The box opened to reveal its insides which were lined with a rich violet.
The dangerous glint that escaped from the weapon was all that was required for them to be hooked on it.
Neo in particular seed enthusiastic as he reached out to grab it, careful not to get cut.
Neo frowned,suprised at the weight of the relatively large but still small weapon. Still,with a bit of effort he was able to lift it.
"Dude, this is aweso! You had one of these made?"
"It looks impressive.... but...what is it? And why does it have eight points?" Xavier asked
Before Zen could even consider answering,Neo already did.
"It’s called a throwing star,or shuriken. My little sister loves this kind of stuff. Though I must admit, it is a bit odd" Neo mused, confused by the strange proportions of the gear .
First of all,it was notably much larger than a regular throwing star, giving the impression that it wasn’t just a backup weapon. Its weight was also a concerning issue,if Neo rembered right,these things were ant to be throwing weapons, but he was already exerting strength just to lift it, aning throwing it would be much more difficult. It had eight points in total and was primarily black and white except for the tips of the blades which were all in different colors
"What rank is it?" Neo asked Zen who had stayed quiet during the whole exchange.
"First tier"
Neo nodded feeling it made sense, after all Zen was still in his first year, the re fact that he had gear was already impressive enough.
Maximilian noticed Xavier looking at it strangely
"What’s wrong?" He asked.
"That thing, it reeks of danger...it excites !"
Turning to Zen, Xavier asked
"Hey Zen, how about you spar with ? You’re a dud for my ability anyway, so it’ll be a fair fight, and I’ll even let you use your weapon"
Zen raised a brow at this. He had already observed that Xavier was very straightforward and didn’t shy away from fights, but now it seed to go even deeper than that.
He was able to see clear as day, the genuine excitent blazing in Xavier’s eyes as he challenged him.
Zen wanted to accept the challenge. He wanted to know exactly where he stood in terms of combat power but before he could, Maximilian broke it up .
"Everyone just relax. It’s already getting late, let’s talk about this tomorrow. We’ve all gotten beat up enough today"
Zen shrugged and just slumped back into his bed while Xavier accepted but still looked disappointed.
"Hey Zen, what’s this" Neo asked as he pointed to so writing on the top of the star’s center.
That was the sa writing that Zaria had asked him to teach her. The sa writing was on the top of the box.
Pointing to the strange symbols, Zen explained that it was a language of the old era
"This (流) is liú which ans to shift or change. This (星) is xīng, which ans star. Thus, the weapon’s na is shifting star"
Zen rembered that when Freya had told him the na of the thing, he rolled his eyes and even said it was unnecessary and most of all,cringe, but after practicing a while with it and seeing how it was used, he felt it made sense.
Zen eventually took back the star once they were done admiring it. He changed out of his uniform and into his only other close and left the dorms. He wanted to go finish his last daily quest and to go see if he could find Gary and Celia where he saw them before. He felt like if he stayed a bit longer last ti he might have gotten a clue to finishing his absurdly vague quest.
Of course to do this he’d need to go in his soul form.
***************
The door opened as the student stepped in, imdiately being greeted by their roommate.
"Diane! You’re back. Did you greet that old friend of yours?"
Diane awkwardly scratched the back of her head and nodded. She never could have believed that the excuse she made up to separate from her roommates had turned out to be true.
"Y-yeah, it’s all good. Where’s Zaria?" Diane quickly changed the topic before Jade could ask any more questions. She was terrible at lying,so much so that she couldn’t believe that Jade and Zaria had actually bought her half-assed excuse.
"She’s on the phone with her mom. I’m guessing she’s still worried about Zaria because of her illness this morning.
Unlike Zen, Zaria had told her roommates about her problem earlier, and because of it they had spent the entire morning worriedly looking for her across the school.
Diane nodded and looked towards a particular spot in the room, and just as usual, Celia wasn’t there.
Diane suddenly rembered Zen’s story and couldn’t help but worry.
Could their roommate really be such a person.
The four had only known each other for a few days so it was impossible for them to know the exact details of each other’s personalities,so it wasn’t exactly impossible for Zen to be right, but on the other hand she actually knew Celia, even if for a short period of ti, and she had never seen any sign of what Zen was talking about.
Just in case,she decided to keep her guard up at all tis, even if she wouldn’t necessarily antagonize anyone.
Diane decided to forget about that for now as she got an idea.
She gently took Jade by the hand and snuck closer to the bathroom door.
"What are you doing?" Jade asked but went along.
Diane gently shushed her
"Shhhhh. Let’s listen in" Diane gently whispered
"What? We can’t do that?"
"Oh stop being such a wet blanket,princess" Diane teased.
Diane’s hair started twitching lightly, and a pair of furry canine ears slowly sprung up, occasionally twitching as they stood alert like antennas.
Diane promptly placed her canine ears against the door while looking at Jade teasingly.
Jade scoffed and looked away, determined not to let Diane trick her.
She suddenly felt sothing furry tickle her face.
She suddenly turned around and saw a long furry tail tickling the side of her face.
"Co on" Diane urged as her tail shrunk more and more until it disappeared into her skirt.
Jade groaned and asked her to move away from the door to which she complied .
Jade opened the door just enough to be able to see into it, and with a point of her finger,a portal manifested in an inconspicuous corner of the bathroom and another in front of her.
They could now clearly hear what was happening. They could see too, but the range of their vision wasn’t much
They listened in and could hear Zaria’s voice, but not her mom’s.
"Mom, you don’t have to keep apologizing,i was fine"
"...."
"Yes I know this was the first ti I had to deal with it without you guys but i handled it, my friends helped ".
"...."
"Yes I made friends mom, and I’m not making excuses. I’ll co visit eventually but I haven’t even been here for a week"
Although they couldn’t hear her mother, Diane and Jade could tell how attached she was to her daughter from her responses.
"No mom,i don’t need anything...no mom don’t...ugh!"
The teleport terminal at the center of the room suddenly started glowing
"Move" Diane suddenly dragged Jade away from the door.
Zaria suddenly ran out of the bathroom and to the terminal.
"Seriously mom?"
"It’s nothing much,i even made sure it wasn’t anything fancy. It’s just a simple trinket for you to rember by"
Zaria picked up the small blue jewelry box that had appeared on the terminal and examined it
"Really?"
"Of course, would i lie to you?"
Zaria groaned. Her mom was the kind of person to drown her kids in affection, and it had only gotten worse due to her phobia.
Zaria had lost count of the numbers of embarrassing situations her mom had put her in while trying to be affectionate. It wasn’t exactly sothing she could be upset about,so she just had to accept that her mom liked pampering her.
Zaria opened the box, hoping her mom was being honest. Her room at ho was already flooded, the last thing she needed was fancy stuff here too.
Zaria’s eyes widened as she stared at what was inside at a loss for words.
"Do you like it? I found it in a regular supermarket when I went shopping, It was the last one they had and when I saw it,i imdiately thought of you"
Zaria just kept staring, not sure of what to say. The necklace really was simple , not too extravagant,no precious stones. The string was made of a shiny and reflective material, and it had a single charm on it .
" Is there a problem? If you don’t like it...."
Zaria suddenly noticed the terminal glowing again
"No no no! It’s great,i love it! Thank you " Zaria sighed in relief as the terminal turned off.
"Ha, i knew you’d like it. Appearantly that thing had so special significance to so people during the previous era, like a symbol,or concept. I can’t rember exactly what the clerk said, but I’m pretty sure he just wanted to make sales"
Zaria made note of that and decided to ask the one person who she knew had so knowledge on that, coincidentally, that person was also the one who this lucky charm reminded her of.
Zaria bid her overbearingly caring mother goodnight and turned around to see two of her roommates staring at her.
"Oh, and If you guys wanted to listen, you could’ve just asked"
Jade and Diane were in shock. How did she know?
"How did you..."
Zaria giggled and pointed at Diane’s head.
Jade suddenly noticed that Diane’s furry ears were still on her head.
Zaria could only laugh while Diane and Jade facepald at Diane’s ignorance.
**************
Zen returned back to his dorm around a little before ten o’clock and had gotten in bed. He had completed his quests and gotten five exp. Unfortunately he needed five hundred to level up again.
It was only now that Zen realized the detrintal effects of not completing the daily quests. If he missed even one day then he’d have to start again from zero, and if he didn’t have any, his stats would be cut in half for the day.
Realizing that if he relied on the daily quests it would take far too long, Zen decided to focus all his attention on the one thing that could solve this problem, this of course was Clyde.
On another note, Zen had gone to the previous place he had found Gary and Celia in his soul form, and although he had found them,he hadn’t found anything useful ,in fact he had seen much more than he wished to see.
The one thing that caught his attention though,was the absence of the lake from a few days. It wasn’t that it had dried up,it was simply gone, like it was never there in the first place.
Zen was finally beginning to understand that although the quest description was vague,it was definitely on point. Sothing was definitely off about those two, especially Celia
Na: Celia Ford ]
[Species: Human]
[HP: 150/150]
[Str: ??? ]
[Agi: ??? ]
[End:??? ]
[State: Healthy,ecstasy, euphoria, scheming]
[Profile: on the surface,a talented and brilliant progeny of a powerful family. She is a first year student of sentinel academy]
Zen was beginning to get frustrated with the skill. He couldn’t even tell what ability she had which normally wouldn’t have been a problem.
"That reminds "
[Stat points: 5]
[Skill points: 5]
Zen debeted for a while but decided to leave them for now. He didn’t exactly have a good use for the stat points now, and as for skill points, he didn’t have a reason, he just wanted to go to bed. It seed the incident today had weakened him more than he thought.
He had already covered himself when Black suddenly ca off his wrist.
Surprised,he made sure there were no eyes on him before asking
"What’s wrong?"
"What do you an?"
Black decided to show Zen what it ant as it suddenly entered his body
Zen stayed silent for a while before sighing and deciding to go to sleep. Black could have taken the chance to kill him and possess him this morning but it had saved him instead, for that, Zen felt like he could at least allow this as a thank you. Plus, the system would warn him if Black tried anything .
"Good night" Zen said before going to bed.
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