Chapter 13 A Better Power
Erik woke up that day; he had to go to school and justify the fact that he had missed the previous day of school.
Regardless of the consequences, he was happy since now his problem was no more, and he could concentrate on making neural links.
But first thing first, he went to the bathroom to wash and then prepared himself breakfast. After that, he checked his daily quests.
[Daily]
<Eating Habits: >
-Rewards for completion: Ten Experience, ten DNA points
-Failure Penalty: None
(Eat a healthy meal)
(ACCEPT QUEST) (REFUSE QUEST)
<Physical training:>
-Rewards for completion: Ten Experience, ten DNA points
-Failure Penalty: None
(Train for at least an hour. The Host may choose whatever exercise to complete the quest.)
(ACCEPT QUEST) (REFUSE QUEST)
-----------------------------
The young man accepted the two quests, but he knew that he could only do the second one after finishing his farm work, meaning late in the evening.
He then ate his breakfast, completing the first of the two quests. After that, he got ready to go to school, and while doing so, he opened the TV going, as usual, on the news channel.
"AUTHORITIES REPORT AN INCREASING NUMBER OF THAIDS ATTACKS ON THE CAPITAL, NEW ALEXANDRIA..."
According to the news, more and more incidents regarding the thaids were reported each month. First, it started with just some random attacks here or there, but now they seemed to be growing exponentially.
As soon as Erik heard this report, his mood changed. He couldn't say if for the best or the worst. On the one hand, he was happy that more troubles arose for the city, but at the same time, he was worried that the beasts could enter the city.
This was not something that rarely happened, as there were speculations that a hole inside the barrier allowed the monsters to enter inside, mainly from the east, meaning that the problem lay there. Still, no solution was proposed to solve the problem.
The young man then left the house, heading towards school like every other morning. It took him some time to arrive at the train station, and from there, he headed to school in the western district.
It wasn't too bad considering how fast the trains traveled, and he got there in a relatively short amount of time.
Once arriving at the school, Erik decided to take the path behind the building instead of walking down the main entrance in order to avoid Logan and his friends.
They weren't the only ones that bullied him, but they were the most ferocious ones. Even though he tried to ignore them, sometimes their words hurt, especially when they mocked his family.
After reaching one of the corridors, Erik walked toward his class; people looked at him while he went as if he was a sort of circus freak.
A few times, someone bumped into him accidentally, which caused them to swear at him and go without apologizing.
And still, despite all these things happening around him, Erik didn't feel sad, all thanks to the biological supercomputer.
When entering his classroom, he sat next to the window and waited until the bell rang and the other students came in.
Professor Mc Allister came in shortly afterward. He was the teacher tasked with teaching the students how to use their BCP properly. For this reason, he always brought the students to the gym, where they practiced with their powers under strict supervision.
He was a short man with a bald head. His eyes were blue and cold as ice. Despite being a professor, he never smiled during the lessons, as he was stern.
For a moment, Erik wondered why such a harsh personality chose to teach as his profession. Then realized that maybe it was because he wanted others to see how a proper individual should behave in that harsh world.
"C'mon guys, your training won't start if you don't move your asses from that chairs." Professor Mc Allister said. Then the whole class went out of the classroom and headed toward the gym.
As they walked, the teacher resumed his speaking, "Today, we're going to do the last part of our program before graduation."
Once everyone had arrived at the gym, Erik found himself standing near the wall, looking outside through a glass door. There he saw the rest of the classmates getting ready to use their power, but he stayed where he stood.
When the teacher noticed him, he turned back and spoke again, "You need to get moving; otherwise, I'll leave you behind!"
At those words, Erik finally moved forward. On the way to the open field where they were going to train, he ran into Logan, who laughed at him loudly, causing him to turn away angrily. He couldn't show his anger, or something worse than mocking could happen to him.
Erik arrived on the field and put himself on the edge of the row of students that were going to practice their BCP.
The students then started their training. Some of them had incredible powers,that allowed them to send Psionic blasts.
Some others could create water from nowhere, and others could create physical restraints to restrict or imprison other people.
There was a variety of powers out there, but the most impressive one of them all was Nathaniel Mc Connell, a brown-haired and handsome kid who had a form of energy control that allowed him to use a sort of Force fist and deploy an energy shield.
His power was a BSIGMA3B which was impressive. Being D on the ferebitz scale meant a lot already, but his power being ranked C on the Jorm one was even more astonishing since it told how useful the power was.
Nathaniel's future was probably bound to be good, as the army was really interested in such a young man.
Though, if things didn't go well with the military, he could always work with his father. No one knew what he did, but they had a lot of money. 𝘧𝘳𝐞𝚎𝑤ℯ𝘣𝗻𝘰ѵℯl.c𝐨𝚖
There were even rumors about Nathaniel's father saying that he was the leader of a criminal gang. These were baseless rumors, though, and no one had found proof of such claims.
Nathaniel was targeting some mannequins a couple of meters ahead of him, showing his battle-oriented power to the class, who looked at him with envy.
The boy showed off by throwing empowered punches like he was fighting a real opponent. It was impressive indeed.
He tried hitting the dummy with a punch that would have broken any human bone and destroyed part of it after a flurry of punches.
Then he got closer to the mannequin. He stopped punching and instead grabbed its neck and twisted it violently. In that instant, the mannequin fell apart to the ground.
Everyone watched him with amazement. Even Erik felt impressed watching him; he was so impressed that he briefly forgot his own problems.
While everyone else trained, Erik just kept staring at the ground, lost in thought. He wished he, too, could develop his power in a battle-oriented sense, but he had no idea how to do that.
Since all the students were doing their best, and his teacher was looking at him, he started using his power.
The young man approached the flower beds on the side of the field and started gathering mana through his brain crystal.
The feeling was vastly different from the last time he used his power the previous day at the farm because of the amount of mana the young man could now control.
Then the usual sensation of electricity and pressure spread throughout his entire body, causing the hairs on the nape of his neck to stand up. The lightheaded feeling came back in full force, and his power started to emerge. free𝒘ℯ𝗯𝙣𝗼ν𝑒𝗹.𝒄o𝒎
When he couldn't hold it anymore, Erik pushed the force he was feeling toward the flower bed, releasing the energy from his hands.
Then the usual wave of heat hit him, and the air around him became hot and humid. The smell of freshly grown vegetation filled his nose, and the plants sprouted new leaves in seconds and started growing quickly.
Compared to the other times, the plants grew faster and more robust than usual. They started from a couple of centimeters and ended up being meters high.
The students looked at Erik's power with scorn, unaware of the differences between then and now. Only professor Mc Allister's keen eye could see the difference in his power.
The teacher's expression changed for only a second when he saw what Erik had done. After that moment, he returned to his regular face.
Then, when Erik stopped channeling mana, contrary to what happened every time he used his power, he didn't lose consciousness, which was one of the reasons why he didn't want to use his power in front of the class. This was a pleasant surprise.
After an hour of exercising, the students returned to their classroom and did the rest of their classes. When the bell rang, signaling lunch break, most people rushed out to grab something to eat while others stayed behind to train or talk to each other.
Nathaniel was among those who wanted to practice his skills. While Erik went to the cafeteria to eat and then left the school to go to the farm, he couldn't stop working and couldn't train at school as the other kids did.