After lunch, the talk was about the results and the groupings weren’t in place anymore and friends gathered around.
“How did things go?” Robin asked.
“Much better than I thought I would get. The transformation that I did for Bargo and Scar and all the feedback it’s been giving me since then caused a lot of my senses to go up.” Milo said. “I can control a squad of 60 restored skeletons while Bargo is still in the process of growing and it seems he will soon become a peak vigilante strength probably.”
“What about scar?” Robin asked.
“It’s a little harsh because I’ve been having to feed him a huge amount of pills and he is also in the process of growing. That said, from the feedback, it seems he is starting to plateau.” he explained.
“How much did it change?” Shoji asked
“Well… the skeleton started to grow but his muscles and skin weren’t. In fact his bones were draining his body of nutrients. I’ve already fed him over 100 of every pill to supply the energy to keep growing. He also formed conscious thoughts like Bargo compared to the wild soul it had before. I think the biggest change is that he has gained a lot more control of death energy. Oh! His wings and entire muscular structure is transforming and it seems the wings merged with the front limbs meaning the previous condition wasn’t proper but something was fixing his form.” Milo said.
“That is cool, how many of your top undead can you command?” Robin asked.
“Well… thanks to Mr Might’s technique, I’ve actually been growing double the speed as before and I think I can have both Scar and Bargo out but that is still a strain. It doesn’t help that I have to summon Bargo with the horse skeleton. I even purchased it from the corpse of an extremely strong breed of horse and resurrected it.” he said.
“Did you get equipment as well?” Robin asked.
“Naturally, Bargo is training to ride it as well but just like Bargo, it requires full armor to replace it’s lost flesh but when it is, it will evolve into a Nightmare and since Bargo is already bonded with it, the feedback will cause the two of them to evolve into a low class Death Knight but it will be a true death knight like legends.” He said smiling.
“And you Lola?” Shoji asked.
She grinned happily, “Because i was finally able to get the minions, I became able to summon 30 of them plus one of the five sentient ones and in a situation where i need to fight, I can actually concentrate all the life force in the imps into the leaders and bring out more of their power. Imps require 0.5% of my life force so with 30 summons, I can get the servants or Lily to nearly full 50% of my life force and bring out more of their strength. Thanks to Keven, I’m also much stronger on my own and the demons, showing off their full strength, are even stronger now that they can show more of their power. Broncos were able to dish out 9,500 points in pure strength while I personally did 3,200.” She said.
“Hey, I was thinking.” Shoji said in deep thought as he listened, “If you have gained the capacity to put 50% of your life force in a summon, wouldn’t that mean soon enough you might gain the ability to merge with the demon and use their power with 100% of your own power yourself?” He asked.
“Lily didn’t say anything about that.” Lola said and summoned the demon and asked about it.
“You are quite intelligent to pick up on this. However, Lola is still pretty far from that ability. The first requirement is being able to bring out 100% of a demon’s power into this world. After that she has to have a will stronger than the demon or it is willing or it will be difficult. At the rate she is growing… hmm…” Lily looked at her master for a moment, “I think soon she should be able to fully summon an Imp. It is the perfect training dummy since their mind’s are easy to dominate but don’t try anything yet, your ability hasn’t awakened that capacity.” She warned.
“Alright, at least I have something to wait for.” Lola said and in return, asked how the two of them did after the punching test was done.
“Thanks to a big rise in my entire stat thanks to the big rock, not only did my strength shoot up but even my elasticity. My max reach for my arms is now nearly 80 meters and my legs are just short of 75 meters. This had a big effect on my speed and jump distance each.” he said.
Shoji smiled, “I’ve had a bit of good growth, the psychic energy is really weird but the stat points I added are helping adapt a little bit but my newly formed psychic energy is constantly growing to match the quantity of mental energy I had so it still feels uncomfortable.” he said.
“So in the end, everyone had a pretty big growth recently.” Milo said.
“Yeah...” Robin said and gripped his fist, “I’m not going to stop so that I won't be caught like what happened again.” Robin said.
Suddenly a punch came from the side as Shoji smiled, “Don’t think about it, just the points you used put you ahead of most of us already.” He said.
“Don’t even joke about that, Bargo and Scar are likely stronger than me.” He said.
“It’s because you haven’t started using our world power, you should properly remember that everyone is fighting to become heroes, even if few achieve it, everyone wants to become a hero.” Shoji said.
Robin smiled and nodded. “Right.” He said.
At that moment, the teachers came out and Mr Might was at the front but the principal was not there and the children knew there was going to be quite a bit of change to come from the demeanor of the teachers that had become a little awkward.
“Alright children, we will begin with the results.” He said and the teachers moved to the side and only four remained behind Mr Might.
“Alright, the children I call will get behind each of the appointed teachers.” He said and took out a list and began to call names.
Robin, Lola, Milo and Shoji were all sent behind the same teacher, the first ones, and each group had almost 30 students meaning about 120 were called out.
When Mr Might called the last one he coughed, “Alright, from today on, these students are the first year elite heroic class.” He said.
“Elite?!” Robin said.
Before anyone could complain Mr Might began to explain, “The international bureau of heroic education follows certain parameters, for a normal public high school, the heroic course tends to be pretty normal and there is a 90% vigilante license acceptance for those who properly graduate from heroics and barely 10% of students graduate as Strongmen. On the other hand, private schools, elite schools and heroic academies follow a separate set of rules which are called elite classes. Elite classes are built from the best and strongest children of a school year’s heroics class and must be over a certain benchmark to be accepted and retain their position in this class system. Such classes possess a 29% Vigilante graduation rate, 60% strongman graduation rate and an extremely rare 1% braveman graduation rate.” he said.
“Wait! Does that mean all of us remaining are expelled from heroics!” one of the students that weren’t called shouted.
“No.” He said.
They all sighed and signaled to the four teachers.
“Each class please file behind us and open the space for the next groups.” one of the teachers shouted.
One group moved at a time into the bleachers away from the main group.
After that 8 other teachers lined up and students were divided in classes of 40.
Even so, there were still quite a number of students.
“Sir… are so many students actually going to be sent down from heroics with just physicals?” one of the eight teachers asked.
“The ability is the main part about being heroes. Our job is, firstmost, to be fighters. For students with technical skills or intellect based abilities, they are production classes and so they require equipment they build on their own to be able to match the ones already strong or those that have very good abilities that fit heroics greatly.” he said.
“Wait… are there children who were kept simply because their ability was good?” One teacher asked.
“Of course, abilities which have great capacity for restricting movement and capture are prime examples.” he said.
The remaining students were all depressed, “All of you, there is still a chance to return like it was said, however in the same way that elite class has a benchmark, a school which possesses the elite class system has a higher benchmark for the normal class of heroics. It is about 20% higher than common public schools.” He said.
“Why are we suddenly changing the school system?” One student shouted.
“Because of me, a school sponsored or with brave men or heroes who teach them are required by international law to adhere to the elite system. That said, even the heroic course teachers are going to undergo rigorous training because they require at least some level of experience and strength to properly teach.” he said.
The teachers already heard but hearing it again was not good. In fact, the four elite class teachers were their stand-ins because they were not the true teachers. Instead Chasm Might was calling in close friends who are nomadic just like him and they will take up the mantle of teachers.
He just didn’t openly say it in front of the student body.
“The classes aren’t yet complete however because study grades will also be taken into consideration and the civilian course will undergo the same process that you all are doing and it might be that more students will join the heroic course so be aware of that. That is all, the students who were called, you are free the rest of the school day while the rest of you will follow me and we must see to the process. We will hand out all your test results with the minimum benchmark for your specific class so you will understand the benchmark we graded by.
Robin and his friends looked at each other, “What now?” Milo asked.
“Well… we have free class until school is out so why don’t we check Scar, I want to see how big he’s gotten.” Robin said.
They all agreed and they headed to the far side of the field and Milo stretched his hand and space distorted before Scar appeared.
Scar was previously just barely 5 meters long and had the shape of a komodo dragon with wings on his back but when he appeared, the three all jumped back because it looked dangerous now.
The wings had completely merged with the front arms and the fingers had grown into the long wing bones while the leathery hide was growing longer down his body. Furthermore, the neck had lengthened and was now more serpentine and nimble while the chest formate had changed to almost humanoid like with a strong shoulder and rib cage while it began to have a tendency to hold itself in a more majestic position. The scariest part was that it was almost 9 meter long.
It was longer than a newborn blue whale calf. It was also tall from the ground with at least 3 meters from it’s back while it was holding itself up.
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“Wow, it looks like the dragons in movies.” Robin said.
“Yeah but it hasn’t finished growing, I’ve checked it’s biology and as long as I maintain its body vitality to grow, the wings will extend all the way to the tail so it has a very large wing space so that it can maintain flight.” Milo said.
Scar looked around and then at Milo before extending it’s head down and Milo smiled and began to rub it’s head.
“Is it fully grown?” Rubin asked.
“No, far from it, Bargo told me about a skeleton dragon in the city where he bought the medicine recipes. It stretches about 70 meters in length.” Milo said.” He said.
Instantly all of them were slack jawed and looked at the creature that could already be called a dragon but knowing the full size made them realize that it was just an infant.
“Just as I expected, your ability is so broken.” Robin said.
“What’s broken damnit! Did you forget how long it took for me to even reach this step!” Milo complained.
They laughed before they heard a rumble from the dragon.
“Oh, it seems his body already absorbed all the pills.” Milo said before taking out a bag he has been carried on him at all times and took out five jars, the kind that fit a full gallon of water inside.
Scar opened his massive mouth showing the dangerous rows of sharp teeth.
Milo was unintimidated as he had seen it many times since it was just a tiny lizard and simply flipped all the jars into the mouth and it just swallowed.
“Damn… isn’t this going to end up so much stronger than Bargo with so much medicine put into it?” Robin said.
“Not really, although scar is sentient now after his soul awakened, he can’t learn much finesse and skill, it was far better as a berserker or tank.” Milo said.
At that moment, Scar raised up and roared causing a low rumbling roar that vibrated all of the children and they blocked their ears and looked as it raised to it’s hind leg with the wings spread and it’s body shined. The body grew a little more while the leather of the wings suddenly expanded from the half body down the side and thinned out like a kite until the tail while it formed fin-like flaps along the entire tail to the tip which was clearly for flight control.
After that, it smashed down and they saw the bare lizard head changed subtly and a pair of horns grew stumps on the head before greenish white spikes sprouted from the spine all the way down to the tip of the tail and finally scales began to change and forming edges in many places like the knees and legs for defense.
When it was done, it reformed fully and the entire aura of the lizard changed as it opened clear eyes with deep emerald eyes which seemed to shine with energy while its body radiated a strong death energy.
“Control your death energy.” Milo said.
It growled as it felt it’s power rising and gathered it into the body.
“Wow, it finally stabilized, this feedback is amazing!” Milo said as he felt the intense spiritual feedback coming into him and got caught in the flow and he could feel the growth of his own potential and he smiled.
“Did it change much?” Shoji asked looking at it with a frown, “Before it wasn’t radiating any emotional aura but after what just happened, it is clearly showing an aura in my eyes.” he said.
Milo shot the undead biology and began to examine the dragon and slowly learn about it a bit and smiled. “Amazing! It’s body came back to life for real, the heart is pumping, his bone marrow is producing new blood that is filling it up and it is burning out the preservation liquid in its veins. It’s body is living again, this isn’t an undead dragon anymore, it is a death dragon.” He said.
“What is the difference?” Lola asked.
“Undead dragons are controlled by a powerful undead but death dragons are sentient zombie dragons who came back to life and restored their bodies to perfect condition. I am not sure how high in the hierarchy they are but Scar is clearly a very high quality netherworld creature i think. His body even restores the natural flow methods meaning he can grow like us i think. I will test that some other time once I’ve adapted.” Milo said with a smile and went to the dragon’s head and began to rub it and it grinned and closed its eyes.
“Oh! It actually is alive, it is feeling happy. Huh… try scratching next to the spiky scales on the chin.” Shoji said.
Milo looked at him strangely and he moved his hand over and began to rub against the spiky scales. Instantly Scar's eyes began to open but rolled back and it’s head raised up and it’s tail began to tremble as Milo rubbed it until it collapsed on it’s side.
Everyone looked at one other before laughing while the dragon was humming.
“This is going to be so interesting but with it now possibly flight capable, you will have to learn to ride it.” Robin said.
“I already ride the bird, I just need to commission some saddles.” he said.
“Right, maybe we could even get armor for it.” Robin said, “Imagine him armored up.” Robin said.
They laughed but they decided against it considering how much they are supposed to grow.
It was content when it was sent back to the nether realm and the four thought for a moment about what to do before they decided to go do whatever they wanted.
“Hehe, I’m going to look on the internet for all the famous skeleton creatures, I bet I can make some really cool ones like Scar.” Milo said with passion.
Robin decided to go under the shadow of Mr Atlas’s rock and saw down with the back of his head in contact with it.
“You did well.” Mr atlas said from within the ball.
“It will probably get more annoying when I have to start moving you.” Robin muttered back.
“Your energy reserves are much higher now and you are likely to be able to do it better.” he said.
Robin just nodded before he began to pull world power from the unending stores and the compressed energy in him already began to pull as much of that energy as it could while the rest slowly fell into his body and his cells sucked it up.
While he was doing this, he frowned when the amount gathering wasn’t as much as he wanted so he started to release strands through his body and began to make them spin in his acupoints. He had done it with a few and it worked in that area but this time he was stretching bit by bit to fill the thousands of acupoints in his body while channelling world power to each acupoint.
Robin thought it was just a regular thing and kept doing it but Mr Atlas, in the ball, was just normal until he felt something and looked at Robin and saw the expanding system which began to draw the loose energy and the area of effect began to expand starting on the outward moving flow.
When it reached their extremities, he finally felt something strange in the world power as they kept coming back and realized that Robin was unintentionally stretching and compressing world power unlike before where it just compressed.
“Robin!” he shouted but he instantly realized he was blocked out because Robin was completely zoned out and the energy kept going back leaving a spinning strand as the bulk moved on and eventually it all gathered back and hit the main body and rapidly sinking until it pushed the most compressed energy out and became the core and began to absorb the energy to compress the world power to it’s compression.
Shockingly 80% of the power pumping into his body began to flow into his flow and he soon began to release the newly compressed power and it began to replace the energy spinning in the flow and it was a big jump in compression and it kept getting more compressed as it replaced the first cycle but it was clearly more distributed but it still got better after the second cycle and this energy took over and it continued.
Mr Atlas was shocked as he was feeling the stone’s power finally start to lower as he felt the power of a few pieces of the stone had emptied while the compression was getting extreme.
Finally when the flow reached basically as compressed as possible at the 9th flow, he started the tenth and suddenly the stone began to release the full energy of several stones into Robin and he was undisturbed as his body compressed and channeled the power but it was finally starting to change from the deep emerald energy as tiny drops of silver began to form and was swept in the flow.
Each acupoint produced a single drop to the last and eventually there were thousands which gathered and fell into the spinning flow and they began to get compressed together until it eventually landed at the center and was compressed.
Suddenly Robin’s body shined and his world power began to get sucked up while the silver energy swelled as all the energy in the flow was pulled from start to finish and filled 80% of his lower dantian.
Finally Robin’s trance broke and Mr Atlas’s voice finally reached him.
“Robin! You’re finally awake!”
“Huh?” He said and looked at his hands. He slowly clenched it and the world power rushed to his fist and coated it in a silver energy force.
“What is this…” he said.
“What were you doing with Chasm Might’s training method?” he said.
“Huh? I… what did I do?” he muttered, “I remember I had tried to add secondary compression cycles through my body in my acupoints and have tested doing that before on a small scale… What happened to my world power, why is it silver.” Robin said.
“You compressed almost a third of the atlas stones worth of world power to produce this energy. You compressed it through ten cycles until it all changed.” He explained.
“Ten cycles… like your ten levels.” Robin said and looked at his hands.
“Huh?” Mr Atlas muttered as Robin got up.
“What are the feelings you get when you merge your rocks?” Robin asked.
Mr atlas went silent instantly while frowning to himself until he finally sighed, “I have to apply force against two stones while filling the energy and once the pressure surpassed breaking point which would crush the rock, it will instantly merge while the rocks would absorb a lot of power and evolve releasing double the amount of both previous rocks combined.” he explained.
Robin thought about it and turned to the rocks before gripping along the edges of two rocks before suddenly releasing all his power.
Like two waves, suddenly silver waves appeared on the rock from his hands in response, the entire rock released immense power to push it away but Mr Atlas shouted in pain.
“Huh! Are you okay?!” Robin said, stopping and the world power pushed his power away and he quickly gathered it up.
“That… burned.” he said, coughing despite not being a living body.
“I see… It seems doing a level will upgrade your life force and body as well forcing it to merge with itself and elevating it’s quality.” Robin said. “Mr Atlas, please brace yourself, I’m going to try it for real.” Robin said.
Mr Atlas ‘breathed’ as the pain slowly faded while Robin gripped the stone again and released his power again and this time not distracted by his teachers' scream.
The world power tried to force it back again but the force of the compressed power was just too strong for uncompressed power and quickly it surrounded before Robin tried to close his arms and the power reacted putting pressure on every rock before it began to infiltrate.
Mr Atlas’s screams grew louder as the only openings were through the spaces that his life force was combining the stones.
It kept spreading until it reached the very center and began to apply pressure to every stone but Robin could feel he wasn’t putting enough and added more of this new power making the stone shine brighter and had long attracted attention because the students were getting ready to leave for home. It had been nearly 4 hours just sitting there.
Robin even forced the world power in his cells to enter and it was consumed by the silver energy increasing the amount by a bit until finally a change finally happened to the deepest pair and they shined.
The life force between the two shined and was compressed first before releasing before the stones were pulled and they began to merge. Instantly, that changed life force began to cause reaction on all the bonds made of life force and everything energized releasing all the stones and the rejection force instantly vanished and all the stones began to combine while sucking up the silver energy.
Instantly the rock began to release a thick black smoke as impurities were being pushed out while the life force had energized and gathered up while the rock separated before it spread and began to fill the new space while the rocks were larger than the original but they were still 50% smaller than the total mass and thus the entire rock shrank down greatly as the 1024 stones combined into 512.
The over 10 meter wide rock quickly dropped down to under 8 meters before it reformed into one large ball.
That said, all the new silver energy was completely sucked up and Robin was huffing as he looked up and grinned as he saw the orb, it was no longer like a badly glued rock, besides being smaller it was also smooth and even had a hint of a glossy body.
That said, it began to release world power that was deep emerald green like the 9 cycle compressed world power and it filled Robin with power but he removed his hand after a moment because it felt burning hot and huffing, he looked up with a smile, “Mr Atlas, are you okay?” he asied.
That said there wasn’t much reply but he just heard a little groan and he knew that it must have been immensely painful for his teacher because his essence had been processed just like the stone and was compressed more.
“That is one level… I think I will need to compress world energy up to an equal level of compression of the rocks to properly compress the stones. I also need sufficient quantity, it felt like it wasn’t enough.” he muttered.
He looked around and others were watching but he couldn’t do anything about it with the giant stone so he just sat down and began to recreate the silver world power once more while sucking up the stones world power and very soon he proved his own theory because the compressed world power eventually ended and the stone began to release a very thin silver energy which was even hotter than the emerald green one but it was very thin.
He sat until 5 to absorb it all before pushing it back into the stone and he found that many stones were starved and they actually continued changing until it finally rejected extra power. It went on until the very last stone deep inside didn’t absorb anything else and Robin was left with about 5% of the energy filling his body but the stone was fully energized but it was storing power instead of releasing and the faint glow from the cracks showed that it was feeding Mr Atlas first.
“Rest well.” he said, patting the rock before going to take a bath and pick up his things before running home since most of his friends were already gone.