After FABL introduced the new changed will, it was time to end the party.
Before OG Aster went away, MAster said something to him “Remember, you should try to accelerate the procces of the clone production, I noticed that our skills are not going up as fast as before and you will be occupied with the school, so I wanted to test some things with the clones and if it succeds, then you will not have to worry about training all the time and concentrate on studying” MAster was talking with OG Aster while walking to the outer part of the mind, he told him more plans, enhancing the foundation for their future.
Finally, after reaching the border OG Aster said his goodbyes “okay, I’ll be going now, school will start tomorrow and I want to prepare my things for it” as OG Aster said that, he waved at MAster while walking to the border of the mind and got out of it, back into his physical body.
He could still feel the mana he awakened and still felt happy about it. After that, he went to the stairs and went back up to his backyard, then to his room to sleep for tomorrow.
...
Aster woke up 30 minutes early than normal, he didn’t want to screw his first day. He got up and grabbed his clothes, he planned to take a shower, looking at his digital clock he saw it was 07:00, he had around one hour and a half to get ready and reach his school “no worrys, I got enough time” he wanted to take his time while preparing himself.
He walked towards the bathroom in front of his room and took a shower, after that, he dressed himself and went to eat some breakfast. But as he was going downstairs, he saw his father on the kitchen eating breakfast.
“hi dad, I thought you would sleep more” Aster said while going to get a cup and some milk.
“well, I didn’t want to miss your first day going to school” Erick was eating some toasts and a fried egg.
“...you are saying it as if it were my very first day going to school”
Erick was silent for a bit “but it is, I didn’t get to see you going to school when you were a child, I wasn’t there for your first day” Erick looked a bit sad, wich made Aster feel a bit guilty for saying that.
“yeah, you are right, sorry for saying that”
“oh, don’t worry, this time I’ll be there for you, I’ll even take some pictures to remember that day!” he said happily taking out his phone.
“mmmhm” he made a sound as accepting it, not fully proccesing what he said, untill it hit him “wait, what did you say?”
“oh, I’ll go with you and take some photos, to always let your family remember how much you have grown”
“...” Aster was stunned, he didn’t mind if he took photos of him, the thing was, what the other people would say after being treated like a kid, getting photos as if it were his first day at school “I’m not a kid anymore and it’s not like I ignore completely what everyone else think of me, I still want to have some face in front of people, so you don’t need to do that”
His father stopped smiling and started making a sad face “oh... okay, I will not annoy you then, I’ll stay at home...”
“wha-? no I- that-” Aster was shocked by how his father took his response, he didn’t expect that he would get sad, after trying to think of a way to respond, he knew what was happening, he was being emotionally manipulated.
By Erick acting sad, it would make Aster’s mental defenses low, making him accept it, not wanting to see his father sad, but Aster changed, those things are easy to detect thanks to his fast thinking, analitical skills and his other wills, thanks to all that he is able to greatly predict the intention of the people by seeing them on their faces.
“heheheh... hahahahah! I will not fall for that, I know what you are trying to do!” Aster refuted “just because you act sad doesn’t mean I’ll let you do whatever you want!”
After Aster said that, Erick’s face changed from sad to his usual face “Mmmm, then, if I can’t go there, let’s talk for a bit, from what I know, there is no training that uses mining tools, so, why did you need my survival tools?”
Erick asked, looking at Aster ‘so, if you can’t have your way, you are trying to find reasons to allow you to do it, such as discovering my secrets’ Aster thought, getting more into this little mind battle.
But before they could continue with it, Evelyn entered the kitchen “...what are you two doing?” she was confused by the tension that could be felt inside the kitchen.
“I was arguing with dad, he want’s to come to my school and take photos of me as if I were a child, I can predict all of the conversations about it already”
Evelyn looked at him as he said that and then looked straight at Erick “dear, you can’t do that, if you wanted some photos of him going to school you could have asked me, I already made some photos when he was younger” she said as she was putting some frozen meat outside of the freezer to cook it later.
Erick looked back at her as he sighed “I only wanted some photos, next year he will very probably be taken directly to one of the three big schools, if that happens then I will not be able to take a photo of him on a normal school...” he said while finishing his cup of cereal.
“I know, it’s sad seeing them grow, I still remember how they always wanted to sleep with me because they were scared when they were little kids, but they have to grow and they will make their own decisions, and we should respect what they want, be it our daughter or our son” said Evelyn, as she grabbed a cup and put it on the coffe machine.
Erick looked at her and finally accepted defeat “okay, okay, I will stay at home” he said with a disatisfied look on his face.
After all of this happened, Aster finished his cereals and noticed that it became somewhat late as he took his time doing things slowly, so he decided to leave now “I’ll be going now, see ya later” as he said that, he grabbed his empty backpack and left, walking towards the exit of the rift.
...
After exiting the rift and some minutes of walking on the streets towards the train station, cars were passing at his side on the road, Aster started thinking of what he would study this new year ‘if I remember correctly, this year they will teach us about the theory of the three types of energy and its changes on people, the use of mana stones on machines and mana generators. Also, there is the mandatory training, its like P.E but more strict, in wich they will teach us on the use of weapons, enhance our physical bodies, teach us how to survive inside a rift and how to fight monsters’ while Aster was thinking about school, he felt something strange.
He could feel the air getting heavier, his skin started itching a bit and he could feel the energy starting to move a bit chaotically, he started looking around, predicting what was gonna happen and as he finally reached his conclusion, sirens activated as a mechanical voicce started talking.
“WARNING. WARNING. PLEASE EVACUATE. RIFT RANK ‘MEDIUM’ HAS SIGNS OF APPEARING. EVACUATE AND REACH SHELTER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. EVACUATE AND REACH SHELTER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. EVACUATE AND REACH SHELTER...”
The mechanical voice kept repeating the same thing, the people were processing what was happening as a huge rift appeared in the middle of the road, the cars stopped completely while other cars got smashed against other cars as they didn’t stop on time, everyone was getting out of their vehicles and started running away, going in the oposite direction from the rift.
The people on the streets were doing the same, but as they started running, monsters were already coming out, those monsters had three large legs, making it stand at a height of 8 meters and at the end of those legs was a spherical body, it had multiple eyes around its spherical smooth body making it able to see 360º all round him and a cross-like mark on the bottom of its body, it didn’t have any fur, but their skin looked viscous, as if they were covered by a transparent slime.
As Aster was going towards an alley to change his appareance while having his stealth activated, he saw the cross on the monster’s body open outwards as it shot tentacles towards the people who were running. While some people could defend themselves with their power, there was still some people who still havn’t awakened.
“AAAAAHHHHHH!!!” a child was grabbed by one of their tentacles, his mother tried to keep hold of him not letting the tentacle take him, but its strenght was too much and it took the child, bringing him to its orifice where the tentacles were coming from, it was filled with sharp teeth.
As the child was crying, being brought closer and closer to his death, the tentacle was suddenly cut off, the only thing he was able to see was a red disk getting stuck agains a building the moment the tentacle got cut off, it was the size of a frisbee with its circular edge as sharp as a knife.
As the kid was falling to the ground he was grabbed by a man in the air, falling with him as he landed without any issue, the man put him on the ground besides his mother and saw them run off as they thanked him.
skill throw has been obtained
T1 throw Lv1 increase accuracy, throwing speed and strenght by 0%
Aster’s disguise was complete as he now looked like a 30 year old man with different clothes, his facial and body characteristics were completely different from his normal self.
Aster turned around and looked at the monster that grabbed the kid, its tentacle was squirming of pain as it entered inside its mouth, Aster didn’t wait as he jumped high into the air suprassing the monster by several meters, after reaching a bigger height than the monster Aster started falling, positioning himself in the air on top of it as he was making a bone gauntlet and as he finally reached it, he paunched it on the center of the top of its body, using the strength of the fall plus his muscles he was able to propel the monster towards the ground, getting squashed like a tomato.
After Aster reached the ground he was very surprised by his strength, he knew he was strong, but not this much!
‘well, I should put into count all the skills that increase my physical strength and the energy punch also including the force of my fall and the bone gauntlet’ as Aster was thinking of his strenght he ducked and blinked away, a tentacle wanted to grab him by the head, he looked at the other monsters as the were extending their tentacles overe the buildings looking for open windows to search for more humans.
Aster streched his back a bit and launched himself towards the monsters legs, he instantly made a sword with his blood from the palm of his hand and slashed at the monsters legs one after another, incapacitating them.
After making the mayority of the monsters who were roaming towards the people fall to the ground, he made the sword into a large hammer and started squashing their spherical bodies into a pulp, killing them.
Thanks to his skill calmness he was able to stand the gory scene of meat, blood and bones smashed into paste, and as he was killing them he heard what he was waiting for.
“EVERYONE, SECURE THE STREETS!!!” official awakeners finally appeared, it was time for Aster to go, he activated his stealth and cautiouslly walked towards an empty alley, dissappearing from his work of art.
But as he was going away, he sensed in his mind that he should check his clock.
“08:21”
His classess started at 08:30 and he didn’t even reach the train station, he forgot about the time while concentrating on killing the monsters.
“...” he had a deadpan face, he kept his disguise as he climbed one of the buildings of the alley he was between and started running on the roofs, jumping building from building as fast as possible towards his school.
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-back at the rift-
The awakeners and police finally reached the rift, their vehicles couldn’t go on the roads because it was filled with cars from the people who fled so they had to go on foot, but when reaching the rift they saw something unexpected, piles and piles of flesh, bones and blood.
It was a mess, the walls on the buildings were stained with blood, the streets had small rivers of blood wiwth bits of smashed flesh and bones and the worst of all, the stench, it was horrible as the whole street was filled with a stench of blood and meat.
“ugh... blarg!” a newbie puked by the scene and smell of everything, he moved himself to the side to not disturb his companions.
More awakeners were coming in and had a similar surprised reaction, but as they were thinking how could this happen, they saw tall monsters moving towards them.
“SNAP OUT OF IT AND GET READY!!!” the chief of this team of awakeners said loudly, getting the attention of everyone “GET IN FORMATION!!!” the awakeners positioned themselfs in lateral lines on the street and road, the front lines were mostly physical based awakeners who could attack and act as a wall, stopping the monsters, while the back lines were the long range awakeners who could support the front line and also attack from the back.
The monsters got close enough to move their tentacles towards the front line, but before they could grab anybody, the tentacles got slashed, crushed and ripped off as the awakeners defended themselves.
After the tentacles stoped for a moment, the back lines started their attack, some made fireballs and more elemental attacks, some prepared their arrows and some others started aiming their mana fueled guns, after some preparation they launched their attack, throwing everything.
Some monsters died after getting impaled by a ton of large spikes made from ice and stone, some burnt to death and others skewered by the arrows and holes made from mana guns.
And they continued like that until the monsters stopped coming out from the rift, making the street double the nastier as there were now double of dead monsters than before, it ended without any deaths from the awakeners.
“ugh, finally...” said a mana awakener, as he sat down on a half broken bench at the back, a bit stained with blood “...my mana heart was starting to get drained”
While saying that, a companion went towards him and gave him a potion “here, it will help your recovery” said the system awakener “it was made by me, so enjoy it!” he said with a smile.
“huh, then what is an apothecary doing here in battle?” the mana awakener said while drinking the potion.
“well, my business isn’t going that well, so I had to go to battles to sell my stuff” he said while taking out a small machine with a screen “now pay up”
The mana awakener stopped drinking the almost empty potion and asked scared if he fell in a scam “then...how much?”
“oh, its only 10,99 Crowns” he said smiling.
Crowns,the new currency, after the fall and rise of humanity, all the countries had to merge, and as the stability for humanity increased they had to make a new form of payment, deciding to make a new currency based from the three kings, they decided that crowns should do.
It was the most used currency from all the older ones and because of the digital era, there wasn’t a need for physical currency, but as a form of safe keeping and hacking, it could be kept on a external digital object not conected to anything inside the banks or houses.
As they were discussing about it being double its price or not, all the other awakeners were opening a path for the vehicles to put a safe zone, they also took some samples to know if the materials were worth collecting.
And as time passed, it fastly became 08:35.
...
Aster kept running, it already became past the opening time, but there should at least be some time of preparation for the explanation of everything new there will be this year of school.
He jumped from roof to roof, trying to go faster, even his energy rush activated by the pure strain he was putting on his body, but finally, he reached his school, he got down from the roof inside an alley and changed baack into his normal self, cleaning himself from blood, changing his clothes and appearance.
After getting ready he run at normal human speed to his classroom and opened the door.
“...” everyone inside was silent, looking at the door that got open.
“... you are late” the teacher said while looking at him, he seemed to have around 40 years, and had a typical looking teacher appearance.
“sorry, sorry, I got a problem while coming to school, could you believe that a rift opened on the path I took?”
*murmur murmur* The students started wishpering between each other about the news.
“a rift?” the teacher asked, raising a brow.
“yes, tall three legged monsters came out of it, but I could evacuate safely before anything happened to me” Aster said calmly, but slightly showing a tired expression, making the teacher believe him.
“okay, I’ll see later on the news if that’s true, now go sit down on an empty desk” as the teacher said that, Aster looked around for Zale, looking forward to sitting at his side and talk with him, but as he found him, he saw that all his surrounding desks were owned by female classmates
‘tch’ Aster clicked his tongue internally as he sat down on an empty desk at the corner of the room.
“because today is our first day, all seats will be temporary, all of you will be able to change your seats untill tomorrow, so try to find a seat that will be the most comfortable to all of you” the teacher said in a loud noise, making the whole classroom hear him “but this day will be short, we will explain all the new classes allof you will study this year, unlike the other year, we will be moving from class to class to each specified subject”
He started explaining all the different classrooms we would use for the new subjects, as well as the basics of each one, after giving us the information he also gave us the new books, pens and pencils.
After that, he left us with some free time, letting us see the new books and their contents “theory of mana and its uses” “changes of evolution” and “classes and their differences”, this three seemed to be from the three energys, but there were more books “monsters and their biology” “the rifts ecosystems” and “training of an awakener”.
There was a total of 6 subjects this year, while it was less than last year, the books were THICK and full of knowledge, so it would be harder to learn.
But as for Aster, he had the skill “knowledge keeper”, that skill let him understand knowledge faster, but as its name said it could also keep the memory in his mind without a problem, like keeping books inside a shelf, once you need it you will take it out, it was also greatly enhanced by his mind archival and the multiple wills that took care of it.
Basically, it could take him to two to three days to fully read one of this books and another two days to fully understand it, taking on count the other books, he could understand all of the theory of this year in one month. But only the theory, he still needed to do the practical work such as training and other things.
While Aster was thinking and reading at the same time, Zale cam closer to him and sat on another free desk on his side “reading the new books?” Zale asked, looking at him.
“yep, they all seem so interesting right now” he was reading the mana theory, the pages he was reading was alchemy with the uses of mana infused ingredients, he was thinking of creating a clone through alchemy using his flesh and blood as a catalyst like creating a homunculous with an artificial soul, but Aster didn’t care about the soul, he only needed a vessel to put one of his wills inside of it.
“alchemy? I heard from my family that the ingredients for it are not cheap at all, the only cheap ingredients are for the simple potions, but then there is a sudden spike on their prices making them very expensive”
‘mmmmh, expensive materials, I suppose that I can’t ask my family, I can’t also say it to Zale....’ Aster was thinking of a way to obtain the materials ‘!!!’ and he remembered someone ‘it seems that I will be the one asking for a favour first’
After finding a solution, he kept talking with Zale as teh time passed while also reading, after some hours, the teacher gave ermission to the students to go home early.
“so...” Zale said “wanna go play something? The teacher didn’t gave us any homework so we are technically free to do anything today”
“I would like to play, but I’ve got something important to do, how about this weekend? I still have to spar with you” Aster responded while walking at Zale’s side.
“fine by me, I also want to know if you can defeat me on a spar” Zale said as he started walking on a different path as they reached the train station “well, see you tomorrow” he said as he waved at Aster.
“see ya” Aster waved back as he went towards his train back home.
While on the train, he grabbed his phone and called someone *ring ring* he waited for that person to pick it up.
*click* “what do you want? Do you need something?” Sophie’s voice came from the phone.
“yes, two things, I need you to do me a favor and also meet you at the same place as always, I’ll tell you what I need”
“you can just tell me from the phone, there is no need to meet up” Sophie responded, right now she was studying a new book of spells released inside the sorcerers school, it was an enhanced bersion from older spells.
“well, I want you to buy some ingredients, but I want to meet you for another thing... I want you to teach me some things” Aster said with a small smile on his face.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
All skills till now:
skills Lv-
obtainment
skill silencing
skill library
skill sealing
passive skills
T3 pore breathing
Lv2
T3 unique blood
Lv2
T3 knowledge keeper
Lv2
T3 absolute senses
Lv2
T3 multi-will
Lv3
T3 mind archival
Lv3
T3 blood swordsmanship
Lv2
T3 blood footwork
Lv2
T3 calmness
Lv2
T3 lucid dream
Lv2
active skills
T3 scripture making
Lv1
T3 energy rush
Lv3
T3 hyper thinking
Lv2
T3 examination
Lv2
T3 super jump
Lv3
T3 hyper speed
Lv3
T3 blood control
Lv3
T3 body control
Lv3
T3 monster roar
Lv2
T3 energy punch
Lv2
T3 energy kick
Lv2
T3 energy slash
Lv2
T3 blink
Lv2
T3 future sight
Lv2
T3 ground control
Lv2
T3 earth destroyer
Lv2
T3 wood changer
Lv2
T3 soul unification
Lv1
T2 cultivation
Lv9
T2 disguise
Lv20
T2 evolving bowmanship
Lv7
T2 evolving hammermanship
Lv10
T2 evolving daggermanship
Lv7
T2 stealth
Lv5
T2 steal
Lv1
T1 simple programming
Lv14
T1 simple AI production
Lv1
T1 throw
Lv1
Mana passive skills
T3 mana veins
Lv1
T3 chantless incantation
Lv1
T3 mana heart
Lv1
Mana active skills
T2 mana manipulation
Lv1
T2 lighter spell
Lv1