Ares walked in the dim hallway and didn't meet anyone at all. The lighting was set as low as possible and there was no window at all. 

 

 

Today was the last day of the elective week and by tomorrow the students needed to send their elective list to their class administrator.

 

 

Ares had attended a few elective classes and had shortlisted a few of them to choose from.

 

"You want to try to join the Monster Cooking class? I know you're a good cook and since you're interested, I will put your name in Assistant Professor Ciel's list," Zerisa said a few days ago after she heard what Ares planned to choose for his elective.

 

 

It was also the same class his grandparents wanted him to enroll in for some reason.

 

 

"You can also try to attend the Spiritualist Beginner class," Zerisa reminded since it was their mother's suggestion.

 

 

Despite knowing that he might not have affinity with spirits, it was not a waste of time to go take a look by attending the class thus Ares agreed especially when Zerisa said it was their mother's suggestion.

 

 

He checked his smartwatch and confirmed he was indeed in the right direction towards the Spiritualist class hall.

 

 

It was unknown why the class was being held in an underground floor of the first year building that seemed to have been abandoned.

 

 

 

-Creak

 

 

Upon arriving in front of a metal door with intricate design on it with a sign that read: Spirits Introduction Class, Ares pushed open the door.

 

 

The moment he stepped in, there were already a few students inside but all of them looked tense and confused for some reason.

 

"Hey, I think we entered the wrong class."

 

 

"But this is the only class the noble will not choose. Maybe we can give it a try," another student whispered.

 

 

Ares could hear them clearly and he knew why they thought like that. The hierarchy between the students is not only divided by the rankings system but also by the nobility system.

 

 

Certain popular electives like Alchemy, Combat Magic and Magic Swordsman were mostly dominated by nobles and only a small fraction of commoners managed to shine in those classes.

 

 

The commoners had their own union called the Commoner Student Union or CSU and the seniors would tell their juniors which elective that would benefit them the most and that would let them easily pass during the test without having to compete with the nobles.

 

 

The nobles also had their own union which was led by the current Vice Secretary of the Students Councils, Rodrigo Reinheart and it was called the Noblesse. Based on the name, people could already guess it wasn't anything good.

 

 

Instead of helping students, Noblesse instead bestows gifts to noble students that managed to get high rankings and defeat the commoners student. They also encouraged duel between students. The purpose of the union was to suppress the commoner students and to create social connections with each noble student that would last until adulthood.

 

 

During this time, the seniors already started to recruit freshmen into their clubs and Ares got an invitation from Noblesse which obviously he just ignored.

 

 

Walking to a seat at the back of the class, he saw a glass ball on each of the tables. Before he even managed to touch it, suddenly a voice reverberated from in front of the class.

 

 

"Times up. Take your seat properly."

 

 

Looking around, Ares just realized a man was actually sitting beside the door while reading a book. The same door he came in.

 

 

 

 

The man had really pale skin and gloomy black eyes with obvious eye bags underneath his eyes. He was wearing a black robe with an insignia of the God of Death church.

 

 

'Wait, am I in a theology class? Isn't this supposed to be a Spiritualist class?' Ares was confused when he saw the instructor that looked like a priest and he wasn't the only one to feel that way.

 

 

 

"I'm Vlad Alucard, the professor in charge of this class. I look forward to teaching you all," he said after closing the book in his hand and stood up in front of the class.

 

 

He continued speaking when the students remained silent, "This is a Spiritualist Introduction class. The thing on your desk is actually made from a spirit star stone. Spirit star stone is like the mana core you get from monsters inside a dungeon. It's an ore that is sensitive to mana and also to those who have affinity with spirits.

 

Just like every of us have affinity with certain magic elements, we also can either have affinity with spirits or not have any affinity with spirits at all. This class will help you to introduce the spirit that might have affinity with you.

 

Most people believe that spirits are picky and don't like humans, which isn't true. Many spirits wanted to be with humans but they couldn't find suitable contractors among the humans so this class will help those who are interested in Spirits and also the Spirits who want to find human contractors.

 

Everyone got up from your seat and infused your mana into the ball."

 

 

 

Ares listened to the explanation carefully, 'Is Heptagon purposely try to produce more Spiritualists among humans? Since Zerisa asked me to give it a try, maybe I can just go with the flow.'

 

 

Ares followed the instruction without any expectation.

 

 

The moment he touched the ball, it suddenly floated, thus he looked around and saw the same thing also happened with other students.

 

 

 

 

"Arghhh!" Suddenly one of the student's balls started to float too high and almost pierced the ceiling.

 

 

"Calm down and control your mana properly. If you can't do this much, how can you be with a spirit."

 

 

"Ok thank you Sir-urgh," the ball suddenly fell down and hit the student's head.

 

 

"Please be careful not to destroy the ball."

 

 

 

"Err do you mean 'Please be careful not to get hurt'?"

 

 

"Try making the ball float again and move it in a circular motion," Vlad said, ignoring the student's words.

 

 

In order not to be like that student, Ares tries his best to control how much mana he injected into the ball and move it in a circle.

 

 

"Professor, I made it. It moves in a circle," one student exclaimed.

 

 

"Do it again."

 

 

 

"...Ah ok."

 

 

"We are not going to do this for the entire two hours class, right?" One student whispered.

 

 

 

"Professor, when should we stop moving it around in a circle?" One student asked.

 

 

 

"? When you can do it even in your sleep, of course."

 

 

 

"......"

 

 

 

"Sir, can I go to the toilet?"

 

 

"No need to ask permission for that," Sir Vlad replied. He already sat down and read his book again, acting like he didn't notice the students started leaving the class one by one until only one student left.

 

 

 

Ares looked around and he was the only student left. Instead of feeling demotivated, he  realized something about the ball which seemed to absorb mana more efficiently. The Targael did give him a similar ball like the one he was currently using to play around but it felt different.

 

 

Thus Ares decided to ask, "Sir, is this ball an artifact? It feels different compared to a mana orb used for magic practice control."

 

 

 

Vlad Alucard didn't expect such a question and took a moment before he answered, "Yes the two are different. The one you're using is, like I said, made of Spirit Star stone meanwhile the Magic Orbs are made from mana stalagmites, a bit mixture of a special type of glass that could conduct mana and special ceramics powder. If you can sense the differences, it only means two things, you're either sensitive to mana or you have affinity with the spirits or maybe both."

 

 

 

"So how can I know which one I'm?"

 

 

 

"It takes time to know with many repetitive exercises. Most of them are not that hard," Vlad answered honestly.

 

 

He had been in Heptagon for five years and he never had any students except during his first year in Heptagon where he had a few students who were exchange students from other academies and also a dark elf student, that was it.

 

 

The Chief Director never said anything about him not having any students since his contract only stated that he just needed to hold a class every year and it didn't matter if no students attended the class.

 

 

However, Vlad never cared about it and that was why he always liked to stay in the empty lecture hall, reading books, hoping for the time to pass with no one in attendance.

 

 

Thus to think that a student seemingly interested in his class, finally shattering his expectation.

 

 

Vlad was a second son of a Baron and his brother was the heir thus he never cared much about knowing about other nobles but looking at the red haired student in front of him, from the way he talked and walked, Vlad could discern he was from a great noble family.

 

 

This kind of mature temperament and way of talking couldn't be tempered overnight or by copying others.

 

'I really hope he can continue attending this class throughout the semester.'

 

 

While Vlad was in deep thought Ares on the other hand continued moving the ball in a circular shape while trying to input different magic elements into it.

 

 

Seeing that Ares kept continuing what he was told to do like an obedient student, Vlad said, "Do you want to see what a spirit looks like?"

 

 

It was the first time he offered this to anyone since the spirits didn't like it if he asked them to appear in front of other people.

 

"Ok," Ares replied and instantly a huge furry creature that looked like half yeti and half Bigfoot stood in front of him.

 

 

"This is the spirit that can manipulate plants and woods. It also can grant tremendous physical prowess to its contractor. Its name is Gina."

 

 

 

"Hello," Ares said politely.

 

 

 

"........Boy don't you feel something is weird?" Gina asked.

 

 

 

She thought Ares might freak out when he saw a monster looking spirit when most people always thought spirits looked like cute looking faeries.

 

 

 

"No?" Ares was confused.

 

 

Siegfried did indeed tell him that spirits actually looked hideous but Gina looked way better than he expected so he didn't really understand what Gina meant.

 

 

 

"Don't you think I'm hideous?"

 

 

 

"No. You looked better than I thought."

 

 

 

"!!!!! Vlad, I like this kid! I want to make a contract with him," Gina exclaimed.

 

 

 

"No. It is too soon. He is human and no humans can have a contract with more than one spirit," Vlad replied.

 

 

 

Seeing Ares watching the two of them, Vlad explained, "Gina is a friendly spirit and she was the one who introduced me to many other contractless spirits and that was how I met my contract spirit Dula which is a water spirit. Dula, show yourself."

 

 

 

Ares actually didn't know if he was hallucinating or whether what he saw around the class was real or not. He already saw the woman with red serpent hair always standing near Vlad since the moment Ares saw him.

 

 

As he expected, it was Dula, Vlad's contracted spirit.

 

 

'Does this mean I can somehow see spirits so is that grey fur ball with big eyes and ears that I always floating on Prince Theo's shoulder, his wind spirit?'

 

 

"Hey kid," Dula said awkwardly before hiding behind Gina.

 

 

 

"Hello. Nice to meet you."

 

 

"Nice to meet you too. We have the same hair color," Dula said, pointing to the red serpents moving on her head and showing off their red fangs.

 

 

"It seems so."

 

 

 

"In the next class, I will introduce you to another spirit and you can ask them anything," Vlad threw a bait to make sure Ares chose his class as one of his electives.

 

 

 

"Sure. I will come meet you again next week." Ares decided not to tell anyone that he could see spirits since he was sure not even an elf could see them without them purposely revealing themselves.

 

He didn't want to be more and more abnormal than he already was.

 

"You can go and take a rest early."

 

 

"Thank you Sir."

 

 

"Bye bye kid. Don't forget to get more sunlight or you will be as pale as this guy. He looked paler than the undead," Gina said playfully.

 

 

"See you again," Dula said from behind Gina.

 

"See you guys later."

 

 

After Ares was gone, Gina's cheerful demeanor immediately changed as she turned around and said, "What's wrong with you guys?"

 

 

There were around five weaker spirits in the room but none of them wanted to get near any of the students for some reason.

 

 

They remained silent and were currently shivering as if there were some force making them scared.

 

 

"Gina, I felt a huge force but I don't know what it is. It's like something urging me to bow down my head and get on my knee. Both of us are stronger middle rank spirits so maybe that is why it didn't affect us much but since I'm sensitive, I still can feel it. If I can feel it, these poor lesser rank spirits must feel really helpless themselves," Dula said.

 

 

"What are you guys talking about?" Vlad asked because he didn't feel anything.

 

 

"There's someone among the students just now that scared the lesser spirits," Dula explained.

 

 

"Hey look at the name list, maybe we can guess which one," Gina suggested.

 

 

It was a digital name list complete with pictures and other details of each student such as their rank and class.

 

 

"Hey isn't that kid just now? He was ranked first," Gina saw Ares's picture among the list of students.

 

 

 

"I like his style," Dula said.

 

 

 

"Ehem, don't you guys want to search for which one of them managed to scare off the lesser spirits?" Vlad reminded me.

 

 

 

"Can we really know just by looking at the list?" Gina said.

 

 

'Aren't you the one who suggested looking at the list. Don't tell me she just wants to know what Ares's name is.' Vlad thought.

 

 

"Let's take a walk outside so you guys can calm down," Vlad said to the lesser spirits.

 

 

"Sounds fun. Let's walk around the training ground. I want to see those kids fighting each other," Gina suggested.

 

 

'And later you will complain why they are so weak?' Vlad thought.