I woke up and prepped my self for class, as i was making my way there however i ran into a slight issue. A group of students blocked my path and all glared at me. 

-We challenge you to a duel! 

-Who are you? 

-We are the ones who'll defeat you and rescue the Princess!

-And how exactly do think you'll do that? 

-By challenging you to a handicap duel! If we win you'll have to stay away from the Princess! 

-And if i win, then what? 

-We... We'll give you school points! 

-Fair enough. 

I walked past them and got to class. It seems that their loud and public announcement became talk of the school, though that may be due to the Princess being the prize. I started wondering if such a match and the bet would even be allowed, but i suddenly received a notification from the principal, it told me that such a match is allowed and the bet will be accepted. Old man must've been watching me. I just listened to people gossip and chat till lunch time. 

I went to the arena only to see that they were waiting for me, i also saw Claire so i gave her a smile. I drew my wing blade and waited for my opponents to strike. They have 5 members who are wielding a sword, a mace, a pair of daggers, a tower shield to my surprise and interestingly a rapier. They attacked simultaneously so they were somewhat competent but they didn't coordinate their attack. I quickly blocked and parried the sword and daggers while simply dodging the mace and rapier. The tower shield tried to block my rear and push me towards his teammates but i simply spun around him. 

Eventually the match became a brawl with my opponents simply randomly attacking in my direction. I played them against each other and whenever two of them tried to land simultaneous blows i parried one with my sword and gently nudged the other with my finger thus throwing off his aim. After a few minutes of this i decided to go on the offensive, i hit hard and hit fast quickly taking down the tower shield by jumping over him and smacking him in the back. The others simply couldn't keep up with my speed and were dispatched just as fast. Once i was sure they wouldn't be getting up soon i walked out the arena. 

I went back to class and things went back to normal. After class I made my way to the R&D department, where the Academy's brightest minds tinkered with stuff to see if it would work. I borrowed an empty laboratory and started drafting my design. Just as i start drawing Claire popped in and asked me what i was doing. 

-What.. Are you doing? 

-I'm designing a new Photon reactor.

-A new design? What's its function? 

-It's going to be extremely compact to allow multiple functions to be installed in it. That way weapons can have dual abilities. 

-That would be a major breakthrough! Are you sure you can do it? 

-Yeah, you don't think so? 

-No.. I just thought you wouldn't mind to have me help. 

-Sure, com here and take a look. 

Claire walked over to my design and barraged me with questions, soon i basically started teaching here about the design and subtly guide her in designing the reactor. I could give her the answer but i want to know how clever this bookworm really is. To my surprise she caught on quick and started to rapidly draw ideas and sketches down. I pointed out mistakes and helped her with some of the equations. My original plan was to just dumb down my wing blades photon reactor substantially amd and convert it to work with the technology here but Claire gave me a more interesting option. 

We continued our little high speed discussion till evening, i stored the designs and together with Claire locked up the laboratory and returned the key. While walking back to my dorm i decide to summon Epsilon when i get back, i have a new job for her. 

-Yes sir? 

-I want you to investigate Claire's background. 

-The white haired girl you've been talking to recently? 

-Yeah her. 

-Understood, give me a few moments. 

I waited for Epsilon to finish going through the Academy's database, strangely she seem to take her time before finally answering me. 

-Sir, it seems she's related to the GRM corporation. 

-GRM huh, the largest general research and manufacturing company in the world. What does she have to do with them? 

-She's an experiment, apparently GRM had human experimentation led by a Professor Sasha Winthrop. From my rapid search of their database Claire is the result of a project designed to create artificial humans with superior Photonic compatibility. 

-So essentially a super soldier. Anything else? 

-The test results i gathered shows that while she has vast photon capacity she suffers from poor muscle growth. The tests also indicate that she has slightly different brain patterns which made it difficult for testers to actually train her. 

-That explains her poor social skills and general frailty. But why is she here? If such info came out GRM would be in deep shit. 

-It seems that its another test and to see if she could pass as a human. 

-What did the reports classify her anyway, and are there anymore of her? 

-The reports call her the "Newman" and she's the only successful version of her kind. The rest have been disposed off.

-I see, Epsilon start digging up GRMs secrets specifically, and others large corporations in general. Governments may have dirty secrets but corporations are far more interesting to break and take control. 

-Understood, anything else? 

-No, that's all. 

She disappears and i go to the kitchen to brew some coffee, i read through the reports and anything else Epsilon dug up as a way to spend the evening. This world gets more and more interesting by the day.