At breakfast, a kind of buffet awaited the students. The food there wasn’t as extravagant as in the facility, but there was plenty of meat such as sausages, bacon and chicken breast. Since he had missed the first day, and thus the opportunity to meet his dietician, he just picked everything he liked, which resulted in him carrying several plates of pure meat to his seat.
The eyes all around the room naturally landed on him as he carried his towers of meat.
“You know what, I'm happy for you, Gary.” Ian said as the green haired teenager sat down. All four of them were back together, enjoying their meals. “We’ve been worried when you were fasting, but now that you’re eating like that again, it’s all good. It’s also good to know that whenever you go on a hunger strike, we’ll have to be careful that you might go all cray cray on us.”
Izzy kicked Ian on the shin, telling him to shut up. She was sure that their friend didn’t need to be reminded of that event, but that’s when they saw that he was just happily stuffing his face as usual, seemingly not caring about that at all.
Once breakfast was over, the four decided to head to their first lesson together. Gary was lucky that he had them to lead the way. Numba revealed that they had actually arrived ten minutes late for the first lesson yesterday, due to how big the AFA was and how many buildings they had.
The rota had the name of the building and class number, but that didn’t help much when they had no idea where they were going. The initial tour with Eddy had helped, but it had been too much to take in at once.
The first lesson of the day was a theory lesson. It had nothing to do with fighting or martial arts, but the history of Altered themselves. It wasn’t the most interesting subject in Gary’s opinion, since he was only early interested in the fighting part, but it was good that he didn’t have to show off anything today.
‘I wonder when we will have a more combat focused lesson?’ Gary thought. ‘Since I had to conserve my Energy in the fight against Ryan, I couldn’t really go all out… at least not while I was conscious. I still don’t know how much I’ve really improved compared to before… but it makes me think.
‘Other than Xin and the teachers, Is there even anyone for me to fight in here? Or learn from? If not, maybe there is a way I can skip all this, and go to join the AFC as quickly as possible.’
While daydreaming about his debut match, Gary and his friends arrived in class. It was held in a large room, almost as big as a cinema, and the seats were set up that way as well. There was a large bench with rows going upwards looking down at the centre of the class where the white board was.
A start case in the middle that devised the two sets of rows as well. It seemed like it was a bit of a free for all when it came to seats, but coming early allowed the students to sit wherever they wanted.
While waiting for the teacher and seeing the new students enter, some of them looked Gary’s way. They whispered about his green hair and his earlier eating habits. Rumours were also spreading as to why he only arrived today, rather than yesterday.
The new students were always interesting to those that had passed, and just like the facility, everyone had been here, for different amounts of time. Although, the classroom looked small, with about five other students entering.
‘I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since this class is called ‘Beginner Altered Theory’. That means that there should be an Intermediate or Advanced Altered Theory class, though. I wonder how you go up… Is there a test for each subject or something? And you have to get a certain score before you go up another level?’
While pondering about this, three more students arrived, Wu, Snow and Apollo. Noticing the new arrival, Apollo nodded towards the Werewolf with a big grin.
‘Well, I made it big, but sorry to disappoint you, I didn’t make it through as the number one.’ Gary thought in his head.
The group went to sit on the other side. Strangely, when Sty entered, rather than sitting with the three of them, he sat on Gary’s side, but several rows above.
Eventually, the teacher entered and one of his helpers handed the Werewolf a text book and a bag with utensils to write notes and such during the lesson.
The first lesson was about Beasts, and how they were related to Altered.
“We have found that in the past, Beasts had been ranked into different tiers based on the crystal inside them, which played a major role in how powerful they were. This could be one of the reasons why there's such a difference in the Altered powers.
“However, we are unable to determine how strong the Beast was that would be used for Alterification at this point and time. Or at least we haven’t found an easier way.”
The lesson continued, and Gary discovered that he found the subject far more interesting than he had initially anticipated, perhaps it was because it was his first day and everything was to do with the Altered he had always found utterly fascinating.
After that, Gary had a personal lesson with the dietician, while the others had a free period. He had to answer a few questions, such as what he would normally eat. He was a bit embarrassed, yet he answered honestly, because the one thing he wanted to avoid was to have his access to food restricted in any way.
“I think your diet is quite suitable for you.” The female dietician springily said. “Your Altered form, it matches quite well, so your stomach must have changed. Although if I didn’t see you myself, I would have worried you might be overeating, your body doesn’t show any signs of that. In my professional opinion, I can only advise you to continue with your diet.
“I have made some adjustments, taking out some fatty foods for you, but tomorrow morning, at lunch and dinner, everything should be prepared for you. If you feel like you need any adjustments, please make a booking at the reception and come and see me.”
A free pass to continue eating like he had done put him in a great mood, and it was a good thing as well, because the next lesson was the mysteriously titled ‘Special Lesson’. It was in a completely different part of the building, and there looked to be a lack of students in the current place.
Gary stood in front of a giant steel door, tapping his foot away, waiting for his friend to arrive.
“Thanks for waiting for me. I'm glad I'm not doing this alone.” Numba said.
“Me too, so what is this lesson?” Gary asked.
“I don’t know. Eddy just told me that it will be something special, but it's the first time for me as well.”
After waiting a while, they saw another familiar student arriving, Sry. This came as a bit of surprise, though part of Gary had also expected it. Since neither Izzy nor Ian had it on their rota, he had theorised that it might be something exclusive to the top three students.
A moment later, Apollo, Wu and Snow arrived, further proving the Werewolf’s theory.
Whatever this special lesson was, apparently the AFA only wanted the top students to participate in it.
*****
My Werewolf System Webtoon is out! You can read now in the BILI BILI COMICS APP. Weekly Webtoon chapters. Check it out, help it grow, and there might be news of an official My Vampire System webtoon someday.