directly cut off.
Dante too glanced at Louisa coldly, and her playful expression changed slightly. These fellows' unhappiness she could ignore, but Dante's was not so easy to brush over.
However, whether it was the pure human elite youths or Louisa, neither made a move to apologize to Dante or act in a lower position. Yeah, his backing was superb, but their own was just one rank below, and in the case of Louisa, slightly higher!
There was no need to bend their backs and fawn over anyone. As for their orbiting around Louisa, it was normal. Every social group had a core and that core was usually the most handsome/beautiful person, the richest person, or the 'coolest' person.
Even if this person had a conflict, no one would necessarily kneel to them but rather scoff and walk away.
Dante was also a relatively skilled socialite, so he smiled and brushed off the earlier unpleasantness and began chatting with everyone normally. In the meantime, he assessed them and their behaviors as well as gathered information about them through their chat which he logged to his AI.
Soon, their chat was forced to come to an end when the announcement was made, it was time for the students to gather within the hall. At this time, the original 2000 had swelled to almost 10,000 in number, while the number of pure humans reached about 200 in total.
They were ushered into the hall in an organized manner and led to their respective seats.
… yes, the seats too were separated by class. Not racial or based on background, but purely the internal classification of the academy itself. Front row seats to the Unique Batch Students, middle row for Elite Batch, and back row for the numerous Normal Batch.
Not only that but each class was separated into ranks according to whatever standard was tested in the entrance examination.
There were about 28 Unique Batch students among the total number accepted this year, and out of their ranked 28 seats, Dante was slowly but surely led to the first one.
'Welp, there goes all plans of not attracting hatred. High profile it is then.' Dante thought to himself.
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