Chapter 4 - Colorless

As much as he would love to make the red haired boy pay for everything he had done, he had more pressing matters at hand. Like how to get inside the academy. He tried opening the door, but no matter how much he pushed or pulled, the doors would not budge. He took a moment and just stood there. As much as he hated to admit it, he was locked out. 

With a frown he kicked the door and cursed under his breath as he began to look for another entrance. 'An academy this big has to have multiple entrances, right?' 

Oh, how wrong he was. 

He had been walking for around ten minutes, but not once did he come across a door. There were windows, but they were too high up for him to reach. Which left him turning to his second option. To find someone to help him, but even that proved to be difficult. 

'Where is everyone? Shouldn't there at least be some workers wandering about?' He stopped to rest in a small garden. He gazed at the flowers, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the fresh dew on the petals as if they had just been watered. 

'If the flowers were just watered, then there has to be someone nearby.' With determination Aether made his way around the garden looking for any signs of life. His efforts were rewarded with a single shadow. 

A young man stood under a tree in a corner of the garden. If Aether hadn't been looking so hard he would have easily missed the man. The young man was wearing all black making it easy for him to hide in the shadow of the tree. He had his back facing Aether, so in order to not startle the person Aether called out.

"Excuse me." He called softly. Aether may have hated the way his voice sounded now, but he had to admit, it proved useful in situations like this. 

The young man was not startled by his sudden voice, but instead shifted slightly to glance behind him. His blue eyes caught Aether's and the two stood still looking at one another. Aether got lost in those eyes. They were beautiful and looked like a clear light blue sea, but the longer he looked the more he felt something was off about those eyes. They seemed cold and detached as if the person wasn't really there.

With a frown he called out again, "Excuse me." He walked forward, "Could you help me? I seem to have been locked out and I'm trying to find another way in. Do you by any chance-wow!" 

Before Aether could take another step forward, the world shifted into darkness and when he opened his eyes he found himself in the hallway of the academy. He blinked, confused about what had just happened. 

'Oh well. At least I'm inside." he shrugged his shoulders, 'Now, where do I go from here?' Although he was getting small glimpses of the previous owner's memories, that's all they were. Small snippets and nothing more. 

He glanced at the options in front of him and let out a long sigh. 'With every hurdle I overcome a new one appears.' 

The Royal Academy was a maze. 

Each corridor looked identical to one another. The only differences were the small plaques above the doors to the classes that signified what was being taught, but even those were almost entirely useless since it seemed that each corridor had at least one room dedicated to ability training.

In the Flower of Soline, The Royal Academy was described as a school that was split up into three different buildings. Each building was connected in the middle by a courtyard designated as the safe zone. 

The three different buildings were identical to junior highschool, highschool and university. The only difference being that making it to the next building was not only based on grades and performance, but also based on your skills and talents. Of course, in this world, showing one's skills usually meant that some poor souls had to lose their lives along the way. 

To make things harder, the moment a student entered the Royal Academy's grounds they also gave up their protection. Meaning that if a student killed another student, their families could do nothing about it. Not that they ever did anyway. If a student died it meant that they were weak and the weak had no place in their families. 

He pursed his lips as he gazed at the many corridors. The safest option was to find the courtyard, but then what? He wasn't entirely sure where exactly he was supposed to be. Judging from his looks he had to at least be in highschool and his maid did say that he hadn't come of age yet, but that didn't necessarily mean he wouldn't be in the university building. 

He scrunched up his face in hesitation, 'But what if I run into trouble along the way? With how much this body is bullied…' he let out a sigh, 'As much as I hate to admit it, I'm an easy kill.'

The academy had another interesting element he was worried about. It was designed so that the higher the facility the further back you had to travel, giving others more opportunity to kill you. 

It was a clever lay out that the author had mentioned and one he had made sure to make note of. Initially he had found it fascinating that the first prince had no issues heading to the university building even though it was in the back, but now that he was living it, he no longer found it interesting. 

If he was right and he was in highschool, then his building should be on the right side further in the back. Which meant that he had to walk a little further than he would like to. With a destination in mind, he took a right turn and slowly made his way towards what he assumed was the highschool. Only to stop a moment later when he realized that even if he found the highschool building, he didn't know what classes to attend.

'I hate this world.'

He walked down endless hallways, past countless doors and every now and then a single butler or maid who bluntly ignored his existence even when he asked them for directions. Growing frustrated he started to peak into every classroom, trying his hardest to gauge what classroom he should be in. 

Of course he didn't physically go into said classrooms. Instead he peeked through a small window on some of the doors. To his surprise most classrooms looked like average lecture halls one would find at a university. Students took notes while the professor talked, but every once in a while he would see something interesting. A creature that was too similar to a dragon, a professor wielding both water and fire at the same time while reading a hovering book, letters floating off the book as the professor pointed to them one by one. Each was more fascinating than the last and he found himself immersed in such sightings.

Eventually he came across a door that was different from the others. It read 'Professor Rondell'. 

'There has to be someone in here that knows where I need to go.' he thought as he knocked on the door. 

"Cough- Come in!" A high pitched voice, almost as if the person had been startled, called out to him. 

With great hesitancy, Aether opened the door. He wasn't sure why he was expecting a normal office like a Professor would have, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't. The room was large with wood floors and floor to ceiling bookshelves on every wall. A purple rug with strange designs was placed in the center of the room. Upon closer inspection Aether noticed that the small designs were actually floating above the rug like small holograms. Two round couches sat on top of the rug with a single desk in the middle. Just like the rug, strange objects were floating up and down in what seemed like water above the desk. For a moment he was really tempted to touch it.

On the opposite wall from him, two large windows sat with a large black board sitting in between. 

A single man stood in front of the black board. He was the definition of a scholar. His long brown hair was braided into an intricate braid behind him. He wore navy robes that fluttered behind him as he moved around, the gold accents glittered with every movement. On his sleeve was a single crest too small for Aether to make it out, but he assumed it was the crest of the academy. His blue eyes were staring at the board, non blinking, as if he had fallen asleep while standing up, but the deep bags underneath his eyes gave away that the man was indeed awake, just sleep deprived. 

The man never looked at him, so he made his way to the man's side to see what had the man so troubled. He almost laughed. On the board was a simple mathematical equation with notes all over the place and strange drawings scribbled haphazardly next to them. Aether didn't know what the drawings were, but the equation was simple enough that an elementary kid could solve it.

He hesitated for a moment, wondering if the Professor was playing a joke on him or worse testing him. After some consideration he picked up the half used chalk and wrote out the answer to the equation. When he was done he placed the chalk down and turned to the Professor waiting on his verdict. 

The Professor's mouth was open. He blinked a couple of times, looking back at him then the board before he dropped the cup he was holding. It shattered on the ground and Aether flinched at the sudden sound. 

"Apologizes, I didn't mean to startle you-" Aether was quick to apologize as he reached down to pick up the shattered pieces, but was interrupted by hands grabbing onto his shoulders. 

"How? How did you solve it?" the Professor's eyes were unfocused. "No, no, that's not important. Who are you?" The man shook him as he asked. Aether was seriously debating on whether or not he should just leave and try his luck elsewhere, but he desperately needed help in finding his classroom and outside of the mansion, this was the first person to actually acknowledge him as a human being.

But it seemed fate had other plans. 

"Those eyes, that hair color. A Frenzel!" the Professor shouted. "That can't be, you definitely aren't Leon." He circled around him, "You can't be Aria, you're definitely a boy." Stopping, the Professor stood face to face with him once again, "Tell me, what's your name?" His eyes were narrowed, but Aether could see the sparkle in them. It was like a child getting a present on christmas. 

Aether hesitated, his eyes narrowed in slight confusion. Why did the Professor not know his name even though he knew he was a Frenzel? Weren't the Frenzel's supposed to be a well known noble family? The red haired bully and his hooligans knew his name, yet the Professor didn't? This worried him.

He glanced at the Professor before him. The Professor's eyes were unblinking and brimming with anticipation. He sighed, 'I guess it wouldn't hurt.'

"My name is Aether Frenzel." He gave the Professor his best smile, one he had perfected after years of being dragged to boring gatherings. 

The Professor seemed to freeze once more, before he snapped his fingers and getsured for Aether to follow. 

"Follow, Follow! I need to know what amazing abilities you possess! To have such great intelligence alone was already too much, but being a Frenzel on top of that, ha, this is too much!" The man was biting his finger, his eyes shined with a crazed look as he pulled out a small orb from one of the desk drawers.

"Go ahead, place your hand on the orb." The Professor pushed the orb towards Aether. Aether glanced at the Professor then back at the orb. 'What the hell am I supposed to do with this?'

The Professor must have seen what he was thinking as he let out a startled gasp."Don't tell me you've never seen an ability orb before. Uh, what have those bastards been up to, never showing their own son what an ability orb is." He grumbled under his breath and placed a hand on his head. "Look, you place your hand on the orb and its color will tell me your ability." 

Aether looked back at the orb. Was that all? Was that really all it took for him to figure out what his abilities were? 

"Well, what are you waiting for, go on." He gestured again to the orb. 

Aether gazed at the orb. An eerie chill ran down his spine and for a second he had the notion that if he placed his hand on that orb then something bad would happen. He took a moment to ponder his options. 'If I don't place my hand on that orb I might never figure out what my ability is, but if I do then I'll know. It's an easy choice, but then why am I getting such a strange feeling?' he glanced behind him, 'Like I shouldn't open it.'

The Professor once again urged him and without giving it a second thought Aether shook off the strange feeling and placed his hand on the orb.

He clenched his teeth as the orb grew a bright white, painting the room in a single color as it shined. He was a Frenzel, his abilities had to be on par with the rest of the family, right? A part of him deep down grew worried with every passing second. After all, why would the Frenzel's separate someone from the family? Why didn't the Professor know his name if he was a Frenzel? Something had to be wrong with him, he was hoping though, that it wasn't his ability. 

Maybe he should have known better. 

When the light dimmed down, Aether's smile dropped while the Professor's grin widened. 

The orb held no color. 

"What-" Aether gulped, he was afraid to ask. "What does this mean?" He trembled as he spoke. 

The Professor didn't answer. He was grinning like a person who had just won the lottery. It left Aether with a blooming hope that maybe, just maybe, he had gotten lucky and had a unique ability. 

Yet a small voice inside his head told him otherwise.

"This can't be…" the Professor mumbled and immediately dropped the book he had been holding. He rushed over to another bookshelf, rummaging through countless books, he dropped them on the ground one after another until he found the one he was looking for. 

"Is, um, is something wrong?" Aether was growing more nervous than curious as the Professor kept mumbling incoherent words to himself as he flung a book open on the desk. 

"Can't believe this happened to a Frenzel." he looked up, "Maybe that's why they hid you." His eyes gleamed again, "I can't believe I met one! Oh, here it is." He slammed his hands onto the desk and stared down at the open book.

Aether leaned over to look at what the Professor was reading. A few names with dates lined one side of the page. There weren't many, he could easily count them on one hand. The Professor took out his pen and started to write his name underneath the last name listed. The eerie feeling he had from before came back in ten folds and he had to take a step back to calm himself.

"What are you doing?" Aether asked. The Professor hummed and slammed the book shut. He said a small chant before putting the book back on the shelf, where it effectively disappeared. 

"Recording your name of course. This book is the only one in the Kingdom that has the record of those with no abilities. It is an extremely rare phenomenon and my predecessors had this thing about keeping track of those few unlucky people. I never thought that I would have the opportunity to come across such an occurrence in my entire lifetime. And a Frenzel at that! Oh, this is going to make headlines! I can't wait to see the look on that bastard's face as he learns that his son has no abilities." he mumbled the last sentence, but Aether was far too lost in his thoughts to really comprehend the Professor's grumbling. 

His eyes twitched as he looked away from the Professor. His hands were trembling. He wanted to laugh. He should have known. A non-user. He was in the body of a non-user. It was no wonder that the original owner of this body had died. Of course he would die, in a world like this, it was only time. Though he should give him some credit. Making it this far was a feat in itself. 

In the Flower of Soline, there was a topic that was only briefly mentioned, one topic that he as a reader had wanted more information on. It was one of the many questions he had sent the author in hopes of them expanding on the topic before officially publishing the book. 

Non-users. Beings that were unable to wield abilities. It was only brought up once in a conversation between an old lady and the First born Prince. It could have easily been missed if not for the old lady disappearing the moment after she spoke those words. 

["Be careful you foolish Prince, for those without abilities are not to be thought less of."]

The Prince of course just scoffed at her words, but it left him as well as the reader thinking long and hard about what the old lady had meant. Why would she mention non-users? Why shouldn't they be thought less of? Do they hold some sort of power? Unfortunately, after that incident they were never mentioned again. 

But now, he was one such character. A non-user whose name had to be recorded by people for generations or they might not believe it. 

How was he supposed to survive in this world if he has no abilities to protect him?