The other two.

"I thought so"

He couldn't help smiling again, the sight of the kid getting enthralled by all new things that comes to his view was something Matthew realized he was getting addicted to, it was an innocent expression of a child eager to see the whole world with his eyes at the same time, it was probably why he had big eyes too. The thought of those eyes being filled with sorrow and rage wasn't something he wanted to see, he would try as much as possible to keep it the way it was.

"Welcome to Suhn Moohl"

The name was one hard for people to understand when they first hear but those who aim to enter the academy usually do a lot of research on it, whether to prepare for any unexpected test thrown their way or just for the heck of it. Jaden was one of those who did it for the two reasons, the story and rumors of exceptionally talented individuals and powerhouses graduating from the academy made him one of the ardent fans of the school, a passion that was second only to that for his father. The name sounds probably like another way for saying the sun and moon, but in actual sense means "A Gift", it was said that when Earth was facing the calamitous attacks from those monsters now called the corrupted, it reached a point when even with all the secret weapons whether tested or untested, completed or in progress was brought out to face them, all of it would be rendered pointless. Despair was nigh infinite in the hearts of all humans at that time, It was already calculated that in a year give or take a few months Earth would collapse so they had all resigned themselves to their fates and just took what they called the last stand against the corrupted. It was at that moment that Earth was graced with the visit of those who Earth claimed to be extra-terrestrials, they came with power big enough to be only be considered a god's, they said they came with a gift. With their arrival, in less than two days, all the corrupted spread throughout the far corners of the parts of Earth conquered were gathered up and put together, they set up a massive stand at a particular place on earth, gathered the corrupted there and wiped them all out with a divine strike from their god, it was a day of immense release as their troubles and worries had been vanquished at that moment, they praised and thanked the beings who came over, but the beings only preached of their god's faith to them and wanted nothing else. In response to that, the people who could be considered of the highest level of strength at that point in the humans alive decided to honor their god by declaring the spot of the corrupted's annihilation to be a holy ground, the beings were pleased with this and advised the people then to build an institution that would be able to raise the strength of the humans and even offered different thoughts on how it should all be done. Eventually the academy was built on the very grounds of the annihilation of the corrupted to show that they thoroughly honored the words of the beings and their god, since the annihilation was said to be a gift to humans, the school was eventually named in the language that the beings spoke, a gift to humanity.

He had heard the story of the academy hundreds of times and it was always as intriguing as the last time to Jaden. He had seen pictures of the academy plenty of times, even the videos of the annual tournament in the academy that was the only broadcasted aspect of the academy was something he had never missed since he started, but even with all that he was still taken aback by the beauty of the school in reality, the magnificence of the academy was reminiscent of a particular wizard school he saw in an eight part movie he watched where wizards from all over the country attended. Only this academy wasn't one close to the sea.

"We'll be landing here kid, grab your bags" instead of moving into the academy grounds like Jaden expected, the floater moved over to the top of a short building and descended, "Why aren't we moving into the academy grounds?" Confused and eager to see the academy, Jaden asked, "there are things I need to do and clear up before we go in to register you, you just need to do a simple element and talent test so don't worry, the academy isn't going anywhere", hearing that, he felt something odd but he chose not to say anything. The floater landed on the rooftop of the building and all this was starting to feel like a movie to him, but nevertheless he grabbed his bags and was confused as the view outside the window seemed to be floating up, "uhh?", looking to the front and back, he realized it was an hallucination, it was more like, the car was going down through a hole in the roof, and that's what was happening as the floater disappeared from the roof completely.

As the floater seemed to have balanced itself and wasn't descending anymore, Jaden could see the interior of where they were, it was like a garage for cars as he could see two more cars parked at the right side of the big space. He was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with his father's "bestfriend" when he heard Matthew speak again, "alright Jaden, this is where we'll be staying for a while", "okay. So he got down from the floater and waited by the side, closing the doors of the car, he moved to Jaden and they both moved to a door that should lead out of the garage. Walking out through the door, the view of the entire floor of the house came into his sight, it was properly lit with fairly beautiful decorations and was more like and had a hole cut in the middle of the floor, right, it was a hole that allowed one to see the ground floor of the building, it was hard to imagine that this was how the interior of the dilapidated looking building was, it was obvious that it was a place with people already present.

When he looked down to the ground floor, he could see two figures, One was sitting on a long sofa reading something from what seemed to be a heavyweight of a book, the other was... playing video games, Jaden couldn't help but reconfirm what he was seeing. After everything calm down after the attack and all, all humans realized that had what they called powers, elemental powers meaning they could control the myriad elements, infact although it wasn't mentioned in the legendary recount of how the humans fought the beasts and became despaired until the otherworlders came, those powers had already started awakening within them, some through sheer frustration at the cruelty of the corrupted and some through thorough striving after seeing those who already awakened. So when everything became calm after the otherworlders left the gift for them, life couldn't go back to how it was before, everyone realized that they could reach new heights with their powers if they took time to cultivate it, hence things that were taken to be entertainment during the years before became obsolete and the industries faded away, cultivaltion and cultivation-related activities became the new order of entertainment and development, safe for some things like documentaries on the war, movies made to recreate the scenes of the battle-filled years that enlightened the people and made sure that no one forgot the struggles and sacrifices. So although it wasn't odd to see the man by the window side read a 1000+ page of whatever it was, it was beyond odd to see someone play a video game, especially when that someone was an adult.

"Some people cannot help but strive not to lose what made them who they were previously", Jaden was snapped out of his stare when Matthew spoke to him, he had noticed Jaden's gaze and decided to explain to clear his confusion, "and some people can't help but go back to what they loved doing the most when they're in times of peaceful comfort, back then he was a multi-championship winner of various gaming competitions and was even a numerous times gold medalist in the games section of the Olympics. Gaming is his passion and what made him who he was, it would be hard for him to forget the feel of a gaming pad in his hands even more so than the guns he wielded during the times he lost everyone he cared for. "

As he talked, they both climbed down a flight of long stairs, so while Jaden could feel the sorrow in the words Matthew spoke, he wasn't given time to dwell on it as another voice spoke up, "I'll give him a six and a half out of ten in resemblance to his father, Xander could never have been this good-looking in his life time", the one who spoke was the guy with the book in his hand, his attention had been taken since he felt the floater coming down to the rooftop of the building, and when he heard the click of the door to the garage closing he watched as the young man who was unaware of the attention walked down from the top floor, it was precisely because he was sure they would come through the roof that he sat beside the main entrance to the building on the ground floor.

"He has his mother's blood flowing through him too you know, and besides you're just a jealous guy that lusted after Xander's look but never got it", Matthew spoke up again and fought the battle for his deceased friend. Looking at the guy, he was actually good-looking too, with his black hair and peculiar eye color, it was a kind of clear diamond color with streaks of black you wouldn't notice unless you looked closer, it begged the question of how good-looking Jaden's father was and showed how monstrously handsome Jaden was. Ignoring the stinging reply, He focused on Jaden who was trying not to picture this guy as what he thinks he is, he wouldn't say he had nothing against those kind of people but it was actually just a smidge of dislike and disgust, "I'm Harry, you can call me that or you can call me Mr. Wizard and don't worry I'm a straight guy, I could see it in your eyes". The surprise in Jaden's eyes became a mix of relief and embarrassment and then turned to puzzlement at the second choice of address he heard, the mysterious feeling he got from the guy when he first saw him with a book the size of a million plus words dictionary was torn down as he didn't know what to feel of him, but since, judging from the conversation, he was a friend of his father, he chose not to think much.

"His level of focus has never ceased to amaze me", Hearing Matthew's voice, the other two looked and at him and then followed his eyes to the other big guy who was essentially in a realm of his own with a curved TV that screamed extreme high definition and a headphone on his head. Then Harry spoke up, you can't blame him with the those headphones on, that shit could make even an Elephant deaf with no hope, I always wondered how he got through alone on his own in the out". Jaden focused on his headphones and knew it was also a recent development despite it's old-fashioned design, there wasn't a single leak of sound from the headphones even with the amount it was producing based on what Harry said. "Let me get his attention" offered Harry as he placed the book he was holding on the arm of the sofa where it visibly depressed and facing the guy's direction, Jaden watched wondering what he was trying to do and he watched Harry taking a deep breath, 'is he going to yell at him or something', and his guess was proven correct as Harry yelled at the guy "Hey asshole, get those fucking headphones off your head". Although the yell wasn't too loud one, Jaden could swear he saw the space in front of Harry move, like rippling water, the air displaced violently as it moved way too fast to the guy playing videogames, although it looked like a gust of quick wind to his eyes, he had a feeling that it wasn't going to be a simple hair ruffling that would come out of it when it hit the guy, like the guy's senses were also alert and informed him of the impending attack as he turned to the direction of the gust as it moved at a fast speed, a slight frown on his face as his left hand let go of the control pad and made a circular motion, almost instantaneously a red glow came alive in front of him as Jaden could see a large swathe of fire suddenly appeared and formed a circular shield of burning flames, it was big enough to make up for the large area the gust of wind had spread to and then collided with it. The odd thing was that in a collision like that where there was meant to be an aftermath of an explosion, moreso when it was two elements like wind and fire, the explosion never came as the shield of flames actually grew extensively and swallowed the gust, immediately compressing itself until it disappeared, but it seemed like the guy wasn't willing to let it slide like that as a portion of the flames split up from the almost extinguished flames and flew back in the direction the wind travelled to a Harry with a smirk on his face casually waving his hand, although this time Jaden couldn't see what happened as the flames abruptly disappeared like a weak candle flame getting blown out. It was at this point in time that Jaden realized that these two normal looking people were scary strong.

"Finally got your attention uh?", Harry said with the smirk still on his face. Although the guy couldn't hear what he said he was able to perfectly read his lips and so he pulled down his headphones and was about to ask why he was being disturbed when he noticed the two people standing beside Harry, he recognized the old one but got stuck on the teen, and then realization hit him as he spoke up with a slightly rough voice "Oh hey, what's up, nice to meet you".

He was on his back on a bed staring at the ceiling of the room he was given, just staring and trying not to think of anything. After being stylishly shooed away when the three buddies were about to have a discussion, he was shown to the current room and decided to stay on the bed and do nothing, there wasn't much he could do anyways since Matthew told him they would leave in about two hours, he was trying not to think so he wouldn't grow impatient at waiting to enter the academy and do something like sneaking out on his own to enter the academy, although he doubted if he could go more than five steps out of his room without them noticing.

Finally, he fell to the thoughts and became impatient and just as the idea of sneaking out was about to form in his head, he remembered something, "oh yeah, I could do that". When he left Astral at the woods who he was sure was reluctant to let him leave that quickly, he was taught four sets of mnemonics, at the first mention of it, Jaden's heart was about to burst from happiness overload until he was told it was something like a communication trick, a mnemonic that allowed Jaden to connect with the garden, which he was told was a different space on it's own, and communicate with the four of them although one at a time through something like a mental transfer. He calmed down and steadied his breathing and began the mnemonic chant, it was actually pushed into his head as it was a hard thing to remember in such a short period of time so it flowed through his lips as steadily as possible, it was even pretty clear but anyone listening won't be able to help but wonder what it sounded like. When the last word of the mnemonic came out of his mouth, something happened. Everything paused in plain sight as Jaden's felt himself float up from where he is, he looked down to see 'another' Jaden right below him but he couldn't exactly control the state he was in as he felt something else happening, he felt a strand of his hair in the perculiar form immediately move through a long distance until it got to the town he lived in far away from where it was, and the speed of movement didn't lessen as it moved to a forest that was normal in all ways, it moved until it got to the point where Jaden entered into the space he met Astral, and entered the space at the same pace it was almost like his head had split open and looking from a person's view it really did, it didn't do anything to him other than look like a pasageway as Jaden could feel the connection of his head to that space, he waited and very soon felt a small consciousness enter his head through the connection that was established, then like a lie, the state he was in reversed as the connection he felt disappeared, the state of suspension from the body also disappeared and he dropped back into his body. One second later he closed eyes snapped open as he reflexively spilled what was on his mind out, "that was crazy"

"Don't fret, this is only the first time. When you try it later it'll be much better and easier, almost instinctive even"

Like another set of thoughts in his head he could hear a voice speaking to him, it was Astral's voice in his head. He was suddenly reminded of a fact he read about electronic novels that were already becoming the mainstream, he especially couldn't forget those webnovels and their type of genres, he couldn't help but feel like one of those hero MC's.