A few days had passed since Isaac, now Soren, had woken up in this world, and in the time that followed, nothing dramatic had happened, no grand adventures, no near-death encounters, no sudden power-ups that made the universe feel fair.
Instead, it was school, classes, meals, and then more classes, the kind of routine that should have felt boring, yet somehow managed to be exhausting anyway, because it demanded the same thing from him every day: wake up, put on the stiff uniform, keep his head down, pretend he belonged.
It was almost disappointing how normal everything felt.
Still, he wasn't complaining, not really, because a peaceful few days sounded fantastic compared to being the protagonist of a game like ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, and even now, with his relief still fresh enough to taste, he kept catching himself waiting for the other shoe to drop, as if the world might decide at any moment that "quiet" was a privilege he hadn't earned.
He remembered the first major event from the game, the mock duel, and he knew it wouldn't happen for weeks, long enough that he could breathe, long enough that he could settle into the idea that maybe this time he could simply exist without having to worry about anything.
Even with Soren's current stats, it probably wouldn't be a big deal for him personally, because Class F wasn't exactly treated like the academy's pride and joy.
But that didn't mean he planned to stay weak forever, not when "weak" here wasn't a mild inconvenience; it was an early grave waiting patiently.
Even if he didn't care about saving the world, there was no way he was going to live the rest of his life with F-rank everything, stumbling through danger and hoping someone else cleaned up the mess, because hope like that had always been a trap.
For now, though, he just had to survive the daily lessons without drawing attention to himself, which meant sitting quietly in a classroom and enduring the slow grind of being treated like an invisible problem.
Today's class was different, though.
The first-years of Arcana Studies had been gathered in one of the academy's indoor training halls, a wide space with high ceilings, pale stone floors etched with faint practice markings, and enough open area that the sound of footsteps and voices seemed to bounce and multiply.
A few instructors hovered at the edges, and near one side stood several priests in clean white robes, the kind of presence that quietly announced that someone was going to get hurt.
Lilliana stood at the front with her clipboard tucked under one arm, ears twitching faintly as she surveyed the room, looking far too small to be commanding anyone, and yet the moment she opened her mouth, the chatter dulled on instinct.
"Today, we'll be doing a joint exercise with all first-year Arcane Studies students," she announced, voice gentle but firm. "You'll all form pairs, and once that's done, I'll explain the details."
Soren fought down the sigh that wanted to leave his chest with the force of a confession.
'Of course it had to be group work.'
It wasn't even the work itself that bothered him; it was everything wrapped around it.
The forced proximity, the expected small talk, the way strangers felt entitled to decide who you were within ten seconds, and the way he always ended up having to manage someone else's comfort on top of his own exhaustion.
Before that particular nightmare could begin, however, his mind drifted, as it often did lately, back to what he had been discovering about his status window, his skills, and magic itself, because whenever the present started to feel too close, his brain grabbed at whatever else it could like a railing.
The status window itself had revealed a few surprises.
One night, too bored to sleep and too restless to lie there staring at the ceiling, he had started muttering random menu commands he remembered from TKS, not because he expected anything, but because doing something, even something stupid, was better than letting his thoughts wander into places he didn't want to visit.
To his surprise, it worked.
Not everything, and not in the neat way he had expected, but enough that it made the skin on his arms prickle, because it confirmed that there really was a system threaded through this world, and that it was paying attention to him.
He found the Quest Window, the Store, and a few minor features that felt more cosmetic than useful, and the existence of them brought a strange, guilty sort of comfort, because it meant there were rules, and rules meant predictability.
The Quest Window was still empty; he hadn't received a single quest yet, but the fact that it existed made him oddly hopeful, not because he wanted to be dragged into some dramatic plotline, but because he had always worked better when a clear goal and a reward were waiting at the end.
It was easier to move when the world told you what it wanted from you.
Harder, in some twisted way, when you were the one who had to decide.
Then there was the Store.
It used a currency called Points, and according to the scraps of information he had managed to tease out, Points seemed like they could only be earned through quest rewards, which meant he couldn't just grind them out by showing up to class or doing chores; he needed the system to acknowledge him first.
And Points themself could be exchanged for one of two things: Skills or Items.
Skills started at F-rank when purchased, but at least they were usable immediately, which in a world where learning took time and failure could be lethal, mattered far more than it should have.
Items, on the other hand, came in two categories, single-use and permanent, simple enough that he didn't feel the need to overthink it, and overall the whole thing felt straight out of a game, familiar, comforting, and, frankly, something he needed to stay motivated on days when his body moved on autopilot and his mind tried to shut down.
Lilliana's voice cut in again, pulling him back to the hall.
"Once again, please group up into pairs, and then I will explain today's lesson."
A ripple of movement went through the students as people began clustering together, some with ease, some with the awkwardness of forced decisions, and Soren watched from his spot near the back, arms loosely crossed, expression neutral, because if he made himself small enough, maybe the world would forget to demand anything from him.
The most interesting discovery, however, hadn't been the Quest Window or the Store.
It had been his unique skill.
[Library of Memories].
At first, he had assumed it was nothing more than perfect recall, a glorified cheat that let him ace written exams and remember every scrap of lore he had ever read, useful, yes, but straightforward.
But the more he explored it, the more he realised it wasn't that simple.
The skill had two parts, passive and active.
The passive side was what he had already been using, flawless memory, almost photographic in how cleanly it stored details, but the active ability was something else entirely.
When he activated it, his awareness slipped away from his body and into a vast circular library filled with books, endless shelves stretching beyond sight in every direction, the air thick with quiet energy and the faint sense of being watched by nothing at all.
Each book contained a memory, his memory, and opening one didn't just show him an image; it dragged him back into the moment in perfect detail, thoughts, sensations, even emotions, as if the library didn't record events, it archived experience.
A literal archive of his life.
When he first discovered it, he had immediately searched for anything related to the original Soren Arden, because it would have been convenient.
It would have explained why people avoided him.
It would have told him what the name on his door meant beyond ink on a plaque.
There was nothing.
Only Isaac's life remained in the books.
It was a relief, because it meant he wasn't sharing his head with a stranger's ghosts, but it was also a little sad in a way he didn't like admitting, because even if he didn't know who Soren had been, the emptiness implied something final, as if the person who should have owned this body had already been erased from the only place that mattered.
Lilliana raised her voice, ears twitching again as she scanned the hall.
"Anyone without a partner will be assigned one, so please find someone quickly."
Soren's stomach tightened.
He tried not to react, tried not to make it obvious that the idea of "assigned partner" made his skin crawl, because assigned meant random, and random meant he could end up with someone who wanted to talk, someone who wanted to pry, someone who decided he was an easy target for jokes or cruelty.
So he distracted himself once more.
Magic itself, too, had turned out to be nothing like the game.
In ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱ spells like [Aqua] and [Gaia] were practically useless.
Filler skills you spammed in the early game before unlocking intermediate magic, and even then, you only kept them because they were cheap and occasionally helpful in niche situations.
Here, magic required creativity, patience, and precision, and even the most basic spell was less "press button, effect happens" and more "build a fragile structure in your mind and keep it from collapsing."
Another significant difference was that magic in this world was notoriously tricky to master, and the more he understood it, the more he realised why mages in real battles were treated like artillery rather than duelists.
Casting, at its simplest, was a chain of steps that you had to execute cleanly, and if you missed one, everything failed.
Picture the magic circle in your mind, not vaguely, but precisely, then activate your magic circuit, feel the pathway open, create the circle, layer it properly, infuse mana into it without flooding it, chant the spell to give it definition, and finally release the magic.
Miss a single step, and the spell collapsed.
Even keeping something small active, like holding a water orb in the air with [Aqua], required constant mana control, a steady focus that left no room for distraction, and a single stray thought, a loss of concentration, a bump from someone passing too close, even a speck of dust in your eye, could shatter the whole thing.
'No wonder mages stay in one place during fights,' Soren thought, the realisation landing with grim clarity. 'This is hell.'
To make matters worse, stationary mages were expected to use high-damage or wide-area spells to make up for their vulnerability, because if you were going to be a target, you had to be a valuable one.
Soren, meanwhile, had two low-level beginner spells.
'So I'm basically a glass cannon without the cannon part.'
He had experimented a bit, though, mostly at night when the dorm corridors were quiet and no one could see him fail.
[Gaia], the terrain-altering spell, could do more than he had expected if he focused carefully, and with enough precision, he could soften solid earth into mud to slow someone's movements, or, in theory, raise a small lip of dirt as cover, not strong, not impressive, but it was still something.
However, even with that knowledge, it didn't change the fact that, as a mage, he was, at present, pretty much useless.
Lilliana's voice cut through his thoughts again, steady and unhelpfully loud.
"I'll give you one more minute! Anyone unpaired after that will be placed randomly!"
Soren shut his eyes and muttered under his breath, as if denial could be a shield.
"Nope. Didn't hear that. Not real."
Unfortunately, denial didn't stop seconds from ticking by.
He opened his eyes, stared blankly up at the high ceiling of the training hall, and felt the tired irritation settle deeper into his bones.
"…Why do group exercises exist?"
————「❤︎」————