Day arrived in the middle of the cafeteria and looked around. People were still looking at him, but it was slowly calming down. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't care too much. He felt he got his reward for his effort, like he said… If it was a reward. He didn't really know how to respond to the attention.
A certain table caught his attention more than the rest, simply because of the fact that it was nearly entirely empty. The entire cafeteria was filled with Sleepers, and the only spots that were left were spots in the middle of two people or spots near a particularly loud group that the Sleepers were steering clear of.
There were many people standing; but that was partially why the table stood out as well.
'Why is nobody taking those seats?'
Day walked over, and then saw the three people sitting there.
One of them was the short boy who had a less than kind interaction with Caster during the induction ceremony, while the other two…
Were the blind girl, and what Day assumed to be a social worker who was helping her around.
Day felt a pang in his heart at the sight of her, and disdain for the Sleepers who left her alone. How could they let someone sentenced to such a dastardly fate be alone? That was unacceptable.
Neither of the two people sitting there seemed to care to talk to the blind girl. She herself seemed out of it. Her eyes were wide, and her empty gaze was steady on nothing.
'Well, if there's nowhere else to sit, I'll happily sit over there.'
Day slowly walked over, holding his plate of food with one hand whilst taking carrots off of it and plopping them into his mouth with the other. The short boy was on the end of the table, while the blind girl and the social worker were nearer to the middle.
Day took a seat directly across from the blind girl. The social worker raised an eyebrow at him, but stayed quiet. He gave a quick nod at the worker.
When he sat down, the blue eyed blind girl noticeably shifted. To break the silence, Day spoke.
"Hello! I'm Day, the cafeteria is quite full currently- so I thought it would be fine to come over and take a seat. Do you mind?"
"Um… No."
"Perfect! What's your name, if I may ask?"
"Cassia."
"Cassia… Cassia. I'll be sure to remember it. I'm Day- Oh, wait… I said that. My apologies…"
Cassia giggled softly, but quickly stopped and took up a similar facial expression to the one she had before. It felt almost purposeful, like she herself was surprised that she let out a laugh, and didn't want to.
'So she isn't completely lost… Maybe I was wrong to guess that so quickly. '
Day leaned forward and placed his palms on the table. He was apprehensive about saying anything that could remind the girl of her blindness during their chat… So he didn't wish to ask about the Academy. Instead, he took a more basic approach.
"Well- Pardon me for starting a conversation, since you seemed quite content with spacing out, but… How are you today? You seem pretty peaceful, sitting around eating yummy food."
"I'm good. As you said, I'm just sitting here… Eating yummy food."
Her tone was skeptical, and her voice was reserved.
"That tone makes me think you don't find it as yummy as I do."
"No! No… That's not it- Well, um… The food is a little bit…"
"Don't even say it! I love the food, I will continue to love the food… Don't give me doubts about the food!"
Once again, the blind girl giggled. When she spoke again, her tone had relaxed considerably in just that short exchange. It seemed that Day's comical tone when he spoke was affecting her, and the veil dividing the two was slowly peeling away.
"Okay- Okay… I won't. The food is delicious."
"And it's the best food you've ever had?"
"Yes… It's the best food I've ever had."
"Perfect! That's more like it…"
To Day's joy, Cassia's mood had visibly improved. All he had to do was keep it going.
"..."
After breakfast, Day went to the combat class. The instructor for the class was Awakened Rock, the same man who gave the speech at the induction ceremony. As Day had expected, the first class was just Awakened Rock setting the ground rules and explaining the things everyone had expected. One of the things he said stuck with Day, despite being an obvious truth. He said quite dramatically that they would have to train extra hard in class if they wanted to get something out of the class, but the truth was that only training in this class wasn't going to get them anywhere.
The Sleepers all reacted strongly to that, there were whispers and sighs coming from all across the dojo. There were only a few people who weren't affected, one of them was a silver-haired girl who was standing tall near the back, and the other was Caster. Day gave a passing glance to the two anomalies in the room, but did nothing more than that. He really couldn't care less about how other people reacted to information. At the end of the day, they would all need to face that reality anyway.
Saying he didn't care though didn't mean that Day wasn't unaffected, but his reaction was different. Those words reaffirmed his decision to work extra hard, so he was full of life.
When the clamor calmed down, Awakened Rock also reminded them that later in the day they would need to come back again for some mandatory testing.
Awakened Rock was also sure to give a snarky remark pertaining to the Sleepers who weren't in the combat class at the moment.
When the class finished, Day went to another class or two to check them out and see if he was interested, but neither of them really caught his attention too much, so he decided to just focus on Awakened Rock's class. He went back to the dojo where the class took place at about midday, and was caught off guard by the fact that it was completely empty and eerily silent. Nothing but the training equipment was there, still in the exact same position as before when Awakened Rock was pulling any given items around and putting them on display for the Sleepers to see.
There was a machine back against the far wall that stood out among the punching bags and wooden dolls meant for sword practice. It was a machine created to measure the strength of anyone who hit it. From what he knew, it was generally only used for Sleepers; simply because of the fact that anyone stronger would probably shatter it into a million pieces.
Day looked left and right, and then whistled and started to walk towards the machine as the door closed behind him. The whistle was… because it was awkward. He wasn't forbidden from this area, something Awakened Rock had explicitly stated multiple times; he just felt out of place alone walking up to a machine like some shady weirdo who was about to commit a dire crime.
When he got to the machine, he put his face close to the blank screen until he could see his reflection. His hair was still messy and all over the place. Unwilling to look at his terrible state, he quickly disengaged from the screen and reached his body around the machine until he was at risk of toppling over.
"Surely, there's a button around here somewhere… Aha! I found it!"
It wasn't actually a button, it was a switch with a giant on and off in red text plastered above it and under it respectively, but Day didn't care.
He happily flipped it from off to on and took a step back as the screen lit up and displayed a zero.
"I say it's time to do some more Aspect Ability testing… What if I try to punch it with the light on my hand? It seemed pretty sturdy, maybe it'll… I'm just going to test."
His headache was gone, and so was his fear.
He racked his mind to summon the light around his hand once more, and his hand started to grow until it was almost two times the size it was before. With a satisfied smirk, he stepped in front of the machine, raised his hand up…
And swung his fist with all of the force he could muster. His form was messy, and he was probably too close- results born from his lack of knowledge on how to fight.
But despite that, when he stepped back, he couldn't help but be surprised.
On the screen, the number nineteen was displayed. From what he knew, people generally got anywhere from ten to fourteen, while people with abilities that enhanced their strength got somewhere from fifteen to seventeen.
Generally, these numbers came when someone had good form and worked out prior.
'To think I got something like this with my lack of skills… Wow.'
'Wait- Hold on… I don't even have a reference point! I didn't, ugh… I always get too eager. I need to test how powerful my normal punches are.'
Day let the light around his hand dissipate and stepped back. He was trying to find the best spot for a good punch.
"Maybe it will be fine? I think I can… Let me see."
Day reeled his hand back and slowly sent it forward, testing if the spot he was standing on was good.
"Yep. This seems fine."
Once he reoriented himself completely, his hand shot back, and then shot forward at the same speed. He had a focused look in his eyes as his bare fist slammed into the machine.
The machine lit up, and the number quickly displayed on the screen.
"Thirteen… I think I had good form there? Let me try again with my Aspect Ability…"
He summoned the light, reeled back, then slammed his fist into the machine again.
Unfortunately, it only displayed a twenty. Even with better form- if it even was better… It only gave him an increase of one.
"So it increases my strength by about two thirds of my original strength? That's insane…"
'Hmm… I guess I should probably just use my regular strength tomorrow. No need to reveal my Aspect Ability, what's more important is that I know what I can do, not the entire Academy…'
Day decided to head back to his dorm. He wanted to test his Aspect Ability more slowly, and thus, wanted privacy. He took the long walk back to his dorm and stepped inside, and then took a seat on his bed.
Then, he spent multiple hours practicing with his ability. During this time, he took it much slower; and there were a few things he learned.
The first was that it was true that making too complex of shapes would make him feel dizzy, just as pulling out too much of that light to cover his body did.
The second, and most exciting discovery, made by Day spending almost two hours just creating that single sphere… Was that he could make creating objects take less time with practice. After those two hours of work, creating the sphere took not ten but eight seconds to complete. In his eyes, that was fast growth. Two hours was nothing, and it wasn't extremely hard for him to focus on something as simple as a sphere.
He was worried about training himself to make more complex objects, but that was something for later.
When he made this discovery, he came to the conclusion that he could likely do it with the light around his body as well.
There was one more discovery that he made that also piqued his interest, however. He decided to try to surround his hand with all the light he could muster without feeling dizzy, and when he did, something shocking happened.
His hand grew not twofold, but threefold. He was aching to test if this increase in size would also give him an increase in power, but that was for later.
After his vision started to spin from overexertion, he took a break and leaned back in bed to relax his mind. Later on, the time came for them to come for testing. He dejectedly lifted himself out of bed and made his way towards the dojo he had explored before.
When he arrived, Awakened Rock looked pissed.