“Follow me,” Professor McAllister said. The duo left the room and headed toward the gym.

“What do you think about the boy?” Principal Harris asked.

“I’m a little bit disappointed. Usually, awakeners have stronger powers, you know.” Mister Kite replied.

“Yeah, but we must consider that his brain crystal was F-ranked. It was unlikely he would have been able to jump more than a rank. Going out of the F-zone is already a lot for him,” The principal said.

“I guess,” Mister Kite said.

“What do you intend to do with him?” The principal asked.

“He still is an awakener. Even if his power is not that much, he can still make double the neural links, and he is bound to be stronger than average. He won’t probably be the best, but he will still be a good agent,” Mister Kite said.

Principal Harris didn’t reply; he just looked at mister Kite.

“Well, if there is nothing else, I will go. I have to report what I saw here.”

“Yes, yes. Have a safe trip,” Principal Harris said.

***

Erik and Professor McAllister arrived at the gym, where the other students were waiting for him.

“Good morning, professor McAllister,” they said in unison. Amber Joyce, Anderson Worthington, Gwen Lindsay, Floyd Valdez, and Nathaniel McConnel were among the students.

Professor McAllister looked at the students and then said, “Since today we have a whole day for training, you will spend some time practicing with your power. Then we will practice some moves and end the lesson with the usual sparring. You all know how this works, so let’s get started.”

The group began by practicing their powers while standing up. Amber had to get out of the gym since her power was related to gasses; she could, in fact, make a corroding gas spread from her body.

Only she was safe from the deadly substance. Whoever entered her domain was bound to find a horrible death unless she saved his or her life.

Instead, Nathaniel decided to practice his force fist by trying to use it while practicing his martial arts; it wasn’t easy, but if he succeeded, he was certain to turn into a murderous machine.

He was practicing against a practice target that moved and unleashed mechanical punches at him and was, at the same time, capable of sustaining great damage.

Gwen was doing something similar to Nathaniel, but instead, she changed form. She had, in fact, a power that let her skin and bones become as hard as steel creating a sort of armor that shielded her from physical damage and allowed her to punch hard.

She, too, was practicing her martial arts, but she was doing so with Floyd, which instead had a sort of energy negation power.

Basically, he could decrease momentum, speed, heat, and whatsoever. His was a purely defensive power, but it allowed him to face any opponent without repercussion until the young man had mana.

Anderson couldn’t possibly use his power inside the gym. He needed specific places to do so since his was a highly destructive power.

He could generate explosions from his body, but it was hard not making a giant one. He was currently trying to focus the explosions on some parts of his body to control smaller and more controlled bursts of power.

In the meantime, Erik was with Professor McAllister; he was still showing him moves to replicate until he could do them better. Erik already knew what he had to do since he had injected information about this fighting style into his brain.

He repeated the moves repeatedly until he started doing them properly.

“Good,” Professor McAllister said. “Keep practicing like this, and you won’t have problems,” he added.

“Thank you very much, sir!” Erik said enthusiastically.

After an hour spent training, the usual notification appeared in front of Erik’s eyes.

[QUEST COMPLETE.]

<Good,> Erik thought. .

After a few hours in the gym, they decided to move on to the next training phase and practice several moves.

Erik thought the teacher made the students practice them just to show him what he had to learn in the future, but he already knew what he was going to do since he had injected the fighting style information.

After the practice ended, the students were divided into several groups; everyone had their friends, after all.

Nathaniel went with Karl Moran and Natasha Pope, his two friends. Anderson did the same with two other people, while Amber, Floyd, and Gwen went together. The cafeteria was closed on Sunday, so the group brought their food from home.

Obviously, no one told Erik. The young man observed the other students eating and cursed his life. He was alone, with barely enough money to survive and no friends.

Amber observed the young man looking at the other students with a puppy face. They saw him without anything to eat, and it was then that Amber said, “Should we give him something to eat?”

“To who?” Gwen asked.

“To Erik Romano,” Amber replied.

“The trash?” Floyd said.

“He is not trash anymore,” Amber said.

“Then why he can’t even throw a punch?” Floyd added.

“Seriously? You know he is the only awakener in the whole school, right?” Amber said.

“So what?”

“So, we should be a little bit more kind toward him. Besides, he looks pitiful.”

“If you say so,” Floyd replied. A small discussion ensued, which ended with Floyd deciding to talk to Erik, “I’ll take care of him for you,” he said.

The young man stood from the ground and walked toward Erik, approached him, and took the young man aside. “Hey,” he said. “Hi,” Erik replied.

“Are you hungry?” Floyd asked.

“A little bit; I didn’t know we had to bring food from home and didn’t prepare anything.”

Floyd looked at the young man and then said, “Do you want to eat with us?” Floyd asked.

“You sure?” Erik said.

“Yeah…”

“All right then, thanks.”

The two walked toward Gwen and Amber and sat on the ground after they arrived.

“Hello, Amber said, smiling politely.”

“Hi,” Erik shily replied, mesmerized by Amber’s beauty. The girl was used to such things, so she didn’t mind.

“I noticed you didn’t bring anything to eat,” Amber said.

“Yeah, no one told me yesterday.”

“Take a little bit of this then, I have plenty,” Amber said while handing a sandwich to Erik. “I’m Amber, Amber Joyce, and these are Gwen and Floyd,” She said, pointing at her two friends.

“I’m Erik Romano,” he replied. “As you probably know.”

“Of course we do,” Gwen interjected. “You are the school’s trash,” she added.

“Not anymore,” Amber said while smiling.

“Yeah… Hopefully.”

Talking to people his age in friendly terms was weird for Erik because he never talked to anyone except the teachers or professors. He always felt inferior compared to others, and when people talked to him, it was usually to bully him.

Erik ate slowly as he listened to the conversation between the three friends, which consisted mainly of jokes, laughter, and insults toward each other.

The young man looked at them with Envy; they were trying to make him feel comfortable; well, at least Amber was, but Gwen and Floyd weren’t so kind to him. Still, they tried to talk to him because of Amber.