Arcane Academy: The Divine Extraction Legacy Chapter 2 Activation

A bitter smile touched Lesley's lips as she sensed Kyle's life force vanish completely.

"Another potion gone to waste... Dex, retrieve the token and move this corpse to the third chamber." She spoke with the indifference of someone who had witnessed this failure countless times before calling for her subordinate.

In an instant, a hooded figure materialized without a sound. His mouth was sewn shut with dark thread, rendering him mute. His skin was a patchwork of bruises and scars, giving him the ghastly appearance of a zombie, yet he moved with the fluid efficiency of a seasoned worker.

Despite his macabre look, he remained impeccably clean and lacked the stench of decay.

As Dex lifted the body, a sudden thought crossed Lesley's mind, causing her to revise her orders.

"Wait, I nearly forgot that this boy lacked any elemental affinity or talent whatsoever. Wexor wouldn't find this meat appetizing. Just toss him in the mortuary... perhaps he can serve as fuel or something similar..."

Dex hesitated briefly upon hearing the change in plans. He offered no sign of acknowledgement, but instead of heading toward the lower levels, he made his way to the back exit where the airship was stationed.

Every recruitment outpost was equipped with an Academy-owned airship, designed to ferry successful enrollees back to the main campus.

Lesley waited in the recruitment hall for another hour before sighing in disappointment.

Though she had been stationed here for a full week, she had only managed to secure two students for the upcoming academic term.

"It is no wonder this mission was avoided by everyone... finding five recruits in this barren region is a fool's errand. Tsk." Lesley grumbled, her irritation evident.

She had originally accepted the task thinking it would be a simple way to farm contribution points, but the local population proved to be utterly pathetic.

Giving the crowd outside one final, dismissive glance, she abandoned the site. She began her journey back to the Academy, accompanied by her two new recruits and the collection of corpses.

***

Thud...

Kyle’s limp form was tossed into a frigid storage unit packed with other remains.

Time lost all meaning to Kyle, but the moment his consciousness flickered back to life, a sensation of drowning overwhelmed him. He struggled to move, only to realize he was pinned in a cramped, awkward position.

'W-what is happening?'

He was surrounded by absolute pitch-blackness. He couldn't tell if he had lost his sight or if the room was simply devoid of light. Regardless, he could feel the biting chill of the air and the rigid, cold bodies piled on top of him.

He clawed his way out from beneath the heap of corpses, gasping as he finally drew a breath of air. Though he was shivering and famished, the realization that he was alive brought a surge of relief.

Before he could even process his surroundings, a series of glowing panels manifested before his eyes, resembling the notification windows from the games of his previous life.

[ Congratulations! The Divine Extraction System has been activated. ]

[ You now possess the ability to extract and acquire the mystical properties of this world. ]

This initial message was quickly replaced by a secondary set of notifications.

[ You have died. ]

[ Your soul is foreign to this world. ]

[ Your soul has been rejected by the laws of death. ]

[ Restarting life cycle. ]

[ You have returned from the abyss. ]

[ Remarks: You must utilize the system to absorb the mystical properties of this realm. Only by doing so will you truly belong to this world; otherwise, your next death will be final. ]

"Huh? Rejected?"

Kyle stared at the floating text, his mind reeling.

"What is this madness?" He rubbed his eyes hard, but the digital display remained fixed in his vision. This was no hallucination.

As he waved his hand to clear the previous text, a new prompt appeared.

[ Human corpse detected. Would you like to begin extraction? ]

"Hmm? Extract what exactly?"

By now, Kyle’s pupils had adjusted to the gloom, allowing him to discern the outlines of the cold room where he had been discarded.

He confirmed the presence of numerous other bodies. The only source of faint illumination came from a glowing necklace draped around the neck of a corpse lying nearby.

Kyle hesitated, neither speaking nor thinking an answer to the prompt. He needed to weigh his options with extreme caution.

First, the nature of 'extraction' was unclear. Was he supposed to harvest some kind of fluid from the deceased?

"Urgh..."

The thought made him shudder, but he quickly recalled the system's first promise.

"No, it said I could obtain mystical properties... but does that mean I'm tied to this world once I use it?" Kyle whispered.

His current survival was a fluke of cosmic rejection, likely steered by whatever entity governed the souls of this realm.

The moment he engaged with the system, he would become a permanent part of this world’s fabric. If he faced another fatal accident after that, there would be no second resurrection.

"Tsk... and where have they taken me?" Kyle muttered, looking around the expansive, freezing morgue.

He noted that the other victims were roughly his age—between twelve and fifteen. They appeared to have suffered the same fate as him, with dried blood staining their eyes, noses, and mouths.

To his surprise, the sight of the dead didn't trigger a panic attack. It was unsettling; in his past life, he hadn't even found the courage to look at his uncle during the funeral. He had always been squeamish around death.

"Is this an aftereffect of that potion?" Kyle wondered, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

Surveying the bodies, he pieced the situation together. They had been dumped in cold storage, likely destined for a crematorium or, more disturbingly, to be used as experimental cadavers for Vermont Academy.

A school that murdered its own applicants surely had dark purposes for the remains.

Thud... Thud... Thud...

The sudden grinding of massive gears echoed through the room. Moments later, Kyle felt a familiar sensation of weightlessness as the floor began to rise.

Kyle’s eyes widened with a spark of hope. He was indeed aboard the Academy’s airship!