Soulless Soul

Chapter 21: First Lesson

Sky’s first official session with Doctor Ronald began on surprisingly peaceful terms. The elderly, bushy-browed instructor carried himself with an unexpected amount of patience, keeping his tone measured and gentle. The initial atmosphere inside the vast, cluttered classroom remained completely relaxed so much so that Sky actually allowed himself to believe the lessons ahead wouldn’t be too difficult to handle. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Barely an hour had passed before his brain felt like it had been violently stuffed with far more complex information than it could possibly contain. Every single topic Alchemist Ronald introduced aggressively challenged everything Sky thought he knew about existence. The real world, the treacherous alternate realities, and the mechanics of the dungeon array operated on principles completely different from the protected, ignorant life he had lived behind the city’s towering neon walls. To a street rat who had never experienced life beyond the safety of New Seoul’s perimeter, every single explanation sounded bizarre, unfamiliar, and almost impossible to believe.

More than once during the frantic lecture, Doctor Ronald stopped writing on the holographic board, finding himself staring down at Sky in complete, breathless disbelief.

"You really don’t know that, kiddo?" the old man would ask, blinking his absentminded eyes.

Each time the question arose, Sky could only offer a small, slightly embarrassed shake of his head. He was a survivor of the slums, not an academic prodigy from a lofty legacy clan.

Despite his profound surprise at Sky’s sheer lack of foundational knowledge, the alchemist never once became irritated or impatient. Instead, he simply smiled a warm, genuine smile, slowed the frantic pace of the lesson, and carefully explained the entire subject all over again from the very beginning. His deep, unyielding passion for teaching was unmistakable, and his patience seemed almost limitless in the empty room. Whenever Sky visibly struggled to keep up with the dense theories, Doctor Ronald willingly walked him through the core concepts, using diagrams and old alchemical models until the young man finally understood.

Even with the professor’s excellent guidance, the sheer volume of the curriculum waiting ahead was enough to make any sane student lose all hope.

There were literal mountains of historical theory to memorize, countless practical alchemy exercises, intense combat classes, theory of the sleep cage, brutal field training exercises planned for the real world outside the walls, wilderness survival techniques, monster ecology, ancient relic studies, and dozens of other subjects Sky had never even imagined existed. As if that wasn’t overwhelming enough to break a person’s spirit, Alchemist Ronald had even scheduled multiple advanced classes dedicated entirely to studying several dead, ancient languages native to the Dungeon Realm.

Why the hell do I have to learn dead languages? Sky complained bitterly inside his own mind, staring at a page of jagged, glowing runes. Doesn’t the system Array translate everything automatically anyway?

The very moment he voiced that skeptical question aloud, Doctor Ronald’s casual demeanor vanished, and he immediately corrected him with a sharp, stern look.

"The dungeon array is not a simple voice, young man," Ronald said firmly, tapping his pen against the desk for emphasis. "Do you honestly believe a mechanical system can capture every subtle, terrifying nuance hidden within a living language? Imagine you’re exploring an abandoned ruin on Floor 1-3, and you discover a desperate warning carved into the stone wall that the Array translates as, ’Death awaits ahead.’ In the ancient rune language alone, there are dozens of entirely different words that can mean death. Some explicitly refer to airborne poison, while others refer to ancient curses, stalking monsters, hidden pressure traps, psychological madness, or even natural disasters. If you understand the language yourself, you’ll know exactly what specific danger lies ahead instead of blindly walking straight into your own grave."

Hearing that logical, pragmatic explanation, Sky found himself with absolutely no argument left to offer. He shut his mouth, gripped his stylus, and began to write.

The lesson continued relentlessly, the old man’s energy never wavering.

Hours slipped by in a blur of ink, light, and foreign vocabulary before either of them even noticed the sky outside the high windows beginning to darken. Only as the brilliant evening sun painted the distant horizon in deep shades of crimson and violet did Doctor Ronald finally close his heavy leather notebook, letting out a satisfied breath as he dismissed the day’s class.

By then, Sky felt completely and utterly mentally drained. Not only had his head become unbearably heavy from absorbing such a massive ocean of information, but he had also completely missed both the scheduled lunch and dinner blocks at the cafeteria. As he gathered his things and walked away from the lecture hall, he silently promised himself to firmly remind Alchemist Ronald the following day that even the smartest students needed physical food if they were expected to maintain their concentration.

So this is exactly why the other students call him a madman, Sky realized, a tired smile tugging at his lips as he walked the quiet dorm hallways. It’s not that he’s evil. He just has a literal madness for teaching.

After finally returning to the quiet sanctuary of his private room, Sky dropped heavily into a wooden chair with a long, exhausted sigh. He leaned his head back, staring blankly at the opposite wall, allowing his racing, overstimulated mind to gradually settle into the silence.

Several quiet moments passed in the dimming room before something suddenly clicked deep within his memory, breaking through his fatigue.

His eyes slowly drifted downward, tracking the dark, elongated shadow stretching across the floorboards beside his boots.

Right.

There was still one critical thing he desperately needed to do before he even thought about scavenging for a late-night supper. He had survived the dungeon, his core had changed, and he hadn’t yet tested the true limits of what he had brought back to the waking world.

Focusing his attention entirely inward, Sky cleared his mind and activated his passive attribute, [Danger Sense], ensuring the immediate perimeter of his dorm room was completely secure and devoid of any prying eyes or surveillance. Once the mental radar gave him a clear green light, he pulled on his core, triggering his lethal Active Attribute: [Clones]. He observed the ambient light in the room begin to twist, watching the process in absolute silence for several tense seconds.

As the darkness beside him began to detach itself from the floor, a slow, dangerous grin spread across Sky’s face.

"Let’s find out what you’re really capable of..." he whispered into the dark.

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