Spirit's Ascension-Chapter 82—Academy Mission.

Cole didn’t bother overthinking it. He proceeded to go have his bath and get ready.

Bryan, equally as ready as he was, had already begun his preparations much earlier.

After about twenty minutes more of preparation, the two of them were finally done.

"How exactly are we supposed to meet with her?" Bryan asked.

"She said she will come and find us, so let’s hope she does," Cole responded.

Since they would be going out of the academy. They also prepared a little bit of luggage that could sustain them.

With the luggage in hand, they both exited the room and headed for the mission hall.

The two hadn’t gone very far in their journey; they were just outside the hostels when they saw a red-headed beauty standing outside with a frustrated look.

She turned to look at them and was about to say something when Cole interrupted her gently.

"Good morning Linda," Cole said with a gentle smile.

Linda’s words were immediately caught in her throat; she couldn’t find anything to say seeing Cole’s gentle smile.

"Good morning," she could only respond.

The two boys didn’t stand on any other formalities as they all proceeded to the Mission hall.

Along the way, Cole observed other freshmen with excited faces, all in groups of three heading in the same direction.

"What do you think our mission will be?" Linda asked.

Both Cole and Bryan looked slightly lost; they also had no idea, so they wondered why Linda would ask that question.

"Are we supposed to know that? " Bryan asked.

"Didn’t you know that the top ten students get higher-ranked missions than the rest?"

"Especially a team comprising only top ten ranked students like us."

Now it was their turn to be amazed. They had never been privy to such information at all.

"You didn’t know; you really need to pay more attention like I do," she said with a haughty voice.

Bryan wanted to refute but he wasn’t ready to handle the fiery personality of the girl walking in front of him so he could only keep quiet.

The walk to the mission hall was filled with Linda talking about one thing or another while the others listened quietly.

In no time, they arrived at the entrance to the mission hall.

The Mission hall, just like every other building in the academy, was an edifice. It made everyone who stared at it open their mouths wide.

After admiring the beauty, Cole and the others headed inside the hall to get a mission.

Inside the Hall, a man sat behind a counter while staring straight at the entrance, like he was waiting for someone.

And he was actually doing just that the instant Cole and his team entered the hall. The man quickly stood to his feet and approached.

A lady sitting just beside was surprised by his actions, so she proceeded to ask.

"Klaus, what’s wrong?"

"Ohh nothing nothing, I just need to attend to a set of very important students."

"Very important students? But the ones here are freshmen, and I don’t think anyone on the academy rankings will be coming here today," the lady pressed again.

"This team contains three members of the top 10 freshmen, so they are important," he said in an attempt to justify.

"Ummm, okay then," the lady said before continuing her work.

Cole, Bryan, and Linda were still scanning through the hall to get any information when Klaus suddenly arrived in front of them.

"Welcome kids, you are here to get your Academy missions right," Klaus asked.

Cole was immediately alerted; he took a step back while skeptically looking at the man in front of him.

Klaus noticed Cole’s reaction, and a glint flashed across his eyes.

"He is a careful one; I really need to be careful," He thought to himself.

"Relax, kid, I mean no harm. I work here, and since I identified you as one of the top ten students, I decided to personally approach you guys."

Cole heard that and let his guard down a little, but he still maintained his cautious State.

Klaus noticed his words had been able to convince them slightly, so a smile formed only on his face.

"Since you guys are a team of top ten students, you know your mission will be much different from the others."

"Follow me then to get your mission."

The kids had no reason not to trust Klaus, and the thought that nothing could really happen openly on academy grounds gave them quite a bit of peace.

With that, they followed behind him while he led them toward his spot on the counter.

On getting there, Klaus excused himself for a while before bringing a list of available missions.

The list looked completely normal and natural with no sort of tinkering or anything. Just a normal list.

Despite Bryan not opening, showing his cautiousness, he was extremely cautious. So upon inspection of the paper and seeing no sign of change, he felt relieved.

"This must be legit then," Bryan concluded.

The rest of the group scanned the mission list with equal eyes. Cole, on the other hand, was completely fixed on just one mission.

His eyes were already reddening slightly while something was pooling at the edges.

He tightened his grip on the list, resulting in the others noticing his weird state.

"Are you okay, Cole?" Linda asked.

Cole didn’t respond, only looking up from the list and then at his teammates.

"Can we choose this mission, please?" he asked while pointing at one mission on the list.

The others followed his fingers and looked at the mission he was pointing at.

[A call for help: young children had been missing a lot in the slums lately.]

They were quite taken aback by the content of the mission while similar thoughts flashed across their minds.

"He must have some bad memory related to this."

Cole still held the paper, lost in thought while trying to figure things out.

"Is doctor Thomas back at it again?" He thought in anger.