Author's Note: I will be doing a couple of new things, but for now, these "{}" brackets will be used for flashbacks. Now enjoy the chapter.
(Lyon POV)
When Teacher Levina started speaking about the origin of Innate Spirits, Lyon was reminded of what he himself had been taught by his uncle.
{
"Lyon, come here for a second!" His uncle yelled, sending a much younger Lyon running from the comforts of the tree he had been sleeping under.
He had been practicing his combat senses according to his uncle's instructions for the last few hours and thought he was finally done.
Grumbling, the eight-year-old Lyon made his way to his uncle, pouting when he finally reached him after five minutes of running.
"Muncle, what do you want!?! You promised I would be done for the rest of the day. You can't go back on your promise, that's not something a proud warrior should do."
Deciding to interrupt his precious nephew before he went off on a tangent, Uncle Mark scooped up the young boy, effectively shutting him up as he tried to process how he was now sitting in his uncle's lap.
"Now, Lyon, I would never go back on my word," Mark began with a smile.
Feeling his nephew settle down after finding out he wasn't going to be 'tortured' with more training, he got to what he wanted to say.
"So, Lyon, it is almost a certainty you will be going to the Heaven Class of the royal academy in a few years.
"In order to prepare you for that, I have decided to teach you some of the more sensitive information you will need to understand. Today we won't go too far, and will start with your Innate Spirit."
Looking interested, if not slightly confused, Lyon waved his hand.
"If we're going to talk about that, Azera should be here too."
Almost as if summoned by her name, the little dragon appeared from the shadow of a nearby tree.
She scurried over to the two males, crawling halfway up Mark's legs before resting her head in Lyon's lap.
"Now that everyone is here, let me begin. First off, you must understand that your mother and father had different types of Innate Spirits, and that caused a lot of problems for their relationship long before you were born.
"You see, spirits work by a process of amalgamation. In simple words, if two people have a lizard for an Innate Spirit and have a child, the child will normally have a stronger lizard Innate Spirit than both of his parents.
"And likewise, it works the same for every other type of spirit, including Tool Spirits."
He continued, "The problem with people of different Innate Spirits having children is that it normally weakens both sides to make one inferior product.
"If a person with a sparrow spirit and a person with a spider spirit got together, the product would be a spider spirit with no poison affinity, or a sparrow that lacks wind affinity.
"This type of weakening and strengthening is only more potent in families with a decidedly 'pure' lineage like ours."
Checking to make sure Lyon and Azera were still following him, he saw them nodding their heads with confusion visible on their faces.
And lord, a confused baby dragon was really an interesting sight.
Chuckling to himself, he continued.
"While there's a lot more to explain about this, what I wanted to talk to you about was Azera and the fact of her having a mutation."
Seeing the looks of displeasure on his young charges' faces, Mark rushed to continue before they could go off.
"Her having a mutation is not a bad thing. In fact, far from it, it's a great thing. She is supremely unique as far as we can tell.
"Normally, the dragon spirit of our family has shadow affinity only. This alone has given our family a massive boon.
"With Azera, however, you received her dragon heritage and shadow affinity from your father, and also got the lightning affinity from your mother's spirit."
Lyon still looked confused.
"Why is that such a big deal, though? Shouldn't that make sense since they must have been equally strong and thus merged?"
Mark laughed at the simplicity of his nephew's thoughts, but he continued all the same.
"There are a lot of reasons why that doesn't work, but to keep it simple, it's down to compatibility.
"Each person has a different level of compatibility that can be completely different even if both of a person's parents had the same compatibility for the same affinities.
"With so many factors and the possibility of it all going wrong just because, I think you can imagine how rare you really are."
Lyon looked at Azera very seriously.
She stared back at her human, amethyst eyes meeting forest green.
For a moment, the two seemed to communicate by thought, something that shouldn't be possible until the third Mental realm.
Finally, Lyon looked back to his uncle and gathered his thoughts before giving his final analysis on his uncle's words.
"Soo, Azera is a one-in-a-billion-trillion anomaly that will become the best ever, right?" Lyon spoke with as firm a voice as an eight-year-old could manage.
Mark burst out laughing but didn't forget to nod his head in agreement.
"Not quite that exaggerated, but yes, that is correct."
(Flashback over)
}
Lyon had a faint smile on his face as he recalled those fond memories.
Despite the nostalgia, however, he hadn't stopped paying attention to Teacher Levina's words on the subject.
"I noticed some of the students were more than surprised to see Ms. Alicia had twin spirits, so I will explain a little bit about what that is.
"Normally, when two people with Spirits of equal strength but opposite natures and affinities have a child, the child's spirit will be a weaker version of one of the spirits.
"Normally, they will get the same spirit as whichever parent they share a gender with. While this doesn't always happen, it's very rare for the offspring to be born with better talent.
"In some very, very rare cases, that require a host of miracles all on their own, the child will be born with both spirits occupying the exact same amount of space in their genetics. This allows the child to awaken what we call twin spirits."
Lyon listened quietly.
He couldn't help but compare what Levina was saying to what his uncle had taught him years ago.
Mutations and twin spirits weren't the same thing.
Yet both seemed to revolve around the same fundamental problem.
Compatibility.
It was almost as if the Innate Spirit itself was constantly making decisions about what it could and couldn't accept.
And sometimes, for reasons that even the adults couldn't fully explain, it decided to break the rules.
Lyon's eyes briefly wandered towards Alicia.
She was listening just as calmly as ever, seemingly unaffected by the attention her twin spirits had already drawn.
Considering what he had learned about Azera years ago, Lyon couldn't help wondering just how many other unusual Innate Spirits existed in the world.
By this point, four hours had already passed since the students found themselves transported into the auditorium.
The initial excitement of arriving at the Academy had long since been replaced by information overload.
Some students were still paying close attention to Teacher Levina.
Others looked like they were barely keeping themselves awake.
Teacher Levina seemed to have realized something.
"Ah, I almost forgot the time. You students can follow Teacher Virden, and he will lead you to the cafeteria for the first-year students.
"I will be seeing you all after lunch, and we will talk about your cultivation so far, including using your affinities and other unique quirks.
"As a friendly reminder, I will also tell you that today is the only day that we will be going over such basic information, so you better make sure you know everything or write it down.
"From tomorrow onwards, we will begin the process of weeding out all those unsuitable for this course."
That last sentence immediately caught everyone's attention.
Teacher Levina then smiled.
"Now, now, there's no need to get all flustered about that. Everyone will be starting at the same point in these tests.
"We don't want the strongest. We want the ones who will go the farthest and push to better themselves more than their peers.
"Remember that making it to this class in the first place means you already have the potential. You just have to learn to tap into it."
All the students couldn't help feeling like they had both been motivated and threatened at the same time.
Lyon almost wanted to laugh.
The teachers had somehow managed to tell them they were special while also reminding them that most of them probably wouldn't last.
It was definitely a strange day, and it was only shaping up to become stranger.
For some reason, though, Lyon couldn't help feeling excited about his future at the Academy.
There was something about being surrounded by people who could actually challenge him that made his blood feel lighter.
Teacher Virden had stood up and walked towards the door before he turned around.
He waved his hand, and all the students saw a green flash spread from his palm.
The light arced up above their heads before splintering into dozens of falling pieces that landed gently on all the students.
When the light show ended, the students found a wooden pin attached to their shirts, a golden crown on a white background imprinted into the soft wood.
"These will be your temporary Heaven Class badges. You will get permanent ones if you make it through the Hell Month.
"For now, they will work as your identification, communication device, and wallet, with one cubic foot of storage available for personal use."
Teacher Virden spoke up about the wooden badges, making some of the students exclaim in wonder.
Several immediately began inspecting theirs.
Lyon looked at his own badge and mobilized a trace of kei energy into it.
As expected, he could sense the small space contained within.
It was filled with some introductory books, a few changes of clothes, and some more miscellaneous items he didn't know the use of yet.
He briefly wondered why whoever prepared the badge had decided those things were necessary.
Then again, Lyon wasn't exactly going to complain about free storage.
Deciding he would find out later if it didn't end up being brought up at some point, Lyon stood from his seat and began to make his way towards Teacher Virden.
Now that he was thinking about it, Lyon was starving.
He really hoped they had burgers.
And fresh fish for Azera.
She had been kicking up a fuss in his head ever since he called her back into his body after the fight.
He had half a mind to just let her stay in his shadow, but she wasn't yet able to remain in the shadow state for very long periods without taking breaks.
Not to mention, she would still be bored.
And a bored Azera was rarely a good thing.
She might run around the classroom making trouble, chew on something she wasn't supposed to, or somehow find a way to get him blamed for something he hadn't even done.
Yeah, she was going to have to stay inside for a while longer.
He sent a thought towards her, telling her to calm down.
The response he received was less than cooperative.
Lyon sighed.
Apparently, the concept of patience was still something his little dragon companion had yet to master.
She finally relented after he bribed her with the promise of fish and belly rubs, though Lyon knew they were nowhere near done with this conversation.
As he followed the other students towards the cafeteria, Lyon couldn't help glancing around the unfamiliar halls.
The Academy was still largely a mystery to him.
Yesterday, he had been excited about finally getting here.
Today, he had already fought an opponent capable of surviving one of his strongest attacks, watched teachers combine completely opposing attributes, learned about twin spirits, and discovered that tomorrow the Academy would begin deciding who was actually worthy of staying in the Heaven Class.
And, somehow, he was looking forward to finding out what would happen next.
If this was only the first day, Lyon could only imagine what the rest of the Academy had waiting for him.