Past Life Hero, ch 10

This time, Max's transition wasn't so comfortable. He woke up on his face in the dirt. Pushing himself up, the first thing he noticed was that he was in a field with other people who all looked as discombobulated as he did. The second thing he noticed was that he wasn't wearing the same clothes as he’d had on back on Earth.

"What the hell?" he mumbled.  After the words had come out of his mouth, Max realized that he hadn't even spoken English. It seemed that he'd been implanted with knowledge of yet another language. So now, he spoke Avalonian and all the major languages of Avalon, English, some Spanish, and whatever language he was thinking in now. A few others in the field who'd said something out loud must have also figured this out because one man started cursing, and another man on Max's other side began cursing in a different way, experimenting with this new language and discovering even more dirty words.

Men really are just bigger boys, thought Max, with a smirk.

Out of the corner of his eye, a woman about ten years older than him was also inspecting the very basic, medieval-looking clothing she was wearing.

Several minutes passed by with nothing happening, except everybody else on the field waking up too. Most newcomers seemed dazed.  Even though everyone there shared a language at this point, nobody made any effort to talk to each other and just stood on their own. Some had a haunted expression. Max could understand. He didn't know if everybody here was from Earth, but he assumed so. And if they'd all met an angel like he had a few minutes ago, some of them might be questioning reality at this point. Presumably, they’d all watched their world come under attack by monsters and perhaps magic before, too. Maybe the people who seemed really upset had been stupid enough to attack the angel or something. Max had no idea and didn't really care either.

At this point, what he was most interested in was information. He just didn't know enough…in general. He wished the angel had been more forthcoming, but at some point, it had been obvious she wasn't going to tell him anything more. And it seemed after hitting the button for “Accept” back on earth, there had been one path to this barren field surrounded by strangers in rough clothing.

But now Max felt strangely back in control, or at least he would like to think so.

So instead of staying in one place or sitting down hugging himself like some of the other people were, he took a careful look around his surroundings. The field he was in had a large fence around it. Nothing real fancy, just wooden posts and slats like a farm fence. Now that he had something to study, Max traced the fence around the entire field and noticed what had to be a gate with hinges.  He got up and began to walk that way. It took him a while. The field was at least four hundred yards across, even though it seemed like only about one hundred people had appeared at the same time he had.

When he was almost to the gate, other people who had appeared in the field began to follow him–probably because any direction was better than none. Jake made it to the fence right as a portal opened on the other side of it. Five people walked out. Three of them wore shoddy looking robes, and one of them carried a staff. The other two had on medieval armor and looked like soldiers.

The apparent leader of the three robe wearers was a middle-aged man with a neutral expression. He was the one carrying the staff, and as soon as he was out of the portal, he saw Max heading directly for the gate and raised his eyebrows. He made a gesture for Max to stop.  Then the man gently tapped his staff to the ground before raising it and speaking. When he did, his voice was amplified like he was using a bullhorn.

He said, "Hello everyone, and welcome to training quartet zero-eight-zero. Everyone here has been given the seed of the Summoner path, and I'm here to take you where you can learn to use it before returning to your world."

There were quite a few mumbles to this, but nobody shouted any questions or otherwise made a scene, which surprised Max. People being people, he would have figured at least somebody here was going to act up, but apparently it was possible for a group this large to be reasonable, or at least be shell-shocked or maybe subdued enough to just keep their mouths shut.

The man with the staff seemed to be thinking the same. He turned to one of the other robed individuals, a red-headed woman, and said, "It seems our new trainees are receptive. We should introduce ourselves."

The older red-headed lady smiled and said, "Hello, my name is Professor Munka. I'll be helping you with admin things today, as well as where you will be living on campus."

The third robed person, a younger man, smiled, raised his hand, and said, "I'm Professor Happy. I'll be helping all of you with adjusting to campus life and the culture on this Quartet."

The man with the staff said, "My name is Professor Third. I will be overseeing your integration into Summoner Academy and in charge of this group until the new semester starts in approximately one week."

An older man behind Max raised his hand, and Professor Third pointed at him, "Yes, what is it?"

The man asked, "So this new language we're speaking, was this put into our heads? And why can't I speak my native language anymore?"

Professor Third said, "That will all be explained to you later today. Please hold your questions if it has anything to do with the new place you're at here."

The man shook his head and asked, "How long is a week here?"

Professor Third pointed at the stranger and said, "Now that is a question I will answer because it's relevant to what I just said. I know that you all come from different worlds, and a week's time can vary. However, here in the quartet, one week is equal to seven days."

There was some mumbling among the newcomers at that, but nobody else made a scene or raised their hand to ask a question. Professor Third nodded at everybody in the field, and with his magically advanced voice said, "Now, everybody please follow me through the portal that Professor Munka is going to create, and everybody can start their processing."

The red-headed professor gestured, and a new, larger portal opened up. There were gasps of fear at the rear of the field from some newcomers who hadn't seen the group of five enter in the first place. At the same time, the gate that Max had been heading toward the entire time swung open on its own.

Professor Third turned and walked through the portal.

Max jogged. He glanced behind him as he moved, and saw that not all of the newcomers were moving at all.  Then he realized that only Professor Third had gone through the portal. Now he could guess what the two soldier-looking types were there for, and chuckled to himself without a whole lot of humor.

If the newcomers in the field didn’t choose to go through the portal themselves, they’d likely be…volunteered.

Max wasn't the first person through the portal. He was the second. The person before him had long hair, and on the other side of the portal, he saw that it'd been a bookish-looking woman, maybe about thirty years old, and for the first time, he noticed that she had green hair. What's more, it didn't look like it was dyed either.  Her ears were not human.

Max remembered what Professor Third had said about everybody's own worlds – “worlds,” plural – and quickly amended his assumption that everybody in the field had been from Earth.

Now they were all in what looked like a large auditorium set up with processing counters.

As people kept coming through the portal, other robed professors on this side got them in a line that snaked around between several stations, each station being a desk with another professor behind it. At each station, Max had to answer questions, and he basically recognized how he was being processed.

Even though Max had never officially served in any military, he'd worked directly with the military back in Avalon, and one of his friends from high school had joined the Army back in the United States. What he was experiencing now sounded a lot like some of his old school friends' experiences when he'd been processed into the Army back on Earth.

The comparison to a military reminded Max that despite the instructors calling this place an academy, it was also obviously martial in nature, or at least the end result would be. After all, everyone here was eventually going to go back to their homeworld and need to defend it…unless they died.

Max didn't mind waiting in line all day and answering simple questions as the instructors built a file on him. It gave him time to think. He'd been through a lot in a really short amount of time, and in particular, he wanted to give this whole “Summoner” thing some more thought too. The angel, or “messenger,” had said that in her opinion, Summoner was the weakest path that Max could have gotten. But as he thought more on that, he decided there was no way for him to know how accurate the angel's opinion was. For all he knew, she was completely full of shit. Or maybe how strong any class could be depended on the person.

Not only that, Max had all of his knowledge from his previous life, and in this new place, this school, mana was not as rich as it had been on Avalon. In fact, it was worse than it had been on Earth right before he left.  Back on Earth, the level of mana had actually been rapidly rising.

The current mana situation wasn’t all bad, though.  It was still better than on Earth before the invasion started. Instead of being able to take gulps of mana, he would barely be able to take a sip here and there from time to time, but it was still exponentially better than the single drop once in a great while he'd gotten for most of his life on Earth.

Max proceeded through the processing line and decided before he was done that this was definitely something he could work with. Now all he needed to do was find out more about this school, and also about being a Summoner itself. Not to mention whatever this “Quartet” was that the summoner school apparently existed in or on. The depth of his ignorance about this new world was astounding.

But after the onboarding was done, everybody was shuffled into a large room which looked like a rustic gymnasium and sat on bleachers. Then Professor Third walked into the middle of the room with the same group of five that Max had seen before. Professor Third did the same thing with his staff that he had before, touching it on the ground before raising it. And Max didn't understand why. This was not a large field, it was just a room. But the professor's voice, instead of booming out as it had before, was merely slightly louder. Ah, I guess he can modulate it, thought Max.

Professor Third said, "Thank you, all of you, for your patience. I know that some of you have been more calm than others, and we've had staff on standby to help some of you with panic attacks or counseling as you needed it. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but it is much faster and more painless to do it the way we're doing, I promise you. I've been teaching at this school for a long time."

He paused and said, "I know what most of your questions will be, and if you'd continue to be patient with me for just a few more minutes, I will answer most, if not all of them for you. First of all, no, we are not on your world anymore. In fact, we are not on any world. This place is a large pocket dimension called a Quartet. Each Quartet has four colleges that teach skills for a specific Path, and teach how to use skills and abilities that World Challengers can receive. You are all World Challengers. You are all on the same Path.  After accepting your role as warriors of your world, you became a Challenger. Amd everybody's body here is not their original."

What? Thought Max.  There were immediate rumbles from some of the other newcomers.

Professor Third held up a hand. "Please listen for my explanation. Many if not all of you were told that you will not age during this training process, and that was true. However, the easiest way and the most fair way to ensure this is true was for all of you to receive a new body that was generated for you in the field you found yourself in. Both your consciousness and your soul currently reside in your current body. Your original body is being kept safe for you for when you return back to your world."

One of the newcomers start to shout something, butProfessor Third held up his hand again. "Let me guess what you're going to ask. ‘But if this isn't my body, what's the point of getting better? What's the point of building muscle? What's the point of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, a million reasons, right?’" The hawk-nosed man smiled. "It's very simple. Magic." He drawled out the last word and opened his hands. "Truly, the connection between body and soul is stronger than you might think it is. On top of that, your time here in the quadrant will allow you to pick up power that you take back with you. Compared to the amount of power that you will be returning with, changing your body to reflect how you will be leaving the Quadrant is a very simple thing.

“The Universe requires very little poking to merely keep the rewards of hard work.”

The man continued, "And some of you might have heard that training your abilities can be dangerous, right?" Max looked around and a few people nodded, but most of the newcomers seemed confused. The professor must have noticed the same thing because he said, "Not everyone returns from a Quadrant alive." He raised a finger and said, "Most deaths will not be final.  However, the fact that none of you are here in your original body means that if you die for good, you will still be returned to your original world in your original body. However, all of the power that you have acquired here will be lost. You will still have all of your memories though, so you have an opportunity to regain some of what is lost, even if you meet your untimely demise while training."

That's interesting, thought Max. He decided it made sense too, if this was some sort of elaborately constructed effort by the Light or whoever was bankrolling this facility to produce warriors to kill monsters.

Professor Third continued, "Training will be very challenging. However, we want all of you to succeed. So although it will be difficult, it is not impossible. On top of that, you will all have a great amount of choice in deciding how your training proceeds. For instance, there are many different types of Summoners. And although you don't have unlimited time to train, you will have enough of it to become experts."

Several hands from people in the bleachers shot up to ask a question, but the professor ignored them. In a different, sing-song voice, he said, "But how much time, professor?"

The hands that had been raised slowly lowered, and Third smiled. He said, "Everyone here has seven years to train. At the end of seven years, each year being three hundred and seventy days–” A few more hands that had raised, lowered. “--Your time at the academy will be finished, and you will be sent back to your original body. Sent back to your world.  In order to be finished with your training before seven years, you must complete your basic tuition, request to be discharged, and have at least three professors agree that you are ready to return. When you leave, how much time has elapsed here, will have very little bearing on when you will return to your world.  Some who are done with training earlier may actually return to their world later.  Why is a mystery."

Professor Third looked legitimately apologetic as he said, "Something that Challengers must understand is that when they return to their world, some time might have passed from when they disappeared. What's more, this amount of time has nothing to do with how long you stay here at the academy. Instead, the time it takes to return is partially affected by your own personal power or accomplishments, but there's also an element of chance to it as well, similar to how all of you received the Summoner seed in the first place. I'm sure everybody's experiences varied, but at the same time you all know what I'm talking about." Most of the heads of newcomers on the bleachers nodded. Max nodded too.

"Alright, that’s it for now.  Thank you for listening," said Professor Third. "I'm afraid if I tell you any more, for many of you, if not most of you, it would be too much too fast. So for now, if you could all please follow us to the receiving area of the dorms, we can help you find where you will be staying.  Tomorrow you will begin learning about the classes you can take and signing up for your new curriculum after the next semester begins. There will be informational pamphlets in each of your rooms, and food will be delivered later. I'm sure that about now all of you are pretty hungry. After all, your bodies were created less than a day ago." The man smiled. Almost nobody in the audience smiled back, but Max cracked a grin. Professor Third didn't seem super friendly, but he definitely had a dry sense of humor.

"Alright, everybody, let's go!" Professor Third moved a few steps back, and the other two professors moved forward. The red-headed professor, Max had already forgotten her name, said, "I know that this is a lot, and all of you are going to take a few days to adjust. Luckily, you have a week before the semester starts, so let's try to make the most of it, okay?" Everybody in the bleachers pretty much stood at the same time and began slowly moving forward.

Max looked around and saw a myriad of expressions on dozens of strangers' faces. Fear. Caution. Curiosity. And even terror. Max tried to keep his face as impassive as possible, but his heart fluttered with expectation and probably some curiosity of his own. He had no idea how powerful a summoner could be, or even what they did, but whatever it was, he wanted to learn how to do it.