Prey.

Ace slept in agony that night. With his muscles aching like he just walked a fifty-mile marathon, except it wasn't just his leg that was aching.

Chirp! Chirp! Tweet! Tweet!

Ace groaned in pain before standing up to massage his sore muscles, temporarily relieving himself from the pain. After a moment or two of staring listlessly into the distance,

Ace threw himself into his recently established morning routine.

Brushing his teeth, scrubbing his body to get rid of filth, and of course taking a few minutes to soak in the comfortable embrace of the warm water.

"What is in this?"

Ace said as he softly stretched in comfort. The warm embrace of the water was especially nourishing to his injured muscles.

'The bath soak must be some kind of medicine,'

Ace thought as he reluctantly got out of the bathtub after soaking in it for a while.

The pain in his muscles was mostly gone, for the most part; it could only be vaguely felt when he vigorously rubbed against his body. Ace took a deep breath and looked at the water, a purple light spilling out of his eyes.

A trickle of translucent spirit energy trickled out of his core. Ace shaped it into an invisible bowl, then used it to scoop water from the bathtub and into the air above it. Most of the water gushed out through the minute gaps in the invisible bowl, similar to how water would slip through the gaps between a human finger.

Ace wasn't displeased when he saw the result, he just carefully filled in the gaps within it, then scooped another bowl of water from the bathtub.

This time the holes that leaked the previous time no longer existed, but new holes appeared in their place.

Ace repeated this countless times until he finally got a perfect bowl of floating water.

"Phew!"

Ace exclaimed as he wiped the minor beads of sweat that had formed over his head from concentrating too much. "That was surprisingly hard,"

Ace mumbled to himself in surprise. It wasn't the act of levitating the water that was difficult—he could levitate an object ten times the weight of the water.

What made it difficult was the liquid nature of water.

He had had to fill all the holes in the bowl that were bigger than a water molecule so it did not spill out of the spirit bowl.

Ace went to his bedroom and wore one of the many sets of Academy uniforms that were hanging in his closet.

It was a formal black shirt fitted with golden buttons and black trousers with excessive pockets—exactly how cargo pants looked.

The academy uniform did have a capelet—a short cape—but Ace chose not to wear it; the influence of his previous life made him think of capes as childish attire.

Beep!

Ace's ID flashed a light blue light as he used it to open the door to his apartment.

The dormitory was bustling with people this morning—just like every other morning.

Well, the second and first floors looked busy from the viewpoint of the circular indoor balcony.

The third floor, on the other hand, was comparatively less busy, as there were few rooms on it.

Ace walked down the stairs to the ground floor, where he met the warden.

The wind caused the warden's dark, long cape to flicker as he stood idly, looking around.

'Tch, why is it that when I see this guy, my body feels weak? Yesterday I thought it was just because I was scared that that happened, but now I know it's much more than that. I can feel the ambient vitality that dwells within my body grow listless and unresponsive in his presence, like it is a garbage rat pretending to be dead when it sees an apex predator.'

Ace stopped the leaking vitality that dripped out of the core, managing to shake off that weak feeling.

'After all, his presence only affects my vitality. If I stop the flow of vitality, his presence becomes useless to me, just like electricity on an insulator.'

Ace felt that feeling of detachment again, like he was invisible.

'Wait a minute isn't the act of reducing the vitality leaked out of my core the same as what an animal in the wild does when it encounters a predator—reduce its presence—it's also what a hunter does when it hunts its prey—reduce its presence—so it can catch the prey off guard.'

As Ace was lost in thought, he felt a gaze on him that sent pangs of fear through him and caused the vitality withheld in his core to erupt.

"Ah,"

Ace's heart pounded, and blood rushed to his head as he struggled to contain the energy released from his fight or flight instinct that was triggered by his body in response to the threat of death.

Ace subtly glanced at the warden. The warden was still looking straight out into the dormitory exit—just as before. But my intuition swore he was the one who glanced at me and caused me to have my life flash before my eyes.

Ace slowly reduced the amount of vitality that was spilling out of his core in a bid to supplement energy to his body's fight or flight instinct.

Ace did not dare to remain any longer. The warden's gaze had thoroughly scared him shitless.

"F.u.c.k."

Ace cursed as soon as he left the dormitory, before looking behind him in fright, wandering if the warden had supernatural senses that could hear him from here.

Ace took no chances, only speaking in his mind then on—no! Even his mind was not safe.

Who knew if the warden was some kind of mind-reading Bestowed.

'If he was, he could find out my greatest secrets.'

Ace's mind began spinning off into tangents of things he never wanted anyone to know.

'He could . . . He could find out about my transmigration' The very thought of that brought a chill to Ace's skin; he felt as if he were stripped naked, his mind bare for anyone to see.

Ace teeth chattered.

'If someone found out, I would probably be turned into a lab monkey and be experimented upon.'

Suddenly his future didn't seem so bright anymore but was filled with darkness and deep pits.