"Right, let's get going then, I have so much time to check out the use of my skills, but we gotta get back to Leo's for the party."
As they walked through the park, Leo tried his skill out on them as much as he could. With the skill costing 10 mana and him having an intelligence of 8 then he could only cast it 8 times before he ran out of juice. To his dismay, it didn't activate once. For the rest of the journey he very much resembled a hurt puppy.
When they got out of the park the scenery changed completely. It went from luscious green open space with a natural aura to a bustling metropolis filled with Mana run cars and people shouting from vendors. Cars zipped past barely missing people, the pavements were packed full of pedestrians trying their best to get to work, in the distance the holler of construction workers could be heard as they lifted massive steel rods to build the new housing spaces and workplaces. Despite the obvious mish mash of cultures and people, it truly was a beautiful place. With everything that humanity went through, Bastion turned into a place rife with cultural diversity with extremely minimal senseless discrimination. Everyone focused their hate from each other onto the Abyssal monsters that plagued the Earth, and with roughly a billion people living in Bastion of all colors and religions, discrimination was taken extremely harshly. At the conception of Bastion there was a protest against the integration of races, but the Manifesters came and utterly decimated the protesters. Literally. They were reduced to ashes or bloody messes. Not a single person survived.
This stopped any movement of any kind to openly disagree with the way that Bastion operated, and with the propaganda of Humanity VS the Abyss, anyone that secretly held this view quickly realised the errors of that way. For humanity, unity was paramount to survival and so no discrimination was allowed anywhere, and quickly it was reduced to nothing.
Not only was Bastion a place for unity, it was also the largest true stronghold of humanity against the Abyssal Monsters. There were other villages littered around the surrounding area of Bastion but those were mainly occupied by either soldiers or extremely high ranking military officials and their families, basically those who would be able to protect themselves long enough to escape back to Bastion in case of a Beast Horde. Apparently, there was two others cities just like Bastion, but they were on other continents and due to the presence of extremely high levelled monsters in the way, communication was extremely difficult. Mostly they only alerted each other on whether or not they needed aid and even then it was extremely difficult.
Walking through the city was simply another day for Jack and his friends, they went around buying some alcohol and everything else they would need for a good evening and quickly rushed back to Leo's house.
Leo and his parents could not be more polar opposites. He was aloof, fun and at times simple minded, but they were always serious about their jobs. In all 13 years of being friends with Leo not a single one of them saw his parents smile. Leo argued that they were some of the best adventurers who saw death and faced beasts for a living so it made sense that they would become almost ghastly, and he was probably right. Due to the success of Leo's parents, he could live lavishly when they were away and so what better way to do that than to throw a massive party with both East and West Lane High in attendance.
Space was something not easily found within Bastion, most people lived in high-rise buildings built solely for the housing of as many people as possible. To own a house was a symbol of massive wealth, the likes of which most would never see in their lifetime. Jack and his godfather who he was taught to call his uncle due to the bond between his dad and his uncle, lived in one of the high-rises that housed what would be considered those of the middle class. They lived simple lives as Mike had never cared for lavish and useless things like extra space to entertain guests or even televisions. But Leo's family did. They believed in an expression of wealth as seriously as they believed in the eradication of Abyssal monsters. As such, Leo was one of the few people at their school who actually owned a house, and not only that, but they had a garden.
The house was beautiful. Its front garden was perfectly adorned with myriad flowers, each that complemented the others in the grand scheme of vibrance that it portrayed. Along the walls of the red brick house climbed ivy, slowly creeping towards the intangible sun like an unrequited lover trying to take any sense of emotion from who they love. Warmed by the early summer sun, the slated roof seemed to glow with an otherworldly light as it peered up towards the massive behemoths that were the plain apartment blocks around it, like a plant yearning for the life-giving rays of the sun stuck below a canopy of heavy leaves. As the group walked towards the house, the large oak door, ornamented by gold swirls of paint and creativity, swung open and a long slender man appeared at the doorway. His all-black attire seemed out of place and unnecessarily formal for such a day, yet not a bead of sweat could be seen upon the man's forehead. With newly silver hair around the man's head, it was clear that he was in his 50s, yet his face was that of an old man. His white porcelain skin made him look as if he was about to turn to ash the second the sun hit him. When he saw Leo, his face lit up into one of a great smile, filled with the warmth the smile of a parent should have.
"Pavlo, its great to see you" Leo called out as they walked through the front garden.
"Ahh young master Leo, with you so chipper then you must have manifested a combat system. Though I can never really tell with you!" Pavlo chuckled as he walked out to greet Leo and the rest of the group.
Leo jumped forward and wrapped the man in a hug despite Pavlo's best efforts to merely give him a handshake.
"Where has all this hair come from young master?"
"All a part of my awesome system Pavlo. But no need to talk about that right now, is everything set up for the party?"
"I see, either way it looks wonderful, and yes young master, all is ready. Your parents' valuables are put away in the attic and the confectionary is all set up. Now remember, if your parents find out, I had nothing to do with it and you enlisted the help of a mind mage to bewitch me" Pavlo said with a mischievous grin.
"Duh, I'm not gonna let you take the heat for my party. Now let's get inside."
"As you wish young master"
Pavlo then escorted the group inside the old house, despite its old interior, everything inside was full of the technology of the new age and obviously very expensive. Whilst the walls were brick, the floor was wooden and the table tops marble. Attached to the ceiling were Mana lamps that exuded a light blue glow which seemed to cool the place down, making it a refuge from the heat outside.
On the marble countertops was an array of snacks and treats to make sure no one went hungry, and so that people wouldn't get violently drunk and throw up everywhere. The first party that Leo threw he didn't enlist the help of Pavlo meaning that no snacks were available, people got drunk way too quickly and vomited on their expensive sofa. His parents grounded him for a year after that, it was not a good experience for Leo nor the rest of the group who loved being at his house.
All but Pavlo went up to Leo's room. It was decked out with vibrant neon lights, the bed softer than an angel's wings and in the corner was the brand new all-inclusive PC system that had been released just a few weeks ago. Just that alone was probably more expensive than an entire year at their school, and yet none of them cared. Rather than fawn over the expensive clothes in his closet or the high-quality gaming system, they all slumped onto the bed and talked, mainly about the academies.
There were three academies in Bastion for combat classes, each of which would be begging to have a mythic class in their ranks, but the group did not know which one to join. Each had their own upsides and downsides as with everything else. The only issue was that whilst there was some leeway for mythic rating systems, the different academies had the ability to directly request a person and could use their pressure within society to force the government to assign that specific person to their academy. With all likelihood, with the four of them all having mythic classes then two people would be together and the other two would go to different academies. It was sad that their little group would be split up but not only did they have all summer to spend together, but they could always meet up outside of school. And the academy was only for two years so after that they could be reunited.
The academies for combat classes were the Ember Academy, the Frost Academy and the Breeze Academy. All three were intense rivals where the students would routinely fight both in and outside of sanctioned matches. For the fights outside of school, as long as no one was permanently injured the schools barely cared. If anything they promoted it, the constant vigilance to look out for potential threats was paramount to survival in the field and the combat skills would be useful against humanoid Abyssal monsters.
As well as the Academies for combat classes, there was also the Support Academy. Support classes were typically seen as lesser to combat classes as they focused on helping warriors rather than doing fighting themselves, and since most classes gain self buffs and heals after a while, then supports were seen as pretty much redundant. Also, most support classes didn't get the same fame nor fortune that combat classes had as they were rarely seen fighting themselves, but rather just as healing batteries. That being said, there was only one Support Academy in Bastion since support classes were actually more rare than combat. However, this did not mean that they were better, only rarer. Whilst they did have classes that taught on healing and buffing others, they also had classes on summoning that Jack was kind of interested in as they focused on the maintenance and breeding of summoned creatures. Since his only skill currently was a summoning skill then this would actually be a great place for him, the only issue was that due to his system being both support and combat, he was bound to get combat skills soon and if he was a support he wouldn't be able to kill monsters in the same way as his friends would.
After hours of talking, joking and at times very serious conversations about the socio-economic state of the world, the sun was below the horizon and it was time for the party to begin.