Chapter 352: Returning to the Academy
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[Ding! Congratulations on completing the Evolution Mission!]
[Ding! As your Cyborg Synchronisation level is 10%, you’ll gain 10% of your Source Code World stats!]
[Ding! Your Athanasia stats are unsealed!]
[Ding! You gained access to your Cyborg body – Once per month!]
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John didn’t know how long it had passed since he entered the portal, but the sensation of being stretched through infinity finally snapped back into a singular point of reality.
He found himself lying on a hard, tiled floor, the smell of floor wax and old stone filling his nostrils. He was back in a familiar place. He was lying on the ground just a few meters away from a closed dorm room.
He wasn’t alone; around him were his friends, sprawled out in similar states of disorientation. As the fog in his mind cleared, the architecture of the corridor made his memories resurface with jarring clarity.
"We are back, hahaha!" The first to speak was Luke. He jumped to his feet, throwing his arms wide and shouting with a hysterical edge to his voice. "We are back! See, Ricky? This is your dorm... Wow! The walls are repaired like there wasn’t even a hole before we left! They did a clean job, didn’t they?"
Just before Luke could blurt out anything else that might compromise them out of his excitement, John stood up and firmly tugged at his shoulder. He signalled Luke with his eyes, a silent, sharp glare that clearly told him to shut the hell up.
They had meticulously agreed on what they would do once they returned. They were supposed to lie low, assess the situation properly, and ensure their cover story was airtight before making any real noise.
Luke realised that he lost control over himself instantly, an abrupt change washing over his face as he clamped his lips shut. He stayed silent like the others, warily examining the corridor they had appeared in.
"It’s nighttime," Cissel noted, looking toward the distant end of the hallway where the lanterns were dimmed to a low glow. "Shall we go into our dorms and rest until the morning?"
Ricky motioned toward his own dorm door, the one Luke had been pointing at. "Or we can all go inside my place and rest for the night. What do you think? It’s better than standing out here in the open."
"Let’s take some rest first," John decided, his voice a low whisper. "There is a guest room inside our dorms prepared for visitors. The girls can sleep there, and we can take the rest of the rooms. We need to be off the radar until we know exactly what happened in our absence."
Just as John was finishing his instructions, Ricky’s brow furrowed. He stepped toward his door, fished his academy key out of his storage device, and slid it into the lock.
He turned it, but the mechanism didn’t click. It felt like he was using the wrong key. The door didn’t budge an inch. He tried it many times, jiggling the handle with increasing frustration, but he failed.
Once the key failed for the fourth time, everyone looked at Ricky weirdly.
"I’m sure this is the right key," Ricky insisted, his voice rising in defensive annoyance as he felt their eyes on him. "It’s not my fault. This door... It’s like the keyhole itself was changed while we were away. Maybe they upgraded the security?"
"Who are you?"
The voice was sharp and unfamiliar. Before Ricky could try the key again, the door swung inward from the inside. A youth no one had ever seen before appeared in the doorway, dressed in a standard academy sleeping tunic. He looked at the group with a mixture of confusion and irritation. "What are the lot of you doing in front of my door at this hour?!"
"This is my room," Ricky growled, his voice dropping to a dangerous tone as he stepped forward. The months of constant life-and-death struggle in the pocket trial world had stripped away his patience. "How come you claim it’s yours? How dare you take something that belongs to me?"
Ricky didn’t just throw threatening words and glares; he instinctively reached for his waist, his hands hovering over the storage device, aiming to take out his two swords.
He looked ready to start a fight right then and there to reclaim his property. The next instant, John moved. He jumped fast, stepping between the two youths before a drop of blood could be spilt, holding Ricky’s hand firmly, putting a stop to whatever his friend wanted to do.
John looked at Ricky with narrowed eyes that silenced the latter and forced him to take a half-step back. Staying in the pocket trial for so long had left a deep mark on Ricky’s soul. He had changed; he was more aggressive, more daring, and far more confident in resorting to violence to solve his problems.
"I know this might look weird, but this dorm used to belong to my friend here," John said, shifting his attention fully toward the stranger. He kept his voice calm, projecting the measured authority of a leader.
"His name is Ricky, a student in the first year of the Military Department. There must have been a big misunderstanding with the dormitory assignments..."
"That’s impossible," the youth countered, glaring fiercely at Ricky. He seemed to ignore John entirely, focused only on the perceived threat of the one who claimed the dorm as his.
"I’m a student in the first year of the department, and there is no such student named Ricky there. I’ve never heard of him. And this? This has been my dorm since the day I joined the academy. You’ve got the wrong floor, or you’re out of your minds."
"You are a student in the first-year class?!!" Luke couldn’t hold himself back any longer, his eyes bulging. "How can that be? We are all students of the first year, and we’ve never seen your face in any of the lectures or the training halls!"
The stranger sneered. "If you were first years, you’d know who I am, I’d have known you already as I’m in first year. Now get lost before I call one of the teachers. I’m not in the mood for drunken pranks from upperclassmen."