“I can’t believe you won, Cal. That was gripping. I was at the edge of my seat the entire time— oweh~” Calvin pinched Quinn’s cheek lightly, earning a smack to the back of his hand.

“I got lucky,” He said, rolling his eyes as he sat down beside her. “Where’s Ina?”

“Down there,” She pointed towards the registration booth.

Calvin followed her finger and raised both brows. Ina was arguing with Maxine. Although not in the usual confrontational ‘I’m going to fight you’ way, which would be stupid because she’ll be bodied by the large woman, but in a ‘please I need this to live’ kind of way— pleading and begging.

“Is she kneeling?” Calvin asked, almost not believing what he saw.

“…yes she is,” Quinn nodded, sharing the same sentiment. “I can guess why.”

“Yeah?”

“She got first rank, right?”

“She did.”

“Who else do you think she can challenge?” She said, giving a wry smile.

“Ah…” Calvin understood. Ina finally got into the gates of paradise only to be kicked back out after eating a single fruit. “Won’t others still challenge her?”

“If you didn’t know her, and you saw how she was manhandling that giant steel ball of spikes, would you?”

“If I didn’t know her, I wouldn’t know you, and I wouldn’t be here— ow.”

She pinched his hand, “Stop being dumb.”

“I don’t know, it’s not like we have the entire student body watching,” he gestured to the stands filled with probably twenty to thirty other students.

“Maybe,” Quinn shrugged.

“She’ll still probably get challenged—” A vibration on his wrist made him pause.

A message, from the Academy’s network.

congratulations on winning!

your points are already added, check your profile

also, check the board this afternoon for new rules(i added some, like not being able to challenge a person for a week)

Notification!

Received 10 points.

’That’s why they’ll have a rematch next week?’ Calvin’s brows furrowed.

Quinn noted his expression, “What is it?”

“They already gave me the points,” he pointed to his watch. “Also there’s a new rule about only being able to challenge the same person once a week.”

“Who’d want to do that?”

“I don't know. Some people hold grudges, I guess,” he glanced towards her.

“Queenie…” Ina’s zombie-like groaning came as she neared the two of them, slumping over Quinn like a melting popsicle.

“There, there. It’s okay. There’s a gym and a training area on campus, you can still beat up Cal there if you want.” Quinn said softly, patting her back as she hugged the distraught Ina.

“Hey now—”

“But I want to fight in the fight club,” Ina complained as she melted further.

“But Ina—” Quinn patted her head, “You already did.”

“I want to do more… Queenie~”

Calvin chuckled, seeing her like this was more than just a rare sight, “There’s still a week of registration left, someone’s gonna challenge you sooner or later.”

“I guess…” She muttered, rolling to her seat while keeping her head on Quinn’s shoulder. “Congrats on the win, by the way. What happened?”

“Telepath power,” Quinn answered.

“Yeah, what she—”, he looked at her, brows curled, “—I didn’t tell you that? How did you…”

“The fight videos are shared in the network,” She raised her holowatch and tapped it.

“What? Already?” Ina perked up and opened her holowatch.

Calvin did the same and opened the link she shared, seeing five videos starring Ivan. He opened the first one with the file name ‘Hermann_Greggs_VS_Ivan.mcf4’, seeing a progress bar as the watch grabbed the file from the network.

’I feel like I’m downloading something illegal here,’ He thought, reminiscing at the days back in the hospital, where the networking department was underfunded enough to not care about his crimes against copyright. ’I should ask Dox for a hero equivalent of a VPN… if those exist here. Or if she hadn’t already put it in my watch.’

The file finished transferring in a second and auto-played, showing a view of Ivan and Hermann’s fight from the stands.

Calling it a ‘fight’ was generous, considering all that happened was Ivan talking, presumably suggesting to start with powers, then taking off his cuffs, followed by Hermann pausing, thinking, then raising his hands in surrender. He didn’t even get to show his powers, immediately surrendering to whatever compulsion Ivan emitted.

“Hmm…” Calvin blurted out. “Weird…”

“So he’s a telepath, with a passive prefix at that. And it makes people surrender immediately?” Ina asked, turning to Calvin. “You okay? Your head not hurting?”

“That’s the weird part, I didn’t feel a thing,” He admitted, watching the next clip and seeing the same thing. “Are you sure he’s a telepath?”

“Watch his fight with the girl Ina just fought,” Quinn suggested.

He opened the video titled ‘Helena_Rosswell_VS_Ivan’ and saw the familiar athletic girl Ina just tried to bash into the stage with her own ball. It started the same, Ivan talked lazily and took off his cuffs, Helena nodded with a grin and took out her spiky steel ball and stick. What came next was different but somewhat familiar to Calvin.

“He just… surrendered like that?” Calvin asked, clearly confused.

Ivan raised his hands up and shouted just as Helena tapped the ball with her staff and shot it towards him. His health points immediately went down to zero as black curtains shot out from under the stage and stopped the ball before it hit him. Ivan stumbled backwards, wiping cold sweat and mumbling what Calvin presumed to be a prayer for being alive.

“Whatever his power was, it didn’t work on her too,” Ina said, closing the video and melting back into her chair. “Maybe that’s why?”

“Maybe…” He nodded lightly, “He mentioned something about being bored or lazy, maybe that’s what his power was. I still don’t get why I didn’t feel anything at all. Like, anything”

“Look,” Quinn sighed, “how many times have you fought people weaker than you, Cal.”

Calvin narrowed his eyes, thinking about all the fights he’d been in so far. ’Lightspeed and Co., Villainopolis goons, terrorist kidnappers— what the fuck have I been doing in this life?’ “Like two or three times?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“How many of those were telepaths or the like?” She asked, brow raised.

“I think one was a tinker and the other was just a bunch of guys wearing tech?”

“See?” She smirked. “Might have something to do with his superpower combined with you being stronger than him. That purple-haired girl with the ball certainly was.”

“You might have a point,” He nodded, “By the way, isn’t it your turn to fight?”

“After this one, I think,” Quinn gestured to the front where two other students had taken up position to fight. “Maybe I can pay them not to fight… owe~”

“I’ll revoke the coupon if you do,” Ina huffed.

“Aw…”

After a couple more underwhelming fights, Quinn’s turn came up and finished just as he expected it would.

Unlike the two of them, Quinn can't use her power and dislikes having to show how strong she actually is. He understood the prior, students would literally melt if she tried, but the latter’s reason was unknown to him. Maybe there was no reason, or maybe it was just personal preference, but he wouldn’t want to pry.

Not that she’d tell him anyway.

She struggled, or at least pretended to struggle, fighting off her opponent whose power was summoning globules of oil and throwing it towards where she was going to step. Ina was muttering beside him about an established villain that had similar powers, but he was mainly interested in whether or not the oil could be used to cook.

’Maybe I should buy a kitchen first… I’m used to using public baths anyway.’ He thought.

The unexciting match finished with Quinn’s hair getting splashed by oil, a deadly glare from a pink-haired cutie, a couple of punches to the stomach, and an unnecessary stomp to the head.

“Eugh… I can still feel it…” Quinn shivered, touching her hair.

Ina combed her fingers through her pink hair, “You’re fine, Queenie.”

“What kind of oil was it?” Calvin asked, still curious. “Some oils are good for hair, right?”

“I don’t want to know,” She muttered, shaking Ina with pleading eyes. “Can we go somewhere else? We’ve been here for more than an hour and I want to go somewhere else. Please.”

Although Ina wanted to stay, Quinn’s pitiable face was too much so she relented and agreed with a hesitant nod.

“Where can we even go?” Calvin asked, knowing they weren’t allowed out of the campus.

“Anywhere else!” Quinn exclaimed, dragging the two.

Surprisingly, the campus had a recreation building.

An entire building filled with stuff that would abate any built-up stress in the students and prevent them from making plans to blow up the Academy or turn villain and then blow up the Academy. Sports, games, movies, music— everything was included. There was even a floor entirely for window shopping.

Most of the clothes were entirely free, barring designer ones. Calvin was initially tempted to empty the entire place if he wasn’t glared at by the staff after grabbing more than five sets.

Out of the three, only Calvin was dragged back to the arena once when someone challenged him, but the fight was less interesting than Ivan’s. The girl’s superpower involved being able to detach her own hands and control them remotely, but that didn’t really mean anything when she was as weak as the average person.

He finished the fight, got a warning from Maxine to show up early, and then trudged back to Ina and Quinn feeling wholly unsatisfied. The day ended with them hanging out in the bowling alley, where Calvin broke a light and Ina broke an entire lane.

----------------------------------------

A couple of days have gone by since the first ranking battle. Calvin and Ina had been summoned for a couple of fights, a few were interesting, but none were losses. He didn't even get the chance to use his pebbles once.

Although Calvin did get pushed down a couple of ranks due to Helena getting beaten by someone else and that someone else getting beaten again by another person, he was still virtually getting the same amount of points so there was little incentive to challenge higher— outside of threats from Ina.

The two of them had been sparring in the afternoon in an attempt to placate the demon girl’s violent cravings, with Quinn watching from the sidelines as usual. Fighting without [Colour Control] and [Jumper] was proving to be a challenge to Calvin, but Ina’s been stopping just shy of going berserk so it hasn’t been a problem so far.

’She can fight half an hour at a time now,’ Calvin thought, feeling a bit at ease now that she has been actively preventing going psycho mode, ’Helena was almost pummeled to death if it wasn’t for that super stage, maybe that’s why she’s trying to hold back? Preparation for the first day of class, maybe.’

The first day of class was slowly creeping closer and the number of registrants was gently increasing with each day. Anxiety and excitement were starting to be the prevalent emotion among the students, independently living away from their families combined with the prospect of taking their first step toward becoming a superhero was a recipe for sleep deprivation— a lot of bags weighed heavy under sleepy eyes.

Calvin was one of them, sleep-deprived, minus the eyebags.

He was currently jogging around the academy grounds close to three in the morning, just as he had been for the past couple of days. Sleep was not kind to him. His dreams were filled with vague memories as unclear as the ones before he entered the Academy. Always about hunger. Always about neglect. Never about sugar or spice or everything nice.

Thankfully, the point he invested in Super Body combined with practically never taking off the [Plain White Shirt] was doing wonders. It let him sleep a mind-numbingly small amount of hours without much detriment to his body.

His mind, however, was feeling a bit foggier by the day. Especially in the morning hours. Keeping a routine helped, making him fall into a trance for a few hours until it was time to meet up with friends or do some other activity.

Wake up in the middle of the night, jog around the campus a few times, exercise in the middle of the park, wash early in the dormitory bathroom, grumble about not having a sauna, and then head back to the dormitory-slash-castle walls to watch the sun and wait until it was time for breakfast.

It was a routine not too different from his previous one.

This day was no different, and Calvin was currently going through step three of his routine— doing pull-ups in the park. He’d do it in the dormitory but it was too small, the few points he gained from the rankings were being saved for a personal kitchen.

’Thirty points might not even be enough to add a meter of space,’ Calvin thought, realizing he didn’t really check how many points it took to expand the main room.

“You’re up earlier today, pebble boy,” A tanned girl called out to him as he was midway through his workout.

Calvin looked over as he pulled himself up, seeing the familiar girl wearing a full tracksuit jogging towards him while waving her hand, “What’s up, ball girl.”

“Pft,” she stifled a laughter, “Ball girl? You know that’s not my power, right? I don’t summon balls.”

“Still, you use balls.”

“Just one ball.”

“You don’t have backups?”

“Steel balls are expensive, you know!” She complained, crossing her arms.

“I don’t buy balls, I don’t know,” Calvin grunted, continuing his workout.

Helena stepped to his front, grinning as she watched him continue doing pull-ups and summoning his pebbles as handholds. She kept staring for a long while, long enough to make Calvin uncomfortable.

“Stop staring,” He complained, dropping down.

“Stop being so fascinating,” She spoke, looking at the pebbles as they disappeared. “Are you sure you’re not a Physic?”

“What Physic can do this?” He asked, pointing to the air and summoning a pebble.

“What Gimmick can do that?” Helena retorted, pointing at his waist.

Calvin looked down, before looking back at her with a shrug.

Metal clanked as the chained weights attached to his waist and back rattled from his movements. The weights weren’t all too different from last time, but somehow they felt heavier in the Academy. He didn’t know why, just that they do.

Calvin pulled on his will, unequipping the chains into his pocket using the [Automatic Wardrobe] function, an idea courtesy of the girl in front of him.

“You already done?” She asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” He lied, “Got here earlier than usual, I guess.”

“You need to balance your workout, man. I’ve only seen you do body-weight stuff. I can recommend machines and equipment, even routines if you need it,” She suggested, taking out a set of kettlebells from her own pocket. “Like these, you can do full-body with these, you know?”

Calvin scratched his chin. His routine was just from him doing routines he remembered watching on the internet, so he nodded lightly at her, “I might take you up on that. I’ll see you later, ball girl.”

“See you later, pebble boy,” she chuckled, “Nice shirt, by the way.”

“Thanks, it is,” He nodded, looking down with a proud smile.

The shirt was another failure in his attempt to make patterns with [Colour Control]. Although not a complete failure as it seemed, someone could more or less recognize what he tried to add to it.

----------------------------------------

Calvin bid goodbye to the amazoness before heading back to the dorm, which was a bit of a long jog away from the park area of the campus. He glanced at his two friend’s room plaques, turning to the empty ones across them before going inside, immediately feeling claustrophobic at the shoebox of a room.

Normally, or at least since a few days ago, he’d be heading to the walls to watch the sunrise or stare dazed at the sky, but today he remembered something he pinned to the back of his mind. Today, he’s finally getting around to investigating the whitestuff inside of him— and not the dirty kind.

“Let’s see here,” He sat on the bed and crossed his legs a la full lotus pose. There was no need to do it, but Calvin felt it fit with whatever he was doing.

He pulled on [Colour Control] the normal way, the instinctive way, changing the colour of the room to red. Then white. Then red again. Continuously doing this until he got a hold of that same feeling back when he was with the salty old man. Thankfully it worked, and at a much faster speed.

’That was easy,’ He thought, closing his eyes to focus on the feeling.

His mind’s eye showed him the whitestuff of his powers, white orbs floating in a sea of nothingness, resembling stars in the sky. He observed with increased scrutiny, sensing familiarity as he looked deeper into them.

’They really look like the white orbs that appear when I absorb powers… and when Ina was hatching too,’ He thought as he continued feeling around. ’It’s like an extra hand, it feels, weird.’

He opened his eyes, still holding onto the feeling of the white orb that was [Colour Control], and started experimenting with the new ‘discovery’. At first, he made a blob of red on the wall. Just a blob, not even a circle even though that was what he wanted. Pulling and stretching the metaphorical orb, the red blob started to wiggle like it was made of jelly.

His face scrunched, feeling a difference in the drain the power usage had in his spirit. Like a leaky faucet or a balloon with tiny holes, it felt like there was some inefficiency as he forcefully tried to manipulate the colour to move and shape itself. And that was wholly uncomfortable, like the feeling of wrongly using your own arms to lift. It was just wrong.

Despite that, he continued. The process wasn’t as smooth or simple as normal power usage, but it felt more precise. Precise enough to actually make a decently-shaped heart on the wall.

“Edges are still squiggly, but only if you look closer,” He looked down at his shirt, using the power to fix the heart. “That looks a bit better.”

He did his best to straighten the edges, but controlling it was harder than expected. It was like trying to use his left hand to brush his teeth using the world’s tiniest toothbrush.

After a while, he stopped using [Colour Control]’s new function and started looking at the other white orbs of power inside of him.

Calvin pulled on each power he could, trying to identify which one was which, ’Okay, this one’s [Impervious Pebble], it feels almost the same as [Colour Control]’s. And this one’s [Jumper]… weird, it feels a little foggy. [Vigilant Aegis] feel a lot foggy, like it's covered in viscous oil. What is this?’

He looked deeper at the two powers, trying to figure out why they were like that. ’Maybe it’s because I got them later? But I got the pebble and [Gourmand’s Insight] at the same time, where is that one actually— wait a minute.’

Calvin’s brows raised, losing his focus and his hold on the white orbs for a moment. He paused, brows furrowing as he stared dazed towards the blob of a heart on the wall, thinking about what he'd just seen. “Was that— no, I must’ve…”

He dug back into his inner self, feeling all the powers inside of him.

’One, two, three, four, five…’, His heart beat faster as he continued, “…six.”