Weak Class of Anti-Hero
Chapter 27: Retribution and Rebirth

Chapter 27: Retribution and Rebirth

The next morning, I woke up early. I packed a small bag with some clean clothes, the box of my mother’s photos, and my father’s data chip. That was all I needed.

I went downstairs to wait for the academy bus. Usually, I took the public bus, but students with good rankings were entitled to a shuttle that picked them up near their homes. It was one of my new perks.

The bus arrived. It was a luxury bus, quite different from the public ones.

I got on. All the seats were taken. The bus was full of students I didn’t know, arrogant faces all wearing the Beta building badge. Ranks C and B.

A boy, sitting near the entrance, looked me up and down. He had a powerful aura and a superior air. He was clearly one of the best in his class.

"Oh, look," he said to his friends. "It’s the newbie from the Top 50. Too bad, the bus is full. You’ll have to stand all the way to the academy, rookie."

His friends snickered.

I remained calm. I approached him.

"Get up," I told him, my voice polite, almost kind.

He laughed. "Excuse me? Are you talking to me? Do you know who I am? I’m..."

I didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. And I slapped him.

Not a punch. Just a slap. Sharp, loud, and humiliating.

The bus went silent.

I lifted him from his seat as if he weighed nothing and pushed him into the aisle. Then, I sat in his place, by the window.

The boy got up, his face red with rage and humiliation, the mark of my hand on his cheek.

"You..." he hissed, his voice trembling with fury. "You’ve just signed your death warrant. You have a vendetta against you now."

I looked out the window, looking completely disinterested.

"Get in line," I said, without even looking at him.

When the bus arrived at the academy, the boy I had slapped gave me one last murderous look before disappearing with his friends. I didn’t pay any more attention to it.

I found Min-Soo waiting for me near the entrance of the Beta building.

I briefly told him about my encounter with Ji-Soo, and the confrontation with Yoo-Na. He shook his head, looking both amused and worried. "You can’t help but get into complicated situations, can you?"

As we were talking, a large black van, luxurious and with tinted windows, stopped right in front of the main building.

The door opened. Students got out. There weren’t many, maybe a dozen. But their presence changed the whole atmosphere of the campus. They exuded an aura of power so intense that it was almost visible. They were elegant, confident, as if they belonged to another species.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"The Kings," Min-Soo whispered, almost with respect. "The S-ranks of the academy. There are only ten of them. They don’t take the same courses as us. They have their own building, their own program. They represent the Top 10 in the rankings. The elite of the elite."

I watched them. They were impressive, it’s true. But I didn’t feel fear. Just a cold assessment. Other potential targets on my list.

"I’m going to rest," I said to Min-Soo. "Classes start again tomorrow."

I went to my new room. I ignored the homework and readings for the courses. I took out my terminal and opened my father’s data chip.

I came across a Chapter that caught my attention. "Post-Manifestation Soul Structure."

The text explained that people exposed to the Fertile Burst didn’t just have one soul, but several "layers" of existence, nested within each other, like Russian dolls.

There were four main ones:

The Physical Body: The shell of flesh and blood.

The Spiritual Body: The source of Aura and emotions.

The Astral Body: The plane of pure consciousness, dreams, and extrasensory perception.

The Soul Core: The very essence of the individual, his fundamental identity.

And there was a note, added by my father: "There may be a fifth layer, a Meta layer. The source of true potential. But it’s a theory. No one has ever reached it."

It was fascinating. And terrifying. It meant that there were levels of power I couldn’t even imagine.

My path was still very, very long.

Reading this information made me want to go out. Staying locked in my room suddenly felt stifling.

I left the Beta building and headed towards the back of the campus. It was a sparsely populated area, a kind of large wooded park with lots of vegetation, used for survival courses for the lower levels. It was the perfect place to be quiet.

I sat cross-legged under a large tree, away from the paths. I reopened my father’s file on my terminal, looking for the practical tutorial.

"Layer Dissociation Exercise," the title read.

Step 1: The Spiritual Body.

Feel your Aura. Now, instead of projecting it or containing it, try to ’shape’ it. Imagine a second version of yourself, made of pure energy, sitting exactly where you are. This is your spiritual body. A non-physical envelope, but limited by your physical body.

I closed my eyes. I tried. I felt my Aura, but shaping it into a human form was incredibly difficult. It was like trying to sculpt smoke with your fingers. I felt a vague silhouette form, then dissipate immediately.

Failure.

I read on.

Step 2: The Astral Body.

Once you can maintain your spiritual body, you must ’rise’. The astral body is a layer above. Imagine you are leaving your physical body and your spiritual double, floating above them. This is the beginning of astral travel. Be careful, the connection is fragile.

It was science fiction to me at this point. I couldn’t even do the first step.

Step 3: The Soul Core.

This is the deepest level. To reach it, you must not rise, but dive. Dive inside yourself, beyond the physical, beyond the Aura, to touch the spark that makes you who you are. Most never make it. It is a dangerous journey.

I tried again for almost an hour. Nothing. I didn’t really manage to master the exercise. I could feel the different energies within me, but separating them, controlling them in this way... it was a level of mastery I didn’t have.

I sighed, frustrated. My father had made it sound so simple in words. But the practice was a wall.

I realized that my training was just beginning. Physical strength was one thing. But this mastery of the soul... it was the path to true power. A path I had to learn to walk. Alone.

Frustrated, I gave up the meditation exercise. It was too abstract, too complex for now.

I needed something more concrete. More direct.

I got up and looked for an even more isolated place in the park. I found a small hidden clearing, surrounded by thick trees. Perfect.

I summoned my dagger.

My father’s training on the four pillars had opened my eyes. Defense. Strengthening. Regeneration. I had only scratched the surface.

I started with Defense. I created the thin layer of Aura around me. Then I tried to make it denser, more resistant. I practiced maintaining it while moving, jumping, dodging imaginary enemies.

Next, Strengthening. I infused my legs with Aura and sprinted from one end of the clearing to the other, trying to beat my own time with each pass. Then I did the same with my arms, hitting the trunk of a large tree. At first, my fists hurt. But little by little, I learned to dose the Aura to strengthen my bones at the moment of impact. The sound of my blows became duller, more powerful.

And finally, Regeneration. I made small cuts on my hands with my dagger, and I forced myself to heal them. Again and again. I tried to do it faster, more efficiently.

I spent hours like that, repeating the same exercises, again and again, until total exhaustion.

The sun began to set. I was covered in sweat, dirt, and small, already healed cuts.

I had failed to master the layers of the soul. But I had strengthened my foundations.

Each drop of sweat, each sore muscle, was a promise. The promise that the next time I faced an enemy, I would be faster, stronger, and harder to take down.

And the next time would come soon enough.

Night had fallen. I decided to go back. I walked through the lush area of the academy, exhausted but satisfied with my training.

Suddenly, I felt a spike of Aura. Danger. Right behind me.

I turned around. Too late.

A blade of energy, thin and incredibly fast, hit me in the chest. I didn’t even have time to create my shield.

The blade cut me clean, diagonally, from shoulder to hip. My body was sliced in two.

The pain was instantaneous, white, absolute. My vision blurred. I collapsed on the ground, my own blood spreading on the grass.

A Machiavellian laugh rang out in the shadows.

"So, the great number 49? Not so impressive when you’re caught by surprise, huh?"

A figure came out of the trees. It was the boy I had slapped on the bus. The B-rank. He held a kind of katana whose blade glowed with a malevolent energy.

He approached my dislocated body, a sadistic smile of triumph on his face.

"This is the vendetta I promised you," he said, kicking what was left of my torso. "You’re just a fraud."_{freew\ebno\vel..(c)om}

He began to lash out. He cut my body to pieces. My arms. My legs. He completely exploded my entire body until there was nothing left, except my head, lying in the grass.

He looked at my face, savoring his victory. "Goodbye, loser."

He turned to leave, sure of himself. He didn’t even pay attention to his terminal. He didn’t see that there was no notification. No homicide alert.

My consciousness was fading. But only one thought survived in the fog.

Regeneration.

I thought of my father’s course. I drew on the last drops of my Aura. I didn’t think about rebuilding my limbs. I thought about rebuilding the core. My heart. My lungs.

In the silence of the night, a faint noise, that of flesh reforming, began to be heard from the pieces of my scattered body.