By the time I had finally gotten back to the academy's dormitory, I was covered in a layer of sweat. But that wasn't the first of my troubles right now. Currently, many guards were patrolling the school grounds. I had to find a way to enter the dormitory without alerting the guards.

 

I first climbed over the school fence that was directly parallel to the dormitory. After entering the school grounds, I made sure that no one was alerted by my entrance. Slowly and quietly, I made my way to the front of the dormitory, where the entrance was. I pushed open the door slowly, just enough so that I can squeeze my body inside. Now inside the dormitory, I let out a sigh of relief.

 

Maintaining my pace, I made my way to my room and proceeded to enter it. Once in the safety of my room, the exhaustion of the day's event finally hit me. Without even taking my clothes off, I passed out on top of my bed while still covered in filth.

 

The following day, I woke up feeling like a new person. The sunlight leaked into my room through the small gaps in the drapes, and I could hear the excited chirping of birds from outside. I looked at the time and discovered that I woke up earlier than I typically do.

 

I quickly made my way to the bathroom and proceeded to take a shower and maintain my dental hygiene. While looking in the mirror, I thought about the day before. Yesterday's events still felt surreal to me. What initially would be a quick look turned into a full blown adventure packed with excitement and danger. I touched my waist where the skeleton cut me. The cut has already sealed up from a night of rest. The injury reminded me of just how dangerous and foolish my actions were last night. Even one of the weakest dungeons nearly ended my life prematurely. The brush with death unknowingly made me slightly more mature. I thought to myself that I could not repeat the same foolish actions I did yesterday. Going into a dungeon without researching what monsters it contains, not bringing suitable gear, and not taking it seriously initially are actions that could've cost me my life. Fortunately, it didn't, this time.

 

As I stood there reflecting on my actions, I remembered that I had a monster core that was worth a lot of money. The anticipation of making money lifted my spirit as I quickly finished brushing my teeth in the bathroom.

 

Back in my room, I held the monster core in the palm of my hand. Monster cores have many uses; there are reasons why they are valued so highly. They are the dominant source of energy of today's world. When humans first discovered the high concentration of energy in monster cores. Other energy sources such as coal, gas, and green fuels wholly faded out of relevancy. Those energy sources couldn't hold a candle against monster cores.

 

In addition to being the best energy source, monster cores are also the crucial material used to create hunter gear that hunters use in dungeons. Monster cores could also be used to concatenate medicine capable of healing injuries, diseases, and viruses that modern medicine isn't capable of yet. It wouldn't be a long shot to say that modern medicine today revolves around monster cores. The monster core's energy can also be used as batteries for magicians. When a magician is lacking mana, they can easily extract mana from monster cores to replenish their mana reserves. Therefore, monster cores are crucial in learning magic because it allows the magician to replenish their mana faster rather than waiting around for a few hours before they can practice again.

 

The list of what monster cores could do is endless. Even I don't know the full extent of it. I just know the more relevant ones. As I looked at the monster core, I wondered where I could sell it to make money. I could list it up online for an auction. However, the grade of this monster core is low. Therefore, it won't attract much traction and because there have been many cases of people getting scammed by buying monster cores online. Hence, people are always skeptical when monster cores are up for sale on public, commercial sites. The only place I could think of where I can sell this monster core quickly is the Grand Exchange. They are the primary place where people purchase monster cores. The Grand Exchange could guarantee the monster core's quality and legitimacy. However, I would be losing out a lot by selling through them, but that's something unavoidable as I have nowhere else to sell it to.

 

I decided when school ends today. I'll head over to the closest branch of the Grand Exchange and sell my monster core. Hopefully, they give me a good deal. I looked at the time again and saw that I still had two hours before school starts. Using the free time, I changed into some athletic gear and headed to the school track. I will spend these two hours training my body.

 

I did push-ups, sit-ups, squats, sprints, and distance running in the two hours. After training intensely, I was covered in a layer of sweat once more, so I had to head back to the bathroom to shower. This time, many of the other boys had already gotten up and were also showering in the bathroom. Nothing eventful happened in the bathroom as I headed back to my room after showering.

 

In my room, I took a quick look at my stats.

 

Name: Gideon Lenoir

Age: 15

Title: N/A

Bloodline: N/A

Class: N/A

Strength: F

Agility: F+

Endurance: F-

Intellect: E-

Wisdom: F-

Luck: B+

Abilities: Sprinting (F) → Sprinting (F+)

Techniques: N/A

Status: Healthy

 

Sprinting (F+) (Max: D+): The ability for the user to run very fast at the cost of higher energy consumption.

 

I noticed that the level of my sprinting skill raised from an E to an E+. Progress is progress, I thought, I'll take it rather than getting nothing. I got dressed in the school's attire and proceeded to head to my first period class. I have seven periods. They go in the order, math, English, science, history, general knowledge, fighting lessons, and magic lessons.

 

As I sat in my math classroom, waiting for the class to start. I thought about what I would do today after school. First, I would sell the monster core, then what? Do I head back to the dungeon in hopes of getting another monster core, or do I spend money improving my skills, stats, or gear?

 

When I was still thinking about my plans for the day, the class finally started. The first half of the day passed quickly, and it was now lunchtime. Nothing too eventful happened during the first four classes. In math, we learned math. In English, we read literature. In science, we learned about Biology. And, in history, the teacher told us more stories of the glorious feats of the Chosen ones. Today's lunch wasn't great. You really can't expect much from school food. It was soggy mashed potatoes, some boiled broccoli, and a slab of steak that's probably sat in the fridge for a while now.

 

Everyone in the cafeteria was sitting by themselves. Well, at this point, we were all still strangers to each other. I could see some groups forming in the cafeteria, but they were pretty small in size. As I was eating my lunch, another boy from my class sat right across from me. I took a quick look at him. He messy black hair, clear brown eyes, a high nose, and sharp eyebrows. His uniform was a little unkempt, probably because he put it on in a rush this morning, and he was a little skinny but not to the extent of being frail. Just as I observed him, he observed me.

 

He spoke first, "Hello, my name is Jack. What's yours?"

 

"Gideon," I replied.

 

We both sat there for a moment.

 

"What did you think of today's class?" asked Jack.

 

I replied to Jack's questions by saying, "Nothing much, wasn't very interesting."

 

"Same," Jack replied.

 

The silence between us continued. To relieve the awkward mood, I asked Jack, "Are you looking forward to the afternoon classes?"

 

Jack quickly replied, "Yeah, you?"

 

"Yeah," I replied to Jack.

 

The awkward silence unfortunately continued. Damn. This is more stressful than fighting the skeletons, I thought. Fortunately, to both our relief, the bell sounded, so we quickly got up and headed to our following classes.

 

Our next class was the general knowledge class. In this class, the teacher taught us the many different monsters found in dungeons, including their strengths and weaknesses, from avoiding them to the best way of killing them. We were also taught basic survival skills like how to keep warm when cold because as the difficulty of the dungeon increases, not only will the rewards be a lot greater the scope of the dungeon will also increase. Hunter will often be in dungeons for days, if not weeks before they come out. So knowing how to survive in many different situations and with limited food and water is very important. Lastly, the class informed us of the many different battle formations hunters use while in dungeons. Because this was our first class, the teacher only briefly mentioned all of this without going in-depth in any of them, which is entirely reasonable.

 

Next was the battle class. One of two classes I have been looking forward to all day. The same might be true for the majority of the other students here. The teacher of the battle class was a big burly man with tanned skin and a scar across his face over his left eye who refers to himself as Mr. Ding. Call him anything else besides his preferred name, and you'll be in for a beating. And pity to those who dared to make fun of Mr. Ding's scarred eye. They were hanged upside down, clothesless, in front of the school for the entire class duration.

 

For the first lesson, Mr. Ding introduced himself to the class in a menacing fashion, and when he noticed a group of boys snickering in the back, he immediately called up the one who was the loudest to come next to him. Following that, Mr. Ding proceeded to tell us today's lesson plan. Today we would be training our barehanded fighting skills. Mr. Ding exclaimed that he'd like us to give us a demonstration of how to fight barehanded.

 

The boy who was snickering earlier now realized what was going on. An immediate look of terror was plastered onto his face. Before the boy could even beg for his forgiveness, Mr. Ding punched him right in the gut. Following the punch, Mr. Ding performed many barehanded attacks. Following every punch was a short scream after a total of 8 punches. Mr. Ding turned toward the rest of the class and started pairing students together to spar.

 

I was paired against a boy who was slightly shorter than I was. We first touched fist as an act of courtesy before going right at it. Throughout the fight, I had the upper hand due to my higher agility. I was able to dodge many of his attacks and counterattack immediately after. For every punch he dished out, I was able to dish out two more. After fighting for about five minutes, Mr. Ding told everyone to stop and made us rotate partners before fighting again. We did this for the entire class before the bell rang.

 

Everyone was tired, but their eye's all sparkled with intense anticipation and excitement. The reason, the next class, was the magic class.