Cora was startled by Yara’s suggestion.

“What do you mean ask Nox for help?” she whispered to her sister.

Nox was Marc Drach's son and Lord Hermann Drach, the leader of the second-ranked Drach family under the Thurmis Consortium oldest grandson.

“Don’t you want to be in Khyrum’s good graces, sis? What better way than to lend a hand when needed?” she tells Cora.

After some thought, Cora, although still hesitant, nodded in agreement. She turned to look at Khyrum, who still had his eyes glued to his PLE. He was still downloading articles he had researched in the Library’s database.

“Khyrum, let me see if I can ask Nox for help. Okay,” she said calmly.

I looked up and wanted to say not to bother, but then it dawned on me: the more I had them preoccupied with running around helping me, the more time I had to solve this.

“OK, Cora, just make sure not to bother him too much; if he says no, then just leave it at that,” I said, pretending to care.

“Will do, Khy.”

With that, both girls left on their own to try to find answers to my problem.

“Ok, let me move on from here before they return,” I told myself.

I got my things and left the library. It was 5 pm, so I went to my hideout, the abandoned training ground.

Once inside, I went into the weight room again. Ever since I started using this old training ground, I had my PLE and an extra small lamp, which provided me with some light while I was training here.

“Alright, let's get to it,” I said, taking out my PLE and lamp.

I turned on my PLE and started scrolling through some of the preselected articles I had downloaded from the library. Most of the information was old. Most of these articles were taken as outlandish tales and exaggerated stories of the past. Most go back centuries, and almost all couldn’t be collaborated due to old age. Or at least that was written in the articles. Tales of superhumans that could fly, disappear, and enhance themselves to the point where they could fight beasts one-on-one and win.

That was something that could be done now. You needed teams of 10 or more to fight the beasts today. That is why strike teams were created. So the Alphas could help each other in the fights. Then came the professional circuits, where strike teams battled each other for guts, glory, and riches.

“All these articles talk about superhumans with amazing abilities, but most don’t describe the abilities; they just glance over them,” I said as I scrolled through the articles on my PLE.

“Hmm, let me check this one. The title is catchy: Book of Chronicles-Alpha Prime Edition 1,” I read in the article header.

I started scrolling through the article. It wasn’t a story like the previous articles; it was more of an encyclopedia of sorts. After reading for about 10 minutes, I knew I found something good.

“This is very interesting,” I told myself.

I’m surprised this book exists, as I have never heard of it before. It described skills, how to use them, and how to level them. It even had a section on imbuing items with the power to create charms and enchantments.

I scratched my head in disbelief, as I had never heard that you could do most of what this book contained.

“This can’t be right; that’s why people probably discarded this book as a hoax,” I said while reading.

I kept scrolling through the article. It had many skills from the different family groups at that time.

I was surprised by what I saw.

The skills here were on a level not seen today. It had skills from Thurmis, Gravitaz, Cassiel, Daisuke, Astren, and others. It even had a section for a group I had never heard of, The Bragen.

“I wonder how old this book is,” I said.

I started looking for the print date. After a few moments, I found it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Holy Shit, it says it was printed in 2614. This thing is over 400 years old,” I said in disbelief.

Something suddenly popped into my head.

“Could this be why no one has ever heard or seen any of the skills or techniques written in this book?”

“Is it so old that these skills and techniques have already been forgotten?”

Then I had another thought.

“Could I do some of the things listed here?” I asked myself.

I kept reading, trying to figure out if I could try and replicate any of the techniques here.

The one that caught my eye was the charms and enchantments technique.

“It says here that you have to be at 50% or higher even to try, and the skill that you are imbuing onto something has to be tier one or higher.”

“Hmm, I know I’m at 55% on the TGene count, so that is not an issue, and all my skills are tier one or higher, so that’s also good. I guess we only need to try,” I thought.

I kept reading on how to imbue or transfer power.

According to the book, getting a piece of jewelry or crystal is a way to do it. Also, precious metals such as silver, gold, or titanium will work.

“Hmm, I don’t have any crystals, jewelry, or gold on me,” I said disappointedly.

Then it dawned on me.

“Crap, I know where to find some silver,” I said excitedly.

I quickly made my way back to the main training area. I went into the entrance hallway, and there I saw them. On the wall were the intricate decorations of the school.

“Thank God this school is over the top. If not, I wouldn’t have noticed them when I first came in.”

Small, silver cutouts of different animals and symbols were on the wall, about half a hand size or smaller.

Previous students and faculty left them here as a reminder of their time in this school. It was taboo to remove these decorations from the training grounds, so if you were caught stealing them, you faced automatic expulsion plus several other charges.

“Well, it's for the better good of humanity,” I said as I took down what looked like some angel wings wrapped in a wreath.

I returned to the weight room and sat Indian-style on the mat.

“Ok, let me check what I must do here to make this work.”

I opened my PLE to the book and scrolled over the article on imbuing items.

“Okay, so I started with silver. Now, it says to concentrate some of your power on the metal. Hmm, how do I do that.”

I scrolled over to the next page, briefly describing how to transfer the power.

Get your mind in a state of profound abstraction to help with the transfer as you grab the object between your thumb and index finger with both hands. Slowly release the power you want to transfer and have it cycle from one hand to the other through the object. Once you can do this, concentrate on holding the power in the object itself. From here, you must raise the skill level to tier one, and you should have an imbued item after that. Keep in mind that the better the quality of the object, the more it will retain the traits you want to imbue on it.

“Hmm, that does not sound so bad,” I said.

“I think I can get back to the trance state I was when I started learning the body enhancement technique I got from Mr. Warnick.”

I got the object and held it with both hands.

“Ok, so let's prove if this book is correct,” I said.

I started concentrating on the skill I wanted to use as my trial run—my wind technique. I began to think of the skill, and after about ten minutes, I fell into this dream-like state where I saw this reel-like image again. I was seated Indian style in front of this image, and I had the wing charm in my hands. The reel had the Tgene sequence for what I figured was the wind technique. The reel started spinning slowly initially, but then it picked up speed.

If the twins had seen me like this, they would have recognized what I was doing right away, as they had seen it before. Sitting in the middle of the weight room, I had a glowing light in the middle of my chest. It started swirling slowly clockwise. The only difference this time was that the previous light was golden-blue, but this time, the light was a dazzling green.

On the other hand, the twins had just arrived at Training Ground 1 and were heading over to talk to a tall, brawny-looking student.

“Nox, hi,” said Yara as she approached the brawny-looking kid.

Caught by surprise, Nox was a little speechless, seeing the twins walking toward him.

After a little bit, he got his bearings back.

“Ladies, what a surprise seeing the two of you here,” he said, looking at Cora with loving eyes.

Cora immediately noticed this and tried to hide behind her sister, but Yara was not having it.

“Yeah, it is a surprise. But Cora here has a favor to ask of you,” she said while moving aside to leave Cora out in the open.

Cora just gave her a side view as if saying, “Wait until we are done here, little sister!”

“A favor, huh,” said Nox with an interested look.

“Yeah, Nox, I hope you can help me,” said Cora shyly.

“Well, if it's within my power, I don’t see why not,” he said confidently.

“Well, you see, I have a friend trying to get on the freshmen strike team, and he was hoping to …….” But before she could finish, Nox interrupted her.

“Are you trying to ask me to let this boy into the strike team as a favor?” he said in a fiery voice.

He looked at Cora as if she were asking him to break some sacred code; he was mad because she had mentioned another boy before him.

Cora and Yara could tell Nox was getting a little upset over what Cora had tried to say.

Yara jumped in quickly to try to save the situation.

“Nox, I hope you don’t misunderstand. First, we are not asking you to let him in just like that. He has his merits, believe me,” she said calmly.

“Also, this boy is like a brother to me, a brother that’s law for me to help him” she said teasingly.

Nox caught the brother part and figured the boy was family to the two of them. He quickly calmed down and looked at Cora.

On the other hand, Cora gave another side view to Yara after her wordplay just now.

“You should have said he was a brother-type figure to you two girls: that’s different. Of course, I’ll let him in,” he said while winking at Cora.

“He can join me in strike team three. Have him report here after the holiday break,” he said assertively as he walked away.

“Nox, I was actually trying to ask you something different,” said Cora, but as she tried to catch up, Nox had already vanished into the crowd of students training in the middle of the field.