Chapter 5 — An Earthquake?
The opening ceremony ended, leaving Ivan with a faint sense of disappointment.
Jessica, on the other hand, was full of excitement, still buzzing with enthusiasm. As they walked toward the teaching building, she kept discussing Angel's superpowers with Ivan.
"Isn't he amazing? With someone like him around, this semester is going to be so fun, right?"
"Mm."
"Van, I really admire superpowers. If I had superpowers, I could do so many things, like—"
Jessica's gaze suddenly dimmed for a moment.
"If I had superpowers, Mom and Dad wouldn't have died."
As she said that, her pace slowed as well.
Ivan knew that when she spoke of her parents, she meant her biological parents.
"It's okay. Technology in this world is advancing really fast. Maybe one day there'll be a way to bring people back to life," Ivan said, stiffly trying to comfort her.
"Mm."
After choosing their course schedules, they spent the entire day running between classrooms, aside from lunch in the cafeteria.
By afternoon, school was over.
Ivan returned to his dorm. It was a double room with two beds. His other roommate hadn't come back yet. Ivan lay on his bed, recalling Angel standing on stage during the opening ceremony, performing his superpowers.
He also thought about what Angel had said—eight years of continuous effort and training, growing stronger and stronger.
Could superpowers really be trained to become stronger?
With that thought, Ivan decided to use his free time to practice and break through continuously, just like Angel.
"I'll start with object bending."
He sat up and picked up the fountain pen on the bedside cabinet.
The moment the pen entered his hand—before he even had time to focus on it—it bent limply into a 150-degree curve.
"No, this doesn't feel like practice at all. I hadn't even properly formed the thought, and the goal was already achieved," Ivan murmured. "Can this really make me stronger?"
The next thought flashed through his mind. The bedside cabinet suddenly floated up, shot straight toward the ceiling, and shattered on impact.
Staring blankly at the scattered wooden fragments and nails on the floor, Ivan extended his hand. His entire body erupted in azure-blue light, and the debris reassembled itself into its original shape—though compared to before, faint cracks and seams were now visible.
"No. Whether it's levitating or bending objects, I can't go all out. The effects appear before I even get the chance to exert strength. Like this, there's no way to actually train."
As he said this, he placed the bent pen back on the bedside cabinet and collapsed onto the bed, thinking again.
"But then… how am I supposed to get stronger?"
Ivan recalled Angel's all-out determination on stage, the pen gradually bending under his frenzied exertion.
He also remembered how, back at home, he would unconsciously bend metal spoons.
When Angel was thinking about how to bend objects faster, Ivan had to think about the complete opposite—how to restrain his psionic energy from leaking out at will.
"Could it be that I don't need to get stronger anymore?"
"Impossible. I haven't trained for even close to the eight years Angel has."
Lying on the bed, Ivan thought and thought, growing drowsy, until he gradually fell asleep.
"Hey! Why is my pen bent?!"
In his sleep, he vaguely heard a hazy voice.
"Kid! Did you do this?!"
"Hrrr…" Ivan kept sleeping.
"Fine. I'll settle this with you when you wake up."
At midnight, Ivan woke up and sat up.
He saw his only roommate asleep on the opposite bed—a chubby guy, snoring loudly.
He took out his phone and checked the time.
"Great. Slept during the day—now I can't sleep at night."
Jessica was definitely asleep by now. Ivan decided to go out for a walk.
Looking down from the dorm window, the campus was utterly silent, empty of people. Since this was the fifth floor, the sight immediately made an image flash through Ivan's mind—him falling down and breaking bones.
He was a bit afraid of heights.
That was also one of the reasons he'd been so nervous the first time he controlled a house to descend.
Now, he decided to overcome it.
"Overcoming fear of heights counts as getting stronger, right?"
With that thought, he used his will to lift himself. Bathed in azure-blue light, Ivan jumped from the fifth floor, drifting down like a paper figure until he landed gently on the ground.
In the darkness, that blue glow was breathtakingly beautiful.
"Hah…"
As he descended, like anyone with a fear of heights, Ivan's mind kept flashing with thoughts—what if his will failed, how many bones he'd break if he fell—
Unfortunately for those worries, none of that happened. His psionic energy was simply too powerful. Unless he deliberately suppressed it, failure was difficult.
"I'll walk outside the campus, buy something good to eat."
The campus was surrounded by tall walls topped with electric fencing. Security in this area wasn't great—this was meant to give boarding students a sense of safety.
Ivan pointed two fingers at the wall. In a single thought, blue light exploded outward, shattering the stone wall into dust. Protected by a psionic barrier, all the debris and dust were completely blocked.
After stepping outside, another thought restored the stone wall, reassembling it to its original state.
Streetlights along the road were dim. Ivan walked a long way without finding an open supermarket. He did find a bar, though. It was late, and with nowhere else to go, Ivan stepped inside.
Unlike the noisy scene he had imagined, there were only a few young men drunk around round tables inside, and a bald Black man sitting at the bar chatting with the owner.
"Oh, hey there, kid," the bar owner—a white man—said when he noticed Ivan.
The Black man also turned to look at Ivan, his gaze cold.
He was powerfully built, and combined with his beast-like stare, he gave off a strong sense of psychological pressure.
"Get out. This is a bar," the Black man said coldly.
"Why?" Ivan asked.
"Because you're underage." The man lifted his glass and drained it.
"Then are you the owner, or is he the owner?" Ivan asked.
"He is," the Black man replied flatly.
"Hahaha." The owner burst out laughing after hearing their exchange. "You're a student nearby, right? It's midnight, but that's fine. As long as you don't drink, you're welcome to stay for a bit."
"Do you have soda?"
"Yes."
Sitting at the bar and drinking soda, Ivan learned from the Black man's conversation with the owner that his name was Carl Lucas—a local hoodlum in the area. He looked older, but was actually only twenty-one.
Ivan wasn't afraid, though. If the man started trouble, Ivan was actually lacking a sparring partner.
If getting stronger was the goal, wasn't real combat the best method?
Just as Ivan was imagining fighting with superpowers, the Black man suddenly raised his large hand and grabbed toward Ivan.
The hand came fast, gripping Ivan's shoulder in an instant.
"Kid, you—"
Blue light flashed for 0.03 seconds—too fast for the naked eye to catch. Immediately after, the sounds of clang and crash rang out nonstop.
Glasses on the bar toppled over, bottles on the shelves fell and shattered, chairs and stools collapsed, and the ground shook violently. In that moment, it felt as if the world itself had tilted.
"What the hell?!"
The Black man barely managed to steady himself by grabbing the table. Soon, the shaking weakened and finally came to a stop.
"Was that an earthquake?" the owner asked, his face pale.