“This may sound obvious but,” An old man's voice resounded in Rin's mind as she reminisced the past. “Training alone isn't gonna cut it.”

Inside her imaginary world, a demon-like monster faced her. It was the same monster that destroyed her, a month ago. It was the same monster that made her face reality.

‘If I think about it,’ She thought, analyzing her action in the past month. ‘I never really stopped running from reality.’

A bitter smile made its way on Rin's face before her memory began to move into motion. The monster advanced at inhuman speed and she was beaten one-sidedly. Blood splattered around rapidly, signaling the girl's impending death.

“I can teach you how to fight opponent physically stronger than you but,” Her grandfather's voice continued. “Elite and monster are something else.”

The sound of bone cracking and a scream of pain was what confirmed the old man's statement. Rin's hand was broken, followed by her leg being slashed apart from her. Lastly, the demon's hand made a hole in her stomach as a finishing blow.

She lasted longer than a normal human but in the end, she still couldn't do anything. Her body lifelessly fell to the ground, colored in red by her blood.

“If you want to reach us,” The old man concluded. “You're gonna need more than just technique.”

“...I know.” This time, however, Rin's corpse answered. “It's still impossible, though. Even after all the research I've done, it's still out of my reach.”

The previously dead body began to stand up, her leg reattached, her hand returning to its normal position and her stomach healed. Her blood disappeared into dust particles and although she was unaware of it, her eyes unnaturally turned into vivid red color.

The devil faced her once again.

“...” Rin clenched her fist and shook her head to get rid of the gloomy thought she was inducing to herself before finally facing the monster.

“Trust me, when you bury things, they tend to come back at you twice as hard”

Winter did warn her to not suppress her feeling, however, with the menace that was planning, now was hardly the time to be depressive. Even if she had all the reason to be so.

‘...Again, I'm running away from reality.’ Much like earlier, she formed a bitter smile.

In opposite to the previous time, though, her battle with the demon ended entirely differently. With wing torn apart and body slammed on the ground, Rin's simulation ended with the demon's overwhelming defeat.

Then she finally opened her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Winter asked, puzzled and interested. “I'd wager a guess you were meditating but, in that pose, it seems unlikely.”

In Rin's sight, the grey-haired girl was portrayed upside down, while in reality, it was the opposite. Her hair pulled on the ground by gravity, she was standing up with her hand.

Specifically, only her right hand. Yes, Rin was standing in perfect equilibrum with her five fingers taking the role of feet. It was an amazing sight from Winter's perspective. Though if she tried to do it, with her Aura on and only when so, she might be able to replicate the form.

“A training of sort,” Rin responded, returning to a normal standing position. “Surprisingly, being in that position help concentrate.”

“I see...” Winter said, looking at Rin with an inquiring look.

Her eyes glowed for a second, which helped the black-haired girl deduce she was once again using her singularity. And that was right. In this very instant, Winter used clairvoyance.

“Wow,” She couldn't help but exclaim when she landed on Rin's stomach. ‘How can she be so beautiful when she has abs?’—was a thought she refrained from saying.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Instead, she just continued with praise. “You sure are diligent, aren't you?”

“...Not really.” The black-haired girl responded after trailing off a little. “Training and learning is just part of my daily routine.” She continued stretching her two hands in the process. “What about you. How do you spend your day normally?”

“Eh? Me?” Winter asked, surprised by the sudden question. “I-I don't think you'd want to know.”

“I do, though.” Rin calmly answered clenching her fist.

“I...” Winter hesitated. “I-I don't want to talk about—!”

An unnatural amount of air blew at the girl's face preventing her from ever finishing her phrase. Her eyes opened widely from the unexpected shock and immediately remarked the punch that purposefully missed her face.

“I talked to you about myself, yesterday,” Rendered speechless, it was Rin who continued. “I think it's only fair if you talked about yourself, now.”

“R-Rin—!” Winter finally tried to speak. Unfortunately, the black-haired girl didn't seem to have finished talking.

A violent kick made her fall backward on her butt while coughing unhealthily. Without her Aura on, it wouldn't have been surprised to see her unconscious from that simple attack. Though, Rin was capable enough to not be a bully.

“Also, we don't have time so I need you to fight with me.”

“W-wha?” Utterly confused by the sudden development, Winter simply looked up with bewilderment.

“There's a saying for this, no?” Rin asked rhetorically while in a combat-ready position. “ 'If you know yourself and your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles'—Well, what I want to say is, we need to know each other better before we face this unknown opponent. Both in general and in battle capability.”

Winter finally stood up, still a little surprised by Rin's brutality. “...So you want to fight while I talk about myself?”

“It's two birds with one stone, don't you think?” The black-haired girl continued, waiting for the other to activate their Aura. “No, in this case, it's actually three birds.”

◇

“I admit I find school boring and useless but,” Aiden said, having made a place in a very comfy and comfortable sofa. “Surely, they don't teach things this difficult there.”

Placed on the ground next to him laid several papers neatly attached and textbook numbering in the dozens. It was enough to at least take two to three entire days of an average person to read. And that was assuming they could understand what was written on them, which already disqualifies any average person out there.

“How much time did it take to write all of those?” Aiden closed the textbook he was trying to read to find any clue as to when it was written. Before long, on the very back of the book, he found the date, or specifically the year he was searching for.

“Year 2996, huh? She had what at that time? Thirteen or maybe twelve years old?” Aiden commented, impressed. “At that age, I barely even began to learn stealing things.”

Of course, as Aiden was inside Rin's house, all the notebook presents were hers. She wrote all of them after thinking, searching, and calculating each new subject carefully. For those with knowledge or for certain researchers, these notes were probably valuable, however, for those without, unchained's members in this case, they were too complex to be useful.

“There are dates on each page if you look carefully.” Stone added, he, too, enthralled by the girl's handiwork.

“Is that so? I honestly can't differentiate any of these headache-inducing numbers and letters from each other.” Aiden responded. “I mean, I knew Rin was some type of genius but she didn't seem to be that intelligent to me.”

Throwing the textbook back on the ground without much respect, the man took another one to look at. He hoped to at least see one page he could understand. And fortunately for his pride, he did find one.

«What exactly is an Elite?» Aiden spoke out loud the content he could read. «In fact, why does everyone believe it to be natural that 30% of humanity can break the very law of nature?»

Stone closed the textbook he had in hand and listened to Aiden, a little interested.

«Is it because they had been part of this world for a very long time? That doesn't add up, though. Statistics show that each passing year, the thirty percent ratio keeps gradually increasing. Less than forty years ago, only 20% of humanity had been an Elite. Which means that if they were indeed part of this world since the first or just the beginning of the second millenary, 100% of humanity should already be an Elite by now.» Aiden continued to quote, interested as well.

«Which may mean that Elite are a recent things. Well, as recent as a few hundred years can be, at least. And yes, that may be enough for humanity to accept them but.... That shouldn't be the real question.... Wait, what?»

“Wow, researchers have it tough don't they? Or is it only Rin?” Aiden said, beginning to not understand what the girl had written. “I can literally feel how much her mind wandered around when she wrote this.”

“There's some truth in that, though. When I search the net, no one actually considers where the Elite comes from that seriously.” Stone said scrolling his phone.

All he saw after he searched the question related to ‘where did the Elite come from and what are they?’ could be resumed by ‘They are sent by God to protect us’, ‘The world's next race!’ and all other nonsense like that. The only plausible thing that could be found where the scientific explanation about what an Elite can do. Well, there were also things like ‘ranking of the strongest Singularity’ so Stone didn't waste time to read any of them.

“Well not everyone is like Rin after all,” Aiden said, not surprised. “Few would care about the Elite and whatnot as long as they are safe.”

“Are you sure about that,” Ursa questioned, butting in the conversation out of nowhere. “I mean, there is Ark, no? Aren't those guys extremely focused on Elite?”

“Hmmmm” Aiden took the point and wondered for a thing to retort, and failed. Indeed, Ark was created for the Elite so it wouldn't be surprising to see that they had quite the knowledge about them.

However, as the man's eyes were still glued to the notebook in his hand, searching for a part that he could understand, he landed on the perfect retort to Ursa's remark.

«In Ark's case, thou—» Aiden coughed as he almost repeated the same line in the book. If he wanted to retort, of course, he had to make the word his. “In Ark's case, those guys should be more interested in what they can do instead of where their power comes from. They probably put more emphasis on how to strengthen an Elite than how to create one.”

“...I see.” Ursa responded, her expression very well showing she didn't understand anything. “By the way, what were we talking about again?”

“...” Aiden hastily opened his mouth before being stuck mid-air. “....We were talking about the Elite, no?”

His answer was met with Stone taking the notebook he was holding with a swift movement. Then after the bulky man took a seat on the sofa, he rapidly read through Rin's handwriting.

«History, however, clearly show that Elite has been present since the dawn of time. Take Ashra for example. Legends say he was the one who split Omnis Terra apart leading to the existence of the different continents present to this day. Or Faeris, the god revered since ancient Era.» Stone quoted.

«Of course those are just myths so they may not have existed. However, with how many different legend like those there are in history... It leads me to believe that the Elite may have been present since the very first millenary.»

«This bring me to this other conclusion: The Elite's increased in population only recently. And that further bring me to this crucial question: What made them increase? All of what I'm saying may be wrong, but, if I do find out what triggered the percentage of Elite to augment, the secret to create one, and therefore, to be like them would be in the palm of my hand.»