027 META HIGH SCHOOL NO.2
The boy's eyes narrowed when he saw them.
"Zairgid Aukuoma? You don't need to use this place. You've got better equipment than all of us! Why steal our resources?" he screamed.
Meditating inside the Meta-Amplifying Room was one of the most valuable resources the school offered. It was the fastest, most reliable way to sharpen one's meta aptitude, so every session was treasured by the students.
Because the chamber had limited seats, student access was strictly rationed. Every hour counted.
But Damen's case was different.
He held an unlimited pass—a privilege that let him stay as long as he wished. Word of it spread quickly through the student body, and envy soon followed.
Many who struggled to secure their allotted time began to simmer with resentment, their jealousy quietly building into unrest.
Zairgid slowly opened his eyes and rose to his feet. His voice was calm, but carried sharp weight. "And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
"I… I'm Kalem Veyran," the burly student stammered.
Zairgid's expression turned cold. "House of Veyran? Why would the Veyran family beg for scraps here? Are you one of their bloody bastards?"
"Me… me…" Kalem faltered, his face burning with humiliation.
Zairgid's words hit home.
The Veyran family was a major family, and their heirs do not need the equipment in school, but Kalem was a bastard child of the Veyran bloodline, given little recognition and fewer resources.
That was why the school's facilities mattered so much to him—his family had denied him access to their own equipment.
Damen overheard the exchange and recognized the name Veyran immediately. He'd once crossed paths with a girl from that family.
Setting the thought aside, he leaned toward Zairgid. "Hey buddy, do you have an unlimited pass too?"
Zairgid smiled faintly, almost sheepish. "No… but I rarely use this place. Think of it as payback for all the times I left my slot unused."
Damen didn't press the issue, but Kalem and his followers weren't about to let it slide.
"And you—who the hell are you?" Kalem sneered, turning his scorn on Damen. "You're not an Aukuoma. What right do you have to hog our amplifying time?"
Damen simply pointed to himself. "Me? I've got an unlimited pass."
A murmur rippled through the students.
"Unlimited pass?" they whispered among themselves.
"How can that even exist?" Kalem shouted in disbelief.
"It's true," one of the guards confirmed reluctantly. "He's been granted unlimited access to the Meta Amplifying Theatre."
"That's so unfair!" the students protested.
Zairgid's expression hardened. "This guy Kalem is a troublemaker. If we don't put him in his place now, he'll just keep hounding us."
He stepped forward, ready to fight.
But Damen placed a hand on his shoulder. "No need. He's after me, not you. I'll deal with him."
Zairgid frowned. "Really? You only just graduated Middle High. Have you even trained in meta skills yet? Kalem may be a bastard but he has family training… he's not some pushover."
"I'm not a pushover either," Damen said coolly. A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Besides my godly stats, I'm godly also."
Kalem snarled. "You bastard! Don't hide behind guards, face me yourself!"
"I was hoping you'd say that," Damen replied.
Kalem charged with a roar. "You've never tasted death—I'll show you!"
The crowd braced for their impact and made way for their clash.
But in the blink of an eye, Kalem's body was hurled across the chamber, slamming into the far wall with a bone-cracking thud. He crumpled to the ground, blood spilling from his mouth, his back bent at a sickening angle.
Damen just reached the spot Kalem was before and stood there still.
Zairgid rushed over, wide-eyed. "What meta skill was that? I've never seen anything like it."
Damen grinned. "I call it… Bull Smash."
In truth, there was no such skill.
Damen had combined Flash Dash with his Summon Shield through training, activating his shield while he flashed. This turned his charge into an unstoppable shield slam that Kalem couldn't endure.
Zairgid's gaze lingered on Damen with newfound respect. "No wonder you were last year's top scorer… with perfect marks. You are a true genius."
Damen turned toward the exit.
He already lost interest in the place. Compared to the advanced meta amplification gear at Heroes' Gym, the amplifier here felt weak, almost worthless.
"The unlimited pass is a dud," he muttered. "Not worth coming back here again."
Damen and Zairgid stepped past Kalem Veyran's crumpled body while the guards stood frozen in shock. Foam dribbled from Kalem's mouth as the paramedics were hastily summoned.
Damen didn't so much as glance back while the rest of the students watch him go…stunned and shocked. They've never seen a student fight so viciously.
And after flattening Kalem in a single move, Damen knew he owed no explanation. Kalem was the one who must explain – "Why is he so weak?"
Here, power was the only law that mattered.
He strode out of the chamber with steady, unhurried steps, unconcerned about the fallout of what he had just done. In this school, there were no apologies for strength—
-Only respect for it.
-----
The next day was Orientation Day for the newly admitted students. They were gathered on the vast practice field, where a temporary stage had been erected for the event.
The principal stepped onto the stage and addressed the crowd.
"Welcome to Melrose Meta High School No. 2. I am your principal, Fayram Misk. Before we continue, let me explain how our school works. High School here is very different from Middle School. There are no 'year levels' and no fixed duration. If you are a genius, you could graduate after just one semester. At the end of every semester, all students are tested. Those who fail to meet the minimum requirement will be expelled. Those who exceed a threshold will graduate."
Damen finally understood what it meant to be in this kind of school.
Aside from the mandatory theory courses in the first few months, the rest of a student's time here was consumed by relentless training.
The true goal wasn't academics—it was raising their aptitude scores, especially their Meta scores. Once a student reached the required threshold, they could graduate and claim the title of "Hero."
There was no hierarchy of seniority in this school.
Some students had been here more than a decade without qualifying to graduate, while others managed it in a single year.
This was not a school for learning knowledge—it was a forge for superpowers.
Suddenly, the orientation was disrupted when someone screamed out, "I want to challenge Damen Dark."
-----
028 THE WAGER
The boy who had interrupted the orientation strode confidently toward the stage. Even Principal Misk stepped aside for him respectfully.
He was definitely a VIP student.
The crowd buzzed with whispers. Most of them were new students, confused as to why the principal would show deference to another student.
"Lukas Veyran," Principal Misk said sternly. "Why are you disrupting my orientation speech?"
"I'm here to challenge Damen Dark—the bastard who injured my cousin Kalem!" Lukas roared, jabbing a finger in Damen's direction.
"He's calling you out," Zairgid muttered beside Damen.
Zairgid had no real reason to attend the orientation—he was not a freshman, and he had long since gone through this ritual. He was only there to scope out the new girls.
"Who's this idiot?" Damen asked casually.
Zairgid smirked. "Idiot? No. He's from the Veyran family. Unlike the bastard you fought yesterday, this one's not so easy to deal with."
Damen wasn't impressed. He pulled out his phone and casually aimed it at Lukas. A quick scan displayed his stats:
Name: Lukas Veyran
Rank: G
Strength: 13 | Charm: 6 | Meta: 12 | Command: 11
Damen was stunned. "This guy's stats are higher than mine," he muttered.
"Of course," Zairgid replied. "He's been here two years. His stats have grown, and with family training, he probably has powerful meta skills too."
"Noted," Damen said calmly.
"But this isn't the time for a challenge," Principal Misk protested. Even the principal seemed to bend beneath Lukas' demands.
"A fight might be unavoidable", Damen thought.
Damen knew what he had to do. He pulled out his list, his favorite list and began Acquiring.
Normally, he avoided draining from the patrons at Heroes' Gym, where he mined for coins. But this time, he had no choice.
"Acquire." "Acquire." "Acquire." "Acquire."
Meanwhile in the Heroes' Gym, many patrons suffered severe migraines for no apparent reason. They don't feel the effects of Damen's acquiring as mental attacks because their Ranks are much higher than Damen.
But they feel some pain nonetheless.
On the other hand, Damen's stats shifted before his eyes:
Strength: 20 | Charm: 10 | Meta: 16 | Command: 16
Damen smiled. "Let's see who can beat me in this school now with my new stats."
"Hey you! Answer me!" Lukas roared across the field.
Students scattered at once, leaving only Zairgid standing at Damen's side.
Damen shouted back, "I'll fight you… but only with a wager. Otherwise, it's pointless."
The demand stunned Lukas. Few dared to negotiate with him, let alone make conditions. But he wasn't about to back down.
"What do you want to wager?" he asked.
Damen raised several Aur cards into the air. "Fifty thousand Aurs."
Zairgid's jaw dropped. He knew he was a genius, but he hadn't expected his neighbor to be so wealthy. "You have so much money?..."
Damen had scraped it together—twenty thousand won at the MMA Betting Station, the rest stolen from Big Boss and his thugs. Less living and gym expenses, this was everything he had left but it was still an astronomical sum for a student.
Lukas faltered. He hadn't brought that kind of money with him to school.
"I'm the challenger. There's no rule that says I must pay a wager!" he shouted back, red-faced.
"The great heir of the Veyran family is unable to cover a bet against a new student", the crowd murmured.
"No money, no fight," Damen said flatly while Zairgid laughs.
Humiliation twisted Lukas' face.
He challenged Damen publicly.
Backing out now would destroy his pride. He gestured angrily at a group of lackeys. They scrambled forward, gathering Aur cards from their pockets until Lukas held a bundle roughly equal to Damen's offer.
Damen passed his own cards to Zairgid for safekeeping. "He'll hold the wager," Damen said.
Lukas hesitated—fifty thousand Aurs was his allowance for the year.
"Don't you trust the Arkuoma family?" Damen asked smoothly.
Grinding his teeth, Lukas gave up the cards. The Arkuomas were respected. Zairgid wouldn't dare cheat and steal the money.
----
With the wager set, the students cleared the seats in front of the stage, forming a makeshift arena. Principal Misk and Zairgid remained seated on the platform to oversee the duel.
Damen and Lukas stepped into the ring.
Damen recalled his fight with Kalem yesterday.
If Kalem was any clue, Lukas must be a kinetic user. Family skills are never arbitrary or unfocused—they are always refined into a single theme.
His family's theme must be kinetic force. Damen has seen most of these kinds of skills being practiced in Heroes' Gym and understood them.
Sure enough, Lukas charged forward.
"If he's running… closing the distance, his power must have a range limit", Damen reasoned.
At ten meters, Lukas skidded to a halt, waving his hands to unleash a kinetic blast.
A powerful surge of force thundered outward. The crowd gasped, certain Damen would be hurled away.
But when the dust cleared, Damen stood untouched—several meters to the side. He had dashed clear of the attack at the exact moment Lukas cast it.
Principal Misk's eyes widened. "That's… Flash Dash. But how is he controlling it so precisely? Even graduates can't shorten the distance like that."
Flash Dash was an escape technique, normally hurling its user far away. To control its distance—to blink just a few meters with such accuracy—was almost unheard of.
Zairgid chuckled beside the principal. "Well, this neighbor of mine never stops surprising me."
"Nobody escapes my Kinetic Blast!" Lukas roared.
"Don't mistake me for the scarecrow in your backyard, idiot," Damen shot back.
It was true—Lukas had honed his skill against stationary targets in training grounds, not against someone who could move with Damen's speed and precision.
Damen had trained for months fighting against wind tunnels and all kinds of obstacle machines and sometimes live fights with peers… he was good enough to deal with any inexperienced fighter.
"He's too fast… what do I do?" Lukas thought, sweat beading on his forehead.
The crowd began to jeer, their voices cutting into his pride. Missing again and again was humiliating. Panic threatened to take hold—until he remembered.
"I still have one skill left."
Winds surged around Lukas, swirling faster and faster until they spun into a cyclone. The roaring vortex expanded outward, threatening to swallow the entire arena. Damen had been able to dodge individual blasts, but now the cyclone covered everything.
There was nowhere left to run.
"Damn it… this cyclone will tear me apart," Damen muttered as the gale closed in.
The wind whipped violently, pulling at him, dragging him toward the storm's center. Just before it struck, Damen felt the strange pull of the air gathering around his body with an instant of recognition.
And then, instead of panic, he smiled.