by Nikostar A
"However, in a turn of events, they soon discovered that the physics worked differently there. First of all, all electrical and electronic devices failed to function there. At that time, with most equipment being automated and most of the work being performed by robots, it led to a lot of issues. It was hard to gather resources there but soon, we met the biggest threat present there: the Xals!"
The screen switched to the next slide, displaying the picture of a Xal. The Xals were another intelligent race living in the world beyond the rift. Although their official name was Xal, many people referred to them as lizardmen due to their similar appearance to the beast described in D&Ds.
A Xal's body was almost completely covered in scales except for their face, chest and their genitals. The scales were hard and rough, providing them with ample protection but under their skins were glands that could secrete a lubricant to smoothen their scales. Normally, those glands would constantly secrete a lubricant just like humans would constantly sweat. However, when engaged in combat, a Xal's body would temporarily prevent the glands from acting, resulting in them obtaining a hard and durable armor.
"It turned out that the world beyond the rift wasn't uninhabited! For the first time, humanity came into contact with the Xals and met its greatest setback to this day. Being unable to use all the advanced weapons they were equipped with, the large majority of soldiers perished when facing the Xals. To top it off, the Xals did not stop after pushing us out of the rift; instead, it was their turn to try to invade our world."
"And so, the carnage started. We were all taken by surprise and even with our weapons working, a large number of people on site ended up dying. The automated weapons all ended up failing as the Xal's body temperature differs significantly from humans! Furthermore, most lasers and chemical weapons were ineffective. With their hard scales and high agility, it was very hard to take them down with bullets. However, in the end, we succeeded in repelling the Xals back to their world."
"We were able to stabilize the situation, but it was not the end of the story. The battles between humans and the Xals were just starting as each side tried to invade the other but each attempt ended up in a failure. Meanwhile, for the first time, the different government agencies actively tried to downgrade their technology. By getting rid of the electrical and electronics parts and by removing some chemicals, the researchers finally came up with weapons that could be used on the other side. Yet we still failed to obtain any kind of resource from there."
"The entire world was greedily watching the rift in America but fifteen years later, another rift appeared. This time, it opened right in the middle of the Xinjiang province of China. History repeated itself but this time, we were prepared. Just like the first one, the second rift also led to another world that was also ruled by the Xals."
"Time went by and fifteen years later, a third rift appeared. To everyone's surprise, the third rift appeared next to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique! This is the rift that gives way to the world known as Loha. We encountered the Xals again but this time, the electronic equipment actually worked there! It was found that Loha's laws of physics were very similar to that of Earth! For the first time, we had the advantage and pushed our way through."
"Humanity was finally able to set a foothold in another world. Although the Xals fought back, in the end, when facing the threats of modern weaponry, they could only fall back and abandon Loha. It is unfortunate that several atomic bombs were used in the process of entering Loha was also the only reliable way for us to obtain more resources."
"All of this leads us to the discovery of magic. To our surprise, we found out that the Xals were not the only intelligent species of Loha; there were humans too! They were being completely suppressed by the Xals but thanks to us, they were now free to completely take over Loha."
"Despite our cultural differences, we slowly interacted with each other and soon started trading. There was a reason why the Lohans were able to fight against the Xals for so long. Compared to us who relied solely on weapons, they had magic!"
"In exchange for our help in rebuilding the desolate Loha, we were able to finally learn about magic. The origin of all the magic you use is Loha and this is why this course is important. In your third year, you will all get the opportunity to visit Loha. The culture there is completely different from Earth but being the source of our magic, it would be beneficial for you to know about their past for your future explorations!"
Chapter 7: Xale
At the end of the long and boring lecture, most students were already groggy. Professor Stalas was an excellent narrator but it did not change the fact that most students were already aware of those events.
"Well, I guess I should not have too high expectations from an introductory lecture," said Alexander.
Raphael lightly laughed and asked: "Haha, where are you heading next? We have the language course after this."
"Physical training. After that, I'm free for the rest of the afternoon but I'll probably head to the training fields."
"Alright then, see you later. Maybe we'll meet again at the fresher's party this evening."
The duo quickly left. Alexander was not in a hurry to leave. His next lesson was physical training which would take place at the training fields five minutes away from the History department. On the other hand, Raphael and Su Buqing would need to hurry and get to the other side of the city for their language course.
It was one of the major drawbacks of having the departments scattered around the city; a lot of time was wasted in travel time. This resulted in the timetables having gaps between each scheduled lesson which was quite inconvenient for the students.
Alexander took his time and slowly made his way to the training fields. Although they joined the academy to become mages, taking care of their physical condition was also very important. They had to have a minimum of one session of physical training per week.
The physical training itself was not very hard; the real goal of this course was not to strengthen the students' bodies but rather to build up a team spirit between them! The final goal of the Earth Academy had always been to explore the worlds beyond the rifts. Their idea was: "If we send troops trained in both magic and weapons, maybe they would be able to push back the Xals."
After walking for a few minutes, Alexander stopped in front of the entrance of a massive stadium. The stadium was gigantic; it was at four times the size of an Olympic stadium.
"I have to say that the governments have invested quite a bit of money in these facilities."
Using his X-Driver as his pass, Alexander had no trouble entering the training fields where more than five hundred students were already loudly chatting with each other. Alexander quickly joined the fray and chatted with a few random students.
Talking to strangers was awkward at first but Alexander quickly blended in. The carefree and innocent atmosphere of the academy gradually removed his reluctance to socialize.
At this moment, an instructor arrived and loudly shouted, "Everyone! Disperse please! Go to your allocated section. The training is about to begin. Please meet your instructors!"
The crowd started to move. With a quick look at his X-Driver, Alexander found out that he was allocated to Instructor 15. To his surprise, his instructor was none other than Instructor Keno; the same one who brought him to the academy.
Instructor Keno was quietly standing in section 15 of a stadium. Like the first time Alexander saw him, he had a stern face and stood as straightly as possible. He waited for the students to come near him before starting to give instructions.
"Start by finding a partner. There are thirty of you here. I want to see fifteen pairs. If anyone has any trouble finding a partner, just let me know."
Many students were unhappy at receiving such a strict looking instructor, but no one dared to voice their thoughts out. In a matter of seconds, fifteen pairs were neatly arranged in front of instructor Keno. Alexander's partner was a tall muscular man. He was so tall that just by sta
nding next to each other, Alexander was currently being completely shielded from the sun.
"Alright. We'll begin like everyone. Start by running one lap. Start now!" said Instructor Keno while signaling the pair at the front to start jogging.
"Hey, I'm Alexander by the way," said Alexander while jogging next to the giant man. He did not speak much with his partner before; they only ended up together as they were the last two not having any partners.
"Xale, my name's Xale," answered the giant while smiling.
'Xale? That name seems familiar. It's the first time I remember someone from my past life. Wait! Xale? Is it Xale Radmon? The Xale Radmon?' Alexander's thoughts were running wild.
He did not remember much of his past school life but the name 'Xale Radmon' was one he simply could not forget! 'Maybe this is just a coincidence but the name Xale is so rare on Earth. Only someone from Loha could be called like that... I need to confirm it' thought Alexander.
He slightly slowed down his pace to take a closer look at Xale. Lohans were humans and did not look very different from Earthlings but if one paid close attention, it was possible to tell the difference.
Alexander focused on Xale's face and soon, his suspicions were confirmed. 'His nose is sharper than normal, and his chin is very pronounced. His eyes look normal, but the absence of eyelashes is a clear sign of Lohan origin. To top it off, his hair does seem to be unusually smooth.'
"Say, do you come from Loha?" quietly asked Alexander.
Surprised by the question, Xale looked at Alexander with a confused expression. "Yeah... How did you know? Am I that different?"
"Oh no. I befriended some Lohans before and they gave me similar vibes to yours. I was just asking,"
"Oh? Really? It is pretty rare for Lohans to come to Earth. Most of them are from important families. Who are your friends?" suspiciously asked Xale.
When he heard Xale's question, Alexander immediately started sweating. 'D*mnit. I forgot that Xale hated the large families of Loha. He probably thinks I am trying to befriend him to recruit him in an organization.'
There was a reason why Alexandre remembered Xale's name. First, his name was very similar to the Xals, the arch-enemy of humanity. Second, in his past life, he remained low-key during his first two years at the academy but during the third year when they returned to Loha, he fully displayed his strength and became one of the strongest students of the campus.
It was not surprising for Lohans to be stronger mages than Earthlings. After all, they were born in an environment filled with magical elements and their constitutions were more adapted to the use of magic. However, becoming a powerful mage required a lot of resources and not everyone could afford them all.
To give a chance to the general populations, academies like the Earth academy were also set up in Loha but unfortunately, the big families would naturally take advantage of the system and join those academies.
Every year, there would be some exchange students coming from those academies and Xale happened to be one of them. The exchange spots were usually taken by the student coming from large families but this particular year, there had been an exception: Xale.
Xale was different from his peers. He did not have a huge background like the others and only managed to obtain this spot with sheer luck. However, being lucky did not mean that he was worthless. Not only did he have a performance index of 9.2, but he was also very talented and easily memorized the spirit circuits required for specific spells. This was the perfect combination as he only performed the minimum amount of training and did not significantly waste his life force.
"Since you know what kind of people come from Loha, you should also know that I am not allowed to reveal their identities," said Alexander. It was the only excuse he could come up with; he could not reveal that he traveled back in time and met him in his previous life. Although this excuse might create a gap between him and Xale, Alexander was not really interested in befriending Xale.
Xale was strong and had a bright future but Alexander was not interested in taking part in it. He had already planned his own path which only consisted of him protecting his family and a few specific people. He did not care if the rest of the world was burning neither was he interested in being the savior of humanity. Even if most of his school life was a blur, Alexander still clearly remembered the two major events that changed his life; the first one being the first year's end of year examination where they would be tasked into going through one of the rifts and the other was the ultimate invasion of Earth by the Xal.
Yes, the invasion of Earth! While humanity was slowly becoming stronger, the Xals were not being idle either and three years later would once again try to invade Earth in force and this time, humanity was destined to lose. Alexander remembered this event very clearly; the humans did not lose because they were weaker but rather because they were cowards!
Instead of giving in their all, at the first sign of losing, many world leaders chose to run away instead of fighting back. They had long prepared their escape path to the moon. The moon has already been colonized by humans and several changes have taken place there; an atmosphere was artificially built and by bringing in a significant amount of water, plants even started to grow there. A few people already lived there, taking the time to convert it into a self-sufficient planet but it could at most accommodate five million people. To save their own skin, the world leaders ended up abandoning their home planet, leading to the complete defeat of humanity.
"Mmm, if you say so," coldly answered Xale. As soon as he heard that Alexander was somehow related to another Lohan, he lost any interest in befriending him. The duo silently completed the lap without any issue and soon started a series of exercise under the guidance of instructor Keno.
After roughly an hour, instructor Keno signaled the end of the session; everyone was free to go. Without a word, Xale rapidly made his way toward the exit. On the other hand, Alexander slowly stretched his harm and sat on the grass for a minute.
"The first day is finally over. It is quite good to only have lectures in the morning and to be free in the afternoon. Let's go get some lunch first, then I can come back here to practice a little bit."
***
An hour later, after a short lunch break, Alexander returned to the training fields to start practicing. Compared to before, the gigantic stadium was now mostly empty. Only about thirty students could be seen scattered around the field, each minding their own business.
It was not unusual to see the training fields in this state; the majority of the students spent their time learning magic at the department or practicing it in the battle rooms; only a few students took care of their health.
Alexander quickly found an empty area and took off his jacket. Although it was still in the middle of the day, he could already start practicing. Stargazers followed a different system than elemental mages. They did not need to use spirit circuits to use their skills; instead, there were three ways in which they could use their power.
The first one was through inscribing symbols on particular objects. By inscribing different symbols, he could create different effects, but those effects would not last for very long as the materials on Earth could not retain the star energy very well.
The second method was hand seals. By making specific hand seals, a stargazer could call upon the power of specific constellations. This method was fast and rather discreet, but it lacked in terms of power compared to the third method.
Finally, the final method was body postures! By using adopting certain positions, stargazers could imbue their body with the star energy of specific constellations. It was the most effective way of using the powers of a stargazer, but the downside was obvious; one would not always be able to achieve the required position. Moreover, one also needed to have a rather flexible body to make some of the postures to use some constellations.
Alexander had long memorized all the important elements of a stargazer. There was a total of twenty-six constellations and most of the
m had their own unique posture, hand seal and symbol. With a clear practice plan in mind, Alexander adopted the first posture: Arado.
When the other student saw Alexander's behavior, they considered him to be a weirdo. From their point of view, what Alexander was doing looked very similar to modern yoga or Tai chi but who would come to the training field to practice yoga? There were far more comfortable yoga centers in the city.
Chapter 8: Fresher’s party and an opportunity to earn credits
Alexander was fully immersed in his practice, doing his best to replicate the postures in his memories and unbeknown to him, his X-Driver was already displaying 16:49. Adopting the different postures was not hard; the real challenge was to be able to swiftly transition between the different postures while keeping the star energy in his body.
Whenever he would properly adopt a posture, he would feel a warm energy flowing in his body, a clear sign that he had succeeded. However, no matter how talented he was, it was impossible to perfect his technique in just a few hours.
