Another sunny day. Then again, it was always sunny this time of year. Leo Stevens lounged in the apartment his parents rented for him, the blue glow of his phone the only light in the late-night darkness. He'd just finished his daily grind on EAFC Mobile, a curse on his lips as his pack luck once again denied him the legendary Gullit.
"Absolute garbage," he muttered, swiping the game closed. He switched to binge-watching anime until his eyes grew heavy and dry. An unapologetic otaku and gamer—that was Leo. Before succumbing to sleep, he decided to check his first-year university results. A jolt of pure joy shot through him. "A 4.5 GPA? Yes!" He pumped a fist in the air, a triumphant end to a perfectly average day. Life was good.
---
He woke up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room.
"What the heck?" he slurred, his brain still fuzzy with sleep. The mattress was too soft, the sheets too silken.
An answer came from a figure standing respectfully by the door. "Young Master, please cease this morning's antics and get dressed. You resume at the Alliance Academy today."
Leo's eyes snapped open. Transmigrated? The thought was an ice-cold splash of water. Why me? He was happy with his life! Sure, he'd joked about wanting to escape to a world of anime and power fantasies, but he never meant it. This was not the isekai he'd ordered. A silent lament rose in his throat, but was quickly stifled.
Thankfully, years of... well, being himself... had instilled a certain baseline arrogance. He slipped into the "young master" role with surprising ease. "Dismissed," he said, his voice still rough but carrying an unfamiliar note of command. The butler bowed and retreated.
Leo stumbled out of bed and walked to a full-length mirror. Staring back at him was a young man of about seventeen. He had a shock of stark white hair and eyes the color of polished obsidian. The contrast was striking, accentuating a face that seemed sculpted for a magazine cover: a sharp jawline, a straight nose, and lips that were a customary, almost anime-esque, shade of pink.
"He looks like a JJK character," Leo breathed, all his reservations washing away in a tide of pure, unadulterated vanity. "Okay. Okay, this might be manageable."
After a shower in a bathroom more luxurious than his entire old apartment, he was drying himself off when a thought struck him. Wait a second... wasn't he supposed to get a system?
The moment the thought fully formed, an agony unlike any he had ever known erupted inside his skull. It felt as if his brain were being melted in a microwave while electric currents cooked his nerves from the inside out. He crumpled to the cold, marble floor, his body seizing. Five minutes stretched into an eternity of pure, unadulterated suffering.
Then, as abruptly as it came, it vanished.
A soft, melodic chime echoed in the silence of his mind.
{System Integration Completed}
{Welcome to the Celestial System}
{Memory of previous host shall now be claimed.}
A new, different kind of pain flared—not physical, but psychic. A torrent of another life flooded his consciousness. He saw flashes: a childhood of privilege, the weight of expectation, a beautiful girl with cold eyes tearing up an engagement contract after he, Leo Stevens, had failed to awaken any ability at age fifteen. "Talk about impatient," he thought distantly, the original Leo's humiliation now his own.
He learned that the Alliance Academy was a coalition of three races—Humans, Elirians, and the stout K'tharr—united to fight the ever-encroaching demonic scourge. And his name, strangely, was still Leo Stevens.
When the mental storm subsided, a new message materialized before his eyes.
{Call up [Status] to view host stats.}
"Right. The tutorial pop-up," Leo grumbled, pushing himself up from the floor. He realized he'd probably spent too long getting ready. He was sprawled naked on a bathroom floor, for crying out loud.
He quickly got dressed in the academy uniform laid out for him—a sharp, black and silver ensemble—and joined his new parents for breakfast. They were a formidable pair, high-ranking individuals in the planetary government. His father, with the same white hair, offered a stern nod. His mother, with kind eyes, fussed over him. He discovered he was an only child, which explained the pressure he felt emanating from them. It also cleared up how a seemingly "failed" young master still held a spot at the most prestigious institution in known society.
Soon, he was on his way, boarding an interplanetary shuttle that was a marvel of chrome and shimmering energy. As he settled into his private accommodations—a small but incredibly advanced cabin—the hum of the ship's engines vibrated through him. The reality of his situation finally sank in. He was in a spaceship, heading to a magic school, in a new body.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned back and tentatively formed the thought in his mind.
Status.
A translucent blue screen flickered to life before him.