"Ha....ha....ha..." Kai panted. His breath was uneven. He was the one who had just completed an almost impossible task, yet he was as perplexed as the spectators.
"What the hell was that?" He muttered.
He gripped his chest tightly. An emotion. A feeling. Something that he had never felt before.
'What's this chill feeling? I have felt it before, but when?'
Memories of days long past flashed before his eyes.
He had long forgotten this feeling. He had discarded it. The thrill of life. The feeling that adulthood and responsibilities had stolen from him.
His wide grin accompanied his glimmering cat-like eyes.
'I feel alive.'
The feeling of mana pulsing through his veins, the freedom to move without thinking about what others thought or felt.
A dark, loud chuckle escaped his lips. Uncontrollable. A hint of youthfulness in it.
"This feels amazing!" He shouted out, making the crowd go still.
No one actually understood what was going on; some thought he was mad, while others misunderstood it as a reawakening.
The hot topic of the Notcis Academy entrance exam.
The underdog that even the affluential who sat in their private rooms had something to say about.
Kaiser Vanguard
*********
As the students completed their individual exams two figures sat in a private room at the top of the arena.
"What do you think about that kid Radiant sword?"
An old man around his late sixties with grey hair and golden eyes wearing a formal suit sat on a white leather sofa in one of the luxurious private rooms.
"Lisa I told you many times." He tapped his walking stick on the ground twice. "It's King Radiant Sword to you."
The young beautiful woman wearing a red sheath gown, diamond jewellery and blood-red heels picked up a glass from the table and headed to a small bar tucked in the corner of the room.
"Why should I do that? You still call me Lisa even though I am a master, so why should I call you king for being a grandmaster? Or do you prefer being called kiyo or kiyopon, like Jasmine calls you?"
Radiant swords gaze lingered on Lisa's emerald green eyes and black waving hair before looking out the window.
"I don't have anything to say about him." He added. "Maybe it was just a stroke of luck."
Lisa sighed. "A stroke of luck? Do you think he just randomly stumbled upon the slight cravings meant to send mana to the barrier? Does that make any sense?"
"Well, who knows?"
She looked at the old man before gulping down the drink that she held. "You're no fun since the old days."
"Is a headmaster meant to be drinking so much?"
"It's not as if the kids would know I drank, and sometimes it's good to just let loose a little."
He looked at his companion, who looked barely thirty. "Coming from a 300-year-old granny." He paused and then added, I don't think so."
Lisa's gaze fell on him as if trying to pierce through his soul.
She sighed and placed the champagne glass back. "That doesn't matter." Looking out the window at the now-empty arena, she added. "I think the new students are meant to be settling in before the welcome party."
"Things look promising this year."
********
'Number 117.'
A young man with ocean blue cat eyes, black hair, and flawless slightly pale silk skin that made him look unnaturally beautiful walked past a group of murmuring students.
'Why is it so hard to get around here?'
The stunning young man wore a long navy blue tailored coat, a plain white shirt, tailored trousers with a slight embroidery and polished boots.
'I know I was never a true believer, but I pray to whoever sent me to this world: please don't put me in the same room as the main cast.'
Kai had his reasons for wanting to avoid the main cast.
He wasn't a believer in the generic not changing the plot MCs, but it wasn't bad to know a little about the future.
And he wasn't about to be swept by the protagonist's current.
Kai had already steeled his heart and made up his mind. In this life he wasn't going to pursue any overambitious or stressful dreams.
His goal this time was simple: live a peaceful life in a comfy home with his wife and kids where he didn't have to do anything and didn't have to worry about anything.
And to accomplish his goals, he needed strength. He couldn't fall and change the plot of his story from the extra's chronicle to the man whose family was brutally murdered and came for revenge.
'Like, I will make such a big mistake. I didn't date in my past life, so that I won't be heartbroken, I'm not suited to have series of heartbreaks.'
The second reason for avoiding the main cast was the nature of ICUWSA.
Unlike most transmigration novels Kai had read, ICUWSA was about a post-apocalyptic world, and the only main downtime was during the academy arc.
But after that, it was constant chaos since they had to leave the dome and venture into the outside world to complete missions and increase their rank.
'Like hell, I will constantly battle with unknown horrors; seeing them through texts was bad enough to disrupt my sleep.'
And the last reason he wanted to stay away from the protagonist was simple.
'I can't aura farm with so many people with aura.'
It was a really stupid reason but he didn't care.
********
After a long walk through the massive skyscraper that served as the eastern dorm, Kai finally reached Room 117.
"Now let's see who my unlucky roommate is." He muttered to himself, slowly opening the door.
In Notcis Academy, students share rooms in groups of two.
But Kai couldn't exactly call it a room since each pair shared a flat in the skyscraper with two rooms each fitted with a restroom, one kitchen, a living area, a sparring room, a cinema room and everything a high-class apartment back in Seoul had, which were all foreign to penniless Kai.
His skin suddenly tingled as the door moved slowly.
The door was wide open with Kai holding onto the knob.
The smell of freshly baked bread mixed with the lingering scent of pineapples filled the room.
And a single figure sat on a sofa in the white living area.
The figure held a phone that had an uncanny resemblance to phones back on Earth.
A large shirt with matching black joggers.
The young man in his teens was handsome with dark skin and large black braids with two strands dangling in front and golden eyes with a nonchalant expression on his face.
Kai looked at the room once more before closing the door.
"Sorry, wrong room." He muttered; his voice cracked.
'Hell no, please don't do this to me.'
He looked at the number he had on his student ID and then at the number plate at the top of the door and they matched.
'Why me?'
The door opened as the figure who once sat in the room emerged.
"Are you alright, bro?"
Kai clenched the card tightly and managed to force out a smile. "Yeah.... totally..."
"Then come in."
A faint chuckle escaped Kai's lips. 'F***.'
********
The welcome party for the new students was as lively as every year, but just as every year, the most promising students didn't attend.
A lone figure sat on the large bed of an even larger room. A side drawer, a walk-in closet, a large TV, and a window that showed the view of the entire academy.
It was perfect – something that could only be seen in high-class hotels on Earth.
The bed was large and comfortable, better than anything Kai had slept in since he was born. A white mattress accompanied by a lot of white pillows.
Kai's entire body had long sank into the embrace of the luxurious bed, but he had no time to sleep.
It was time to make future plans since his roommate had gone for a run instead of going for the welcome party.
"Kids these days." He clicked his tongue before placing his hands on his jaw; he hadn't yet become accustomed to this new body. His jaw wasn't filled with a faint beard, and his eyes weren't dead.
But what he wasn't even slightly used to was his near-perfect face.
He giggled a little.
"If I were on earth with this face, not even an idol, I would be the national monument."
Even in the world of ICUWSA, Kai was considered to be way above just being pretty.
"A pretty body, magic, a comfy room, no work." He smiled, lying completely on the bed. "Asking for more would be greedy, wouldn't it?"
His expression darkened. "But on a more serious note, what am I going to do about my predicament?"
The Cube. Around eight hundred years ago, in a period called the third genesis, which was the equivalent of modern Earth.
"I just remembered; the author never did explain what the four genesis were or what even happened before the third." He let out a long sigh. "More and more questions."
The cube, an unknown entity that was in the shape of a cube, landed on earth.
The impact of this was devastating, and when humanity was rebuilding, the unthinkable happened.
The cube, which had been dormant for over fifty decades, opened, sending a toxic gas through the air.
Whoever or whatever inhaled it, whether human, animal, plant or even the land itself, turned into something else: grotesque monstrosities, moving lands and other deadly beings.
After a long struggle humanity banded together and made the dome, a gigantic cylinder that looked just like Earth.
"They could have gone with a sphere instead."
But even with their newfound safety, humanity was still dying.
Food. Resources. Minerals. And other things that were needed for everyday life gone. Humanity had to find a way to survive, and then the cube activated again.
This time it brought a system in which awakened complete missions outside the dome, and each complete mission increases their ranks by one and gives them many materials.
This change provided humanity with a chance to reclaim their land and get back all their natural resources. Thus began the age of the awakened. Heroes, Lords and Saviours of humanity.
"No one even questioned the damn cube." He reached out to the phone given to students by the school.
"Three cameras that seem awfully familiar."
He switched on the phone, and as it turned on, his face suddenly twisted.
"Default wallpaper."
Forgetting his initial purpose of picking up the phone, he searched through the internet and changed the wallpaper.
"Much better." He let out a satisfied smile, looking at the female anime-style wallpaper.
Then he shifted his focus to the time.
Notcis Academy 21:38
----------------------------------------
Monday, 15 April 2459
"I think it is time to leave." Kai picked up a jacket that lay on his bed and left the room.