After our brief but interesting chat at the training battleground, we walked towards his office.

As we walked, I could sense Mr. Warnick glance at me occasionally, like he wanted to say something but held back at the end. It became uncomfortable after a while.

“Mr. Warnick, is there something on your mind?” I asked calmly.

He looked at me and sighed,

“No, not really; I’m just wondering why you haven’t asked Mr. Ethian to help you with your request,” he said.

“He should have better skills than me, and he can probably demonstrate them to a higher degree than me, but then I think it would be dangerous for you.”

“He has a son, right? Brandon, I believe, is his name?”

“If he is the jealous type, it can create animosity between you too, which in the end can end up hurting you instead of helping you.”

Yes, I thought of asking Mr. Ethian for help. But then, looking at Brandon, I decided against it.

As the week progressed, Brandon became more annoying with everyone. He desperately tried to impress Eva and became pretentious and arrogant. He was making himself the focal point of any classroom discussion or school topic. He wanted to show Eva he was the school's most important person.

It would not be good if I outshined him, so I wanted to keep my training and skills a secret. I didn’t need the limelight.

So, I decided to steer clear of his family.

“I understand your concern, Mr. Warnick, but asking Mr. Ethian is not an option for me. I want to keep this as low profile as possible, so asking a renowned Alpha is not something I want to do.”

Mr. Warnick just nodded in agreement as we got to his office bldg.

“All right, we are here. I have the Tgene sequence stored on my personal flash drive. Give me a minute to retrieve it,” he said, walking into the building.

We were standing outside the Tgene Phys Ed building. Here, all the trainers and even some teachers had offices. All the evaluation machines and holographic rooms were also situated here. Fight simulations and skills test events were held here from time to time.

After about 5 minutes, Mr. Warnick walked back outside with something in his hand. It was small, square, elongated, and metallic silver grey.

“Let me see your PLE,” he said.

PLEs, or Personal Learning Devices, were our didactic tools given to each entering student when school started. We added our DNA imprint to them as a safeguard so no one else could open them, use them, or try to look at what was inside.

Without hesitation, I pulled my PLE from my backpack and handed it to him. I kept my eyes glued in anticipation of the transfer. Mr. Warnick mistook my excitement as being skeptical since I kept staring at him.

“Don’t worry, trainee, I’m not going to look inside your PLE; it would be impossible without your permission, and I don’t need to. I will do a flash transfer to your PLE. It should not take more than a few seconds,” he said, trying to reassure me.

I just nodded as I didn’t feel like explaining myself.

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“Transfer is complete,” he said.

“I transferred you a minor TGene DNA strand; it should be more than enough to entertain you,” he continued.

“Thank you, Mr. Warnick. That is more than sufficient for my hobby,” I told him graciously.

“Well, if nothing else, I hope my guidance helps you. Good luck with your strike team assessment,” said Mr. Warnick.

He then turned around and walked back into the bldg.

As he walked in, I couldn’t help but feel a little skeptical at the fact that I was about to get another skill. I still had to look at the strand and see if that was even possible. Last time, I had a Tgene DNA sequencer to help me out. Today, I only had the downloaded gene strand.

“Can I even learn the sequence just by looking at it?” I said to myself.

I was nervous, excited, and skeptical at the same time. I called this emotional state Nexitical. Without waiting any longer, I turned around and started jogging towards the abandoned training battleground I had claimed as my own since I started practicing there a few weeks back.

“I can’t get my hopes up to high. Last time with Roy, I had the gene sequencer, but today, I’m going in raw. I'm unsure if I can pull this off,” I kept thinking as I got to the abandoned training ground.

I looked around to make sure no one was around before going inside. Unbeknownst to me, two sets of eyes hid behind a tall Juniper tree about 15 meters from the entrance.

“I told you he would come,” said Cora.

“I guess you are right,” said her twin.

“I’m not sure why we would try to hide his training. Could he be doing something he is not supposed to?” Yara said with a mischievous look in her eyes.

“If he is, we need to find out what it is. That way, we can blackmail him if necessary,” said Cora with a slight blush.

As the girls discussed their mischievous plan to gain something on Khyrum, he had already walked in and was getting ready to review the DNA sequence.

“Man, I hope this works,” I mumble.

I was hoping for even the tiniest chance. If I could learn even 10% of the code. That would give me an advantage over everybody else.

I desperately wanted to join the strike team and start making some money. I wanted to liberate myself from the Richie family and be on my own, but I needed money and resources to accomplish this.

“All right, here goes nothing,” I said.

I picked up my PLE and scrolled through its contents until I found Mr. Warnick's download.

“Here it is. Let's open her up and see what we can make of it,” I told myself excitedly.

As soon as I hit the download button, I saw a progress bar in PLE, 10%...20%... 40%.... 60%...85%...100%. Once it reached 100 percent, it opened to a bright-colored screen with a DNA pattern, GGGTGACGCTG…. the pattern had many letters.

“Man, it’s going to take me some time to remember all of them,” I said somberly.

I wasn’t going to give up. I sat down, pulled out the holo-glasses I had bought just before entering school and transferred the DNA sequence to them.

“Everything is ready,” I said.

I sat cross-legged and started to pay attention to the pattern. I wanted to learn this pattern no matter what, so after 15 minutes without realizing it, my brain entered an entranced mental state where everything in the outside world was blocked off. All I could see was the DNA pattern and nothing else. It was like an old movie reel, but each slide was a letter from the DNA pattern, and the reel was turning extremely fast. I could see the pattern floating mid-air, letter after letter, for the longest time.

While Khyrum was in a transformed state absorbing the DNA sequence, the twins finally gathered their courage to peek into the bldg.

“Let's go, dammit,” said Cora frustrated that her sister was dragging her feet.

“What the hurry huh? Are you trying to catch him naked while changing?” said Yara playfully.

“You!!!” stomped Cora's feet, but she could not refute her sister's words.

“All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” said Yara, smirking at her sister before moving to the side of the abandoned training ground.

Cora couldn’t do anything but shake her fist at her sister. Together, both girls walked over to the side of the building. They had to climb the wall of the storage room that was on the outside of the bldg. to gain access to the window.

“Let's go, sister, put your back into it while I step on your shoulder to climb the wall,” said Cora as she eyed her sister cautiously.

“I think this is BS, Cora. It's you who wants to peek, but I have to do the heavy lifting?” said Yara incredulously.

“I'm the oldest, so I get to go first. Stop complaining,” said Cora as she started climbing Yara’s shoulder.

“Oldest, my ass!” but before Yara could say anything else, Cora had already climbed on her shoulders and had moved on to the top of the storage room.

“See, that wasn’t bad, was it?” said Cora, reaching down to grab Yara’s hand.

Yara said nothing else; she just gave her sister the middle finger before reaching out to grab Cora's hand.

After the two girls climbed on top of the storage room, they moved quickly to the window.

“Hmm... let's see what this delinquent is up to,” said both sisters simultaneously.