"Studying hurts my brain..."

I was lying face down on my desk feeling exhausted... from having to take in so much information. It felt as if my brain was going to melt.

Meanwhile, Ren was doing his own studies in his seat.

"If you don't want to repeat a year, then do better."

His comment only made me groan in response.

"I wanna sleep already..."

It felt like my head was spinning around. The information given to me flew over my head and I felt completely drained.

For a few moments, I was completely focused and almost understood everything. One second later, I lost focus and got confused by what was in front of me.

"Please let it be weekend already..."

I said in a weak voice, causing Ren to look up from his textbook and stare at me with his usual deadpan expression which didn't help at all.

"It's only the first week of school. Come on, man. You passed the entrance exams."

"Barely."

Today, we were having our history class. This time, we had a human teaching us. His name was Sir Arran. 

He was wearing a fancy brown suit and his hair was slicked back. His jawline was sharp and he had some facial hair, his mustache was also well-trimmed. This gave him the impression of a dignified Englishman.

In other words, This guy looked like he was from the 70s.

But he had the eyes of a predator... it was as if he was a machine built to hunt down slackers like me.

So I raised my chin and pretended to be paying attention to the lesson. I didn't want him to call me to the front and make me answer a question.

I really don't want that to happen.

"And that's how humans won against the monsters centuries ago."

I snapped out of my thoughts and saw that the class was now over. Thank goodness, I could finally rest my mind. Even if it was only for a few moments. There was still the next class, so I had to be ready.

Sir Arran picked up his bag and left the classroom. The door was shut, creating an echo. That's how silent the classroom was.

It seems like I wasn't the only one trying to avoid being called by the teacher. In my previous school, I was always being called by the teacher for not paying attention.

Not very pleasant memories.

"Man, how do you just breeze through every class? You make it look easy..."

My comment only made Ren shake his head in response.

"Just pay attention."

That's easier said than done. But okay, I'll try to do that. 

We all sat in silence waiting for our next teacher to arrive. Since we were unfamiliar with the schedule, we had to guess which subject it was.

So I rested my head on my desk while daydreaming. 

It'd be really nice to be rich and not have any problems... I could imagine myself blowing money on nice cars, high-quality clothing, getting a nice computer, and doing other wealthy people things. 

A life like that was probably impossible for someone like me. But I could still imagine living a life like that.

That sounded nice.

Suddenly my daydream was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. When I looked up, I saw a familiar metallic box entering the classroom.

My eyes widened at the sight of him transforming into a humanoid figure and jumping into the air with such grace.

Of course, this was Mettaton, who else could pull off such a dramatic entrance?

"Good morning, my E-class students! Today, I'm not only your homeroom teacher, but I'm also your magic instructor!"

He landed on his feet and waved hello at everyone in class.

Wait a minute, did he say magic...?

"Hell yeah."

I thought to myself as I smashed my fists together. We were finally going to learn magic.

Finally, it was a subject I was good at. 

"Okay, class. Since I'm not familiar with you guys, you will have to show your souls so I can know what traits you have."

We were all gathered in a spacious room, which looked like it was made for combat. So I tried testing my knuckles on the walls.

"So hard..."

I could tell that these walls could tank a massive explosion or two. When I gave it a light jab, my left arm started shaking from the impact.

Looking back at the stage, Mettaton was in the spotlight. 

"Everyone, form a circle around me."

I stood beside Ren, along with some other students. We were all forming a circle around Metta. One by one, everyone's soul trait was revealed.

My soul was hovering in front of my chest. 

"Hmm, there's kindness, integrity, justice, and..."

He walked around the circle while observing everyone in the circle. Until he walked over to me and gave me a look of curiosity.

"Ooh, bravery! I haven't seen one of those in a long time. And then we have..."

Mettaton's eyes widened upon looking at the guy beside me. I looked to the side and saw Ren looking back at him with a blank stare. 

His soul was hovering near his hand, it was glowing dark green and Mettaton was observing it with keen eyes.

"Mischief? My, my, that's a very rare soul trait!"

I wonder why he was surprised. I've always known that Ren had 'Mischief' as his soul trait. We even sparred a few times and he kept giving me a difficult time.

He was the hardest person I've fought. I just couldn't predict him.

"Normally, people would have one of the seven main soul traits, which are: Patience, perseverance, integrity, bravery, kindness, justice, and finally... Determination."

"But you? You have a rare variant from one of them."

Ren continued staring at Mettaton, clearly unfazed.

"Uh, teacher?"

A random student raised his hand. This made Mettaton nod at him, prompting him to ask a question.

"What are variants?"

Mettaton cleared his robotic throat, before speaking:

"Variants are branches of one of the seven main soul traits. You see, the reason why they exist is because magic is highly dependent on the user's psyche."

"Here's an example, Patience users often specialize in defense. But if the person's intentions and motivations are different, then their magic will change accordingly. This gives them a unique style."

"A condition like this is very rare though. These types of magic users have their own unique set of abilities."

Huh? I didn't know that. I wonder what soul trait Ren had that turned into mischief. From what I understood, magic changes depending on what kind of person you are.

Sometime later, Mettaton had just finished getting to know every one of our soul traits. He went back into the center and spoke through the microphone.

"Okay, we'll just focus on using one type of ability. One by one, all of you will be attacking this poor dummy!"

He pointed at the dummy in the center of the stage, which had no scratches or any signs of attack. Everyone had started using their offensive abilities against the dummy.

One monster summoned multiple boulders, before shooting them against the dummy. Mettaton had a smirk on his face, seemingly proud of him.

I wiped some debris off my face. The impact of his attacks sent some sand in our direction.

"That's it, that's it. Use your flashiest attacks! Make the stage yours!"

This encouraged the class to start using more of their cool-looking attacks. Meanwhile, I was watching with some excitement.

I wanted to see everyone's magic.

A girl wearing a black hoodie walked up on the stage and summoned some blue flames, before hurling them at the dummy. It was covered in smoke, but as soon as the smoke disappeared, it revealed that the dummy didn't take a scratch.

Womp, womp.

She looked down in disappointment and walked away from the stage, letting another student take a chance at the dummy.

Up next, it was a guy with blue hair wearing a red shirt. He had a confident smile on his face as he summoned a glowing orb in his hand.

He threw it at the dummy, which exploded and caused sparks of electricity to appear everywhere. Luckily this room was built to minimize destruction.

I coughed from the ashes, then I looked at the dummy.

But still, it had the same result. The dummy still took no damage. Was it made out of steel or something?

The guy walked off the stage with disappointment on his face. Kinda feel bad for him now.

"And... you! You're next."

Finally, it was my turn. Mettaton gestured for me to come up the stage to demonstrate my soul magic.

With a glimmer in his eyes, he asked me to show off my magic.

I took a deep breath before approaching the dummy with my hand clenched into a fist. My soul magic had a passive ability that boosted my physical strength. 

That was my first ability.

Let's start something with simple.

In swift motion, I threw a straight right punch at the dummy and sent it crashing into a wall. The smoke cleared, revealing that the dummy had a small rip on its body.

I raised my fist and silently celebrated, thinking that I did a great job. 

"That's 10/10 for Y/N!"

Mettaton shouted using the microphone, before calling up the next person.

I stepped down the stage and took a seat next to Ren, who didn't bother to participate in the activity.

"Hey, I kinda wanted to see you show off your magic."

I asked him why didn't come on stage and attack the dummy. But his only response was him shaking his head.

"No need."

I simply nodded at his answer, before looking back at the stage to watch other people use their soul magic. I knew that I was surrounded by strong people.

"Okay class, now that we're done with demonstrating our flashy magic attacks. We're going to learn the basics first."

We were now back in the classroom. Mettaton picked up a remote and turned on the projector. In the presentation, we saw the image of a monster and a human.

They looked like good friends.

Mettaton started speaking and I took some notes of his teachings. 

"The first step to using magic is being able to unlock it. While monsters are naturally able to use magic, humans are born without the ability to use them."

"But how would a human be able to use magic? Well, one human and one monster must make a pact together. That way, a monster can unlock a human's soul magic."

"Both parties benefit from this process since humans gain magic while monsters grow stronger in the process. But a monster can only do this once in their lifetime."

He then switched over to the next slide, which was a photo of a human and a monster shaking hands.

I don't think that's accurate information, but okay.

"Of course, there are some rare cases where some humans were able to awaken it just on their own, but this is the common method."

Ah right, Undyne was the one who helped me unlock my magic. I'm still grateful to her to this day. 

But I started wondering who unlocked Ren's magic...

He wasn't the social type. So it surprised me how he managed to get along with someone.

I shrugged off those thoughts and continued paying attention to Mettaton's class. His teachings were easy to understand and he was passionate about his subject, which made people interested in his teachings.

I might be able to survive this school year if I keep this up.

End of Chapter