I stood in a hazy town and watched as people ran away from something in fear. When I looked up, I saw a large demonic creature floating there, one with grotesque features, a blackened and charred skin, and an orange glow of flames surrounding it. Its eyes seemed like it could pour out lava, and the creature truly looked as if it was a demon from hell.

  When I saw it, I ran away as fast as I could. But I felt slow, and tears came out my eyes. Suddenly though, I was facing that demon in a barren wasteland. And this time, I felt like I could fight it.

  I used my dark energy, and colossal waves came out of my hands. I was fighting on par with that demon, and we exchanged blows with one another. Soon enough, both of us were laying on the ground, dying in mix of dark energy and flames. As my vision grew blurry, I heard an angel's voice.

  "Hey... hey... class is starting soon..."

  I let myself close my eyes.

  ? ? ?

  'Ah... I guess I fell asleep. What a weird dream.'

  I looked at the pretty brown haired girl who had woken me up, and she gave me a leisurely smile.

  "Hiya, the name's Rose. What's yours?"

  "...Gene."

  I yawned and rubbed my eyelids to get rid of the remaining tiredness while Rose patiently waited for me to finish.

  "What's your ability?"

  I blinked for a moment, as I wasn't expecting her to be so straightforward. However, I had no problems with talking about my ability, and so I answered honestly.

  "Dark energy formation. I would show you, but I have ability fatigue right now."

  "Ah~ you're probably one of those kids who fainted during the ranking exam, right?"

  "...Yes, but my fatigue isn't related to that."

  "That's even more impressive."

  "Thank you?"

  Rose let out a light laugh at my slightly confused reaction.

  "I'm being serious, fatigue means you've been working hard. Anyways, my ability is observation. It's a bit abstract, but I can basically sense things that other people don't notice.

  For instance... you seem like a cold person at a first glance, but you're actually very sensible and caring to others. Furthermore... you are quite curious about most things and have a sense of child-like wonder when it comes to something you're interested about."

  "...That's scarily accurate."

  "Thanks for the compliment."

  It was only now that I realized Rose's name tag was blue, signifying that she was part of the support students.

  'I'm curious as to what her exam was like. And the defense students too.'

  Resolving to ask her later, I watched as she twirled her pen while the instructor approached the podium, a sign that class was beginning.

  "You seem pretty neat. Want to hang out more later?"

  "Sure. Only during lunch though, I promised my other friends that I'd spend some time with them."

  "That's fine. Hanging out with one person too much gets boring anyways."

  "Boring? I think it's more stressful."

  Rose let out another small laugh as she heard my response. Soon after our conversation, Instructor Pierre introduced himself to everyone and began teaching economics.

  As a hunter academy, there were obviously classes related to monsters and combat, but there were also a few classes related to the real world. That way, by the time we graduated, we would be responsible adults prepared to lead our own lives.

  'Sometimes I forget that I'm already an adult. I still feel like a high schooler.'

  Letting that thought wander to the back of my mind, I continued listening to Instructor Pierre's teachings. Since it was the first day of economics, he kept the lecture relatively simple, but it was actually very interesting to listen to.

  "...Before the dungeon gates opened and wreaked havoc, paper money and bank cards were common ways of doing transactions. However, after the gates opened, both of those became worthless for a few years. People panicked too much and thought the world was ending, and as a result, there was more trading of goods rather than purchasing of them.

  Paper money became obsolete, but due to advanced technology developed from abilities, bank cards had a resurgence after the world stabilized. Interestingly enough though, trading goods also remained popular, and so a dedicated shopping platform called the Hunter's Marketplace was made..."

  Eventually though, class came to an end, and so Rose and I left the economy classroom to head to lunch.

  ? ? ?

  "Dang, it really is nice up here."

  "Of course it is."

  Today's school lunch was freshly made pizza, and so I was enjoying that with Rose on top of the school roof.

  "How did you even find this place anyways?"

  "Well, it was half luck and half enthusiasm from Red."

  "Red? Oh, that's one of your friends, right? What's he like?"

  "Very energetic, to the point where you can't help but be friends with him. Speaking of which, he'll probably come up here as well, so maybe you can meet him."

  "Really? I suppose I'll look forward to it-"

  "Holy! This view's awesome!"

  We were interrupted by a group of three people who came to the rooftop area, but I recognized them as Red, Seth, and Saya.

  "Speak of the devil."

  "That him?"

  "Yeah, along with my other friends I mentioned."

  "I see."

  Rose hummed in acknowledgement while we watched the group lightheartedly interact with one another for a moment.

  "Haha, I told you it was! But keep your voice down Seth, we wanna keep this place quiet."

  "Sorry about that... wait a sec, ain't that Gene over there?"

  The group turned towards us once Seth took notice of this, and I gave a polite smile and wave in response.

  "It is! Hi Gene!"

  Red grinned and waved back before running up to me with Seth and Saya behind him. They curiously looked at Rose, who they hadn't met yet, and she leaned back on the safety rail before casually introducing herself.

  "I'm Rose. Gene and I met in economics and were amicable enough to become friends, so here I am. Nice to meet you."

  "Hi Rose! I'm Red, and I'm Gene's roommate! Nice to meet you too!"

  "You're really just as lively as he says."

  "Thanks! I like to think of myself as an optimist."

  '...When I said that he was energetic, it was more so a fact than a compliment, but if it makes him happy, then so be it.'

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  After Red spoke, he stepped to the side in order to give Seth and Saya a chance to introduce themselves.

  "We're Seth and Saya, twin brother and sister. Saya's quiet, but she's nice, so treat her well."

  Rose paused for a moment, almost as if she was carefully observing the twins in front of her. Soon after though, she broke into a grin.

  "Will do. It's par for the course, after all. By the way, what's your guys' abilities?"

  There was an abrupt silence as we all realized that we hadn't asked each other this prior to meeting Rose.

  "Let's go around in a circle! I can make white flames!"

  Red's spiritedness brought the atmosphere back on track as a small pillar of white flames burst forth from his palm, causing Seth, Saya, and Rose to either nod in approval or let out a small gasp. I had already seen his flames before from a distance so I wasn't as surprised, but it was still a bit astonishing at just how breathtakingly beautiful they were up close.

  "Pretty."

  "Thank you!"

  After Rose's sentiment, Red put his flames away and indicated towards Seth to show his abilities next.

  "It ain't as flashy, but I can enhance my physical prowess."

  "Oh~ show us! Show us!"

  As a short demonstration, Seth ran over to the other end of the building in a split second and stepped onto the railing, subsequently leaping several meters into the air before doing a backflip.

  Well, trying to do one anyways.

  "O- Ow..."

  Seth overshot and landed straight on his tailbone, causing him to grimace and grumble in pain. But he quickly gave a thumbs up showing he was okay before we even had a chance to display concern, surprising me a little bit.

  "Does physical prowess also include pain perception?"

  "Yeah... a little bit... erm, Saya, wanna show off your ability?"

  Flustered, Seth tried to bring attention off of himself. Fortunately for him, Saya nodded and agreed to display her ability. There was a few moments of silence, and then a random thought popped into my mind.

  'I really want to pet a cat right now... wait, don't tell me-'

  "Anyone else suddenly want to pet a cat right now?"

  Red confirmed my suspicions, and my jaw slightly dropped from amazement.

  "That's incredible... is it like psychic powers?"

  Saya looked towards her brother and nodded, letting him speak for her.

  "A little bit. It's more like psychic influence, and she can't move objects or anything like that."

  Rose seemed to be quite amused at the idea of psychic influence, and she gave a slight smirk.

  "That's impressive. If you used your ability right, you could probably avoid homework for the whole year."

  Saya vigorously shook her head in denial to Rose's statement, causing all of us to laugh. Afterwards, Seth continued to explain their abilities in more depth.

  "In terms of fighting monsters, I can significantly increase my physical strength to beat them with blunt force. Meanwhile, Saya's ability is great at causing confusion and psychic damage to them despite any physical barriers."

  "I see... if you both teamed up, no monster would be able to defend against you."

  "Yeah! You'd be unstoppable!"

  "That's an over exaggeration..."

  Seth said that, but it was clear he and Saya were pretty happy with the compliments Red and I gave him, letting Rose take over the discussion.

  "For my ability, it's a bit more abstract, but I can closely observe things. I showed Gene this earlier, but what I didn't show him is that I can also observe my general surroundings."

  Rose closed her eyes, and she began to accurately describe the scene on the rooftop.

  "There's obviously the four of you standing here, but there's also a family of birds in a tree nearby. Furthermore, on the other side of the rooftop closer to the entrance, there are two groups of four students and three groups of three students."

  Red quickly ran over to the other side of the rooftop to check, and he was widely grinning by the time he came back.

  "You're right! How can you tell with your ability? Is it like a different kind of psychic power?"

  "No, it's more so an extension of my perception and intuition, if that makes sense."

  "Oh~"

  We all nodded in understanding, and it became my turn to talk about my ability.

  "I can materialize about a dagger's worth of dark energy, but I can't show you right now due to ability fatigue."

  "Gene's ability is really good though, trust me!"

  "You haven't even seen it up close though."

  "But when you fought with Instructor Reina, you went like 'swoosh!' when you threw a dark energy spear and then 'bam!' after you shot it out of your hand, it was awesome!"

  Red imitated some of the movements I made during my duel with Instructor Reina, causing me to feel a bit embarrassed.

  "I guess you paid attention more than I thought, huh..."

  "Of course!"

  "Show us it when ya got your ability back, aight?"

  "Sure thing. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I wanted to ask about your exam Rose."

  Rose seemed somewhat surprised at being brought back into the conversation, but she didn't mind.

  "It was pretty interesting. I had to use my ability to help an instructor fight monsters, and we were gauged on how useful our abilities were. How about your guys' exam?"

  "Oh! We got to fight the monsters ourselves, there were multiple rounds, and..."

  For the rest of lunch, the five of us talked about our exams and other related topics, slowly becoming a cohesive friend group.

  ? ? ?

  "Hello everyone, happy Friday! Today, I'll teach you what alchemy exactly is, because things get a lot easier once you understand the knowledge behind it."

  Instructor Lee was his usual enthusiastic self, while Instructor Vex was floating by an electronic presentation behind him with a clicker in his hand. He clicked it once, and the slide changed to a picture of a dungeon gate with some text next to it.

  "Alchemy is the active use of different ingredients from the Otherworld in order to create potions. It only works with ingredients from the Otherworld though, so you can't mix sugar and orc blood and expect a potion, although it is a good additive for taste... Actually, speaking of taste, did you know that there are some popular recipes out there that surprisingly use alchemy ingredients for taste-"

  "Wait until the end of the lesson for interesting facts."

  "Ack! Sorry!"

  Instructor Vex let out a soft sigh as he clicked to the next slide, which showed the periodic table on one side and a bunch of different attribute icons like fire and a water on the other.

  "Anyways, the reason why you can only use Otherworld ingredients in alchemy is because Earth and the Otherworld have different universal laws. Earth is made up from atoms with different properties, while the Otherworld is made up from attributes like darkness or fire.

  When these attributes are added to our bodies, they can cause various changes to them. This is where we get potion effects from! Since ingredients from the Otherworld contain different percentages of attributes, with the right combination, you can create any imaginable effect! This also means that if you know the exact attribute percentages, you can create a potion out of pure attributes and it would have the same effect as one made with ingredients! In fact, it's likely that it would even be of higher quality because there would be no impurities."

  'Oh, that's good news... would making potions out of attributes be the vegetarian equivalent to normal potions?'

  Pushing some strange thoughts out of my head, I watched as the next slide was shown. It was a picture of some translucent mist in the air with a slightly blueish tint.

  "This is mana, and we use it all of the time in alchemy. By definition, mana is a substance with no attribute that acts as the lifeblood for all life in the Otherworld. Because of this, it must be circulated during the potion making process to keep the potion 'alive' in a sense and allow different attributes to mix together. By the way, humans are unable to retain or use mana at all, unlike what some popular media would have you believe. Now for the alchemy tools we use..."

  Instructor Lee described various alchemy tools for the remainder of his lecture. They had a shocking resemblance with typical kitchen appliances, with the exception that they incorporated mana somehow. After he finished, class ended, and so I went to Monster Data, my next class.

  ? ? ?

  It passed by in a flash, and I had learned about the various weaknesses of a goblin during class. They were easy enough to defeat individually even without a strategy, but knowing their weak points and tactics was very useful when facing a large group of them.

  Regardless, classes were over for the day, and so I decided to return to the virtual world and use up my remaining session time for the week.

  'I have ability fatigue right now, so let's train my awareness.'

  Before training my awareness though, I decided to create another hill. Learning my lesson from last time, I made a gentler slope and stood on top of it.

  'This time, it'll be fun - I'm certain of it!'

  With absolute determination, I laid down on the grass and began rolling. And as I suspected, the steepness was the problem. I remained at a constant momentum the whole way down, but it was enough to give me a thrill.

  "Yes! I did it!"

  I broke out a laugh at the bottom of the hill. I let myself enjoy the moment for a few minutes, then I became serious again.

  'Okay, how should I train my awareness?'

  I thought about it for a moment, and then decided to create a group of ten goblins to attack me. They surrounded me as a group and wielded their shabby knifes as they charged. Instead of trying to kill them, I wanted to dodge their attacks and last as long as possible.

  'Goblins like to swarm their enemies, and their attacks consist of jumping or charging with their knives. Alright, let's move to the right to avoid the goblin that's jumping towards my face...'

  I smoothly moved towards the right, and the goblin sailed midair and landed straight on the other side on me. I kept my attention on it, but I also noticed some goblins to my right ready to charge me.

  'I'll go forward to avoid them- ack!'

  I missed the goblin to my far left that sent a knife through my leg, and the pain made me scream. Not wanting to suffer too much, I quickly killed the goblins before allowing my leg to automatically recover.

  '...And this is why training is important. My reflexes will improve through this too.'

  With a firm resolve, I summoned ten more goblins and continued my best efforts in training.