Arthur blinked, his vision slowly sharpening as the splitting headache and ringing in his ears began to subside. Above him, a neatly groomed blond-haired boy in a pristine white shirt and thin-cut dark trousers stood firmly, holding back the aggressive kid who had just been trying to ruin his face.
His eyes were clear now, though still adjusting. He was in another world, and his name was Arthur Cross.
"I just went through an awakening... Arthur thought to himself as he pieced together thirteen years' worth of foreign memories.
Though "thirteen years" sounded like a short span, the sheer volume of experiences packed into them was staggering—stretching from Arthur's birth in this world to the moment he died, leaving his empty shell behind for the soul of Arthur Reeves to slip into.
"Dual soul domains..." Arthur thought back to the Sixth Summit, recalling the precise moment the tower's system indicated he possessed two distinct soul domains.
Whoosh!!!
His internal musings were abruptly shattered as a towering pillar of ice erupted from the ground out of nowhere. With pinpoint precision, it encased the enraged Transcendent who had been assaulting him just seconds prior, freezing him instantly in place.
Grrrrr. Arthur's teeth chattered; the temperature that suddenly dropped forced him to scramble up in vigilance while looking around at the surprised crowd of newly awakened.
Arthur glanced at the Ice pillar once again, looking at the head that was poking out of the pillar in sheer terror, not daring to move.
From all indications, he wasn't turned into a popsicle yet, demonstrating the amount of control the person behind this had.
"-And who do you think you were laying those filthy hands upon?" A cold voice carrying immense pressure along with it fell upon Arthur's ears.
The coldness that emanated from that pressure was like standing naked in the Iceplains of Belos.
"This voice...." Arthur broke out in immediate goosebumps at the sound of the voice; although it was cold and the pressure was overwhelming, he felt his body was instinctively reacting to the voice.
Turning in the direction the voice came from, he saw two figures approaching.
The easiest to notice was a hulking man in blackened armor, which, upon closer look, had several dents and sword scars upon its form. His head was the only part of his body not covered by his armor, and his head was full of white, wild hair, giving his sturdy, mountainous figure a deathly feral aura. New chapters come out on NovelPing first.
One would think that the source of the imposing pressure was the hulking Transcendent, but the entirety of the aura presence being emitted belonged to the refined Ice Queen with the same white hair tied up in a bun; her robe fluttered madly as she approached.
"Tel- Terria!!" Panic seized Arthur the moment the names flashed through his mind. He recognized both figures instantly from his inherited memories, but the sight of Terria made his spine lock up.
Roughly half of the genuinely terrifying memories in his mind belonged to Terria using him as a living test dummy to try out her new ice abilities.
She loved bullying him at every available opportunity. That almost spelled absolute doom for the kid trapped in the ice pillar, because Terria took her self-appointed role as his bully very seriously. Of course, Arthur knew he'd eventually have to settle the score with her.
"Hm.... what is this young cross? Why do I sense Aura from you?" The Principal's voice rang out suddenly, making both Telmear and Terria pause mid-stride, but only for a second, directing their attention to sense Arthur for aura.
Arthur only noticed the mist at this moment, after seeing that the voice was neither Telmear's nor Terria's.
Instead, it came from the floating gray mist that suddenly sped up, leaving Telmear and Terria behind and reaching Arthur in almost an instant.
The curiosity was oozing from his voice, and the speed at which he approached Arthur proved that.
"You're awakened..." The Principal's voice was genuinely shocked. He looked around at the suffering newly awakened under the freezing aura Terria was radiating and finally decided to say something.
"Terria, it seems your sibling here has awakened his authority. Can you put your aura away?" The implications of his revelation were understood; initially, he wasn't gonna involve himself in whatever way Terria decided to settle the matter, since he had no solid reason that she would accept.
But that was when a Transcendent was attacking her sibling, a Cross. But now, with this revelation, it was a Fight was between two Transcendents.
Hmph!
She harrumphed coldly, taking a glance at the kid still stuck in the ice pillar before retracting her aura.
The ice pillar disappeared, leaving a freezing, newly awakened Transcendent with a hidden glint in his eyes. He looked like he concealed it well enough, though Terria was able to notice it.
She did nothing, infact she hoped he would act out so she would have the chance to 'try a new technique she was developing.
The crowd of kids kept silent even after the freezing aura disappeared; no matter what happened after, they just wanted to act like phantoms. Unseen and unimportant.
The Principal knew the nature of what was about to be spoken and waited for the Cross duo to arrive at his position opposite Arthur.
"Child, It's our first meeting. You can call me Principal just like everyone else." The principal spoke with fascination as his form drifted around Arthur. "How did you awaken, kid? Can you tell me?"
Without enough time to digest the memories of Arthur Cross, Arthur felt a slight panic. Not knowing the extent of what he could or couldn't say.
Unconsciously, he looked towards Telmear, who, taking his gaze as a question, nodded firmly; he was also interested in how Arthur could be awakened when he wasn't even of age yet, and besides that, he wasn't even close to the tower when the tower opened its doors.
"Don't nod at me, you giant!!" Arthur screamed to himself after seeing Telmear's knowing nod, telling him it was okay to speak.
Calming himself slightly, he quickly arranged his thoughts. "Okay, you can do this; all you have to do is avoid telling these doctor-strange-looking characters anything about Transmigration."
"-Go with the facts- then memory loss for anything I can't explain." Going with the solid tactic he used at the office whenever he explained why he missed work dinners and workshops.
"I can't really remember, but the first thing was my room in my si- Lady Terria's tower." Arthur's breath hitched as he immediately corrected himself when he felt that chill from Terria's direction the second he was about to address her casually.
"I was going to rest for a bit, and I woke up from the sounds the other challengers were making, but when I opened my eyes, I was in the Tower." Arthur also had a confused expression as he spoke because he was genuinely confused, and this, in turn, convinced the trio of his words.
Another reason was that, as much as they wanted to discover how Arthur was able to appear within the tower, even the Principal's authority wasn't able to detect traces of how it was done back at Terria's tower.
They never expected that Arthur would be able to detect anything about how or why he was able to appear within the Tower of Authority.
Just knowing that this had something to do with the Tower of Authority was enough information.
This information was unprecedented and unusual; there had been no known or even recorded case of anyone awakening within a tower of Authority before or after 14 years of age, or even a case of the tower snatching a challenger from outside the bounds of the tower vicinity for awakening.
Just then, the Principal's voice came with a question. "Child, can you tell me which summit you were able to reach before the Awakening ended?"
Their ears perked up for his response; the Principal was curious as to what could be so special about Arthur, and the Cross's were curious if their sibling was able to pass his first task.