Arlo Cromwell

"Welcome our new student Arlo Cromwell."

The door opened and a tall young man walked in. He was tall. Taller than every trainee at the academy. He was six feet two inches tall. He had medium-length silver hair and went over barely went over his ear. His facial features were narrow and defined.

Arlo walked over to Corporal Jones and stood at attention next to her. You could see a major difference in height between the two. Jones barely reached to his shoulders.

"Make sure that you make him feel welcomed," Jones turned her head toward Arlo and said, "Cromwell there is a free seat in the back. Please be seated."

"Yes ma'am," Arlo said in a rugged tone, as much as an eighteen-year-old could sound.

After he responded to Corporal Jones he went to his seat. All the Male students could see that all the girls' eyes followed him. When their eyes couldn't move any further their heads started to turn.

After Arlo sat down Jones loudly cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. "All eyes on me. This week we focus on two things. The first thing is we will continue to work on meditation and work on growing your powers. Secondly, we will work on sparring. You all need more combat experience. Experience will determined between life and death on the battlefield. Next week we will start teaching Martial Arts. It will be up to you to develop your skills to incorporate your powers while using your saber, martial arts, or a combination of both. Everyone's powers are different. Your skills and abilities with your powers are also different. Is all of that clear?"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am," the class said in unison.

"From this point on, your sparring matches will be graded. Along with you will be fighting until there is a clear winner. The winner will be rewarded with beast gems."

The entire class's eyes widen with that statement. Beast gems were very valuable. You could sell them for money. But even better you could use them to make weapons or armor to protect yourself against beasts or on the battlefield. They were also able to be infused with powers. Beast gems were precious to everyone.

"You are dismissed to go to the training center and begin meditating. The sergeants and I will be there with guidance if needed."

All the trainees stood up and started to leave. They were all huddled at the door leaving one by one. Eric was near the back of the huddle and could overhear Corporal Jones giving instructions to Arlo.

"You will be in Platoon A room 4. All of your things and been placed in the room," Jones said.

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you," Arlo said with a head nod.

Eric noticed that something seemed odd about Arlo. He couldn't put his finger on it, something just seemed to be out of place how he interacted. It was almost like he was learning people. That thought didn't make sense to Eric.

The trainees all arrived at the training center. They all spread out to have their own space. Before Eric went into his meditative state he wanted to check out his system notifications. He had been too tired to check it out.

< Quest Reward>

< 100 EXP>

< 100/640 EXP>

< Quest Reward>

< New ability acquired>

< Night Invigoration: Passive>

With seeing he received a new ability his energy was renewed. He was excited about it. Too anxious to wait, he looked at the description of the ability. This was the only good thing that happened to him from last night's fight with Acer. He expected to have more satisfaction from the fight, but there was more to the story. The whole ordeal was vexing to his soul. Regardless he was glad that the fight wasn't piffle.

< Night Invigoration: Passive>

< The user gains one RP point every five seconds during nighttime while the light is not touching the user or in any place void of light.>

'That's a complete game changer. I wouldn't have had to be so conservative with my RP points in my fight with Eric if I had this ability then,' Eric thought.

Even though Eric was pleased with the ability, he knew he couldn't have all of his fights at night, especially on the battlefield. He needed to get stronger if he was going to be able to survive the coming war. Even fighting beasts. So far he had only fought the weakest of beasts and he almost died last time. Smith almost died the time before that.

Eric won the fight with Acer and he didn't get hurt during that fight. But the reality was that he almost used up all his RP points. If he ran out, that fight would come out with a different outcome. Increasing his stats needed to become a top priority.

His current stats were:

<Attack 13>

<Defense 10>

<Dexterity 13>

<Stamina 14>

<Radiation 17>

< HP 55>

< RP 82>

< 100/640 EXP>

'I need to level up or absorb more beast gems. I am glad that they are going to start rewarding us with beast gems. I have to make sure that I don't lose. I need to get as many as I can,' he thought.

He sat down on the floor with his legs crisscrossed and placed his hands on his knees. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After clearing his mind he could see the purple swirling energy in his center. He noticed that his energy was acting normal compared to the other day, no longer pulsing. He concluded that his energy reacted to his emotions. But only time will tell if that is the case.

Eric's concentration was broken by an announcement from Sergeant McKenny. "You four hours are up. You have twenty minutes to do what you need to do and get warmed up for sparring."

"Sir, yes sir," Everyone said in unison. Responding in unison has gotten a lot better and is now second nature to all the trainees. At first, it was rough.

Once Eric left the meditative state he noticed he had notifications from his system.

< +1 Radiation>

< +2 RP>

Seeing this brought satisfaction to him. Due to his experiences with drug addicts, he feared that sensation was making him addicted to it. It was always on his mind how he could improve.

'Could self-improvement be like a drug? No, it is bettering myself. How could bettering myself be bad? We all are to do this very thing. I just have a system,' Eric rationalized.

Things sounded like the sergeants were going to pair him up with someone, instead of letting them choose who they would spar with.

'Is it sparring if there are going to be winners determined? Is it sparring if there are rewards besides learning?' Eric asked himself, pondering this. He didn't understand what was going on.

Knowing this he needed to be prepared. He started using his scan ability on others to see their info. Besides, knowing is half the battle is something people have always said.

He observed that the majority of people were at level two or three. Smith and Vincent were level four. Hurst and Acer were level five along with a few others as well, including the Lightning user.

"Let's see about the new guy," Eric said under his breath.

Arlo was easy to spot. He was tall and had silver hair. He stood out like a sore thumb. Which seemed nice to Eric. The redheads, which he was one of, were the ones that usually stood out. I liked it better when the attention wasn't on him.

< Scan activated>

< Name - Arlo Cromwell>

< Class - ?>

< Ability - ?>

< Level - ?>

< HP ?>

Taken back by his scan ability results. Since it leveled up he expected to always get information. Sometimes he would get more information. But he didn't think he would get any information. It worked on everyone else.

'What does this mean? Is he different? What makes him different? I don't get a bad feeling from him. For some reason, I feel like he could be dangerous. Definitely a person I need to keep an eye on.'

Keeping an eye on him should be easy enough since Arlo and he was in the same barracks but in different rooms. Arlo was in the room next to his.

"You ready?" A voice asked from behind Eric.

He turned to see who it was. It was Vincent. He hadn't interacted with him much, since he had been busy trying to get stronger. Plus, Vincent was mostly likely changing girls and getting shot down. So Vincent probably didn't even notice how long it had been.

"Yeah, what about you?"

"I think I'm good. I have been able to incorporate my smoke powers while using my sword. I know I'm not the strongest but I should be able to hold my own," Vincent said while adjusting his glasses.

"That's good. You sound confident, that's always a good thing. How have you been? It's been a while."

"O… Has it… I guess it has been. That's crazy, we live in the same room. I'm doing good. No girls yet though," Vincent said with a fake laugh, "What about you?"

"I'm good."

"Attention! It's now time to pair you all up with your sparring partner!" Sergeant McKenny yelled so all could hear him.