Erik and the others kept talking; the young man was actually shy and didn’t say much but listening to a conversation between friends was refreshing. They talked, unaware that some people were looking at them as if they were freaks.

“Look at them,” Karl, Nathaniel’s friend, said. “They are treating him as one of their buddies,” he added.

“Why do you care?” Natasha said.

“Are you joking? He had a trashy power until a couple of days ago, and now he is not trash anymore just because he can do some small cuts?” Karl said.

“Yeah, that’s one of the perks of being an awakener, I guess,” Natasha replied.

“He still is the usual trash! Didn’t you see that he couldn’t follow professor McAllister’s lesson properly?”

“So what? The little prick is an awakener,” Natasha added.

“Say something, Nathaniel!” Karl said.

“About what?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Karl asked.

“I don’t usually listen to your bullshit, Karl.”

“Auch!” Natasha said while laughing at Karl, who instead made a puppy face at Nathaniel as if he had just insulted his mother.

“I was talking about that guy, Erik,” Karl said.

“Ah, the trash…”

“See?” Karl said while looking at Natasha.

“Amber is eating with him…” Karl said.

“You know well I don’t give a shit about what that bitch does…” Nathaniel replied. He then turned to look at Erik from a distance and said, “Besides, trash is still trash…”

“See? He agrees with me!” Karl said to Natasha.

“Whatever…”

***

After completing their lunch, the students began their training again; it was time for their sparring session, which Erik couldn’t join since he lacked the skills. Instead, he kept practicing the Kyokar fighting style while the others were busy sparring.

Erik kept observing the other students, noticing something weird: Nathaniel, who usually behaved like a prick with the others, here had a more passive behavior.

Erik attributed this to the fact that, despite being the strongest in school due to his power, he wasn’t much better than the other top students.

Erik thought about Anderson; he had BRHO2C, which was equal to Nathaniel’s in terms of mana capacity, but due to the fact that it was a highly unstable power, which was hard to control, his rank was only C on the Jorm scale.

Still, the damage it could do was vastly greater than Nathaniel’s power, and the latter didn’t want to mess with him for any reason.

Or, taking Amber into consideration, she could release her corrosive gas quite far from her position, killing individuals covertly while the gas could destroy even buildings. This likely caused Nathaniel to reconsider, upsetting the other top pupils.

It was a weird sight since the young man was usually a prick with the other students.

“Focus, Erik!” Professor McAllister said.

“Yes, sir!” Erik answered.

After a while, the training ended, and he was approached by Amber, who had just finished sparring with another student, winning. She looked tired but otherwise fine. She came near him and smiled at him.

“How did it go today?” she asked.

“Pretty good,” he answered.

“Good, I’m glad,” she replied. Then after a short pause, “By the way, how come I haven’t seen you using your power?”

“Oh, uh… Well, Professor McAllister told me that I should focus on learning martial arts first.”

“That makes sense. You’re pretty weak,” she said.

“Yeah… I know…” Erik dejectedly said.

“Don’t worry; with professor McAllister’s help, you will improve soon.”

“Is he that good?” Erik asked.

“He is; see that guy over there? He couldn’t even throw a punch at the start of the year,” Amber said while pointing at a young student.

“But i don’t have a year to learn; Military school starts in less than three months.”

“That’s why you should focus on your martial arts,” Amber said. Then Gwen and Floyd reached them, and they went out of the building together.

In front of the premises, some cars were waiting for the young students. The vehicles were floating over the ground; they were probably sent by Floyd’s, Gwen’s, and Amber’s parents. Erik looked at them with envy but didn’t say anything.

Though, Amber noticed the young man’s strange look. “Is there a problem?” She asked.

“Not at all, it’s just that I was thinking that I need to get to the train station as fast as possible. Or I will lose the train.”

“Do you need a ride?” Amber asked, making Gwen and Floyd look at her with incredulity; she never did something like that for other people.

“Do you mind?” Erik said.

“Of course not. Let’s go!”

They both said goodbye to Gwen and Floyd and jumped into the car. The driver didn’t ask questions when the young girl told him to go to Erik’s house.

The young man had never been inside such a luxurious car; he felt uncomfortable sitting there with Amber since he couldn’t quite understand why she was so nice to him.

The car had every possible comfort available, some just to show opulence; the roof of the car had a starry sky projected on the ceiling, there were some parts encrusted with diamonds, and there was a holographic screen and a champagne bottle.

The interior was full of black leather and gold trimming, everything seemed expensive, and the young man knew that the price of these things was astronomical. .

He and Amber talked a bit during the travel, mostly about Erik’s life, which he wasn’t very comfortable sharing, but he did a little bit nonetheless.

When they got closer to his home, the car stopped in front of the door, and the two young students said goodbye to each other.

Erik then went in through the main gate and went to his floor. He opened it with his keys and then entered. That had been a bizarre day; he went directly to the kitchen to make himself something to eat; what Amber gave him during the day wasn’t much, and he was starving.

He prepared dinner and then took a shower. After that, he relaxed a little before starting to establish a new neural link.

The young man concentrated on the task at hand for several hours; manipulating mana to make the neural link wasn’t simple, and he understood why it took months for people to make them and why people usually stopped at a certain point. It was very hard, more complicated than he had ever imagined.

Erik felt the mana circling inside his brain; the feeling was weird but natural at the same time; as Erik focused, he found out he had already developed a new neural link, which was probably the one related to the sharpening power.

The system probably established it when unlocking the unknown thaid’s power because he didn’t notice it until now.

Erik focused a little more on the mana inside his brain. He started to feel something else, a weird feeling that increased in intensity as he channeled mana from the crystal to the brain.