9 Premature Awakening

Dark slowly opened his eyes as he began to wake up. "Why can't I see clearly?" He felt something warm holding his hand. This hand was her sister's. Immense pain suddenly pierced his mind as he recollected the dream he had. "What was that all about? What did he mean by second great calamity?"

He was watching his little sister's sleeping face when she started to wake up.

"Brother! You are awake!" She hugged her brother as tears fell from her eyes.

"I'm fine." He patted her back. "Where am I though? Is this the hospital? Why am I here?" He asked the Lilia.

Lilia began to tell him the events that happened. About the accident with the capsule and about his grave injuries. Dark learned that the reason behind his blurred vision.

"I'll go call the doctor." Lilia left the room to head to the nurse's office.

Dark rubbed his eyes. He tried to focus his eyesight until it slowly became clearer. However, the more he focuses the more painful he feels. Beads of sweat covered him as he was panting out of breath. The doctor arrived and stopped him from focusing his eyes. He advised him to rest for now and they will perform some tests later to check what happened. According to the exceed healer his eyes should have been completely healed.

After eating a meal, Dark decided to go back to sleep to recuperate his body. Lilia was by his side taking care of her dearest brother.

A week has passed since Dark woke up from the accident. His friends, Sera and Tomo visited him during the week. The doctors and medical exceeds performed laboratory tests but couldn't find the problem. They came into conclusion that it may have been a psychological problem. Dark was now permitted to go home.

Lilia was excited that they could finally go home. She cleaned her brother's room. Then she cooked a meal while Dark was resting. After cooking, she went to her brother's room to wake him up.

"Time to eat, brother." She knocked at the door.

When Dark opened his eyes, he was confused. His vision was clearer than ever! But the surprising thing is that there were numbers and words floating around. He was unable to adapt to his new vision. He got a headache from these characters flying around.

"Brother are you awake?" Lilia knocked at the door again. But hearing no response she opened the door. She saw her brother holding his face with one hand while the other was tightly gripping his bedsheet. She immediately rushed and asked, "Is there something wrong? Please tell me."

Dark finally began to calm down. Lilia got a towel and wiped the sweat off her brother's head. There she saw a weird change.

"What happened to your eyes?"

"My eyes?" Dark looked for his phone and opened it to mirror mode.

"What is the meaning of this? Why did my eyes become blue?" he thought to himself.

"Are you okay brother? Should we go to the doctor?"

"I'm fine Lilia. I'm fine."

"Just stay here and I'll bring your food here." His little sister offered but he declined.

"Let's eat together downstairs." He got up of the bed and went down to the dining room.

[Lilia Crafts Level 01]

Dark saw these words floating at the top of his sister. Was this his gift? He thought but he doubted since he has yet to reach eighteen. He looked at the food that he was eating.

[Scrambled Eggs – Normal Quality]

He looked at the other things.

[Ordinary Spoon – Normal Class]

[Ordinary Fork – Normal Class]

[HD Anima Television – Normal Class]

Seeing that her brother was just staring at the utensils she asked, "Is the meal really that bad brother?" She doubted her cooking skills.

"No, no. Brother is just thinking about something."

After they finished the meal, Dark washed the dishes while Lilia cleaned the table. Dark went back to his room and opened his computer. He surfed the internet if there were events related to exceeds awakening their gifts before turning eighteen. After hours of searching he never got a single clue. Dark gave up on the search and he went to bed. This day was really taxing for him. Fortunately, he was adapting to his new eyes. It hurts less as time goes by.

Dark decided to go to school the following week. He spent his time training his body. But he realized that his training was not enough. He decided to visit an online black market. He got this site from one of his father's data since he often sells a weapon or two.

[Hell's Trading Club]

Dark then searched for weapon arts. It was easy for him since there was an advance search option in the webpage. He sorted the arts by price since the higher the quality of the item the more expensive it is.

The webpage only gives a brief description of the item and its corresponding price. It also shows a teaser of the skills included. Dark started to skim these arts.

[Poor man's knife – Normal Class]

[Earthen Axe Arts – Normal Class]

[Lightning Spear Tactics" – Normal Class]

It took Dark to skim for a while. Thankfully, he had this new gift to help him find good arts to buy. He noticed that items were mostly had a Poor Class or a Normal Class attached to their names. As he scrolled down the remaining items he noticed three items that have a different class. Rare Class!

[Symphony the Twin Blades – Rare Class]

[Locke's Knife Arts – Rare Class]

[Lazy Arts – Rare Class]

The prices were around 10 million cp each but Dark didn't hesitate to order them. His platinum card still has a lot inside. After ordering the goods, Dark decided to explore the website. There he discovered that the weapons his dad was making sold for billions of cp each. He was amazed. It made him realized why his father stayed in an isolated island. He also ordered an Exceed Fighting Simulation Capsule which can be used for having battle simulations while placing the user in a deep sleep. He forgot to order some cheap weapons for him to practice so he got them. He also bought contact lens to hide the change of his eyes and ordered some gear for his sister before going to bed.

The package except for the capsule arrived immediately the next morning. Having his identity hidden is one of the perks of doing business with the black market since they have the option to disclose information or not. The first thing he did was wearing his contacts. Then he opened the package of the weapons one by one.

[Combat Knife – Normal Class]

[Short Steel Sword – Normal Class]

[Short Steel Saber – Normal Class]

[Basic Exceed Gear – Normal Class]

Then he opened the package for the manuals. The manuals were like the computers. They were small and all it takes is a single press for it to work. He then started to watch his new manuals.

The first one he watched was the Lazy Arts. It was Breathing technique that allows the user to freely allocate his energy to different parts of the body. It was called lazy arts since all you need to do to master this was to meditate and not move at all.

It was best used when recovering from an injury or sickness. However, Dark thought that it is beneficial since it strengthens the body and helps budgets the energy well. It could be used during fighting and not only recuperating. If one can freely adjust his energy, then he can have the best output while spending the least consumption needed.

Dark saw numbers floating while the person was demonstrating the breathing technique. These numbers represented the energy allocated at each part of the body. At the beginning the energy was allocated randomly, but after performing the technique the energy suddenly stabilized. There was also a moment where the fist had 90% of the energy while the remaining 10% were distributed to evenly to the other body parts.

The second that he watched was Locke's Knife Arts. The manual specialized more in ambush and less in frontal attacks. The man in the video held the knife in reverse grip while his was pushed away from his body to prevent the enemy to get near to him. The man then dashed to his target while making no sound. The target swayed his sword towards him. But the man vanished. He appeared behind his victim and cut his throat. Dark then viewed this video in slow motion. The man dodged the sword by ducking then he rotated his body to maintain his momentum then he dashed behind the target and cut his throat.

"This is amazing." Dark was not only talking about the arts but also his gift. He was able to read statistics like the speed of man running and the force applied to the dagger to slit the throat of the victim.

The last one was the Symphony of the twin blades. The video was showing a woman performing a blade dance inside the forest. In her hands were a sword and a saber. Each of her movements were swift and graceful. Each time she slashed her blade she immediately followed it up with the fast movement with her other sword. Leaves that were falling from the trees where immediately cut or slashed by her fearsome movements.

Dark was awed when seeing the numbers displayed. Each of her actions showed high power output while making the least required movements. He then decided to practice the Lazy Arts first since he needed to learn how to control the energy of his own body.

He sat on his bed and started his new training.