It was 6 A.M. in the morning when Alyssa opened her eyes. Strangely, it was the first time she did not have her nightmares.
She felt refreshed, but her memory was cloudy.
As sunlight came into the room, she found it hard to open her eyes completely, but after rubbing them a few times, she looked around and saw Asher, who was sleeping peacefully.
Seeing him, the memories of the time they had spent in the Dungeon and how she had made it out alive came rushing in.
She immediately looked at her arms and saw they still looked pale.
"Haah," she breathed in relief.
She hadn't thought about it at the time, but if the doctor had noticed her disguise and found out that she was fine, many problems would have come her way.
She raised her body to sit on the bed, and the sound woke up the young man sleeping on the chair in her room.
Asher slowly opened his eyes as he saw a familiar face in front of him.
"I didn't mean to wake you up," Alyssa said as she noticed that Asher was awake.
"It's fine," Asher stretched his neck.
"Do you have my spatial ring?" Alyssa asked Asher.
"Yeah," Asher took out the ring from his pocket.
Although you could store lifeless things inside the spatial rings, living things and other items with similar functions could not be stored inside them.
"I have the boss monster's corpse and the artifact in this ring," Alyssa said.
"Give them to me after you're discharged from here," Asher handed her the ring and stood up, getting ready to leave.
There were no other words exchanged between the two of them, unlike normal people who would have said some stuff, made some jokes, or had a light talk with each other after such an experience.
Alyssa looked at Asher's back as he left, and a thought came to her mind, but she let it go. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling as she got lost in her thoughts.
***************
It was early morning, but many students could be seen here and there.
Many students noticed Asher as he walked towards the Rankers Dorm. The medical block was in a common area that linked various sections in the huge World Academy, so it was obvious that people would notice Asher.
Many eyes stared at him. Various rumors and his recent incident with Professor Erwin were still something many students liked to gossip about.
Taking the exchange portal, Asher arrived at the Ranker's dorm and went to his floor, which was soon about to change.
He decided to take a quick shower, and coming out of the shower, he went straight to the meditation room.
"System," he called out as he had not received any notifications from the system until now.
[ Host has crossed Level 20 ]
[ Amount of Authority increases ]
Seeing this particular notification intrigued Asher.
"What was that dungeon defect?" Asher started with the first question in his mind.
[ It's a result of your Curse ]
[ But Host does not need to worry about it for now ]
"How so?" Asher asked.
[ Even if you're cursed right now, it is not possible for Destiny to intervene so directly like this time ]
[ According to my calculation, it will take a year or more for such a thing to happen again ]
"Weird," Asher thought it was somewhat strange.
Even if it was a C Rank Dungeon, was destiny so weak that only this much intervention would harm it?
[ You could learn more if you cross the next threshold, which is Level 40 ]
[ But you have gained one of the features this time as well ]
[ It is an authority that you should have gotten around Level 50, but you have gained it early. ]
[ To unlock it completely, you need to cross Level 30. ]
Right now, there was something that the system didn't mention, and that was the appearance of the S Rank Boss monster, and that was one of the reasons it revealed itself.
It was still not clear what exactly the system was and what its true form was.
[ But Host can look at the status screen to learn a bit about it. ]
"Status," Asher said, as he wanted to look at his status for now.
---------| Fate Devourer System |---------
[Name] : Asher Von Raven Greville
[Level] -21 (EXP 2500/21,000)
[Bloodline] : Devil's Absorption Rank SSS
[Cursed] : Curse of Fate (Active)
[Body Constitution] - Mana Core Rank D
----------------------------------------------
[-Attributes-]
Strength: 90
Agility: 72
Endurance: 80
Intelligence: 120
Mana: 114
Stamina: 65
Charm: 65
Fate: 10230
[AP]: 75 [SP]: 14
----------------------------------------------
[-Skills-]: Time Dilation (Rank S) Lvl 1, Absorption (Rank S) Lvl 1, Mana Flow (Rank A), Mana Circulation (Rank A), Rune of Eirdin (Rank E), Node-Art Rank SSS, Aura Force Passive Skill
[-Beast-] : Locked
----------------------------------------------
"Beast?" Asher asked the system.
[ Think of it as a reward from the system. Right now, your current authority is too low to know more about it. ]
It was confusing, but none of the things that had happened until now made sense. Like the bloodline ability he got, the skills, and many more things. But a beast was something that he was looking forward to seeing.
In the history of humanity, there were no cases of humans having monstrous beasts as pets. There were still a few animals that did not form a mana core and were seen as normal. That included cats, birds, dogs, etc.
Apart from such harmless animals, most of the animals would evolve with mana to become a Rank G beast and higher. And taming them was impossible.
*Ping*
A notification on his phone caught Asher's attention as he saw a message from Tom Gylip.
<Tom: Boss, they have shifted the date for the artifact you told me about.>
It was a short message, but it was a bit of a setback to his plans. But he had expected some changes, and it was not too bad for now.
Asher replied for Tom to wait for now; it would be soon that he would be able to leave the World Academy. He had already solved the biggest issue that was hindering him from leaving the World Academy, and that was Alyssa.
She was not someone who needed his protection, but now that she was cured, it gave Asher more time to spend outside the World Academy.
A couple of other notifications caught his attention, but he had received them at least 6 hours ago.
<Damian: What happened in the dungeon?>
<Amelia: What happened? How did you get injured?>
<Asher: Don't worry about it. You will know tomorrow.>
Typing the same message, Asher put down his phone as he stood up.
Still feeling weak, he knew that there was still something wrong with his body.
And the fact that he needed a weapon was one of his priorities, but he knew where and when to get one from. However, until the Ranker's announcement, the Auction that was about to happen in the World Academy would not begin.
It was something that Asher was waiting for as well.
After 8 hours, a notification was heard by all the first-year students in their ID Bracelets.
*Slash*
Asher stopped after performing his last sword movement, with the footwork he remembered doing in his last battle. He was trying to recreate it, but it was still fairly difficult for him. His sword art was something he wanted to improve before leaving the World Academy.
<Announcement: Rankings will be announced tomorrow.>
Asher looked, and he knew Alyssa had already shown every monster she had except the artifact and the boss monster. He had already gotten the message from Alyssa, that she was ready to give the boss to Asher and the artifact as well.
Turning again, he got back to his training. It was something he had no reason to be concerned about, but a huge wave of excitement and anxiousness was all over the first years.
**************
In the Faculty block,
"What do you mean that Vice Principal Xander will do all the changes?" A professor asked while slamming his hands on the table.
"It was something the Principal himself agreed upon," another female professor replied while shrugging her shoulders.
"What's the point of giving us authority to mark students when we can't even decide," the angry professor spoke with an annoyed look on his face.
"Why don't you say this to Vice Principal Xander, Professor Algas?" Professor Dahlia said.
"W-What do you mean by that, Professor Dahlia?" He stuttered for a bit.
"I mean if you want to go challenge his authority, you can do so." She said while the other professors kept watching.
"Professor Dahlia and Professor Argas, this meeting is not about both of you fighting over such things," another professor spoke out, he was nearly as old as Nathan.
And the way Argas and Dahlia went quiet meant they respected the man enough not to argue with him.
"Our job is to teach and assess the students, leave the other things to our Principal," he said.
"Yeah, if Professor Joseph is fine with it, why argue about this," Elsa replied as she was also present in the meeting.
This meeting was a bit special as it revolved around the change in structure of classes they wanted to implement this year.
"It seems I have arrived a bit late," an old-looking fellow with a long beard came in with a smile.
"It's fine, Professor Neyman, we still haven't started yet," Joseph replied.
"Let's start with our first issue: The vacancy in the Sword Arts class..."
The meeting started, and a few of the professors were happy as they would see the results of their planning tomorrow.
Right now, most of them were quiet because all the professors that were talking right now were people who had 3 Stars and were some of the most respected individuals in the World Academy.
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