chapter 36: Group

Startled from seeing Luke appear suddenly, they stopped their conversation and dazedly stared at him. Abacus spoke first " well hello, why were you so rushed earlier? If I didn't know better, I would have thought that you didn't like us haha! "

Then, Milfa also spoke but with a slightly reproachful tone " I was even in the midst of talking to you, such bad manners! Anyway, did you go to have a rematch against Lion? It's on every chat, though no one knows the outcome since no one died. Was it a draw? "

Looking at them with slightly embarrassed face, Luke explained " Well, sorry about that, Lion had to explain quite a few things to me and as the said things were very important to me, I was indeed rushed. As for the rematch, yeah, we had one. I lost, though, I threw the towel before he killed me. If not face, I saved points.

Anyway, before the one vs ones, you said that you had to face each other right? What's the outcome? "

Smiling brightly with slight pride, Milfa answered " Yeah, that's right. I was against Abacus while Lou was against Ozz. It was a really hard fight but I won in the end. "

" And I lost, badly. Ozz is a real monster. " Said a somewhat devastated Lou.

Looking at Ozz, Luke said " I'm not really surprised, Lion told me Ozz was one of the three greatest geniuses of our generation. "

Surprised, they all looked at the quiet Ozz, who was now getting purple from his initially blue color, probably his way of blushing. Barely managing a stiff laugh, Lou tried to cheer himself up " Well, it seems like I didn't lose against a nobody, though the fight-no, the slaughter was quite costly… "

With an evil laugh, Luke stared at Lou and Ozz as he stole a joke from which he was the victim " But he is still 3 years old, you lost against a kid. " While this made Lou even more depressed, all the other ones burst out laughing.

Tapping Lou's shoulder, Luke said " Don't worry, in a way, we all lost against him. "

Glaring at Luke with annoyance, Lou ranted " Are you a two-faced bastard now? First, you make fun of me then you cheer me up sigh, still, thanks. " It was a short rant, as expected of the now confirmed anti-social. Laughing even more, Luke removed his hand from Lou's shoulder, leaving behind some moisture which quickly entered Lou's body. In a while, Luke would have another extra-life...

While he still had plans on his teammates, Luke who initially didn't include Ozz was now determined on not trying anything on him, not because of his talent, but because Ozz is still a kid. His master once said " A perfect assassin has no bottom lines but an assassin with one will always stay human. Now, the choice is yours to take, will you stay human and be imperfect or will you throw away your humanity and become perfect? "

Abacus who was generally quite dim-witted brought up a rather relevant subject " Right! Luke, join the chat group: The dazzling dazzle's chat. "

Looking at Lou who avoided his stare, Luke thought shortly and with his mouth twitching, he refused. Not only was the chat group's name too… distasteful, he didn't want to risk having his title known by everyone else. With how many chat groups she is in, Milfa was a serious threat to his integrity.

After some small talk, they each got back to their houses. After a quick meal, Luke weighed his options and decided to concentrate on understanding his elements more and adapting his fighting style. This means that he put on hold his research on the tree of roads, the potions, and his new experiment. ' Well, they would take a lot of time to bear fruits anyway, in the short term, I should do just like Lion… Let's just ask him_ Chat, Lion '

* Connexion… connexion successful * With that, Lion's smiling face appeared " So you finally called! Knowing you, I thought you would do so sooner haha "

Massaging his temples as he remembered that talking with Lion was always tiring, Luke impatiently expressed himself " Yeah? That's good. Now, how did you become so much stronger in a single f*cking day? "

Still smiling, Lion simply said " As I said, there were some properties of gravity which I ignored and there was a simple idea that came to mind. This simple idea made me that much stronger. "

" And what is this idea? "

Shrugging, Lion replied " Well, it's just an obvious application to a property of gravity. Basically, instead of trying to make a wall to protect myself, I made a tornado. That's it. As you don't have the gravity element, I can't really give you pieces of advice but keep in mind that you should always try to apply what you know about your elements. You have 4 days until your squad mission, this should be enough to set yourself on a path, or at least correcting obvious flaws. "

Nodding with a pensive look, Luke thanked Lion and disconnected.

' Obvious things which I overlooked… First, there is defense, next, there is movement and finally, combining my two elements as Andrea did. Now that I think about it, these are really obvious things. '

Sighing at his own lack of brains, Luke began to ponder on defense first as it was the most obvious flaw he had. For someone who invested heavily on resilience, it was quite depressing that defense was a weakness. Even more so when his ability absorbed half of the attacks' power.

' Now, what can I do? Space should be better for defense, right? I should use space for defense first, then, I will combine it to darkness.

Space... I can't really do anything about it as unlike Lion, I still can't directly manipulate it... !!! THAT'S IT, if I can't directly manipulate it, I should first indirectly do so!! '

Luke then began using space cuts multiple times while carefully observing it.