The Ascension Age

It was decided that the rechecking of aptitudes would be done the next day, so the students were allowed to head back to their respective rooms. Aire's group, obviously, had somewhat gloomy expressions on their faces. They truly didn't like how the initial standings would be done this time.

Sometime later, Aire went somewhere alone so that he could finally talk with Stella. He also wanted to think more about their current situation.

"Aire, what was that ability of yours? You're not at the Stellar Manipulation Level yet, so how come you can release Stellar Energy out of your body?" Stella asked, confused by this fact.

However, Aire could only shake his head as he replied, "I don't know either. I found this out by coincidence when I got injured during a school trip. Fortunately, I was alone at the time, so no one else saw it."

Aire then made the same ball of white Stellar Energy appear on his hand for a moment as he continued, "However, my Stellar Energy when I use this ability seems different from the others. Everyone else's Stellar Energy is silver. However, mine is completely white. I believe that's the reason why you thought I was compatible with you."

Stella nodded before asking, "You said before that it has potent healing abilities, right?"

"Yes." The ball of white Stellar Energy then disappeared as Aire continued, "Well, to be honest, I don't know if it can be used for anything else. I only know that it can heal better than anything else. Can't you check it yourself?"

Stella pondered for a bit before responding, "I can try to analyze this power. As you said, Stellar Energy is supposed to be silver, so I don't know what is happening either. Perhaps this is some new perk Gigon added without me knowing before I was sent to this Universe."

Aire sighed with a hint of disappointment in response. He thought that Stella might know something about it. In any case, there was no point talking about it any further, so he moved onto another topic. "Alright, let's leave that aside for now. For my own well-being, I won't use it unless extremely necessary. Let's talk about your hacking skills instead. Can't you really hack anything else?"

"It's not that I can't hack anything else," Stella replied as she pondered over this issue. "It's just that I can't use it to give you an advantage that's not present inside my locked abilities. If it is something trivial, then it won't matter. For example, don't you have money in your account to buy lunch? I can hack into the system and pay for it in your stead. But if you ask me to hack a food company so that you can start selling their food to make money, then I can't do that."

Aire quickly understood what she was trying to say. Simply put, he couldn't use the ability for cheating. Nevertheless, he could think of a few other uses that wouldn't go against Stella's rules, requesting, "In that case, I want you to prevent any news of me from appearing. However, do it smartly. The non-official school news board works on the system of trending posts. The more people look into it, the higher the rank that post obtains. Those rich idiots that are after Altina will probably do the same thing against me."

He then smiled as he continued, "That being said, don't delete the news that they put up. Just make sure it doesn't go trending. It shouldn't be against your rules, right?"

Stella pondered for a bit before nodding. "Okay, I can do that. Oh, right! In that case, I can also do the same thing for Altina. I will slowly make the news about Crazy Bitch Altina gradually go down before permanently staying there within a few weeks."

Aire pondered for a bit and agreed with her. He might not want to get too involved with someone as famous as Altina, but he wouldn't refuse to help her if it brought no problems to his side. "Alright, do it for her as well. Fortunately, I have just appeared in those people's eyes, so they won't even have a chance to send us up in the rankings."

"Done!" Not long after, Stella answered with a smile on her face. "I already hacked the trending ranking. I have to say, though. You were definitely skyrocketing through the ranks. However, I easily found out that it was mostly due to someone pulling strings behind the scenes, paying many students to use their IDs to help those fake news about your group become trending."

"That quickly?" Aire was surprised as to how easy Stella made it look. "You weren't kidding when you said that the level of the Stellar Technology of our Universe was a joke, huh? Anyways, good job, Stella."

And with that, Stella seemed to have finally done something good for him. Well, he wouldn't be in that situation if not for her anyway.

Stella, obviously, jumped in joy as she said, "Hahaha! Am I not the best, Aire~?!"

Aire also felt her happiness turning into his own once again, prompting him to say, "Alright, alright. No need to be so excited because of something like this. By the way, I need you to control your emotions from now on."

"Okay~!"

Stella agreed in less than an instant. However, Aire couldn't help but feel that his words would make no difference in the future. "Sigh... whatever."

He then changed the topic, asking, "Now, how about you talk more about the locked abilities I would obtain in the future? What should I expect to get once I reach the Stellar Manipulation Level?"

Unfortunately, Stella shook her head as she replied, "Sorry, Aire..."

Stella dropped her head soon after as she continued, "It's also part of the rules that I can't reveal those before you reach the respective level."

Well, Aire more or less expected that much. "It's fine, it's fine. Even if I knew, it would have made no difference since I'm not there yet. In any case, I need your hacking skills for something else."

"What is it?"

"You know that Ramalia is definitely here on Earth because of the Roaming Stellar Light, which is you, right?" Stella nodded and waited for Aire to continue. "I don't know what she plans to do, so I want you to keep an eye on the system and tell me if there's something I need to pay attention to. If you see something suspicious that could reveal your existence, tell me right away. Not only it won't go against your own rules, but it will, in fact, protect my development."

Stella nodded once again, responding, "Okay~!"

Stella and Aire talked for a bit more before Aire finally went back to his room. However, he soon found out that Kymei, Altina, and Sera were in the middle of a discussion. "Oh! Aire! Where have you gone?! We were waiting for you."

"For me?" Aire was slightly confused, prompting him to ask, "What do you need me for?"

Kymei then put a hand on his shoulder before saying, "We need to get as far as possible in the aptitude test tomorrow. We want to talk about how we should proceed with it. Since you're part of the team, you naturally need to listen and contribute as well."

Aire didn't mind since the resources were also linked to his own survival. "Very well. But first, I want to ask you and Sera something. I know that Altina exceeds in combat, and it was this ability that brought her up in the ranks last year. But how about you two?"

Sure enough, that was something very important to know now that they were a group.