Chapter 25: Welcome to Hell
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"Winner, Theon Grey!"
The words still echoed in the students ears. They all stood in shock, watching Theon walk down from the stage calmly.
"Is it just me, or did Theon just completely dominated that match."
"Right!" Another student exclaimed.
"Maybe he has been training secretly."
"Or maybe he finally broke through into E-rank."
Each of the students had their own speculation, especially Sylvia.
Her outward appearance looked calm, but within she was just completely confused.
’He wasted no movement, and the moment he saw an opportunity he struck. The way he fought makes it seem like he has been training in hand-to-hand combat for years.’
She watched him walk through the crowd of students with a calm expression on his face.
’Has he always been this strong,’ her eyes narrowed. ’Or has he been hiding his power this whole time.’
Theon stopped beside Damon and stood quietly.
The students murmurs still focused on how easily Theon had won, but it had partially reduced.
"What was that?" Damon turned and asked. "Have you always been this good?"
"I might’ve been practicing in secret," Theon smiled. "I mean, I can’t stay helpless forever."
Damon stared at Theon’s expression quietly, then adjusted his glasses and turned his attention to the stage.
More students began to climb the stage in pairs, and unsurprisingly a lot of them had little to no experience in hand-to-hand combat.
After all, most of them had focused on building their strength through their mutation type.
However, there were still a few students who seemed to be able to be able to outperform the rest of the students.
But Theon’s greatest shock was Damon.
’I didn’t know he was so good at throwing hands. He might actually be as good as me. I wonder what would happen if we were to fight. It would be exciting.’ he smiled to himself.
Damon had completely dominated his fight in the most efficient way possible. He didn’t wait for his opponent to attack first.
The moment the signal was announced to begin, he rushed forward and defeated his opponent in two hits.
Soon after, the last pair of students fought, and the training session ended.
Instructor Sylvia walked onto the stage once more.
"This was an expected result." She said calmly. "Just as I thought, most of you have never done hand-to-hand combat before— though there were some students that surprised me greatly."
She said, her gaze pausing at Theon for a slight moment— an action that didn’t escape Theon.
"Well, this is just the first day. For the next three days we will focus on improving your hand-to-hand combat." She said softly and the students groaned disapprovingly.
"After that, we will focus on improving the use of your mutation types. That should be all for today, you all can leave." She ended, and walked down the stage before leaving the training room.
The rest of the students followed after her, filing out of the class in groups.
"What class do we have next?" Theon asked Damon.
"Ohh!" Damon pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "That would be Bestiary Studies."
"Bestiary Studies, huh?"
"The instructor has not been available since the start of the semester. We’ve only had two classes with him— two of which you missed." Damon sighed at the end of his words.
"I see. We haven’t done anything important, right?"
"Bestiary Studies is a practical class, and the first two classes we had mainly focused on Theory, both of which were mainly on how Essence affected both humans and beasts."
Theon raised an eyebrow. Damon saw this and exhaled as if preparing to give a full lecture.
"As you know, Essence is an energy which the gods left for us as a gift to help us survive against other planets which were technically more advanced than us.
Every being on Oris naturally produces essence, but it is usually dormant. Then there’s us, who awakened our essence. Our soul condensed a resonance core that allows us store and control essence—"
Damon paused, allowing Theon to fully digest his words before continuing.
"As for our mutation types: those are abilities that Resonants are naturally born with. It’s also how most people on Oris know they will be able to awaken their essence and resonance cores.
Those born without mutation types can’t awaken their essence, hence why it would be left dormant in their bodies.
Most big families usually have their mutation types focused on one aspect, for example, The Ten Great families. They were all able to obtain divine fragments, fragments left behind by fallen gods which granted them abilities related to the god’s concepts, for example divine fragments from the god of fire will grant people mutation types related to fire."
Theon nodded his head, listening keenly to Damon’s words.
"As for the rest of us, we all get random mutations from random gods’ concept right from birth.
Mutation types are also separated into three. Standard Mutations, such as Elemental Mutations, Physical Mutations, Biological Mutation.... stuff like that. Then there are the Higher Mutations: It only has one Mutation type. Conceptual.
Then lastly, Supreme Mutation. It also has one type of Mutation. Divine Mutation type. People with this type of mutation type might as well be called god’s chosen successors.
Meaning the abilities they possess are on a league of their own."
’All my mutation types are divine,’ Theon glanced at his status profile. ’Another thing that clearly shows how much of an anomaly I am.’
"Then there are beasts—" Damon continued. "Beasts are creatures that spawn from dungeons. The dungeons are somewhat like legacies left behind by gods.
Every dungeon is a fragment of a god’s divine realm and the beasts within are guardians, prisoners, creations, or conquered creatures collected by that god throughout their lifetime.
The worst part is that the beasts originate from countless worlds conquered, created, or visited by the gods. Meaning that you can never expect the same thing from a dungeon created by one god.
To inherit a god’s legacy, one must prove they are worthy by overcoming the trials left behind."
Damon paused and stopped in front of a door. Above it, written boldly was ’Bestiary Studies: Ashborne Hall’.
"And that is basically everything we discussed about in the previous classes." He breathed out like he had just finished running a marathon.
"What would I do without you." Theon smiled. "Thanks for filling me in."
Damon stared at Theon’s face then sighed. "It’s not a problem, Theon." He placed his hand on the floating pad beside the door and the door slid open. "Did you forget that I love teaching you guys these type of things."
He said, then walked into the class. Theon stared at his back, and smiled once more before following his lead.
The hall was extremely large, larger than the training hall.
It was different from other lecture halls. This one didn’t have chairs, instead it was built more like the training halls.
Most of the students were already within the hall, still awaiting the arrival of the instructor.
As usual, Damon and Theon found a secluded spot and stood there.
After waiting for another thirty minutes, the metallic doors slid open and a large muscular man walked in.
He had short brown hair, with brown eyes that glinted dangerously. He wore the usual instructor uniform, which was a black and gold suit, except he left it unbuttoned, showing his well defined abs and chest.
He had a massive scar on his left eye, that made his face look terrifying.
He had a certain presence that surrounded each of his steps. Some of the students close to him couldn’t even breathe properly.
He walked over to the front of the large class and stood there.
Then, he grinned viciously.
"Good morning class! Today, I’m going to make you all go to hell!!"
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