Willing to Apologize

In the war, Alex is not foreign to the terms visionators and manators.

Visionators is a device that was installed inside power armor to gauge the physical prowess of an enemy or multiple enemies, while manators is a similar device but this one scans the enemy's magical prowess through gauging mana output instead.

Simple to slightly advanced suppression spells are enough to deal with visionators.

On the other hand, manators could only be blocked through complicated advanced spells.

Mages inside the Magus realm generally were able to block the basic manators, but some manators, the better ones could even prove to be hard to be dealt with even for mages in the Grand Magus realm.

Alex doesn't need to think about manators as it's very rare and he uses neutral mana.

However, visionators like the one Natalia is wearing right now would be troublesome for him. 'It's a newer model and could detect my physical prowess without touching, the Hyperion Empire's technological advancement is not a joke...'

"I don't like to stand out, so I guess that's why you missed me" Alex replied leisurely.

Upon collecting the bag, the two made their way to the wrecked battleship in search of a better place to safeguard them from the beast horde. Nothing along the way, but the roars of beasts could be heard in the distance occasionally.

In addition, the beast horde might only be going around the forest and would come back.

Reaching the wrecked battleship, the two quickly sheltered inside.

"Guess this is better than that underground chamber, the air is not stuffy here. Have you checked the entire ship? See if there's anything of use?" Natalia looked around the interior before she eventually asked.

Since it's a battleship, there's bound to be something useful.

Alex put down the bag and nodded his head, "I already searched most of the places, not that there's much to look around. It was already plundered, and I only got these Soundwave Gloves" He raised his hands, showing his gloves.

"Hmm? I thought that was your weapon quota for the Trial" Natalia mused.

She then settled down and took a seat, taking off her helmet to air her stiflingly hot hair. "If the Soundwave Gloves was not your weapon quota, then what is it? Mine is the Psi-blades as you see earlier"

In response, Alex could only smile wryly.

Just before the Trial started, aspirants were given one weapon quota to help them survive.

Aside from the plasma pistol, they could bring a weapon of their own.

However, the reason that he could only put on an acute smile was because Xander didn't have any money to purchase a weapon of his own, so he didn't use his weapon quota and came equipped with only hope.

"I can't afford any, so I didn't use mine. I was lucky to gain these" Alex replied truthfully.

Natalia seemed to be slightly surprised, 813 physical points can only be achieved through strengthening serum at least until the meso-serum, and it costs quite a lot to have it so she expected him to be at the very least capable.

But it seems she thought wrong, and this made her a bit skeptical.

However, she didn't probe further.

"Is that so... Anyway, since we're stuck here in the meantime, why don't you tell me how you got abandoned in the first place?" Natalia changed the topic, it would have been awkward between them if she pressed on the previous topic.

Alex sat down on another seat, feeling sore after the hectic last couple of days.

Pausing for a moment, he then replied as he might as well talk with her to kill time, "We got ambushed by a Type-2 Beast, and three of us got killed. Our base is also near here, far away from the pick-up point. Through a miracle, we managed to get there. My other squad member managed to reach the shuttle and I took the hit for us from a beast and fell down"

"I don't want to do that, but maybe I'm good deep down" Alex mused nonchalantly.

However, Alex noticed a twitch in Natalia's expression.

It was then he realized that his words might offend her in some way, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your friend is not good deep down since she left you. I hope you don't take offense about this"

Upon saying that, a tense silence filled the ship for a solid second.

"Of course, not. I wasn't even thinking about that" Natalia eventually replied and smiled.

Leaning back on the seat, she then rubbed her eyes a couple of times. "I'm tired, I'm going to take a brief nap now. Can you keep a watch first and wake me up if something happens, Alex?"

"Sure, I don't mind" Alex replied, he was tired, but he could go on a little bit more.

Agreeing to take the first watch, he stood up and headed to exit the battleship. But he was stopped when Natalia held his hand, "Wait, you're not going to leave me while I'm asleep like my friend would you?" She asked teasingly with a playful smile.

"I'm not going to, you could rest easily" Alex replied shortly before he walked out.

Reaching outside, he stopped before the door.

Scanning his surroundings for possible cues of the beast horde, he then nodded his head finding that there wasn't any. However, he couldn't help but wonder aloud, "I don't think there's a need for her to lie. If she's offended, she should just say so. I'm willing to apologize"

Not understanding what's going on in her mind, he shakes her head and walks away.

A moment later, the sun has gone down.

In addition, the temperature dropped substantially into a chilling one just like yesterday.

However, a couple of hours into the night when the two decided to sleep, Alex sneaked out with a bag strapped on his back. Natalia would've misunderstood his intention if she saw him sneaking like this, but he wasn't going to abandon him.

'Need to quickly learn Body Visage spell and get stronger...' Alex pondered determinedly.

Despite being stranded on a hostile planet that hosted a vicious beast horde, he has his priorities, he needs to keep getting stronger so that he can quickly raise his military ranks when he gets back to the academy.

Going back to the hill formations, he searched for the hyenas' carcasses.

But it seems like he was a little bit too late as most of them were already eaten completely.

'Only two left...? Whatever, it's better than nothing I guess'

Although the content of life force inside beast hearts that were not fresh like these drastically lessened, it's still better than nothing. When he finished harvesting them, he snuck into a small crevice of the hill formations and sat there with crossed legs.

Instantly, he meditated to cast the Body Visage spell.

Preferably before he went to the academy since there will be many visionators there.

Learning neutral spells or elemental spells, in general, is similar to the sequencing of electrical cues inside the brain. It would require a specific path of mana circulation inside the body to cast a specific spell.

Alex remembered all of the sequences of the spells he used and even more.

Coming from the Reighton Family, an influential family in the Adudal Principality during his past life, he had access to a vast library of spells. He dedicated his childhood to memorizing as many as he could, hoping that one day he would amass enough power to cast them.

Despite mockeries from his siblings, he persisted.

Eventually, that time never came, yet he still remembered all the spell sequences until today.

Once he thought that he spent his childhood doing something useless it turned out to be the right thing, he now has a lot of neutral spells that were stuck inside his mind thanks to all of that struggle which he could now try out.

A couple of days pass in a breeze, and the situation hasn't much changed.

However, Alex has been rapidly growing in terms of strength, especially when he mastered the Body Visage spell, and would not need to be worried about Natalia's visionators and being suspected again.

But this day, Alex decided to come back early for tomorrow.

It was due to the fact that the food bars already run out, Malik and the others ate most of them recklessly and left only a handful which forced them to start hunting for beasts to keep on surviving.

Since he would need to be fit for tomorrow, he decided to come back early to rest.

Earlier, Alex tried to bend the plasma bullets again to gauge his improvement. But there was not much to see, he still couldn't grasp the bullet properly and fast enough to start bending its directions.

'Clearly, I need even more training' Alex sighed.

Just as he was walking alone in the night through the forest, he noticed something.

Glancing over the Nexus Mark, he found that it was flickering.

It happened suddenly, and Alex didn't understand why it was behaving like this. But he assumed that it was a signal, and he decided that he would visit the Nanomancy Lab and ask Nexus about this.

Upon reaching back, he silently put down his bag and sat on an empty seat.

Rubbing the Nexus Mark, his consciousness then got pulled away.

Alex found himself inside the Nanomancy Lab, standing on the spot he disappeared from earlier with Nexus rushing from the side. He paused for a second in confusion before he shook his head, having other more important matters to ask.

"Did you cause the flickering of the mark?" Alex asked.

Nexus nodded her head, saying that it was her doings. She then replied, "I heard master pondering about bending the plasma bullet, and I wanted to show you that you have unlocked a feature when you choose an element"

"A feature? What is it?" Alex questioned back, his eyes lit up in interest.

Finding that Alex was excited about the new feature, Nexus didn't waste any time and led him near the unlocked tube of the wind element. There was a holographic interface before it, showing four sections.

[Elemental Upgrades - Wind]

Power: 0

Range: 0

Precision: 0

Resistance: 0

Each of the sections has battery bars on the side, varying from one to another.

"What do these sections indicate?" Alex asked from the side.

Nexus then opened her mouth and explained, "It's the Elemental Upgrades, master can upgrade each aspect of the element to make it stronger. Beside each of them is the energy cost of the upgrade. For instance, if master wants help to bend plasma bullets, then upgrading the wind element's precision will help"

"Also, each aspect can be increased up to 5 maximum" She added, ending her explanation.

Upon hearing this, Alex couldn't contain his smile.

"Why didn't you tell me about that earlier? This is very useful..."