On their way driving towards the academy, master Jet gave them a few more advices, mostly concerning their aspects and flaws and also the fact that no one survives the dream realm alone.
Merlin stood in front of the large academy gates, looking like something that came straight out a webtoon literally. By his side, sunny also stares up at them, suddenly the stirring feeling he received few hours ago resurfaced, glancing to his right he noticed a silver haired girl who wore headphones. 'Nephis huh, autistic baddie... well now she's less of a baddie more of an autistic aesthetic', He was never a big fan of Nephis as a reader well that's because she had obvious issues, single-minded, want a problem solved nuke it if the nuke doesn't work nuke it with will, and also the destoy nightmare spell at any cost, I mean who does that, your mom went around moving like someone who drank the wanderer potion and your dad was literally killed by his teammates and what does she do, blame it on the nightmare spell, it's almost sad to think about.
Another original member of the cohort he strongly disliked was that seer girl Cassie, I mean you spend years manipulating the only person who was willing to talk with you when you were nearing rock bottom, and then justify it on 'it was necessary, I want to break fate', girl that damn fate was what kept you alive on the forgotten shore.
While he was busy rambling his mind, Sunny and Nephis had already started making their way inside. Merlin walked around the academy, feasting his eyes on the peculiar sight. He followed silently behind the short protagonist, walking into a large hall filled with hundreds of sleepers and a few awakened who were maintaining order and handling logistics.
Merlin kept to himself while he watched with amusement as Sunny was getting his social life drop lower and lower into the dirt. He also felt a few stares directed at him, but with the clown's body control he managed to keep his straight face not paying them any mind.
He also watched Sunny walk up to a group of boys, the most noticable being a young good looking boy with light brown hair and green eyes Caster, Merlin registered his face in his mind and waiting till Sunny was almost done spouting nonsense.
Meanwhile, Sunny feeling proud of his narrow escape in front of the legacy didn't notice someone walking towards him till a hand grabbed his shoulder. Sunny swiftly turned only to meet the other guy who master Jet said was also from the outskirts, Sunny highly doubted that fact because for one this guy doesn't talk or act like and outskirts rats but most importantly that face, he looks even more of a legacy than this green eyed dimwit.
"Sorry to interrupt but I just want to take him away, after all not everyone can his lying habit" Sunny listened as the posterboy addressed the legacy group of dimwits, at some point sunny felt insulted 'what does a pretty boy even know'
"Hey I'll have you know that I'm the most honest man in the world, two worlds even, if we include the dream realm" Sunny resisted the urge to smack this pretty boy as he started pulling sunny away from the group while saying 'yeah yeah we all believe you, no one's arguing anymore'.
Merlin managed to separate Sunny from the group, he knew Sunny could sort it himself but he did that so he would enter the view of caster and to also establish a little relationship with sunny.
"Hey get your hands off, I had it under control I don't need your help pretty boy" Sunny said as he shoved of his hands.
Ignoring sunny's sour look and words, Merlin simply said.
"Merlin"
"What?" Sunny's sour look was replaced with a confused one.
"Merlin, Merlin Hermes that's my name, what's yours?"
"Sunless, just Sunless" Sunny and after a while, but with a squeezed face which Merlin guessed was probably his flaw in action.
"Okay listen sunless, for one like master Jet said, the less people know of you the better, I don't know why you're moving around making people suspect you, but I'll advice you to stop before you rub someone off the wrong way".
Although Merlin knew that sunny was finding a way to control his flaw, he wasn't going to sound him out, but what he noticed was that the more he talked the more sunny grimaced.
'I feel like he thinks I'm mocking him'
"That's my business, and why do you care" Sunny scoffed.
"No reason really, but don't forget, nobody survives the dream realm alone, well we'll see later sunless" Merlin waves as he left sunny and started returning to his previous corner, on the way he felt more gazes from the people and he heard whispers like how he was friends with the pervert, and how he was brave enough to sound out the delusional kid and other baseless rumors.
Merlin watched as Sunny left where he was standing and move to the other deserted part of the hall, looking closer, he say the blonde blind girl Cassie. Merlin ignored the duo as he looked towards where the half giant looking man stood ready to address the sleepers.
"I am awakened Rock, sleepers welcome to the academy."
The hall immediately became silent as he continued.
"In less than a month you will be summoned to the dream realm. Some of you might think that you're prepared, You're wrong. The spell is merciless and cunning. The moment awakened start to think too much of themselves, they die. I've seen countless sleepers like you lose their lives. I've also seen experienced Masters lose theirs. Even Saints are not assured to survive."
Merlin had already lost interest after the first half of the speech, he had already read about it before, and if he ever forget anything dream divination will solve it.
'Sigh I wanna leave and go try out the limits of my abilities' Merlin was busy musings in his imagination when awakened Rock finished his speech. He walked to the nearest instructor and he was directed to his room, coincidentally, sunny's room was just a few doors away. Walking into the spacious room, he noticed the exquisite sleeping pod that looked like something out of a scifi movie, there were other things and necessities that he could use if need be.
Standing at the center of the room, he summoned the memory 'Formless'. The memory shimmered into existence and it became a smooth black orb, recalling it's enchantment, he willed it to take the shape of a sword, and the orb melted like a black liquid, becoming a long sword, with another thought it transformed into a black katana, then a black scythe, then spear, nunchucks, even a modern style pistol however it didn't have the ability to shoot bullets, he also tried converting into a full armour but the orb was unresponsive, so he changed his approach and choose a breast plate, which is transformed into but the problem being that it was too small only covering up to right above his abs.
After experimenting with the orb he summoned the 'Cloak of Mysteries' as it shimmered into existence, it appeared as a black and gold cloak that covered his head and draped down his body touching the ground. He poured tried activating the enchantment and then the world went black.
About an hour later, Merlin woke up clutching his head as he was assaulted by a stinging headache. 'What was that, I didn't even get the chance to do anything and I just blacked out, I definitely won't be using that anytime soon', after tasting the odd metallic taste in his mouth, Merlin walked to the bathroom where he looked at his reflection only to see a bloody mess, eyes, ears, nose, mouth all stained with dry blood. He washed his face and took a cod shower before walking out again.
A few minutes later and merlin was holding a bunch of papers and a pack of matches he found in the room, some of the papers had been cut into crude figurines while the others were regular sheets.
He first tested the paper dagger ability, calling on his aspect he threw the paper towards the wall as it flew fast and accurately pierced it, but since the walls were reinforced it wasn't embedded too deep inside.
Impressed with his abilities, Merlin moved unto flame jump/control, holding a matchstick in his hand, he lit it and used his ability to separate the small flame from the match stick, made it float around for a few seconds and then snapped his fingers and watched as the flame swallowed his figure and respawned him at the very edge of the room. "Damn that's cool".
He then tried the air bullet that left a dent in the wall and a crack upon the second impact, he even summoned the orb making it take the shape of a pistol and used the air bullet which also worked.
He proceeded to try the bone softening which allowed him to be able to dislocated and realign joints at will with minimal pain.
He also tried the illusion ability, although it has its downside, once caught unaware it can be very useful.
Lastly, Merlin decided to try the damage transfer, he was hesitant because it was not complete healing, just moving wounds from fatal to non-fatal positions on his body.
He then summoned the black orb and made it into a small dagger he used to cut a bit of his left palm, feeling the blood, the dagger felt more sharper in his hand but he unsummoned it and used damage transfer to move it up his arm, seeing the ability work, he breathed a sigh of relief then returned the injury back to his palm where he treated it.
Merlin was in no mood to test the paper figurines substitute, what was he going to do stab himself in the gut, nope he wasn't taking that risk, he knew from LOTM that it was a kind of passive ability, hopefully it would never come to that, yeah like fate's gonna let that slide. Merlin put that thought behind and tried a few divinations like today's dinner, sunny's location, and other useless stuff, he then activated his spirit vision which allowed him to see vague energy like silhouettes moving outside, although he couldn't see through walls he could atleast see the cores of other sleepers and awakened, and also memory enchantments. {A/N: Plot...}
He deactivated it and then glanced at the time, seeing he had wasted time , he hurriedly cleaned himself up and headed out of the room.
Merlin saw that there was still some time before dinner so he just headed to where the instructor directed to report information about his Nightmare. Arriving at the office, he saw a real life office lady, dressed in all suit and skirt and stockings and for the first time in a long time it dawned on him that this world was just built different.
Merlin walked into the room with composed confidence, he greeted the lady and sat opposite her just separated by a table filled with files.
"Sleeper Merlin, nice to meet you I'm awakened Sarah, I'll in charge of sorting you through your nightmare experience."
She paused for a while, picked up her pen and a file and continued while taking notes
"So tell me how was your Nightmare?"
Merlin took a deep breath and then started
"Well ma'am contrary to what others may have described, my nightmare started out with me in the middle of nowhere just a plain empty field, I then walked for a few days before I arrived at a temple, I thought it was safe, but it turned out that the people in the temple were preparing for some kind of sacrifice to the Gods so they took me in and staved me, tortured me and a few others and then offered them as sacrifices to the Gods, when it was my turn, I fought back and managed to escape before the nightmare ended" Merlin gave a brief description of his nightmare which left the woman pale.
After a few seconds of silence, she hurriedly wrote a few things down and said.
"I would advise you to take psychological counselling with our staff".
"Yes ma'am I will"
"So what does your Aspect do?" She asked casually as she gauged his reaction.
"Well it's not a really powerful aspect, but it borders around physical enhancement and danger sense" He casually replies, before she could ask anything he said "Also I got a True Name at the end, the spell called it 'Attendant Of Mysteries'."
The awakened let out a gasp before quickly jotting down the details.
"Okay Sleeper Merlin that will be all, please meet the instructor outside to fill out your classes application".
"Thank you ma'am" Merlin said as he got up and headed out. On his way to the cafeteria, He started to wonder what made him reveal all his details like that without feeling the slightest burden, was it her aspect, after thinking for a while, he finally figured it out, it was his flaw at work, as it had started affecting his reasoning and decision making, making him less concerned about the thought of others 'Hell I got caught off guard, I really need to be more cautious, I'm a seer for gods sake'.
Buy the time Merlin arrived at the cafeteria, almost all chairs had been filled, leaving only one chair where there was a blind girl and a boy wolfing down heaps of food. Merlin took his tray and headed towards the group, as he arrived he just sat down without caring for their reactions, sensing something admiss, he realized that his flaw had hit him again, so he addresses the two.
"Hey Sunny, Hello, sorry for the intrusion there was no other place to sit" He nodded at sunny and Cassie respectively to which the former nodded and the latter shook our of her previous shocked state and replied.
"Hello I'm Cassia, but you can call me Cassie" She nodded in the direction of his voice.
"Merlin, Merlin Hermes nice to meet you" Merlin replied as he focused on his food, having not eaten anything reasonable since he reincarnated, his food was no less than sunny's, and he wasted no time either as he began to eat at a slightly hurried pace.
A few minutes later the crowd started to get rowdy as the sleepers whispered between themselves though it was fairly audible
"Im-impossible!" one said.
"What the hell!"
"What kind of monsters are they?!"
"I'm not seeing things am I ?"
" Is this even possible!?"
On the screen read
1 Name: Nephis
True Name: Changing Star
2 Name: Merlin Hermes
True Name: Attendant Of Mysteries
3 Name: Caster han li
...
The situation immediately became rowdier as many eyes bordered between him and the silver haired Nephis. A few seconds later Caster walked up to Nephis.
"Lady Nephis. I am Caster from the Han Li clan. I see that your trial went well? "
"It is what it is" Nephis replied with a light smile, but her gaze was not on him but on Merlin who was too busy eating to care about the others, well partly the food partly his flaw.
"You.. Did you really get a true name in your first nightmare?" Sunny asked, looking at him with a gauged and cautious look.
"Yeah.... I .. guess" Merlin answered not even bothering to stop eating.
"What.. I mean how did you do it" Sunny asked again a little curiosity creeping into his voice.
"Well I guess the only notable thing I did was stop a God's descent" Merlin replied but this time he stopped eating, he had thought about it and he was very sure that the 'Cloak of Mysteries' soloed his nightmare for him, and whoever was ??? Was not about to let him die a miserable death, but strangely anytime he tries to ponder over those memories, everything just slips from his mind.
Sunny was still reeling at the back of his mind when Merlin stood up, already done with his food and headed off to his therapy session.
During his therapy session, Merlin took the time to learn about his flaw, he concluded that it was making him less emotional and purely logical so he decided to let lose and feel more to better counteract his flaw, as a result Merlin spent half the Therapy session crying 'Ugh embarrassing as hell' as the walked down the hall, Merlin headed towards the next class, the one he has always been looking forward to.... Combat.
...
A/N: Sorry for the inconveniences on the story, well I didn't really make the mc overpowered, the entire magician abilities as just a bunch of life savers, and as for his aspect being divine despite not having a good nightmare, blame it on Cloak, also I didn't really give much on Mc's personality, but as he actively tries to figure out his flaw, you'll be able to notice it. As for how his able to use his aspect without being able to control essence, well all other sleeper could use theirs so why not, And lastly if you're worried about him being able to use abilities from other adjacent paths, well let's say not until he becomes saint.
Another thoughts you need me to improve on please don't hold back and comment, every adjustment is needed.