Running through the corridors of the academy was a young man in his standard combat uniform: a fitted black tunic secured by a tactical belt, black tactical trousers with reinforced pockets at the knees and thighs, the fabric gathered at the ankles with elastic cuffs. Over this, he wore a pristine white canvas jacket that contrasted sharply with the silver chain at his neck, which caught the light with every urgent step.
"Damn... How did I wake up this late?!" The thought struck him like a physical blow.
It truly was inexplicable how he'd overslept so drastically. No matter how he turned it over in his mind, this had to be connected to the transformation his body was undergoing. The changes were reshaping him in ways that terrified him—ways that might completely destroy who he used to be. His appearance had already undergone a complete metamorphosis, and now he looked like an entirely different person. Gone were his blue eyes, replaced by something else entirely. Gone was his slightly sun-kissed skin earned from countless hours of training when he first arrived at the academy, naively believing that working himself to exhaustion daily would yield meaningful results. And then there was the undeniable increase in height—how was he supposed to explain any of this to people who had known him before?
Well, he owed no one in the academy an explanation, so anyone here taking notice of these changes was none of his concern. Well... except for the professors—at least the ones involved in the investigation regarding what really happened to the laboratory. That presented a serious problem if they began attributing these changes to the incident at the lab. At this point, he had a sinking feeling that Professor Einer, the instructor in charge of alchemy for second-year students, was deeply involved in the investigation.
In fact, it would be foolish to think he wasn't part of it in the first place. Considering the kind of man Professor Einer was, and his obsession with the 'unexplainable,' he would definitely be trying to understand what exactly led to the complete vaporization of Laboratory Wing C.
"!" Suddenly, a memory struck him with crystalline clarity.
He stopped running entirely.
"Wasn't I supposed to get those scans done at the labs yesterday?" he asked the empty hallway, realizing he might have just signed his own academic death warrant. He had blatantly disregarded the professor's explicit instructions, and that was a catastrophic mistake considering how reliant he was on the scores from written examinations. What if the man intentionally failed him out of spite?
'SHIT!' He gripped his head, teeth grinding as he looked around frantically. This was a truly problematic situation. In fact, the professor must have already labeled his absence as outright DISRESPECT and would most likely never approach him about it again. Instead, he would exact his revenge where it would hurt the most—his grades.
'I have to do something... Should I apologize? No, damn it. The bastards in this academy are too petty for that to work... and that professor always had it out for me.' He began pacing slowly, biting his nails as he carefully considered his next course of action. He would be an absolute fool not to have realized that the professor in charge of Ether Resonance had despised him from day one. He had even once filed a formal complaint with the principal about his suspicions that his scores were being intentionally reduced.
He wasn't an idiot. Never had been.
So he knew when someone was targeting him. But the question that haunted him was: why? Why did Professor Valdris seem to harbor such personal animosity toward him? It was for this very reason that his scores from last semester had been strange—as though he hadn't even taken one of the major exams. This had dragged him all the way down to thirty-seventh in the class rankings. He never depended on combat practicals for points ever if those were the real grade-makers, instead he made sure to maximize all his written examinations to compensate. That's precisely why he knew something was fundamentally wrong when he stared at his semester results. After detailed analysis, he had pinpointed exactly where the problem lay.
Ether Resonance.
"HEY! SON OF A BITCH!" The violent shout echoed through the corridor.
He looked up to see a young man with sandy blond hair and piercing green eyes glaring directly at him. In that instant, his blood ran cold.
"Lungris," he whispered under his breath.
Lungris had once been... well, a friend. When he first arrived at the academy, he had made four friends, and Lungris was one of them. It was what this young man had done to him that made him realize the bitter, unforgiving truth about being powerless in this academy.
The weak had no friends here. Trust no one.
"I was dragged out of combat class to find your worthless ass, and here you are brooding about your pathetic existence?!" Lungris began charging forward, his face a mask of pure rage. It was clear he found the context of being sent to fetch him utterly humiliating, and he was going to take out every ounce of his frustration on his former friend.
Kaeden wasn't surprised by this violent display. After all, ever since that day Lungris had betrayed him, the bastard had become one of his worst recurring nightmares.
In a blur of motion, Lungris materialized before him, his fist cutting through the air in an ether-enhanced punch aimed directly at his face.
'Shit!'
Kaeden panicked. Being accustomed to pain didn't mean he enjoyed it.
'Wait—'
Almost instinctively, he sidestepped.
Whoosh!
'What?' He frowned, perplexed. It was as though Lungris had... slowed down considerably.
"How?!" Lungris's eyes widened in shock as he realized he had missed his target completely. He spun around fluidly, his elbow arcing toward Kaeden's jaw, but... Kaeden stepped back effortlessly.
'How am I doing thi—?' The question died in his throat as understanding dawned.
The experiment.
The laboratory rats had shown visible physiological changes after he had exposed their DNA to the samples. Did this mean the genetic material of whatever he had been experimenting on had fundamentally altered his own genetic makeup?
His enhanced perception spotted a critical weakness in Lungris's combat stance. Without thinking, he lashed out with his foot, targeting the poorly positioned leg, and then...
"FUCK!" he cursed as searing pain shot through his shin.
His leg felt like it had struck solid steel.
Well, it seemed he was still fundamentally weak. The changes, whatever they were, hadn't made him stronger—just... different.