[Good morning host]
"Morning, Zen. Feeling good?" Freya asked.
"Yeah". Zen answered absentmindedly as he slowly tapped his watch screen, getting no reply.
"I’m sure Black’s okay. He probably just needs a rest after yesterday night"
Zen slowly nodded. He wasn’t really worried, it was just a bit strange to wake up without it.
"I didn’t realize the weakness to heat was so severe" Zen thought.
"Oh right. The quest rewards"
Zen quickly opened his system screen to check last night’s reward and was a bit surprised by what he saw.
Quest completed]
[Calculating Exp gain]
[Current level (9)]
[Congratulations on obtaining new knowledge on an important skill in your arsenal. The system encourages you to keep experinting and learning. Good luck,host]
[Reward: Soul link lvl 1]
[Hidden quest completed]
[Master marionette]
[The strategist, the puppeteer, the gamaster.You are the one who hides in the shadows and controls all . The will, and emotions of mortals is yours to play with. Life is all but a ga, and you are the gamaster.
[Reward(1): 1 Seed of desire(darkness)]
[Reward(2): 1 evolution requirent]
"That’s.... interesting".
Zen wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was now completely lost when it ca to the system.
What was a seed of desire? And did the second reward an he had t an evolution requirent? The system never specified on anything, like it wanted him to figure it out himself.
Zen looked at his level and exp.
"So close" He thought.
If only Zaria hadn’t shown up.
No use wishing though.
Zen quickly got out of bed and went through his normal daily routine.
He suddenly heard a knock on the door.
He could already guess who it was, and opened the door to let Zaria in.
"Are you okay?" She asked directly.
Zen shrugged and looked like he didn’t understand what she ant.
Zaria sighed, feeling a little impatient.
"What happened yesterday.... what are we..."
"Nothing. They would have found his body a while ago, and there’s nothing tying us to the scene"
"I know that.... but doesn’t it bother you?"
Zen shrugged
"No"
"Care to elaborate?"
"I’m not happy because I didn’t kill him because i hated him, neither am i sad that he’s dead because I liked him. His life or death is aningless to ".
"So he just wasn’t important enough for you to notice. Like he was simply an ant, right?. Zaria said slightly disappointed.
"Yes and no. His death ant nothing to , therefore it might as well have never have happened. Clyde might as well have never existed "
Zaria was confused. Zen might as well have just said he was delusional.
"So your whole reality is an illusion?"
Zen shrugged once more.
"Reality itself is an illusion, even yours. At least mine keeps safe".
Zaria giggled. Although she didn’t know what he ant, she knew he was being serious.
"I didn’t take you for a philosopher"
"Because I’m not"
"Forget that. How’s the little guy doing?"
Zaria stretched out her arm, waiting for Black to jump in, but after a few seconds, her brows furrowed as she realized sothing was wrong.
"Black?"
"Don’t bother. It hasn’t reacted all day"
Zaria suddenly grabbed Zen’s wrist and started examining the watch. She constantly tapped on it but annoyingly, nothing happened.
"What happened?" She asked,her hands already shaking.
"I don’t know. Maybe he just needs so rest"
"You don’t think he’s...."
Although Zaria didn’t finish the question, Zen knew what she wanted to ask.
"Hibernating? I don’t think so"
According to all the information Zen had on Black, the last ti it had been conscious was hundreds of years ago. If it went back to sleep now, Zen wasn’t sure if it would ever wake again.
The door suddenly opened as Xavier walked in.
"Yo! Zen! Are you ready to....whoooaaaa"
Xavier suddenly stopped in his tracks as he saw what looked to him like Zen and Zaria holding hands.
Xavier grinned, misunderstanding what was going on.
"Whoa. I didn’t think you two were -"
"Shut up"
He was suddenly shut down by Zen and Zaria at the sa ti.
Neither of them had the ti or patience for his antics today.
Zaria released Zen’s arm and walked out of the room, making sure to give him one last glance before leaving.
"What was that all about?"
"Nothing important"
"Good then, let’s go. The others are waiting for us. You promised we’d all hang out today"
"You an you promised"
Xavier chuckled and put his arm around Zen’s shoulder.
"Semantics. Co on, let’s go"
Xavier and Zen left the room to et the rest of their mates outside the school. Halfway there, they suddenly received a notification on their watches, and looking around,it seed every other student got the sa thing.
Appearantly the students were being summoned by the school to do a "routine inspection"
Zen obviously knew that this was a farce and was probably sothing to do with the dead body of Clyde they found.
"What the hell? Ugh! What is it this ti?"
Xavier yelled, quite upset that their plans had been ruined.
The location that the students had been summoned to was promptly displayed on there locators, with a tir showing how much ti they had to get there before they were punished for disobeying orders.
Despite all his complaining, Xavier still dragged his feet after Zen who was heading for the location. Maximilian and Neo would also have gotten the ssage so there was no need to find them.
A few seconds later, they found themselves at the back of a relatively short line to enter a room. Luckily there was more than one or they’d be here all day.
The line itself wasn’t very long, and after a few seconds, Xavier went in, and then Zen.
Zen walked into the office and found it was filled with so high level officials in the school, and coincidentally Aurora as well.
"Please take a seat"
One of them said.
Zen took his seat, examining the room calmly before looking back at the people.
"Hello there kid. I’m General Tim, and there’s no need to be nervous, we’re just here to ask you so questions.
The general paused to see if he’d get any reaction from Zen, but after a few seconds of awkward silence, he finally spoke.
"Put your hands on the orb in front of you "
Zen obeyed without saying anything.
"Oh and take off the gloves "
Zen thought for a few seconds but did it anyway.
"You’re gonna regret that" Aurora said but was ignored.
"Now. Did you hold any malice towards the student known as Clyde Lincoln "
"I..."
Before Zen could say anything else, the glowing crystal orb suddenly stopped glowing, and began to crack and creak before suddenly shattering into dust.
"Told ya" Aurora remarked, smirking slightly.
All the other officials including the generals looked on with fascination in their eyes. Their gazes suddenly fell on Zen who according to their information didn’t have an ability. They looked at Zen like he was so kind of lab rat, staring him down with not so friendly eyes.
"Bizzare" General Tim remarked.
He quickly regained his composure and spoke.
"Impressive. Looks like we need to bother one of our staff"
The general quickly made a phone call, requesting for soone’s presence, and within a few minutes,the person had arrived.
Zen quickly recognized the woman in the nurses uniform. He didn’t know her na, but had seen her multiple tis in Elaine’s office.
"Here i am, General" The nurse politely spoke.
"Thank you for coming,this is him" General Tim pointed to Zen.
The nurse nodded before walking over to Zen .
"Don’t worry, just relax,you won’t even feel it" The woman said before putting one hand on Zen’s chest and the other on his wrist.
"Whoa kid, you must work out a lot"
With a fascinated look on her face, the nurse slowly tapped on Zen’s chest, before slowly tapping with her knuckles like knocking on a door.
"Solid!"
"Ehem" General Tim raised a brow at the nurse.
"Sorry. Let’s get started"
The general sighed before asking again
"Did you hold any malice towards the student known as Clyde Lincoln"
"No" Zen replied imdiately, and the nurse nodded, signifying that it was true.
"See? He’s innocent " Aurora spoke up.
The general ignored her and continued.
"Did you know that Clyde Lincoln died?"
"I expected it"
"Why?"
"Because even if he wasn’t murdered,he would have committed suicide"
The general smiled. He never ntioned whether or not Clyde was murdered. He had successfully trapped the kid.
"There’s an autopsy report on your table"
The general suddenly froze as he was about to speak and looked at the table slowly, realizing that the kid was right. He had forgotten to hide the report, mostly because he had interrogated over a dozen students and none of them noticed, probably due to nervousness.
"The first to five lines describe how you found the body, while also deducing that murder was the most probable cause of death"
Aurora suddenly smiled and even burst out laughing for a few seconds, looking at the frozen expression on the generals face.
"He definitely set you up for that one"
General Tim coughed twice, ignoring the looks of his associates and returned to questioning him.
"Nevermind. Do you know anything about the murder of Clyde Lincoln or are in anyway related to it"
"Yes"
Everyone in the room was caught off guard by his answer.
"What do you an by yes?"
Zen simply turned on his watch and played the recording of Clyde’s roommates abusing and torturing him in the alleyway, not just with audio, but video as well.
"This is..."
"I’m not done"
Zen switched to another video
«You should just die bitch»
And another
«you dare resist?»
And another
«Low level waste of space»
And another
«Useless cu....»
"THAT’S ENOUGH!"
All the officials in the room were looking at Zen with strange looks, anwhile Aurora was struggling to keep a straight face like her life depended on it.
"Why do you have this?" The general asked
"Like i said before, I expected this, even planned for it"
The general looked towards the nurse for confirmation and was t with a nod.
"Alright, final question. Did you kill Clyde Lincoln"
Everyone in the room looked at the general strangely, but he ignored all the stares. Sothing just didn’t feel right to him.
"No" Zen replied.
This ti, the nurse waited for a few seconds before nodding approvingly.
"Good,then. You can leave"
Zen stood up and headed for the door, but seed to rember sothing as he ca back.
Zen pulled out a small mory card from his pocket and put it on the table in front of the general.
"You might want to interrogate those roommates of Clyde’s. This is everything i have on them"
With that, Zen left the room, leaving the officials shocked, interested, and more than a little impressed.
General Tim slowly picked up the mory card.
"Hmmm. Might not be a bad idea"
Looking at the door, Zen left through,he couldn’t help thinking.
"If only he wasn’t cursed with such a terrible mutation. He could be one of the best"
"He definitely didn’t grow up in a happy ho" Said one of the officials.
"Matt" The general reprimanded
"What? Were all thinking it. I an, why else would he not have a last na?"
The general could only sigh
"Oh, yeah. He’s one of your kids, isn’t he, Aurora? Good for him. If anyone knows anything about negative mutatios it should be you" Matt said.
"What can you tell us about him?"
Aurora thought for a while before answering.
"He’s smart,skilled.....and really confused"
"He’s a monster is what he is. Everyone here felt the aura coming off the kid. If he didn’t have such an unfortunate mutation, he’d be in one of our seats by graduation"
Tim ignored his associates and looked at the autopsy report on his table and was confused by the last line.
"Who would want his watch so bad, they’d peel it off his skin?"
***********
As soon as Zen stepped out of the room, he suddenly heard soone behind him.
"In centuries, only a handful of players had been captured alive. Unfortunately, humanity suddenly realized that things like lie detectors and torture devices had no effect on them. You couldn’t even get their full na if you tried "
Zen didn’t look back and replied
"So?"
Zaria suddenly walked in front of him.
"What do you an,so? That’s cheating"
Zen rolled his eyes and started walking away.
"Wait hold up"
She ran after him.
"I want you to teach ?"
"No you don’t"
****************
"Look who decided to show up"
Maximilian said, looking at Xavier, Zen and Zaria. Behind him was everyone else in casual clothing.
"The guy asking questions was a total asshole " Xavier yelled looking aggrieved.
"Really? Cuz they didn’t even ask anything. I just sat down in the room for a few minutes before leaving " Zaria explained.
The rest of Zaria’s dorm were there too, including Sable who seed to have gotten close to them. They were all just going to hang out today, luckily it was still early
As soon as she saw, Zen,Jade ran out to et him.
"Hey,Z. How are you?"
Zen nodded approvingly. Jade was still wearing the gloves, but she seed to have added her own style to it as she painted pretty green flowers on them. When Zen asked why, she said it had a strong grip that helped her shoot arrows,plus, they were comfortable.
"Alright enough talking. First thing on the agenda, movies"
Xavier stood at Zen’s right and put his arms around him, while Jade grabbed Zen’s left arm, the two most energetic mbers of the group yanking him with them while the others followed behind.
****************
"Z, where are you going? The movie’s almost over"
"Bathroom" Zen explained before leaving.
A few minutes later, Zen was washing his hands in the bathroom when he suddenly noticed sothing in the mirror.
A girl with pale white skin and looked to be between five and ten years old. She had delicate soft skin, like she had been pampered all her life, she was in a pure white dress that stopped below her knees and a little bit short of reaching her toes, allowing her delicate bare feet to be visible as she floated a few inches of the ground,her ssy, light brown hair seed to flow even in the absence of any wind. Her eyes were completely pure white,without any pupils or irises. As if happy that Zen had noticed her, she smiled, but it wasn’t the kind of smile you’d see and think was cute. Her mouth opened horrendously as her dagger like fangs portruded out of her face. She looked like sothing straight out of a nightmare, or the demon realm itself.
Slowly, Zen turned around and flinched backwards when he saw her.
"What do you want?"
Zen asked but only got a bigger smile.
Zen had absolutely no thoughts of fighting as he dashed out the bathroom door and started running as fast as he could.
The girl looked at him running and shook her head,a sound resembling a sigh coming out of her mouth.
************
Zen suddenly stopped running and looked at the girl floating in front of him. Without wasting another second, Zen turned the other way and kept running, except this ti
[Stat points: 35]
[Distributing stat points]
[Calculating new stats]
[Agility: 53]
Zen’s speed suddenly skyrocketed as his speed almost doubled.
Wait a minute? Almost doubled? That shouldn’t be right?
Unfortunately,Zen was far too busy running to realize that perhaps the way the system calculated stats wasn’t as simple as it seed.
The sa thing as the first ti happened over and over again for a few minutes before, Zen suddenly found himself cornered.
"Stop. Don’t..."
A staff suddenly appeared in the girl’s hand that was bigger than her own petite body. She suddenly extended the glowing tip to Zen and released so sort of shockwave, Knocking him back.
"Shit" Was all Zen could say as his eyes closed before he touched the ground.
*************
Zen suddenly opened his eyes and found himself in what looked like a restroom, his breathing erratic and sweat on his face.
As soon as he woke up, his breathing and heartbeat imdiately stabilized to be so calm it was almost scary.
Zen looked down at his hands that were now bare and bloody.
"Typical".
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