Re-Test Pt. 1

"I have the power to manipulate time." Thaleus's words dropped like a bomb on his table.

Derek who had been crunching on an apple had a piece fall out as his jaw practically hit the table. Shock clearly shone in the faces of Alice and Kip.

"You can't be serious?!" They all exclaimed simultaneously.

"Like a heart attack, you know why I've been holding this information back now."

"If anyone finds out about this they'll either kill you on the spot or recruit you" Alice said.

"I can't take that risk with adults until I'm strong enough to defend myself. That's why I'm constantly working out working on my ki, or going to the arcade. Until we go on beast hunts I don't have any way of growing quickly."

"I guess you're lucky that in a couple weeks we go on our first expedition then" Kip said.

"Hey we should all retest today now that it's been a couple weeks, I know all of our growth has skyrocketed due to our training." Derek suddenly pitched in.

"That's a great idea, but for now let's head to class." Alice said. "Also Thaleus?"

"Yeah?"

"You should open your gift after classes today so you don't get too carried away with it."

"Oh, must be something good then." He put the parcel back in his pocket.

"Alright guys" Kip stood up first. "Let's get to class."

The four friends sat and day dreamed about retesting their strength as classes started throughout the day. Thaleus knew that he would probably have the largest growth, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure because of Kips recently acquired ability which he had no doubt been practicing with in the arena even before the tournament. The cool thing about abilities is that they automatically gave you about 1.5x the power, speed, and defense you had before it. So by default if you strengthened your body way before you received an ability you would be far stronger than those who received an ability at an early age and didn't think to hone their body. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard so the saying goes.

These were the thoughts on Thaleus's mind as he floated through his classes today. That and the small parcel that kept bumping around in his right pant pocket. Eager to open up his gift Thaleus had to keep his thoughts elsewhere until they could meet up to retest. *Ding* *Special Quest* *Retest with and average of 300 in all three areas.* *Rewards: Secret

"Oh shit, looks like I'm gonna have to use my abilities to push this one through." Seeing this new quest Thaleus was even more excited to get to the end of his classes so that he could see what his reward for pushing his limits would be.

"Finally!" Thaleus shouted in his mind. his final class had ended and he raced out the door on his way to the testing zone. If he could warp his way there without causing suspicion he would but he wasn't sure his stamina would hold out long enough to get there. He also needed to use his stamina during the test to receive better scores.

After running full speed for about 5 minutes Thaleus finally reached the retesting zone. This had been almost an hour walk originally when his class had came in on their first day which means running wouldve taken them around 15-18 minutes. Seeing this progress Thaleus knew that he had grown in his two and a half weeks in the academy. He also knew that he had a long way to go to reach the top students in the school let alone the point where his teachers were at.

Thaleus sat down on a bench to the side of the strength test and waited for his friends. While he waited he pulled the parcel out to look at it. It was only a box about half the size of his palm and it was fairly flat so he really had no idea what might be inside of it. However he refused to shake it for fear of breaking whatever it might be.

As he sat there inspecting the parcel he didn't notice his friends show up behind him despite the fact that Derek was talking in his usual obnoxiously loud voice.

"Bro and then he flipped him over his back and karate chopped him in the throat. It was awesome" Derek was talking about one of the films from the old world that was salvaged. "Hey, bro good to see you beat us here instead of walking with us." Derek said sarcastically.

"Oh sorry guys I was just excited to get here because my ability gave me a quest and I wanted to get here as fast as possible." Thaleus rubbed his hair sheepishly.

"Just for that you're going last" Derek smirked evilly.

"Aw come on man no fair." He whined back.

"Hey I don't make the rules man."

"Wait, then who does?" Kip asked hiding a smile.

The four friends laughed at Derek's shenanigans.

"Anyways, open your give man we've been waiting all day to see your reaction." Alice piped up.

"Oh, right let's see what it is" Thaleus carefully unwrapped the parcel and what remained in his hands was a small box that read BluLenz. He stared at it curiously for a minute before looking up "Um, guys excuse my ignorance but what is this?"

"That's right we forgot you're not too tech savvy are you." Derek sighed. "That my friend is the best communication one can get nowadays. It's like the old school cellphones but it goes over your eye and there's no hands needed. It goes over your retina and because of that all your phone calls and messages can be heard in your mind. Such powerful technology was introduced to us from Ragnor tech."

Thaleus opened the box while listening to Derek speaking, he gently pulled what looked like a contact lens out of the box and stared at it curiously. "I'm gonna try putting it in."

He used one hand to hold his eye open and the other hand to gently place the lens over his eye.

[Syncing in 3... 2.. 1...]

[Initializing Biometric Scan]

[User Identitified]

[Welcome Thaleus Cramo to BluLenz]

[You have three contact requests]

Thaleus promptly accepted the requests from his friends. "Yo this shit is awesome, I'm assuming I can go on the web on here as well" he asked.

"That's correct it will bring up a screen in your mind and you can browse or even shop for online products from there." Derek replied.

"This is awesome guys, thank you so much" excitement shone in Thaleus's eyes as he was clearly navigating the BluLenz systems.

"Alright now that that's out of the way let's get on to seeing how much stronger we've gotten" Derek grinned as he flexed his muscles.

A.N. So each full layer of ki upgrades a person's full stats by 10% this doesn't show up as its considered a buff of their base stats. (I'm saying stats because Thaleus can see everyone's base strength, agility stamina etc.) The only thing it doesn't help is mana because mana has nothing to do with the physical body but a person's abilities instead.

"Hey, Kip let's have you go first since you recently received your ability." Alice spoke up this time.

"Whew, alright" Kip released a deep breath as he walked up to the gong. He took up a martial arts stance that he learned in class as he coated his body with his full three layers of ki. He then took a deep breath and condensed as much of his ki into his right hand before smashing the gong. 40... 60... 80... 100... the numbers climbed finally stopping at 178. "Damn man you've gotten a lot stronger." Derek whistled. Thaleus clapped " Good shit bro that's the progress we've been hounding after."

"Nice power Kip" Alice exclaimed as Kip took a step back beaming proudly at the number on the screen.

Derek was next in line and he stepped forwards confidently. He had successfully reached tier 4 in his wind ability along with 3.5 layers of ki. He created a wind tunnel around his fist and had it turn inward creating a suckinf force into his hand but a powerful propellant to have his fist hit harder. "Twin Funnel" he smashed his hand against the gong.