Michael frowned as he looked into the bucket of water, not recognizing the face reflected back into his vision.

Gone was his blond hair and golden eyes which signified his lineage as that of the Venture household, leaving only dark black eyes and dirty brown hair.

Michael sighed, before slumping down onto his hard bed, frustrated at his new reality. 

A new body with memories that were not his? He didn't need to be a genius to understand what was happening to him.

Just like the protagonists of those books that were popular in the capital, he had been reborn in a new body.

What didn't make any sense however was that he didn't remember dying a tragic death or sacrificing himself for someone else, rather, he had just gone to bed and woke up this way.

The only reason he wasn't panicking now was the years of conditioning forced onto him as a scion of a prestigious noble house, which allowed him to keep calm even in such a situation.

'Think Michael, what could have made this possible?"

There were various reasons such a thing could happen to him, each one more ludicrous then the other.

Eliminating options such as mad gods or playful phantasmal magic beasts, there was only one reasonable option remaining. 

Soul magic.

A banned form of magic only used by Necromancer's, anyone found using it in the kingdom of Valencia would be hunted down with impunity. The Soul magic of the Necromancer's had forever shed the type of magic in a bad light, making it into a forbidden magic.

Examples of such magic corresponded to his situation, as there were stories of Necromancer's taking the souls of well-known nobles, replacing them with their own pawns as an elaborate scheme to gain their wealth and power.

Surely, a necromancer had targeted his body with such magic to take over his power and vast fortune as heir to the Venture name. In fact, Michael was a perfect candidate for such a thing.

He and his father had a distant relationship, his only friends were his lackeys that didn't know him on a personal level, and his relationship with his fiancé was so antagonistic, their hate for each other was well-known through-out the whole capital. 

All in all, he was the perfect target for such a scheme, and Michael would have thought that the Necromancer was an old hand if not for the fact that his soul had escaped and he wasn't foregoing in some dead corpse in eternal servitude.

So, he surmised that the Necromancer that targeted him must be powerful and clever but inexperienced, allowing his soul to escape in a moment of weakness. After all, it wasn't as if a Necromancer would know about the Venture Lineage's hereditary ability, [Warrior's Soul], which made him resistant to Soul and Mental attacks.

But the bigger question was, was their someone behind the Necromancer? After all, the person who had taken over his body would be exposed easily by a high-powered individual, and as a Venture, he was constantly around said individuals.

"It's not like it really matters."

Getting up from his bed, Michael grabbed a letter from his desk, of which the contents congratulated him for getting into the Valencia Royal Academy. 

His current body, Leon Argent, was an orphan from the monster outbreak in the northern part of the kingdom, and had been training for his revenge his whole entire life. He had managed to ace the swordsmanship test with full points, getting into the Royal Academy's new Commoner Program.

Now he, Michael, would also attend the Academy as Leon, and since his previous body would also attend the academy because of his noble obligations, it would be a perfect opportunity to sound out his body stealer.

After all, any rash attempts at investigation or revealing his existence might lead to him getting silenced. The academy was the perfect place to gain more power and get his revenge.

"Beware Necromancer, for you have no idea whose body you decided to mess with."