[120/400 EXP]
—
In Leo's class, they were told to partner up and fight each other for training. Erin teamed up with Quinn and the two were casually sparing each other. They had just fought yesterday, and knew where they lie in strength, so they didn't feel the need to push themselves too hard for now. Erin had something on her mind, distracting her from focusing on fighting.
Quinn noticed this, and sighed, "Uh… Do you want to talk about something?"
Erin turned her head, giving him the side eye, "No."
Quinn frowned.
Erin groaned, "Fine, I'll tell you…"
{Erin} Do you hear what they're saying?
{Quinn} What do you mean?
{Erin} They're talking about me.
{Erin} I hear them say I haven't used an ice ability in a long time, and that Mono guy knows about me.
{Erin} This is what I was talking about, it's only a matter of time before something bad happens again.
{Quinn} That you'd get treated like me?
{Erin} Worse.
Meanwhile, Leo was paying attention to Erin and Quinn as there was something very strange about her.
Leo's qi perception was an ability that allowed him to perceive the world as a wire frame around him in a 360 degree view, even being able to sense things beyond walls or obstacles. The only exception was the hardest and densest material that was galathrium. This was how sensing the inanimate objects worked for him.
As for the living things, humans exhibited a yellow aura, and beasts were red. This was generally how he differentiated between the two species. The dalki also showcased a red aura.
Leo didn't actually see colors, and this color based aura explanation is for the audience reading this. Leo senses the differences in aura purely by how they feel because he's blind, but obviously that'd be harder to explain in a text format.
However, a few days ago, he had perceived a unique effect in aura that he hadn't perceived before.
Erin's aura was yellow, and so was Quinn's. It wasn't quite the same shade of yellow as everyone else, but what was really strange was how the two's aura would seem to be magnetized to one another whenever they got close. This quirk in their aura changed during the time period when they had suddenly started hanging around each other.
If this was a sign of some sort of possession, then it would be better to ask them one on one.
—
As the class ended, Erin and Quinn went their separate ways. Quinn went off to the gym to train his physique, and Erin didn't stick around for long. Externally, she displayed her usual expression of a neutral almost frowning face. Internally, she was alert.
At any moment, she could've been ganged up on, but she just had to train since it was the only thing she could do.
Walking down the halls of the school, she listened around as she headed to the gaming pods room. She turned a corner, about to enter the room when she just narrowly managed to avoid bumping into someone. Erin wasn't making that mistake again.
She tried to walk past the person, when they grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her back towards them. It was the same wrist where her ability number was stated. Erin's strength was beyond that of a normal person, so she was able to yank her arm back.
[Inspect]
[Pio Blank]
[Race: Human]
[Ability: Duplication]
[Quest: Defeat Pio Blank]
[Reward: 50 EXP]
[120/400 EXP]
She walked past Pio, but he didn't like that. He drew out his crossbow and shot at Erin, who was quickly able to dodge it. The arrow landed in a wall then disappeared.
She saw the look on the boy's face. It was one that had a realized opportunity.
"It's true! Your ability level, it's—!" Pio tried to say before Erin thwacked him with the flat part of her blade.
He fell to the floor, landing on his chest, and looked up only to see Erin kick his face.
[170/400 EXP]
"You wanna say that again?"
That was when she realized that there were a few students in the hallway all staring at her. Some thought that she was just too strong to need to use her ability, but others were having thoughts why she didn't use her ability at all, despite how trigger happy she had been with it before.
Erin turned around without giving an explanation. How could she? Books were meant to give people abilities, not take them away.
—
Erin made it to the gaming pods room at last, and entered the game of Power Fighters. The gaming pods were heavily guarded due to the fact that someone's body being tampered with while in a VR world could spell disastrous results. It was surprisingly one of the safest areas at the school, for a low level, but you could only stay there for as long as you could afford the money.
Going to training mode, Erin wanted to practice the flash step move. She could've technically used the system to activate it, but it felt better to use the move itself with her own two legs.
After trying it out for a few minutes, she was able to do it consistently in the game, but the only problem was that the training room didn't use up any stamina. She did ten in a row without feeling a single bit of tiredness. Erin knew it took up energy from when she used it against Quinn, which meant she would've needed to see how it felt on the field in an actual match.
In the training room of the game, stamina didn't matter, but in a fight, it did.
Speaking of which, she just got a notification from Hardsteely. When looking at it, he apparently wanted to create a game party and be in the same lobby together. She accepted, and soon enough, there were three people suddenly in the same area.
Nate just saw that Erin was online, so of course he had to send an invite. He was hoping that there would've actually been an opportunity for him to talk to her, when she suddenly pointed at his friend, Sam, and shouted.
"I want to train."
Sam looked quite surprised, but obliged. The two started a match and he was ready to use the cape again. Since their last fight, he was thinking up on strategies on how to use it better.
"3…2…1… GO!"
Immediately, Erin ran up and dodged a windslash attack from Sam. She was within striking distance, and she held her sword up high. Sam was ready to block and covered himself with the cape, careful to not block his vision. However, Erin used flash step and was suddenly behind him.
Erin threw out a few bloodswipe from her sword, which hit Sam's unprotected side. He quickly turned around, and Erin was able to flash step again. She was about to do the same thing as before when Sam had covered his back this time.
Erin decided to try to send blood swipes at his back anyways, thinking that with her improved strength she'd be able to do something, but it left only small scratches on the cape. Unlike last time, the scratches were slightly larger, but it wasn't much at all.
Judging by how she felt, she could've done two more flash steps before growing too exhausted to move.
Sam sent out an array of wind slashes in the air, and charged at Erin with his daggers. For a normal human, this would've been difficult to dodge, but Erin used the flash step one more time to quickly jump up to Sam and stab him.
Sam tried to kick her off from her sword, but Erin stood her ground and dug the sword deeper. With her strength, she was able to drag the sword downwards, doing further damage, and making Sam's HP drop to 0.
They were all taken back to a lobby, and Sam was yet again disappointed with his fight.
"Aw man, I lost again," He said to himself.
Nate meanwhile was in awe at Erin's skill. She had displayed something that he had never seen before, the flash step.
Erin walked up to Sam and looked at his cape. It was rather impressive, defending really well against her blood swipes.
"Where did you get the beast crystals for that?" She said pointing at it.
Sam grabbed the edge of his cape and lifted it up, "You mean this? We got the crystals for it from planet Caladi."
Nate then butted in happily explaining, "In your first portal outing, it's guaranteed to be a green portal planet. They're the safest planets. You're very likely to go to either planet Caladi, Almpin, or Bartnee for your first trip. Those have well established military bases. After that, you're going to be going to orange portal planets. Those tend to have more dangerous beasts that you'll have to travel together as a whole class for, but you shouldn't worry about that until your second year. Lastly are the red portal planets which—"
"I know," Erin bluntly spoke.
Nate looked a little defeated, "O-oh, you already knew all of that?"
"Well, uh… You gave me a little more than I already knew… so…" Erin awkwardly replied.
The air grew awkward, and Sam coughed in the silence.
Erin didn't know how to deal with the changed vibe, when all of a sudden, she heard a notification sound from the system.
{Quinn} Erin, come meet up with me in the training room on the east side of the school.
{Erin} Why? What happened?
{Quinn} Peter, I think he's in trouble. I saw him hang out with some higher levels the other day. It looked like he was in a hurry too.
{Erin} Why would you need me?
{Quinn} He's in our team, and you're the strongest person I know. I'd rather have you and not need you than to need you but not have you by my side.
{Erin} Fine.
{Erin} That room? That's the place where portals are stored, isn't it?
{Erin} Normally, we aren't allowed to go there.
{Quinn} That just concerns me more. Why would he be there if he wasn't in danger?
{Erin} Alright, I'm coming over.
"Sorry guys, something came up, I gotta go," Erin said before promptly logging off.