Past Life Hero, ch 13

The next day was not very eventful, as it was mostly taken up with more processing and various meetings where most of what Max had already learned by reading the pamphlets was explained to the group by professors, usually Professor Happy. But during this time, the newcomers also familiarized themselves with the Academy and with the Quartet.

On the second day, Max actually discovered that I wasn't the only person from Earth either. There was one other person that he found in the group of about a hundred that had come from Earth. There might have been more, but that was the only person he’d met so far. His name was Lance, and he was from Canada.

Max was actually pretty sure there were actually one or two others in the newcomer group from Earth, but a lot of the new Summoner students were super quiet, still in shock. He couldn’t confirm it.  But another candidate was a woman that he was pretty sure was from China, and another was a middle-aged man that I thought might be from New Zealand or Australia. Max still wasn't super great with Earth accents, and even though everyone wasspeaking a new language, most of them still had some sort of accent influenced by our native languages.

Lance was twenty-seven years old and had been working as a bank manager when Vancouver was attacked. Max learned several interesting things by talking to Lance. First of all, even though he’d showed up in the field at the same time Max had, he’d killed a goblin with a shove hours after the attack.

The man was also having difficulty adjusting to the new environment. Max definitely didn't hold it against him since on Earth there was no magic or mana, and every single thing about the Quartet would be new and unfamiliar. Meanwhile, Max was adjusting quickly.  Since his first life was on Avalon, he was able to adapt.

On the third day, almost everybody had begun to settle down a bit, and the next two days were scheduled basically as workshops for all of the newcomers to find out more about the classes that were being offered.  They were told to spend time researching their options so they could make a decision on their schedule for the new semester. The deadline for turning in their class choices would be right after those two days were up.  Max thought was very generous since that only gave the faculty two more days to prepare before the beginning of the semester.

Of course, this meant Max’s group of newcomers would only have two days after choosing classes to actually start school, too.

After another short seminar with some of the professors on cafeteria etiquette and nutrition, Max went to the cafeteria with Lance.  Like they had the day before, they grabbed a table outside to eat at. Today, Lance had been looking more depressed than normal. Max had only known him for a short while, but I had already gotten used to his mood swings. Lance seemed like a good, solid guy.  And tall, dark, and handsome as he was, he had probably been popular with the ladies back on Earth. But he was not a fighter at all.

Max wasn't even sure that Lance had been in a fight as a school kid. Everything they were going through was a huge adjustment for him. On top of that, his personality was the worrying type, which was quite possibly the absolute worst in a wartime situation.  …or for people whose worldview had just been turned sideways.

For a serious, peaceful man like Lance, being told he had truly chosen to be a warrior for his entire world was something he hadn’t been taking well.  Max watched his new friend pick at his food and some vegetables.

Meanwhile, Max was in a pretty good mood.  At least his clothes were clean.  The day before, Max’s group had been given two extra basic outfits and instructions on how to get our dirty clothes laundered in the dorms.

The newcomers wouldn't actually be issued any better robes or clothing until after classes started, and maybe not even then.  The Academy was a meritocracy, and students received rewards based on performance.  Strangely enough, the Summoner Academy had no dress code other than a badge.  The badge would always be somewhere on their person–they’d been told it had magic that resisted being hidden.

Nobody in the new class had any money or much of an idea of how to earn it.

Max rubbed his chin, thinking about being broke.  It felt like he’d been broke for the better part of two lives now and nothing ever really changed.

He rubbed his chin as he stared at his food.  For lunch, he’d chosen something pretty close to pizza. He had already made a decision that the next day I was going to start working out and eating right again. This was going to be his last huzzah of whatever passed for junk food in the Quartet.

Suddenly, Lance looked up at Max and frowned. "Doesn't anything ever bother you, Max?"

Where did that come from?  Max blinked rapidly and held up a hand, palm forward. "Woah, dude. I'm not the enemy here. That was kind of a heavy thing to say out the gate.  I was literally just worried about how we’re all broke and at the very bottom of a new ladder, here."

Lance ran a hand through his close-cropped hair and sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. All of this just stresses me, you know. I'm worried about my girlfriend and my mom. Meanwhile, we're sitting around classrooms just twiddling our thumbs."

Max looked at him for a second before nodding slowly and said, "I can see how you would feel that way, but remember, when we leave this school, like, leaving Summoner Academy earlier, doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get back to Earth quicker. Might as well get strong as possible."

"That's the kind of thing I'm talking about though. Do we have any proof of that, or are we just supposed to believe them?  They’d told us lots of things, but everyone seems to be just swallowing it down. Accepting it. I know you well enough now to know you’re not really much of a “Yes,” man.  So why are you just moving on like everything they’ve told you is true?”

Max looked glumly down at his nibbled-on pizza.  He poked it  with his fork and remembered how people back on Earth had thought he was strange for not eating pizza with his hands.  He said, "That is a decent question.  But I don't think they’re lying.”

“Why?”

“Because of a few things.  First, if this is all a lie, it has got to be the most carefully planned, high-energy trickery I've ever heard of, ever. Not to mention, before all of us came here, we met a messenger, and I don't know about you, but while I was in that place, I could feel that she was the real deal.  At the very least I knew what was happening was important. Not only that, all of us saw the screen pop up asking if we wanted to come here, to chase power.  Every single person here chose yes. If we'd chosen no, we'd probably still be back on Earth.  Then we wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn anything new.

“Don’t get me wrong, it kind of irritates me that we just got a random Path once we got there, but I’ve been thinking about that the last few days and I’m not even sure what I would have picked.  Like, I got the feeling I had limited time in that place.  You said you felt the same way.  Meanwhile, I had 1000 potential Paths!  How was I going to make any kind of informed decision?”

“You had a thousand possible Paths?  My angel told me I had three.”

“Oh.”

“I guess that sucks even more for you then, right?” said Lance.  “I only rolled bad out of three to get Summoner.”  He chuckled then sobered.  He breathed deeply and said, "now I just keep thinking about how I killed that goblin with a shovel. You know, back in Vancouver.  Like, yeah, it was a small monster, but if I could kill one with a shovel, maybe other people were killing tons of them with guns. Maybe the military already won. You know? Maybe I would have been better off just staying on Earth and finding somebody who could give me a gun or sell me one and just fight like that. Be active.  Here…who knows when I’ll get back?"

Max folded his arms.  He said, “I understand your logic.  Like, I can see where you’re going with this. But think about how long we're going to be here for. Less than seven years, right? So, that means, theoretically, everybody who goes back to Earth from one of these Path colleges or whatever is going to have knowledge that they might be able to teach to other people on our planet how to do what we do.  None of the professors here will give me a straight answer yet, but it was likely something like ten thousand to one hundred thousand people on Earth that were given an opportunity to train like we are.  In a Quartet,"

"Yeah," said Lance, "I know, and I tell myself that. But what really throws me is the time. Like, we don't know if we're going to get back in a day or years. All they’ll say for sure is we will be back with less time having passed on Earth than in the Quartet."

"That's true," Max said. "That's another thing I can't quite get a straight answer on yet. I think it really does come down to the individual though. I've heard that some of the prizes that we can win from duels or competitions and things like that are not only gear for ourselves but some sort of way to go back to our world even quicker. You're not the only person who's worried about people back home.  Like, you’ve been logical so far with your concerns.  But logically, if your girlfriend is still alive, there’s not much you could do for her one way or another right now as you are.  And if she’s alive, she should still be alive when you get back, too.”

Max scratched his cheek.  “Sorry, that was kinda harsh.”

“Probably true, though.”  Lance started to say something more, but stopped.  Then he sighed and put a spoonful of soup in his mouth before swallowing. "I just think about them every day, you know? Like every minute, every hour. And I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. But I already made the decision. And at the time, there was no time to really think about it. I made a snap judgment, and now I've got to wait a few years to find out if I made the right decision. And that's if I don't die or screw everything up."

Max felt bad about what he’d just said a few seconds ago and tried to make his new friend feel better. "All you can do is the best you can. And like I said, anything we come back to Earth with is going to be more weapons we can use to fight back against whatever is happening there.  Imagine if you return and can teach your kid what you learn in this place.  And what is happening to Earth, it’s not rare.  By that way, that is yet another thing I can't quite get a straight answer on yet.  Like, there are apparently a bajillion of these Quartets floating around the universe that all get fresh new students every year.  How many freakin’ worlds are burning?  But if we do what we’re supposed to do here, we can return with knowledge to help everyone."

"In fact," Max quietly confided, "that's one of the things I keep telling myself whenever I worry about my parents. I had some skills I could teach people back home, but I’m not sure it would be enough.  But what we're learning here, this Summoner stuff, I might be able to teach somebody when I get back if they have the talent to be a summoner."

The sincerity in Max’s voice wasn't forced.  He was telling the truth. This was something he'd actually thought about over the last couple of days. Yes, he was the Hero in his previous life, and he’d been a Blade Sorcerer. But becoming a Blade Sorcerer was an incredibly difficult thing to do that took an incredible amount of time.

In fact, his understanding of what it took to become a Blade Sorcerer, including what he’d learned about this particular Quartet, had given him the theory that each Quartet was different and they all had different time limits for training. For instance, this Quartet was a seven-year quartet. He didn't know where that ranked with the rest of them, but he did know that he couldn't imagine anybody learning to be a Blade Sorcerer, even if they were incredibly talented, in less than twenty years.

In his previous life, Max had been considered a genius among geniuses, and it had still taken him ten years to truly reach basic mastery of his powers. On top of that, the talent to be a Blade Sorcerer was exceptionally rare.

But ironically, it seemed like the talent to be a Summoner was rare too, even though it was widely considered one of the weakest Paths.  At least it seemed to take a lot less time to learn than Blade Sorcerer mastery.

Lance nodded and they both ate in silence for a while.  Then Lance began chatting about home, and he told Max about his girlfriend and his little daughter for about the thirtieth time.

Once the two of them got done with eating they got up and began shuffling back to the newbie area with the other newcomers.  Max was looking forward to having time to himself later in the day for self-study so he could really nail down what classes he wanted to take when the semester started. But everyone had one more big assembly for the day.

Other students whispered rumors that the assembly would be really important.

“I’m really tired of all these assemblies,” grumbled Lance.

“Met and you both.  But they take attendance.  I’m not sure what happens if we skip, but I don’t want to find out.”

“Me neither.”

“Guess we just need to get this last meeting out of the way and finally start choosing classes.”

“Yeah,” said Lance.  “Maybe I’ll start feeling better about everything once we actually get to start learning things.  Like, I don’t know how to do anything right now.  I’m just a dude from earth wearing crappier clothes than before.

“Me and you both.”