A sharp poke on his wrist broke Elvis out of his entranced state. The bright sunlight pierced through the darkness, snatching Elvis back to reality.
Turning to his left, he caught sight of Caelithia gripping his wrist.
He then swiftly turned toward the approaching red-haired lady, who was squinting at him, making no attempt to hide her annoyance at his previous gaze.
"Sorry about that, miss. I took you for someone else," Elvis quickly apologized, peeking at her silver spear.
With a sideways glare, she walked past him.
Elvis pulled his gaze away from her retreating figure and turned back to Caelithia.
"It’s starting!" he whispered forcefully.
"Transfer all the money to me and go home. I’ll go get our equipment. I’ve done my research and know where to go," Caelithia proposed.
Elvis nodded and made the transfer. "Get me a nice sword."
Then he took a cab home.
Along the way, he contemplated his plan to test his Skills, which he had previously avoided before registering as an Awakener.
Then he thought further about how he was going to fight with cold weapons. He had no prior experience with any of them.
Picking up his phone, he quickly searched and found out that every child was mandated to attend high school, where they were taught academic subjects and martial arts, including basic weapon training, to enable them to adapt smoothly if they happened to awaken at eighteen.
Outside of that, some Awakeners also offered private tutoring services for a fee.
Scrolling through the approved nexus forum, Elvis gawked at the prices of the top tutors responsible for training Acolyte Awakeners.
They ranged from hundreds of thousands to millions of Terris Credits for a single session.
’When Caelithia returns, whatever is left of the money, we’ll use to hire a two-star tutor for a session to get familiar with weapons. I just need to test my harmless Skills,’ he concluded.
Raising his head from his phone, he happened to see the green pond in the driver’s head. He swiftly shut his eyes.
’Not now.’
Fifteen minutes later, the cab finally pulled up at his destination. After a short walk from the road, he arrived at his apartment.
Elvis took the elevator to the fifth floor, where his flat was located. Then he took a quick shower, as he was feeling quite hot.
Afterward, he opened his status panel to check his Skills.
’Sh*t!’ Elvis clasped his temple. ’Most of my Skills are passive. Only a branch of Poison Artificer and Blood Appraisal are active Skills. Well, let’s try this Shadow Mist. I hope it isn’t destructive. It should just be like tear gas.’
Elvis strode into the bathroom and shut the door and windows to limit the damage if it ended up deviating from his expectations.
Focusing intently, he tried to activate Shadow Mist from his open palm. Anticipation bubbled within him as he prepared to use magic for the first time.
Elvis felt something shifting inside his body.
Instinctively following his intrusive thought, he crushed the black orb, which exploded with a poof and plunged the bathroom into darkness.
Surveying the darkness, Elvis could make out the vague, moving dark mist—a clear indication of the artificial darkness.
"Even I’m blinded. Although my eyes don’t sting, I can’t see. I have to estimate the target’s position before using it. I don’t know how far this mist spreads," Elvis mumbled, trying to make out things in the darkness.
About fifteen seconds later, the dark mist swiftly thinned until it faded. Studying his surroundings, Elvis noticed that the bathroom remained unchanged.
Nodding, he went to his room and lay on the bed.
’Let’s just play with this since it doesn’t damage anything. I can’t use Blood Appraisal until I meet other Awakeners,’ Elvis thought.
Staring at the ceiling, Elvis conjured Shadow Mist again. A black orb formed on his palm within a few seconds, and he crushed it, plunging his room into darkness.
Musing in his artificially created darkness, Elvis thought, ’This Skill should be less noticeable at night.’
That was how he kept himself busy, stopping only when he began feeling a dull, drowsy headache and the Skill suddenly stopped responding.
Opening his status panel, he found that his Mana tab was empty.
’So, fifteen times...’
It took about thirty minutes before the headache vanished. About fifteen minutes later, the Mana tab on his status panel had returned to its peak.
Hours later, Caelithia returned, and Elvis almost fainted when he saw that she had only ten thousand Terris Credits left, along with two sets of sleek full-body armor and two slender, straight, double-edged swords.
"You don’t like what I bought? They’re beautiful. Black armor, black swords with red on the guards," Caelithia retorted at the sight of Elvis with his hands on his head.
"Not that. The price..."
"Well, this is the best Common-rank, Grade III equipment I could find. The highest, Grade IV, was too expensive," she explained.
Elvis sighed. "I had planned on hiring a tutor. Forget it."
"Oh! Well, just get changed. We’ll practice ourselves with the swords still in their scabbards," she answered with gleaming eyes.
Elvis could only nod.
And that was something he regretted accepting, as Caelithia beat the hell out of him every round with almost exquisite technique, even though he was faster and stronger than her.
It even made him wonder if she had secretly trained in Axaeris, despite her denial.
She attributed it to the martial arts club she had joined in high school and the martial arts videos she watched, which Elvis deemed useless. Or maybe he was dumb?
But the best part was realizing that he was scarily faster and stronger than he had ever been, even missing his strikes because he underestimated and misjudged his own speed.
He slowly adapted to his strength.
Finally, it was Saturday. According to the information the Awakeners Guild had sent to him and Caelithia, they would be entering the Frozen Forest dungeon at 2:00 PM with three other people.
Elvis, already dressed in body-fitted black armor with a rough, scaly surface, admired himself in the mirror. It didn’t affect his mobility or weigh much despite the bunch of fitted metal plates.
"How did Caelithia get my size so perfectly? Does it have anything to do with her being my Spirit Beast?" Elvis mumbled in amazement.
Picking up his sheathed sword in an ornate red scabbard, Elvis strode out of his room to see Caelithia already prepared. She was calmly swinging her sword in a graceful dance.
’She’s adapting really fast. Is this an advantage of Spirit Beast? Besides, I didn’t see any information of humans as Spirit Beast, so I can’t tell,’ Elvis thought.
She suddenly stopped and turned to him. Nodding at him, she sheathed her sword in the scabbard.
Elvis tested Blood Appraisal on her, the habit he developed after he realized he couldn’t scan her status.
———?Race: ????
?Status: ????
?Dominant Attribute: ????
"Let’s go. It’s already 1:00 PM," Elvis said.
Taking a cab to the Awakeners Guild, Elvis kept himself busy by using Blood Appraisal on some passersby whenever the cab slowed down at turns.
———?Race: Human?
?Status: Unawakened?
?Dominant Attribute: Strength?
———’Even unawakened individuals have dominant attributes. Makes sense.’
The car slowly pulled over in front of the Awakeners Guild.
Elvis and Caelithia alighted and strode in. There were many people—some dressed in casual wear and others in armored battlesuits—going about their business. Upon reaching Beatrice, who was attending to a few people, they waited by the side.
It didn’t take long before she finished with the people she was attending to, and she beckoned in Elvis’s direction and at another group.
As Elvis and Caelithia walked toward her, he glanced in the direction she had beckoned and saw three teenagers—two boys and a girl—in white, furry battlesuits walking toward Beatrice.
The five soon met up with Beatrice.
"You five will be entering the Frozen Forest dungeon. The address is on this slip." She passed the slip to one of the teenage boys.