Talking to the World.

"What I mean is, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, you'd be swarmed by the sea of people outside before we got to the car."

Master Jet expression went from giving Baldr a weird look to laughing like she almost never had before.

"Just for that? Then don't worry after all— I'm a Master."

Baldr looked at her in confusion and it was only as they got out of the police station that he understood. The crowd while riled up at his apparent survival gave them a wide berth as they passed through.

The presence of a Master was too massive for the mundane humans to confront and as such they simply observed the group from afar as they got into Master Jet's PTV.

"See? Wasn't so hard."

She chuckled before driving off toward what Baldr could only assume was the Awakened Academy.

Now with time on his hands he though back to his Flaw.

'What even defines a blade...'

He groaned internally, his intuition told him that it was pretty simple, he couldn't use any bladed weapons.

From the moment they had an edge he couldn't hold them. Sure he would need to try but he wasn't in a position to at the moment.

Looking out the window he focused for a little, the winds whispered to him sweet nothings, chasing away his boredom with their playful attitude. They danced between his ears, telling him of the funny things they had seen today.

'I wonder if I could...'

He reached out his callused hands and entertained them, letting them play between the gaps of his fingers his hand. Before, as if on instinct, he grasped a hold of the wind.

"—!"

The car swerved right and his arm was almost pulled out of the PTV fortunately the road towards the Academy was long with almost no cars around today. As he looked to his left towards the driver seat he could see Master Jet throwing him an accusatory look

"I would appreciate if you'd try your Aspect Abilities AFTER we get out of this car."

"But I just clenched my hand, I haven't done anything." He lied through his smile, of course what happened was a result of his action but he himself didn't know much about what he did just now.

"Must have been the winds huh?"

The smile she gave back to him sent a shiver down his spine, for now he'd keep his hands to himself.

■■■

Baldr approached the Academy and looking at it, he could say it was truly a sight to behold. It was one of the Strongholds of the Awakened world, refining Sleeper to make sure they would survive the Winter Solstice.

It's red gates were a sign of who this place truly belonged to, Baldr had no doubt the Valor Clan had a lot of influence in this place, how much of it superseded the Government's own, that he didn't know.

He knew of this place already, the Academy was just part of the forteress it was also a small city for Awakened, much of whom he had the pleasure to encounter through concerts.

It was warm and silent in front of the Academy gate and as they approached it, he continued to do small talk with Sunny.

"So you're from the Outskirts huh?"

"Yeah, got a problem with it? Think you're too good to hang around us?"

The venom in Sunny voice didn't deter Baldr even a little bit. They had to do the last part of the path on feet as other things Master Jet had to do came up so she left them on the side of the road since they were close enough that only minutes would be needed to approach it.

"Isn't Master Jet from the Outskirts too? It would be lovely to be in her company."

With nothing to say in opposition to it, Sunny just grumbled something in a somber tone and looked ahead, doing the same Baldr was stunted by what he saw.

Another Sleeper was standing in front of the gate and their presence here was a confusing, it was a tall slender girl that was around both Baldr and Sunny age, her short silver-grey hair was what shocked Baldr.

It was obviously Nephis.

But Baldr knew that he and Sunny arrival was delayed by a day? What this just coincidence or Fate at play?

'Fate... It's surely was an important part of this world since Sunny received the Daemon of Fate divine lineage rather than the Shadow God.'

Musing over those thoughts, he caught up to Sunny and continued his previous discussion.

"So what's your favorite food anyway?"

"Whatever we ate in the police station, before coming here."

The fact that it wasn't a lie made Baldr laugh. Before long they arrived in front of the gates waiting for the pillars of steel to connect into a bridge, and while Sunny seemed to be having his own internal monologue Baldr internally laughed at the situation.

Three Divine Aspect holders, all standing in the same place. And possibly going to the same place for their Winter Solstice, what a funny coincidence that was.

If coincidences existed.

And to be specific that was already a bit of a stretch to say that as Baldr was an outlier, both in Aspect Rank and in clothes. While the two teenagers were in police issued tracksuits, blending in a perfect harmony of black and silver due to their hair color, Baldr was still wearing the clothes he had when infected by the Nightmare Spell.

They were too costly to leave simply because he had worn them for two days after all. If he remembered though wasn't Nephis a fan of his idol group?

'I wonder if she recognise me...'

After all he had gone through quite the physical changes after his First Nightmare.

■■■

"Why are you asking me so many questions anyway?"

Sunny threw an accusatory glance at him, seemingly done with his thoughts he gave himself the time to think about his new acquaintance barrage of questions.

Baldr blinked a few times, maybe surprised by the abruptness of the question, or the genuine curiosity behind it as it lacked the spite Sunmy had given him with each response earlier.

"Well I love learning new things. And people are all so different, everything about them is new."

A warm smile spread across the radiant teen lips and as they continued to banter, the silver-haired girl threw a glance at them.

'I hope she won't start thinking I'm a weirdo...'

As for Baldr? It was already established in Sunny's mind that the guy was strange. He was simply too happy about everything, always with a little smile on his face, he didn't believe such a person could pass their First Nightmare.

Or if they did it must have been a damn easy one.

The girl glanced at them before turning with her whole body, her gaze fixated on Baldr. At her actions, Sunny already know what was to come.

She walked toward them and as they quieted down she scrutinised both he and Baldr with her eyes analysing them with emotionless silver-eyes.

"Are you Day?"

She addressed him with his idol name, indicating she knew and listened to their music from the recognition present in her eyes told him. But there was a certain coldness within her voice, like someone almost wholly detached from the world.

No matter, the cold vibes she gave off weren't picked up by Baldr as the warm atmosphere around him simply intensified when his smile widened.

'Too bright again...'

His beauty was blinding as both Sunny and the Silver-Haired girl squinted their eyes.

"Changed a little bit didn't I?"

The girl fumbled through her pockets, like Sunny she had no personal belongings, but it seemed there was still a few things she held dear to herself.

Taking out her communicator, she took out a small picture that was kept in between the device and it's transparent case.

In it Sunny could see a picture of Baldr standing shoulder to shoulder with a man as pretty as him, with electric green eyes and luscious brown hair, they both looked like a pair of idols.

'Wich they are... dammnit get a grip.'

They were both holding microphones and seemingly singing in unison, the picture was probably taken during a concert then. Sunny didn't know much about how it all went down but he had researched idols with his communicator once or twice.

Stories of kids making it out of the Outskirt due to their face were spread far and wide, oftentimes though, it just ended into them being kidnapped and human trafficked.

'Guess you need the voice too...'

Those grim thoughts didn't even slight Sunny's mood, after all, all those things didn't concern him. Soon he'd be an Awakened, an elite of society.

For now he had to pass the four weeks in this place, learning all he could about surviving in the wild. Strangely enough his intuition told him it would take a lot more out of him than what he was ready to handle.

"Thank you."

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't. notice when Baldr signed the picture or when the girl put it back in her communicator's case, only noticing the conversation was over once she started moving away.

He himself started walking towards the part of the Academy that was reserved for Sleepers.

Most of the compound was underground, the surface serving as a point of orientation for confused sleepers that wandered the place in search of it.

Sunny intuition told him that his four weeks stay here would be around the same difficulty as his First Nightmare.

■■■

'Or not.'

Contrary to his expectations there was no induction ceremony or rather, they arrived a day too late to participate in the last one so while they would be delivered the possible schedules they could use among other things. The ceremony itself would have to wait until the next week.

This was good for Sunny as it allowed him more time to learn about his own Flaw, only having to interact a little with others in the cantine. He could easily make people believe he was a loner by simply not interacting with them.

He sighed, turning in the bed of his room, it was infinitely more enjoyable than any bed he had been on before, even above the likes of the police station bed. That was his life now.

This only served to reinforce Sunny feeling that he had to survive the Winter Solstice, that way he could live his life in leisure.

'But why did I had to be living next to this bastard...'

The sleeping quarters were divided between male and female, Sleepers would receive the number for their sleeping quarters depending on the timing at wich they arrived.

Of course since he arrived at the same time as Baldr, they would be living next to each other for the next month as expected.

To understand why Sunny was so vindictive about the man you had to understand from his point of view.

The radiant teen was simply too happy.

As someone that had just lived through the most dangerous experience of his life, he couldn't stop himself from seething with jealousy at the thought that someone had it easier than him.

'But his Aspect must not be all that, surely not as good as mine.'

That he could take pride in as his lips twisted into a nasty smile. No one would know but he was potentially the strongest Sleeper in the Academy right now.

"Only if I learn how to use this damn Aspect..."

Throwing an accusatory glance at his Shadow, the gloomy Shadow just shrugged as if to say 'And what am I supposed to do about that?'

Truly, Sunny had a lot to do before the Winter Solstice.

■■■

'Today was particularly long...'

Baldr was currently in the bathtub in his room, it wasn't by choice but they arrived much later than intended as he took the time to visit each class that they could access in their curriculum.

For the lack of a better word he was... surprised.

None of the classes were particularly bad, but most of them had to deal with fighting, and looking at how they were trained inside, he couldn't even allow himself to think about training with them.

For most of the Sleepers with the exception of a few of Legacies, their sword lacked intent, even if they did have some, it was completely unrefined. He wasn't talking about the will to kill, but rather the meaning behind their swordsmanship.

It was utterly lacking.

As it was the first day, they didn't need to participate in classes yet, having to pass a round of interviews and getting used to this new environment.

'I wonder if I made the right choice though.'

The winds assured him that it was the correct decision, sending a little breeze that caressed his ears. Baldr smiled and looked down at the water in the tub.

He had finally got a hang of both his Innate Ability and Aspect Ability.

He still didn't completely understand [World's Favorite] but what it did was easily felt. He could communicate with the World, the elements talked to him and he talked to them. Conversing with them was rather enjoyable and not only did it have a variety of use it was also so interesting.

The winds were the easiest to talk to, free and uncaring they approached him first, dancing around his body with invisible grace. It was easy to gain their curiosity but keeping their attention was much harder. Baldr knew that each time he got a respond it wasn't from the same wind that he talked to before.

They also got distracted easily.

He had tried to have them retrieve information for him, but other than a vague description or explanation of what he had asked, they would mostly talk about everything that they did and had happened on the way.

Even now they whispered to him secrets of what was happening or happened in the corridors or other people rooms. All Baldr could say was that people were quite... daring.

The winds were quite impish beings to say the least.

He had tried to communicate with other things since then, but he got no response from most, from his tries, he was able to understand a few things.

He isn't able to talk to anything man made—yet. As for the World, each element of Nature had a voice and personality. More importantly, each element had a name.

And he wasn't talking about how humans called fire by that name. A True Name not so dissimilar to his own. And Baldr knew there was power to be had behind them.

His Aspect Ability didn't require any essence but it was so weird. From what he understood it allowed him to... grab anything.

He could hang from the air if he wanted or climb it, this Ability only extended to his hands sadly, he couldn't step on the air, That didn't even seem like a Divine Aspect Ability...

But again, this was his first day using it, there was surely more to it. Sunny had filled his Core and something... he didn't know what, but something was supposed to happen.

So all he could do now was fill his Soul Core of Essence and see what would happen after.

"But will you stay this shy all the time?"

Baldr continued to look down, until now water had been quietly listening on his conversation with the winds, the surface rippled by itself with no movement from the radiant teen part.

"No I'm not chastising you, but I would appreciate having another partner if they can listen to my thoughts."

He could communicate both telepathically and physically with the elements from what he understood, speaking held more intent than simply thinking and hence he had more chance to get a response by doing it.

Of course he didn't exactly know how it would actually go down in a fight or situation where a lot of elements were involved, and it wasn't even something he could test for the most part.

This far underground, the only elements he could talk with were water, wind and earth. He didn't know if wood was an element but it was completely unresponsive...

"So, what are you like."

Smiling brightly, he continued talking until midnight.

■■■

Yeah chapter's a little long but I had to explain the ability and yk