A few hours earlier
Zen had returned to his room, sending his friends away. When he got inside, his anger quickly soiled over as he took it on the furniture and anything he could get his hands on.
"That bastard! Who does he think he is?" He exclaimed with gritted teeth, taking in deep breaths to try and calm himself. While what had happened was barely an embarrassment to him, because he did not have the last say when Julia interrupted, all the momentum he had gathered from the atmosphere while asserting his dominance dissipated.
Just thinking about it drove him mad. "Just because he got a little attention, he thinks he's a big shot." He turned and sat on the floor with his hands on his knees, taking a deep breath.
Zen had always been considered a genius since young. As a potential hunter, all who knew him believed he would be at the top of the class when he awakened his skill. But that small victory was taken from him by a nobody who simply survived a cosmic mana wave. What's more annoying was the fact that his physical stats after he awakened were unheard of.
While Ross also had higher physical stats, they were more or less around the same value. Additionally, the one-horned humans were known for their physical strength above all else, so there was that. But for a normal human to have such stats, even if he was a hybrid, it wouldn't have been enough to produce such values.
Of course, he also understood that strength was not everything, and that was why he went ahead to challenge him.
"That bitch had to interfere. Why was she even with someone like him?" Zen couldn't understand why Julia would be friends with such a person. Until a few months ago, Alexander Gray was on no one's radar. Then all of a sudden, he shoots to stardom! Zen found that rather suspicious.
Julia Knight herself was unknown to the public. Even though that family was powerful and all, not all its members were in the public eye. But the power they all carried made it difficult for people to mess with them. 'How the hell is he even friends with someone like that?' His thoughts were all over the place.
He had also heard of the theories going around about the reason for his strength, but he cared little about that. Since Alex appeared on everyone's radar, he deduced that if he defeated him in front of everyone, he could take the spotlight for himself.
Yes, he was an attention whore, but that was beside the point. He wanted to be known as the strongest among his peers.
"Just you wait Alex…" He silently vowed to himself. He was also aware they were in the same dorm building but approaching him here would have no benefits. He wanted him humiliated, not to beat him up in secret. Besides, doing that would get him in trouble with his points on the line.
"… you'd soon know your place."
His thoughts moved fast as he came up with various plans he could use against Alex. Of course, most of them hovered around the option of getting him alone. If he could also get someone to make his life a living hell on Academy grounds, it was welcomed.
But the issue was, no one wanted their points deducted. It was already a blessing to be here without having to pay a dime. No one in their right mind would want to sabotage that simply to please him.
He sighed to himself placing his right hand on his forehead. He stood up and moved to his desk before linking his assistive AI to his desk, generating a holographic display before him.
"Kev, bring up the files we received from the instructor today." He directed, folding his arms across his chest. Since he couldn't come up with anything tangible as the ball was in Alex's court, all he could do was wait. But waiting was also not one of his strong suits. Hopefully, he comes up with something.
.....
Alex entered his room after bidding farewell to Ross. Once inside, he moved directly to the bedroom. The rooms given to each student came with a small guest space with sofas, a kitchenette to the side, and a bedroom with a washroom.
However, the bedroom also had the virtual reality pod and mana podium. As the virtual reality pod suggested, allows students to connect to the academy's VR world where they can learn all sorts of things and connect with other students, but mostly is used as a space for learning combat.
The mana podium was a small platform in the centre of the bedroom that condenses mana for cultivating. Since the atmospheric mana was extremely slow to utilize, humans had to come up with a device that could condense mana for its users to cultivate. Of course, there were different grades of mana podiums. But the ones given to students were the most basic as they are beginner hunters.
As of now, the VR pod and mana podium were inactive and had to be activated by the students themselves. That required the students to go to the combat systems to activate them. Alex had already decided to have his activated tomorrow. And since he had the rest of the week to do nothing but learn as much of the academy as he could, he plans on doing that as well as training his skill use.
He hadn't had much practice with his light skills as well as his vision.
He still hasn't told anyone of his vision yet. Not even his parents as he deemed it unimportant as there were a lot of people out there with similar situations.
Once Alex took a seat in front of his desk, he connected his AI system to the desk and instructed, "Xex, let's go through the files we got from class today. I want to get this over with as soon as possible."
[Yes]
The display popped up in front of him showing the rules and regulations the students were supposed to know as well as the first-year curriculum.
'Let's look at the rules and regulations first.' He thought before voicing it to Xex.
"Let's look at the rules first." He directed.