Classroom of the Elite: Monster Academy

Vol. 2 Chapter 2.1 - Soul Ascension Platform

The scent of air brought by a warm breeze was the first thing that entered my mind. The smell of sweet flowers. The earthy scent of fresh grass, and the invigorating smell of trees.

As my senses came back to me, my hearing followed suit. The rustling of countless leaves. The cheerful twittering of songbirds. The soft hum of insect wings. In the distance, the soothing sound of a creek trickling over smooth stones reached my ears.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. There were none of the usual hubbub of the townspeople of the Battle Station nor the weathered slabs of the colosseum. Instead, I found myself standing on clumps of light-green grass that ended just several meters ahead where a thick forest of gnarled, decades, perhaps even centuries-old trees stood tall; their flowing, textured bark and ground were covered in thick moss that shone golden-green where the sunlight caught it. It was reminiscent of what you would describe as an ancient forest.

The breeze then shifted slightly, bringing a familiar sound to my ears.

"Hm, so you got here first, I see."

I turned around and faced Ichinose, who had just arrived.

"Is it weird? I remember someone commenting on that as well." Horikita reacted quite strangely when I first entered the Soul World with her.

Shaking her head, she said. "Not at all, all that means is that you have an incredibly high spiritual power. It is annoying though, since it takes longer for me to enter here than in the other Soul Worlds."

I see, I haven't really pondered as to the mechanism of this technology but what she just said indeed made sense. The Soul World is a world of data. The use of those simulator pods or 'coffins', I would call them, is to scan and translate the information of our body into a unique digital signature and when the transfer is initiated, it is sent through an interface, where it is rapidly encoded into a data packet. This packet contains our entire consciousness, memories, perceptions, thought patterns, and abilities, all converted into streams of binary code.

However, before entering the Soul World completely, there was a period of time where there is nothing but a never ending darkness. And as what had happened just now and before, the time it takes for the darkness to be replaced by the light coming from the Soul World varies between individuals.

That must be where the transition of our information into the data world takes place. The process should involve complex algorithms that analyze and encode every facet of our being and because of the time differences, the computing system used must be our very own brains. Since every individual's cognitive processing speed is directly related to their spiritual power, we can assume that the higher the spiritual power, the faster the transition.

Ichinose also noted differences in her transition times in different Soul Worlds, which adds another variable: the virtual environment's complexity. More complexity means more data processing. With that, we can formulate a simple equation for calculating the transition time which is the complexity of the virtual environment over the spiritual power level...

This suggests that by knowing an individual's spiritual power level and controlling the environment's complexity, one could manipulate their arrival time...

"Well, how about we go on our way, Ayanokouji-kun?" she suggested, heading into the forest.

Snapping from my thoughts, I followed her, the ancient trees towering above us as we ventured deeper into the forest. "Are you also here for a soul ring, Ichinose?" I asked.

"Nope, I'm just here for a stroll."

"....." A stroll?

She looked at me amused before speeding up as if trying to lead me somewhere. Curious, I went after her, matching her speed. She led me deeper and deeper into the forest, our steps barely making a sound as we moved with incredible swiftness. The ancient trees and nearby soul beasts seemed to blur past us, their forms flickering in and out of view.