Ghost Billionaire
Chapter 81: Classes

Chapter 81: Classes

"So she doesn’t even remember what CNA stands for," Matthew muttered, eyes fixed on the view outside the car window. He’d spent the entire night digging through articles, forums, even encrypted sites. Sadly, nothing came up. Not a single credible mention of a place called CNA.

He figured it would be secretive. That wasn’t surprising. What annoyed him was how useless the ghost girl turned out to be. No coordinates. No full name. Not even a damn landmark.

All she said was that the term surfaced in her memory.

"Memory, my ass..." he thought bitterly. He really had no idea what kind of mess he’d gotten himself into.

Matthew muttered a curse under his breath as he stepped through the school gates. His backpack weighed lightly on his shoulder. Having a space inside the bag is actually something else, he thought inwardly.

The ghost girl floated just a few paces behind him, invisible to everyone else. "You’re grumbling again."

He ignored her.

He didn’t sleep last night. Instead, he combed the internet, cross-referenced obscure message boards, scanned library archives, and came up with exactly nothing. No article. No news. No leaked video. No confirmation that a place called CNA even existed. He wasted too much time and discovered nothing.

According to the ghost girl, there were schools for Nexians. Real, institutionalized training centers hidden across the globe. Old as empires. Older, maybe.

Matthew clenched his jaw as he walked toward the main building. So the Nexians had been around for centuries, working together with a few select humans to remain hidden from the world? If that were true, the implications were huge. It meant a parallel society operated right under everyone’s noses. Unseen. Untouched. And protected.

He stopped near the hallway bulletin board and scanned the notices without seeing them. "So, let me get this straight," he mumbled. "Once someone awakens, they’re supposed to be enrolled in one of these hidden Nexian schools?"

"That’s right," the ghost girl answered. "You can’t just walk around raw. Untrained Nexians are dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. And it makes you an easy target."

"And you forgot to tell me about this too?" he asked.

"That— I just recalled that thing when we talk about it."

Matthew let out a sigh. "And I assume there’s no enrollment form on the school website."

"Nope."

Matthew sighed. Finding the school wasn’t even the hard part. Gaining access was. He’d have to prove he was awakened. That he wasn’t just some random guy with vague SE traces. Even then, that didn’t guarantee anything as one needed to undergo a lot of tests to be accepted to this school.

He turned down another hallway, away from the crowd. "You said each school has a specialty, right?"

"Yes. Nexian schools are built around optimizing class strengths."

"Right. The classes."

The girl floated closer, tapping her fingers together. "There are five core classes, at least that I remember."

Matthew stopped walking. "List them."

"Shapers. Those are the muscle types. Strength, speed, endurance. They’re physically enhanced."

"Okay."

"Conduits. Elemental users. Fire, water, metal, and so on. Some can combine elements too, but that’s rare."

"Got it."

"Binders. Psychic specialists. They mess with emotions, memory, and the mind."

Matthew raised an eyebrow. "Sounds illegal."

"That’s why they’re trained in secret. And they are very rare too."

"Fair. Keep going."

"Tethers. They manipulate space and sometimes time. Blinking short distances, creating small dimensional pockets. Stuff like that."

"Dimensional hacks. So you are some sort of Tether..." Matthew paused mid-step, absorbing everything she’d just said about the classes.

So Nexians really have superpowers. However, if these Nexians could manipulate space, conjure fire, bend someone’s mind—then why the hell hadn’t the world changed?

He kept walking, eyes scanning the school hallway, watching ordinary students go about their day. Everyone acted like this was just another Monday. But if even a fraction of what she said was real, the world should’ve looked different by now. Weren’t these people powerful? Couldn’t they just take over?

Then it hit him.

Power didn’t mean freedom. Not when it came with risks.

He remembered how the ghost girl talked about the strain on the body, the cost of using SE, the burnouts, the spiritual collapses. The way she described how abilities had consequences, permanent ones. Maybe most Nexians were too busy trying not to die from their own power. Maybe using it too much was the punishment.

Then there was exposure. If any of this got out, governments would clamp down, militaries would dissect the system, private companies would try to harvest people. The second the world saw Nexians as threats, there would be no coming back. No one wants to live their life on the run.

He frowned. If there was a secret world of Nexians out there, it wasn’t because they were cowards.

It was because they were survivors.

"And finally, Readers. They’re the sensory class. Trackers, energy readers, lie detectors, and some of them can even interact with spirits."

"Like me," Matthew muttered.

"Well... You might be. It’s not confirmed until you awaken fully. But your ability to see and talk to spirits and people like me is uncommon."

Matthew frowned. The way she said it didn’t sound like a compliment. "What do you mean by uncommon?" He thought if this was a skill, it would be one of the most common, basic ones.

"Uhhh... because it has something to do with death?"

Matthew blinked.

Seeing his reaction, she added, "Death is not a simple thing," she said, rolling her eyes. She drifted closer, almost brushing his shoulder. "Even the most powerful Nexians have tried to cheat death. They rely on spirit stones, but nobody truly escapes death." She sighed, as though tired of the topic.

"Most people who dabble in death—Readers who sense spirits—they might see a ghost or two. But talking to them? Interacting? That’s rare." She tapped a finger against her temple. "Unless they reach the Veined Stage. Even then, only about twenty percent get that far—and they’ve already risked death itself."

Matthew absorbed that quietly. "How did you know this?" he suddenly asked.

"Huh?"

"How did you know that even the most powerful Nexians couldn’t escape death?" Matthew frowned. "You said you lost your memory or something... so how did you know this?" Is this still considered basic knowledge?

This time, the girl frowned. Then she said, "I—I just remembered it."

Before Matthew could react, a hand clamped down on his arm from behind.

In one fluid motion, he caught the wrist and squeezed it hard.

A sharp crack echoed in the hallway.

"Ah—! Stop! You bastard—!" the voice behind him snarled.