1 Strange beginnings

My name is Alexander I've recently discovered that I have superpowers, strange I know but it's all true. I've discovered that there's, a secret society, in which exist people with all kinds of ability's, they called themselves martial artist. In this world, they fight, form factions and kill one another, a semi lawless world in which the strong eat the weak. But it all strangely started when I went to my local book store, a bookstore of all places, it's not as though I read a lot or have any particular interest in books. But I found myself riding my skateboard through the streets of my neighborhood. I'm normally not the type to go outside, but today my mom's nagging became too much to bear. She's always on about me getting a job, getting into a great college. On and on never-ending.

Today however I just remember the store catching my eye, I normally just skate past it never thinking much of it. The reason why was simply because I've never been into books and the type of people that go in and out of there have been strange in recent years. Like this one time, this lady who looked like a strand of her hair would sell for one million dollars, walked in there and came out with just about fifty books, I only remember her because she had an enormous golden yellow aura, giving off a pleasant feeling, similar to the warmth of the sun. It had to have been the weirdest thing I've ever seen In this little town I'm not used to feeling much energy let alone such an enormous amount and all coming from one person! Let's just say I was both excited and scared, or this other time when three all-black cars pulled up, the ones you see in the movies, protecting some billionaire

A guy with bright pink hair and golden fingernails got out of the middle car… his aura could only be described as monstrous… Let's just say this store has had its fair share of rumors about it. None of which have ever really piqued my interest.

Until today that is, I've always had a strange sixth sense. I could sense danger and always seemed to find something interesting if I followed this sixth sense of mine. It's something that made me an outcast when I was younger, no one understood me. I'd tell them that I could see a strange form of aura and could find objects that also possessed this aura, but no one would take me seriously. My parents instead decided to put me on meds, the meds didn't help and really only made me tired, and slow in the head. The whole process was saddening, the more broken I became the happier they became, truly believing that they were fixing me. So I just decided not to talk about it, pretend that I was cured, So, whenever I started getting the same feeling I normally just ignore it out of fear of being deemed strange and placed back on the meds, but this time around I decided to follow this strange feeling. It felt like it was calling to me, wanting to be discovered by me. "But seriously why did it have to appear in such a strange place," I thought

The reason this store is pretty weird is, because it kind of just showed up one day, from what I heard my mom and dad talking about, the people of Longshore had no clue exactly when the book store showed up, but honestly they really didn't care much and had no desire to find out.

I decided to skate past it ignoring my sixth sense for now simply because of how packed the whole place was. Though the townspeople were weirded out by the suddenness of the store's appearance, they still loved reading and it is the only book store in town, and also sold magazines from famous publishers, helping the townsfolk stay up to date, on the latest fashion and celebrity news.

Instead of the bookstore I decided to skate around town, the town was kind of old, we had some really nice clothing stores and coffee shops but the town was mostly old with surfer shops and small shops littered all over the place. each one would be deemed a niche if placed in a big city, the locals here didn't have much to worry about, no one was "poor" but no one was "rich" either. Longshore was a hilly area, you're either going uphill or down, not that I particularly disliked that aspect of longshore, it made this place unique.

Today I had my backpack with me, inside was all my drawing/painting utensils, drawing was something I did since I was a kid. It has to be my only talent, while other kids were drawing stick figures, I was drawing full portraits of family and friends. Let's just say that I'm pretty good at drawing, however recently I branched out into paintings and even some sculpting. I decided to look around for anything interesting to draw, after about three hours of skating around I decided to simply draw a tree that had a strange slant to it, the slant gave the tree a wave-like motion to it. I took a few mental photographs of it and began drawing, I'd start with capturing the slant, making it seem natural and fit with the ocean in the background. The leaves of the tree swayed from side to side, ever so slowly. The way they fell gave life to each individual leaf-like the tree was saying goodbye to each fallen comrade. I put all my effort into drawing the tree and attempted to give the fallen leaves some life. But when I looked at the time it had already been for about two hours, it's just about 5:30 pm now.

"The bookstore!" I gasped, quickly putting all my stuff away, realizing that the book store closes at 6, I rushed back and ran all the way up the hill, I'm not a very athletic person so the whole process of running uphill was harsh, you know the feeling when you haven't run in a long time so when you suddenly try running, it's like your joints are stiff and can't handle the sudden change. Well that was what I just went through.

When I got to the bookstore it was 5:50, but the open sign was still there. So, I quickly rushed in and tried to hurry towards that strange feeling, with my feet on the steps leading upstairs. My headshot over to the counter, just now realizing who was standing there.

"Sherley!" I shouted, startled by her mere presence "what are you doing here?" She said in a cold voice. Well, cold wasn't the exact word for it, Sherley always had a somewhat quiet sweet-sounding voice but since I've known for a while I can tell when she's being intentional unfriendly. "I'm just here to check out a book, I didn't know you'd be here," I said walking towards her intending to have this awkward conversation. Shirley was a strange person, at least according to me.

All my life I've attempted to blend in with the background, never being seen or heard from, my plan worked all the way through elementary, middle and high school. That is until I met Shirley, we had a group project together and I forgot my Half Of the work, I remember telling her that I left it at home, I even offered to go home and get it but she wasn't having it. Instead, she called me a "leech", and a "no good" "I knew you'd do this. So, I did the whole project myself. You no good, leech!" a young Sherley yelled in front of the whole class, I remember just standing there like an idiot. Geez just remembering it gives me a headache.

Since that day Shirley has been the only person other than my family to really notice me. We awkwardly saw and talked to each other in the halls and we found ourselves drawn to each other whenever there was no one we knew in any particular situation.

"My father recently got me a job here," she said while looking me up and down. she then added "Some of us choose to work over the summer and not just play around" getting into heated arguments with people was not my thing, I decided to simply ignore her obvious taunts. "I know that it's late and that you're about to close shop but there were a lot of people here earlier, so I decided not to come in… But for the last five minutes could I check out a book?" I said trying to express how serious and sorry I was, for possibly extending here stay here. "You read?... sorry sure, go ahead, don't stay long though. I really want to get home before it gets dark" I hurried up the stairs towards the strange feeling intensified, my heart began to race, I've always gotten these strange feelings but never one this strong before.

There they were the sources of this feeling, they were books laid on top of each other on a bookshelf, each one had to be about 2000 pages long, maybe even longer. I quickly picked them up and looked at the cover of each one of them. [Beginners guide to core creation] and [alchemy for idiots] "what the hell!" I thought to give off a loud suppressed laugh, "what are you doing up there? Hurry up I'm ready to leave" "alright," I said still finding the situation to be funny. When I showed the books to Shirley, she gave me a weird look, asking "what does an idiot, like you want with these?" "Nothing really, just changing up my book genre" I chose to ignore her insults, honestly calling me an idiot was simply inaccurate, I got by with mostly b's and c's and I put in zero effort. In my mind, that's a great trade-off. She finished ringing me up and asked "are you buying or renting" "buying," I said still finding the genre of books that I was drawn to, to be kind of funny. It only cost me 10 dollars to buy both books, Shirley said it's a first buyer discount. She darted out of there the moment I finish paying.

The skate home was calming the cold breeze gave me a sense of freedom and with the books in my backpack still giving off that strange feeling, I felt like I accomplished something great today. When I got home, I took the drawing out of my bag and threw it onto the table, my family loved seeing my drawings and we'll I loved showing them, it probably made them happy to know that I had some talent. I didn't stay and chat, just said my hellos then, took a shower.

My showers aren't normally very long but today I felt strangely happy, after that whole thing with the doctor and being put on meds deemed crazy by family and friends, I've avoided the strange aura and feeling that accompanied it. But today I chased after that feeling and for some odd reason, I feel ecstatic, like I've made some grand discovery. My shower was now bordering on 55 mins and I heard loud knocks on the bathroom door, it was my mother yelling at me to get out before I used up all the hot water. I quickly got out and started my skincare routine,

I recently got rid of all my acne and never wanted to go through that phase again, so I made a promise to myself to always take great care of my skin. Which involved eating healthy and using proper skincare products. Seriously if only I realized this during high school or at any point in my life. In all seriousness, if someone from my high school saw me now, they wouldn't be able to recognize me. No longer sporting large pimples on my face, and acne scars.

With my everything was done I went to my room and picked up the [alchemy for idiots] deeming it to be the most interesting of the two. If I had to summarize what the first 100 pages of the book went over it'd be, simply described as motivation. Starting out with "Who did you promise that you'd be ordinary?" It was clear that the author truly wanted to get through to the reader, that even if you fail, you should only fail because you've given it your all and can't give any more. Not because society or what he called the Murim deemed it impossible for you to succeed.

He later gave his summarized definition of what alchemy was "Alchemy the seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination of different worldly and otherworldly (energies) qi". Later going on to talk about how alchemy was about taking the (energies) qi as he called it of different plants, animals, objects and people. Then merge them together in a furnace, concocting them into pills that gave certain benefits to those who ate them.

Reading it was really something else, this guy or girl was a great fantasy writer. But strangely after that initial introduction, all the other pages only contained descriptions of where to find ingredients and how to concoct recipes, each one containing more steps than the one before, most pertaining to the improvement of qi. No description of qi was given but I assume it's because the author thought whoever read this was assumed to have prior knowledge of the subject.

The time was just about 9:10 pm and my mom walked into my room. "Do you know how to knock, I could have been naked?" I said jokingly, and somewhat annoyed. "I've gotten you a job," my mother said, in a stern motherly voice. "Doing what?" I asked surprised by the suddenness of all this. "You'll be working in the "halfway" gas station, there will be no discussion on this matter. I've talked to your father and he agrees. You start in a week." "NO!" I shouted just as my mother shut the door.

Everyone knew Thomas Gleeway was the owner of the halfway gas station, I honestly don't know much about the guy other than he's my oldest sister's husband and that he hit her a few years back. Since then I've hated the guy with all my heart, but everyone makes me out to be the bad guy for never forgiving him. Even my sister won't talk to me anymore, fuck just thinking about her and how power-obsessed this family is, pissed me off. I flung the covers over my head and decided to get some sleep.