It was almost impossible to live in Aureum without knowing about Astra Dawn, except you had been living under a rock.... Or with a tribe that had been secluded for the past twenty two years.
She was known in every corner of the world as one of the fastest ever to reach the Ascended rank, a feat that had been only achieved by barely over a hundred people.
And she was the youngest to do so, achieving it at the age of twenty, almost three decades younger than the age Solar knights normally reached that rank.
Astra had cemented herself as an undoubted genius.
You might be wondering, how great is this Ascended rank?
Well, Solar Knights in Aureum basically had six ranks, starting from Embers, the lowest, to Transcendent, the highest.
And Ascended sat at the top, just below Transcendent.
Nox still couldn't believe he was sitting in the same vehicle as such a power house.
"Your mouth's open," Astra's words snapped him out of his thoughts.
Nox blinked in surprise and immediately shut it, realizing he'd been staring. "S-sorry," he muttered, looking away, his ears slightly red in embarrassment.
"Don't apologize," Astra replied nonchalantly, adjusting her grip on the wheel. "You're not the first to gawk. It's one of the side effects of being famous and devastatingly pretty."
Nox turned to her, unsure if she was joking, her tone didn't help.
"Uh… right," he said awkwardly.
Silence returned between the two,as the jeep continued forward, crushing tier 0 and 1 Eclipsed in their way.
Since the largest Tier 1 Eclipsed they came across was no bigger than a house cat, Astra didn't need to stop as she just drove through them.
"Why are we going to the academy?" Nox asked after a few minutes of silence.
"Why else?" She asked in return, "to get you enrolled."
She said in a tone that made it sound like the answer she gave was pretty obvious.
"Why?" He asked again, a frown appearing on his face.
"Hmm?" Astra asked.
"Why would you want to help a total stranger get into the academy?" Nox asked, "what's the catch?"
Yes, his dream was attending the academy, but he had to at least know what the catch was.
Astra turned serious, a small frown appearing on her face as she kept her eyes on the road.
The sudden seriousness on her face made Nox tense.
'There it is,' he thought grimly. 'The part where she names her price. Maybe she'll sell me off, or make me some lab rat for whatever tech she used to heal me.'
He braced himself for the worst.
But instead, Astra simply reached into her jacket pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it at him without even looking.
The object landed in his lap with a soft clink.
Looking down, Nox immediately froze as he recognized the object.
It was his necklace.
"I don't know how or why you have that," Astra finally spoke after he picked it up, "but that's one of the reasons."
Nox frowned as he raised the necklace to eye level, observing it. Was it really that special that it was capable of getting him an admission in the academy?
Or maybe Astra knew his parents, that's why she was doing all this?
But before he could ask, Astra lost her serious expression, returning to a casual one before saying, "and the other reason is because of your body."
Nox immediately crossed his arms over his chest, and warily moved further into the seat putting as much distance between them as possible.
This made Astra chuckle as she looked at his reaction, "relax kid,I didn't mean it like that."
"Besides, you might be cute, but you're not my type."
Well, that successfully hurt his pride, but then again, he was glad that she didn't literally want his body.
But it seems his relief came too soon as she added,
"You're going to be my lab rat while at the academy," she said with a smile.
That was even worse...
"What?" Nox asked, just to be sure he hadn't misheard her words.
"Relax, kid," she said, leaning back casually. "You'll live. Probably."
"Probably?!"
"Look," she interrupted before he could panic further, "your body absorbed Solar Energy.That explosion should've turned you into a smear on the pavement, and yet…" She gestured at him with one hand. "Here you are.... Looking very much not dead."
"What do you mean, my body absorbes SE?" Nox asked, eyes widening, "that's impossible."
"Exactly," Astra agreed, "and that's exactly what I'm going to find out, how you had absorbed SE and lived."
Of course humans had tried absorbing SE directly before, but all attempts had failed, with each experiment ending with one less human.
That's why Solar Knights needed a Helion Core. Just so they could store enough Solar Energy to power their Solar tech.
So what was different about Nox?
And that's exactly what Astra wanted to find out, maybe it'll help answer a question of hers.
Before anyore words could be exchanged, the ground suddenly started trembling as if an earthquake was happening.
But the two knew that it was anything but an earthquake.
"Damn it," Astra said, a displeased frown on her face.
The earth continued shaking, and the jeep followed suit.
Her gaze moved to the scanner mounted on the dashboard, it revealed a red glowing dot approaching the car at an insane speed.
"Tier three," she muttered under her breath. "Of course it had to be a tier three this time."
"Shit," Nox let out in panic.
He had seen the devastation caused by just a tier 2, it was pretty easy to guess that a tier 3 would be a lot more dangerous.
He barely had time to hang on properly before she slammed the brakes, stopping the Jeep completely.
Astra stretched her neck lazily. "You can stay in the car if you want," she said, opening her door. "Or you can come out and witness my awesomeness... Though, I can't guarantee your safety."
With that, she hopped out, leaving Nox in the car alone.
Soon enough a dust cloud could be seen from the distance and before one had the chance to fully register, it was already in front of them.
It stopped right in front of Astra, revealing exactly what was responsible for the shaking earth.
The Eclipsed was a grotesque looking creature standing on four limbs. There were countless tendrils attached to it like hairs, each one wiggling around like they had a mind of their own.
Like the tier 2 Eclipsed, this one also allowed no light to reach it, making it seem like some kind of shadow in the daylight, but unlike the tier 2, its features were a lot clearer....
Which wasn't a good thing.
The creature let out a distorted scream that caused the Jeep to shake and Nox's instincts immediately screamed at him to duck and hide, but his eyes remained locked on Astra.
She didn't even flinch as she continued looking at it.
"Damn, that's ugly," she muttered, one hand resting on her hip as the other reached towards his belt, where the orb rested, "alright ugly, my future student and lab rat is watching, don't embarrass me."