The Ascension Age

Sometime later, Aire arrived at an inconspicuous building not far from his dormitory. If not for the fact that it had the word lab in the front, Aire would have thought he came to the wrong place. 'Still, why would he build his lab in such a place?'

Surprisingly, Aire was right to think like that. Any teacher in the Ascension School had quite a few advantages. For example, it wouldn't be hard for them to get a place close to the school's center where they would be closer to everything else.

Aire then shook his head, placing these thoughts behind. It had nothing to do with him, after all. He quickly arrived at the counter, where a young man was dealing with a few documents. Soon, he asked, "Hello, is this Zule's lab?"

The young man looked at Aire for a moment before nodding, saying, "You should be Aire, right? Senior Zule is waiting for you in his lab." The guy then pointed in a certain direction before continuing, "Take the third door on the left. You will arrive at his office at the end of the corridor. I'll send him a message. I'll tell him you're here."

Aire nodded and headed straight to where the young man pointed. After arriving at the place, he knocked on the door, only to be greeted with silence. "Seems like he's not here yet."

He then decided to wait inside and opened the door. The room looked quite high-tech. Many displays and equipment that Aire had no idea what they served for could be seen throughout the room. However, what caught his attention were the few framed pictures on the desk. "Hmm...this little girl looks a lot like Altina."

"That's because it really is her," a voice said from behind Aire.

Hearing that, Aire turned around and saw the familiar figure of Zule entering the room. "Oh, Teacher Zule. No one answered the door, so I went inside myself. Should I not do that?"

Zule laughed in response, saying, "Hahaha! Feel free to enter whenever. Even if you didn't come inside, I would have pulled you in. After all, you definitely won't find cuter photos of Altina than this place." Zule shrugged his shoulder right after, saying, "Well, she probably would hate to know that I'm showing it to you."

Aire understood what Zule meant, trying to figure out what was on his mind as he asked, "It's exactly because she would hate it that you would show them to me, right?" Aire was more or less aware of Zule's personality.

"Hahaha! You're the one who said that, not me." Zule tried to brush responsibility off with those words.

Aire shrugged his shoulders in response before asking, "What exactly is your relation with her?"

Zule shook his head as he answered, "That you will have to ask her. Well, I doubt she'll open her mouth and tell you. Hehe!"

Aire wasn't that much interested in their relationship to begin with, so he didn't insist. "Alright, what about the Riser Techniques you told me?"

Zule then turned around as he said, "Come with me. I'm going to bring you to my laboratory. We can check what kind of affinities and constitution you have there."

After passing through a few security checks, Aire eventually arrived at Zule's lab, which was enormous. "Isn't this a bit too exaggerated?" He thought that perhaps he was brought here to truly become a lab rat.

"What are you talking about?" Zule said with a hint of confusion. "If you look at the labs of the top researchers in our school, you'll probably laugh at my face because of how small my own lab looks." Zule couldn't help but show a sad expression when he said that.

He quickly recovered though as he said, "Anyway, let's leave that aside. Come here."

Zule then brought Aire to a small tower where several colored rings floating around it could be seen. "We need to test your elemental affinity."

"What should I do?" Aire found the equipment quite interesting...although he didn't know how to use it.

Zule nodded in response as he explained, "It's quite simple. Can you see the two handlers on both sides?" Aire nodded and waited for Zule to continue. "Just put your hands on them, and the Stellar Elemental Asserting Processor will do the rest. Those floating rings represent the several known elements that can be controlled by Stellar Energy. Depending on which one shines, that would be your elemental affinity."

Aire was happy to hear that. "Oh! That's quite simple. Alright, can we start?"

Zule then headed to a terminal located by the small tower's side and inputted a few commands in it. Soon after, the tower seemed to come to life as the rings began to spin around it. "Alright, everything is ready. Your Stellar Energy will be absorbed once you hold the handles. Because the Stellar Energy is processed by your body, it will have a hint of the Element that suits your body the most. Go ahead, try it."

Aire nodded and immediately put his hands on the handles. Sure enough, it was as Zule mentioned. His Stellar Energy began to be absorbed by the tower while the rings began to spin even faster. However, the spins started to slow down one after another, leaving only the topmost ring unaffected.

However, as soon as Zule saw that, his eyes widened as he said in surprise, "Well, that's a surprise!"

Aire could not help but think something had gone wrong as he saw Zule's reaction. "What is it? Did something wrong happen?"

Zule shook his head as he said, "No, nothing wrong happened. It's just that it has been a very long time since something like this happened."

Eventually, the topmost ring began to shine with light, a white light. At the same time that white light became brightened, Zule had an ecstatic expression on his face. "Hahaha! Great! This is great!"

A few seconds later, the equipment turned off, turning all the rings t static once more, including Aire's elemental ring. Aire took his hands off the tower soon after and looked at Zule with curiosity as he asked, "So? What happened?"

Zule's mind, which was lost in his thoughts, came back when Aire called his attention. "Aire, my friend. You truly are a wonder. To think that you would have a deviant elemental affinity. It's truly impressive."

Obviously, Aire immediately thought of his healing abilities before asking, "So, what's it about?"