After killing the monster, both men collapsed to the ground. The grass itself had lightning power, stinging Miles’s bottom where he was sitting, but it wasn’t hurting or injuring him. It was just not too comfortable to sit there.
Miles looked at the dead monster lying on the ground. Maybe because it was stunned many times before or maybe it felt death approaching for real that time, despite freeing from its shackles, the monster watched as two men killed it. When the man was about to attack once again to stun/heal the monster, Miles stopped him and finished the almost dead monster.
Before they were able to kill it, Miles got a few kicks and a bite on his shoulder injured him a little bit. So, he was tending his wounds while looking at the man.
When he looked closer, he realized he recognized this man. He was standing with a post commander when they went to hunt the vampire. Miles remembered the man because at the time this purple-haired man was standing with a giant of a man.
“Who are you?” The man looked at Miles and asked with a frown. He didn’t feel Miles until he attacked the monster. But the man came to help him when he was about to succumb to the monster’s attack, so he felt gratitude deep inside his heart, but he was still wary of him.
“Hey, I am Miles. I saw your peculiar power and was observing your fight. When I see you are in trouble, decided to help you out. Don’t worry, I am not here to steal your hunt, so go ahead and take a look.” Miles said with a smile, but the smile made him flinch thanks to the wound on his shoulder. When the other party heard what he said, he got embarrassed. He couldn’t beat a monster and had to cry for it to die over and over again. It was disgraceful.
“My name is Xavic. Sorry to trouble you and thank you for saving me. Since you saved me, the orb or core is yours, so claim it please.” Xavic said with a thankful resoluteness. Miles could see he was a prideful person and felt in debt.
“Ah, let me heal you first.” Xavic charged a bolt of purple lightning in his hand and fired it to Miles's shoulder. When the bolt of lightning landed on his shoulder, Miles felt an invisible chain surrounding his body and stopping him from moving. But that wasn’t all, the pain was unbearable.
"Gahh!”
After what felt like a lifetime, the pain receded, and the binds keeping him stunned also vanished. He fell to the ground, as he started to heave heavily.
“Um, are you okay?” Xavic approached when he saw how Miles reacted. ‘It shouldn’t hurt that much, right?”
“Please don’t heal me ever again.” Miles sternly requested as he looked at the man with trepidation.
“Sorry!” the man all of the sudden exclaimed and bowed a few times profusely. “Are you by any chance, um powerless?” He asked abashedly.
“Yeah, why?” Miles asked. He never tried to hide, so it wouldn’t hurt him even if people knew or not, so he answered.
“My healing powers are as strong as the power of the recipient. If the person receiving my healing powers has compatible power with mine, they get healed faster and there is no pain or whatsoever. Only people with no power at all feel a lot of pain. I should have asked before I tried to heal you.” He said with a depressing mood. “Here you are saving me, and I am hurting you even more. How can I do such a thing to my benefactor? I will pay you back, I swear to god, from now on I will follow you and be your meat shield.” Xavic said with zeal.
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“You don’t have to overreact.” Miles shook his head, and didn't know how to soothe the guy. "Think nothing of it, it was just a little pain."
“By the way, Bro Miles, how come you can come this far without a superpower?” He asked, then thought of a possibility and looked at Miles with admiration, “You couldn’t have used that serum right?”
“I indeed did.” Miles smiled and answered. The guy was easy-going, simple-minded, and honest, but easy to get alone nonetheless. “Now take the orb.”
To relax him, he added, “I was taking advantage of you by observing your fight. Also, I couldn’t kill the monster without your help. So, why don’t you take this orb first, and I will claim the next one if you help me.”
After some hesitation, Xavic made up his mind and nodded. He walked to the monster and cut off its brain. There, he found an orb with a pair of boots swimming inside the purple sky. “Oh, a boot-type orb, lightning element to boot. How rare. I am sure it has speed ability. Nice one.” Miles praised the orb.
“T-This is too valuable. You should take this one, and I can take the next one.” Xavic offered the orb, but Miles shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. I already have a pair.” He didn’t have one, but he wanted pinnacle-tier. Even with any other element, as long as it had a speeding effect.
“Okay.” Xavic nodded and muttered silently. “Tyche, charge it please.”
Miles' face twitched when he heard the name of Xavic’s wristwatch AI. Tyche was the goddess of luck in Greek mythology. Xavic probably named it after the goddess of luck, so he would have a change of luck in life. After all, he wasn’t that lucky with his superpower.
When the orb charged with its own power, it melted and formed a pair of boots on Xavic’s feet. They were yellow with purple stripes and looked pretty good. Xavic kicked the ground and moved around with fast speed. ‘Not bad. Almost faster than me.’ Miles praised in his heart. The boots were really good.
“So what about your powers?” Miles asked when Xavic was done with playing with his new toys. When Xavic heard Miles’s question, his face got red once again, but could only muster his courage and explain.
“My lightning ability has no damage and can only stun ‘and’ heal people,” Xavic said silently. He was too ashamed to say it loudly.
“Not ‘or’ but ‘and’, right?” Miles asked, amused. He already saw Xavic in action and knew how his ability worked, but now that Xavic explained it, Miles couldn’t help but smile. What a weird power.
“Yeah, stun and heal, not stun or heal.” Xavic sighed and looked at Miles’s smiling face embarrassed. “Dude, stop mocking me, please. I already had enough mocking because of my powers.”
“Oh, tell me about it.” Miles was curious what kind of mocking he had experienced because of his weird powers.
“When people hear my powers, all of them get so excited and try to hire me. When I first ended up in the stronghold, many strong factions asked my powers and after I explained, they all fought over to hire me. They promised me orbs and riches, but after the first hunt, they cursed me, robbed me of all my orbs, and prohibited me from getting close to them.” Xavic explained with tearful eyes.
“Oh, why so? Your powers aren’t useless at all. Even though healing an already injured monster is bad, stunning at the start of the fight would give you lots of advantages. I think they are stupid.” Miles was really thinking so. As far as he could see, Xavic’s powers were nothing to scoff off.
“Thanks. But my powers weren't anything like this at the time. After getting kicked out of every team, I swore to myself that I would get stronger and stronger to show them their mistakes. That is why I am training here. My powers couldn’t stun lightning and electrical monsters before, after training almost a year, now I can stun them too. But I am too weak to kill them on my own.” Xavic once again explained how his powers worked.
“It is commendable that you are still training to get stronger after you have been bullied for such a long time. You just need to get in Form-Rank and then you can use Straightening Serums. When you do, you will be strong enough to kill monsters with your body, and your stun powers will do wonders at the time.” Miles encouraged the poor kid.
“You really think so?” Xavic looked at Miles hopefully. He just needed to hear some encouraging words and with his strong will, he could overcome any obstacle.
“Yeah, I really think so,” Miles answered with a bright smile. Xavic was a good person. He was even willing to give away the orb after Miles denied it. He was also proud and grateful. He would help him if he could.
“Thank you very much, Miles. From now on you are my second best friend.” Xavic looked at Miles with a determined face shining with righteousness and bowed a little.
“Wh-what?” Miles got dumbstruck with the turn of events, “And what do you mean second? You have another best friend?” Miles chuckled loudly. This man is interesting.