The Blessed Academy was huge, and it took over a quarter of the city's size. It was the place where all of the Blessed came to train and master their powers. In this new age of abominations, power was almost everything and worth more than money. Any Blessed, even Mundane ones can easily make a living in the battlefield as humanity had never been this short on fighters.
The price varies a lot from time to time, but the average selling price of a Mundane Crystal Core hovers around a thousand Sparks, which is equivalent to a hundred dollars of the old world's money. Sparks are the new world currency, which directly refers to the amount of mana and energy stored in the Crystal Cores, and it is what everyone now uses.
Usually, each rank increases the value of a Crystal Core by ten times, but due to how rare higher-rank cores are, their price is usually much higher. For example, Dante's four Touched Crystal Cores had sold for 15k sparks each, which gave him as much value as six thousand dollars in total.
Even though many things had grown ridiculously expensive after the abomination invasion, that amount, with the Academy's support, should set him up for the next month if he doesn't spend more than he needs to.
So inside the Academy, and looking at the blinding neon lamps of the ManaGym's ceiling, Dante and Rain were dying on the ground, exhausted as they had just finished their punishment, and Alexander couldn't help but laugh at them from the side. "You two really can't keep your mouths shut, do you?"
Dante glared at him with a frown, thinking that it might be good to punch this idiot at least once, and Rain by his side seemed just as irritated as the sparks on her hair were now crackling like a taser. Like him, she had arrived at the academy a few days ago. He didn't know much about her past, but since Maria had recommended her just like she did him, he had to be careful around her.
He was a cursed immortal walking among mere Blessed humans and pretending to be normal. If this woman wasn't as crazy as he was, he would be disappointed. But then, he had another reason to be interested in her.
Looking into her chest, he could see two souls. One that was big and bright like all humans, and one that was small, sparkly, and moved like a stressed bee. Besides having her own Blessing, Rain had tamed a lightning spirit, a Whisp.
"You look at people's chests a lot, and you aren't even that good at hiding it." Rain stared right back at Dante's face, and he looked away. "I'm not looking." Seeing his face, she sighed. "You looked at me, Alexander, and everyone in this gym… people are going to suspect it has something to do with your Blessing, so be mindful of where your eyes are looking."
"Ok, I lied. I was looking at your chest, and you have something nice there. It has nothing to do with my blessing." He mumbled a disgruntled growl, trying to sound like a pervert, only for her to giggle and point at Alexander. "What about him? You looked at his chest as well."
"Well, of course I did! Those muscles are every man's dream. There aren't that many inspirational posters here, so looking at him for motivation works well." Dante smiled, and Alexander was already flexing to show off.
Alexander was 1.9 meters tall and weighed almost 120 kilograms of pure raw muscle, looking as if he was getting ready for a bodybuilding championship. All Blessed would eventually get a decent physique as they rank up, but Alexander's genetics were just that good, and he was already one of the most handsome men in the entire Academy, especially with his auburn hair, green eyes, and bushy mustache.
Compared to that, Dante looked like a homeless, edgy teen with how short and slightly malnourished he was. Standing at barely 1.7 meters and half of Alexander's weight at 60 kilograms. His long and curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and badly shaven beard didn't help at all. Especially with the bags under his eyes due to lack of sleep those that those nightmares caused him.
Rain gave the two a suspicious look and then dropped the topic since Dante clearly didn't want to talk about his Blessing.
Dante stood and stretched his arms, a bit annoyed at how perceptive Rain was. In fact, he hadn't thought about it much, but she was weird.
She came to the Blesseds' Academy a day after him, and she was also recommended by Saint Maria, meaning that she might've been sent here to keep an eye on him. She had been getting close to him for a while. Dante knew that he wasn't that popular with women. They avoided him like the plague in this place, and the only few that approached him were trying to get close to either Alexander or Miguel, so keeping his distance from Rain might be smart. But what ticked him the most about her was that while everyone in the entire academy was fighting for a chance to join the coming dungeon expedition, she, on the other hand, was just like him, undecided about it.
^I bet Saint Maria sent her to keep an eye on me. She is waiting to see if I'll join the expedition or not.^ Due to how stupidly dense the government surveillance of him is from the cameras and countless agents following him almost everywhere, Dante was almost certain that Saint Maria would have her own agents tracking him as well, and his best guess is that Rain is here to be his handler.
Rain stood and looked at him with a smug smile. "There is no way we could learn how to fight well in a single month, so I'm heading to Abominations' class. Better spend our time learning about how to escape them."
Dante preferred to fight, since running away would never save him from Saint Maria and whoever erased his memories, but Rain had a point. He has nothing to train for since his Blessing wasn't a fighting one, and he doesn't have anywhere near enough mana for anything but simple attacks. He had started with one droplet of mana, and after slaying four Abominations and getting eight souls from them, since they were one rank higher than him, he now has a total of nine droplets of mana.
Pulling his stats out, Dante frowned. Rain is probably right. He needs to focus more on survival than fighting for now. Just remembering how the Scarred wolves tore him apart made him sweat, and even though he was an immortal, the pain of getting eaten alive was enough to make him want to play it safe.
Soul Harvest: [8/666]
The Blessed Academy was relatively safe. He would give them that. But for him, there was no way for him to get stronger here. To raise his Soul Harvest and get more mana and physical strength, he needed to slay abominations. If only he could find a bunch of weak ones that he could just farm and max his Soul Harvest quickly.
With that in mind, learning about the abominations is his best option for now. If he knew their weaknesses, then slaying them would be much easier, and he should be able to survive long enough to rank up and gain another ability, hopefully a fighting-oriented one.
"Let's go then. I'd rather know what I'm dealing with so I won't get torn apart like the last time." As he sighed, Rain stared at him with a curious gaze. She had heard that not even Saint Maria herself was able to heal him due to how messed up he was, and here she was crying about getting struck by lightning.
"Then I'll go to work." Alexander wasn't just a student here, but also a soldier on active duty with Knight Paladins, and he spent as much time outside the city walls fighting the abominations as he spent here. That night might have felt like a nightmare to Dante, but to Alexander, it was just a regular Tuesday on the job.
So how come a student is already deployed and fighting? The answer was simple: the city lacked manpower when it came to hunting abominations, and they could use every capable fighter they could get. So, to Alexander, it was like a part-time job he partook in to make a living while studying here.
"Don't die out there." Dante tapped him on the shoulder, and Alexander smiled, flexing his entire body. "This isn't my first time out, and it won't be the last. If you got time in the evening, go and climb the northern city wall. You'll find a nice surprise outside."
With that, Alexander left them. Neither Rain nor Dante understood what he meant, as both of them were new here. They looked at each other for a second and then went to the Abominations' class.
The classroom was large but mostly empty, with no one inside except the napping teacher. Dante took a step inside, and Rain followed him with a curious gaze. Both of them could see the tens of taxidermied abominations in the back, most of them looking as nasty and horrifying as they were in the wild, as if they had been carefully sculpted by the hands of an obsessed master.
Rain felt a cold sweat dripping across her back as she took a step back and shivered. Their life-like gazes disturbed her even though she knew they weren't alive. She even got goosebumps as her entire body crackled with an electrostatic charge.
Dante, on the other hand, wasn't fazed at all by the taxidermied abominations. No matter how horrifying and disgusting they looked, as long as they didn't have souls, he could innately identify them as mere harmless objects.
But something else horrified him to the bones and even made him sweat as he took a few careful steps back. It was the disgusting, absolutely horrifying plants used as macabre decoration around those abominations. The green hurt his eyes, and he could already feel an itch on his entire body just from seeing them.
"Guh, that's disgusting." He was happy to find out that the human city had very little greenery inside its walls. Everything was made of steel, concrete, or strange alloys and plastic. Yesterday, he was horrified to see salad in the canteen and almost threw up. "But I guess it fits the place." Using plants around those fake abominations to make them look creepier, whoever made them must be quite talented.
Rain nodded in agreement, but she wasn't certain they were thinking about the same thing. It was then that the sleeping teacher woke up. She yawned, wiped the drool off her lips, and looked around as she rubbed her eyes. "Who's there?"
She was a young woman with silky brown hair tied into a short ponytail, a pair of glasses, and a relaxed but shy and demure attitude. She didn't look any older than Dante himself, yet he could tell from her soul that she was a Veteran Blessed.
In fact, how old is he? With his memories gone, he couldn't even know that. He was also immortal, so he could be hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old. But judging by his Mundane rank and that God's Blessings can't be reset, he should be as old as any other human.
"Please take a seat. I didn't expect any new Blessed to show up to class this late… especially with the dungeon dive looming on the horizon." She stood, approached the two, and studied them for a few seconds.
A young man who looked to be in his early twenties and had baggy eyes. He didn't know how to shave his beard, and his hair must've been cut with scissors. Just looking at his dark eyes and pose, she could tell that he was trouble.
The girl looked to be a bit younger, staring directly at her with cold eyes and a suspicious glare. She could even see sparks crackling in her hair. She expected the guy to feel more hostile, but this girl might be an even bigger problem.
The Blesseds are all a dangerous bunch who have been chosen by God specifically because of their violent nature. Countless studies had already proved that, and she had been in their shoes before. A punky teen who was high on their newfound power until she got her organs stretched out by a vile abomination.
"No one wants to study the abominations?" Dante pulled a chair, sat, and rested his chin on his arm. "Really?" Rain took a seat as well, but at least showed proper respect by sitting normally. "Teacher…"
"Instructor Giovanna, Blessed Rank, and an abomination expert. I retired from the battlefield five years ago to focus more on studying the abominations, categorizing them, and deepening our understanding of them as creatures." She smiled and gave the two a long look. "All other Blessed only care about abominations' Rank and Class. So they only come here for a few sessions at the start of the year and never return."
Hearing that, Rain counted all of the ranks and classes. "Mundane, Scarred, Cursed, Fallen, Abyssal, Primordial, Hellish, and lastly Eldritch. Each rank increases the abomination's power and potency at an exponential rate, and it was a Primordial Nightmare that shattered North America into pieces."
Instructor Giovanna nodded with a smile as her ears twitched. "It was an elemental-type, true abomination that took the form of an endless black flood. It didn't shatter the continent with pure strength, but slowly spread across it and eventually cut it into several islands."
Rain quickly added with a smile. "And the classes refer to how many souls an abomination has, and increase both its unnatural powers and energy pool. They are Beast, Monster, Alien, Nightmare, Demon, Dragon, Titan, and lastly, God."
"You're right. That would make the strongest abomination an Eldritch God. Never fight an abomination of a higher rank than you on your own, and this is where all other Blessed stop caring." She looked at them with a subtle hint of sadness in her eyes. "If you aren't willing to learn more, you can leave now. I'm certain you'd be more interested in the martial or magical training."
Dante stared at her as he waved his hand. "Didn't you just call that monster who shattered America an elemental-type? And I'm certain a friend of mine mentioned something about infected animals."
The instructor's eyes lit up as her eyebrows danced, "Yes! Yes! The infected-type are indeed different than the elemental-type and true abominations! Infected refers to animals or even humans that had been corrupted by the abominations and turned into monsters; the elemental types are more like abominable natural disasters, and the true abominations are the opposite of the infected: abominations who were born like that."
She then went on for hours explaining how, at the same rank and class, true abominations are stronger than the infected, and how the elemental types are the hardest to deal with due to their nature. She even planned a huge curriculum for the two to make sure they learn about a wide range of abomination, their most common abilities and weaknesses, how to run or hide from them, and what to look for.
Before they could even notice, it was already evening, and Rain had to excuse herself as she had a part-time job to catch up to. Unlike Dante, who got a bit of money from the cores he sold, and Alexander, who is on active duty, she had to pick a job inside the city to support herself.