Record Awakening

The security officer continued to watch over the collectors, and by consequence, Wu Bao.

As the hours ticked by, the man started to feel something deep in his chest at the situation. It was something like jealousy and sadness rolled into one.

Huh? Pity? What was that?

It truly pained him, knowing that Wu Bao was undergoing a legendary awakening while applying such useless seals to himself.

What could a time-keeping seal do when faced with a flame sword?

Who would want to win trivial games when you could blast away the competition and win a fight?

Indeed, the only mildly decent choices he had made were the life detection seal and the night vision seal, which could help you find an enemy. Then you could destroy them with an actual power.

But that wasn't the point!

There was no guarantee that Wu Bao's shoddy seals would work in the first place.

Let's ignore the fact that Wu Bao was at the top of his class right now.

Indeed, the security officer could only watch in pain as the useless trash squandered his immense talent.

He checked his watch, then dialed the headmaster.

"What now?"

"Sir. They boy just broke our school's awakening record. Shouldn't he receive the award we set aside specifically for this situa-"

"Absolutely not. Forget about the award and don't remind him of it."

"Yes sir."

The headmaster hung up the phone.

Meanwhile, Wu Bao had just applied his sixth seal, giving him the power to freely adjust the acuity of his hearing. In other words, he had overheard everything.

'So that's how they want to play. How laughable. The seal awarded to the person who breaks the awakening record is nothing to scoff at, and with how much time I've spent using my collection seal, I've increased my capacity more than enough to handle it. Although… I can't increase my capacity too much, or it will overfill all my previous seals. Oh well. I'll just apply another weak seal in the meantime.'

Time continued to pass stubbornly with the school unwilling to give him the school record and Wu Bao refusing to leave until he got it.

He ignored his growing hunger and applied four more seals.

These seals would help him detect changes in the environment. There was a thermometer, a barometer, an anemometer tuned for spirit energy, and even a Geiger counter. Of course, he still had plenty more.

When he applied a compass seal, there was finally a stir outside.

Wu Bao cranked up the dial on his hearing.

"I came as soon as you notified me," a feminine voice said to the headmaster.

'Mother,' Wu Bao's eyes widened.

"Although your son has better-than-average talent, he has taken up too much time inside our collector. The other students haven't had a chance to use it."

"I apologize for my son's transgression," his mother responded meekly, "We will go home right away. I apologize for wasting your time and the school's resources."

Wu Bao felt a pain in his heart while listening to his mother. He could easily imagine a grin of accomplishment on the headmaster's pompous face.

Wu Jie also knew the headmaster was making up new rules. The other collectors in the room were available, and functional, yet she could only bow her head and give her own apology.

Wu Bao clenched his fist.

This was not a cheesy web novel where Wu Bao had a hidden lineage, and his mother was actually a hidden genius. He knew from the multitude of witnesses that his father was a useless drunk in life, he could tell by using the multi-tool seal from Iridescent Tech that his mother was not faking her weakness. She was ordinary, only having one seal to her name.

In fact, Wu Bao had searched long and hard for an explanation for both his awakening and the mysterious black seal.

Last week he had used his espionage seals to break into the hospital to collect his birth records… the real ones that the exploitative doctors had kept anyway, despite their promise to Wu Jie.

Indeed, Wu Bao truly came from a grassroots household.

His mother would not stand up for herself. She could not.

The headmaster laughed a little and slapped Wu Jie across the face. "I accept your apology. Consider this as an atonement for your son's transgression."

A burning rage flooded forward. Something had snapped.

Wu Bao entered his mind space. Whereas before, when the black seal would scare him just by looking at it. He decided to use it.

It was a Dragon Sealing Talisman meant for criminals. It was meant to capture and suppress every other seal in existence. Now it was time to suppress some seals.

Wu Bao formed a thick string of spiritual energy in his dantian, fed it through the spirit root, and anchored it to the dragon seal, activating its full potential.

"Mother, do not listen to that scum who dares hit you."

Wu Jie, Headmaster Shu, and the security officer all fell silent.

Then Headmaster Shu laughed. "Come out of there, trash. I'll give you only a small beating before you go. I am a lenient person after all."

Wu Bao stepped out. There was no need to be inside of it anymore, nor any of the other collectors.

"Look again and tell me that I am trash."

Wu Bao activated all eighteen of his new energy gathering seals. A torrent of spiritual energy started swirling around him. It was just as big, if not bigger, than the time he awakened three weeks ago.

All three adults stared in shock.

Wu Bao licked his lips. "Headmaster, you have taken one step too far. You have provoked me beyond my rational thought. Hmm... Your seals look delicious. Also, that divine lightning seal looks just like the award I was supposed to get. I think I'll take them all."

The headmaster suddenly lit up, arcs of electricity flowing through his body and out of his eyes and hands. However, before he could even move, an invisible force pushed him into the ground.

Without a need to maintain energy costs, telekinesis was a terrifying power.

The security officer instantly recognized the technique that was a common tool of the lower class. Coincidentally, he also knew its limitations. Only one 'hand' could be utilized at a time, regardless of the fuel supplied or the control of the user. Since it was busy holding the headmaster, he charged.

The security officer's hands elongated, becoming sharper. His skin became hard and scaly. His feet tore through his shoes as talons gripped the ground and propelled him faster.

Wu Bao simply lifted the headmaster in front of him like a human shield.

The security officer hesitated, but Wu Bao pushed.

"It's a shame that a useful partial-transformation seal would end up on the likes of you," Wu Bao pouted. "You're using it incorrectly."

Without bothering to explain, Wu Bao threw an electro net over the pair. Then another. Then another.

The security officer fainted eventually, but the headmaster was immune to such tricks because of his lightning seal. Of course, Wu Bao never let go of his telekinesis, so he spent the next ten minutes patiently knocking the headmaster against a wall until he fell asleep.

After collecting their seals, and quickly repaying the spiritual energy to the dragon seal, Wu Bao looked around.

"Mother?" he called.

He saw her huddling in a corner.

"Mother," he said gently while approaching her, "It's alright now."

"No!"

"Calm down, Mother. I took care of them. They can't hurt us. In fact, no one will hurt us again."

"You killed them?!"

"Of course not. It was you who taught me the value of human life. I would never take it upon myself to determine someone else's fate. I simply took their seals."

"I don't believe you! You were so violent and strong! You killed them! You killed them! You killed them!"

A heavy feeling rose up in his chest.

"What is wrong, Mother? This much violence is way less than what we experience every day. Why are you overreacting?"

"..." There was no response.

"Don't worry. I haven't changed at all. I'm just stronger now. I'm still me on the inside."

He reached out to take her hand, but she slapped it away.

"You are not my Bao! The strong will always rule over the weak! There is no exception! Don't touch me! Get away!"

"No, Mother! Please trust me! Believe in me just as much as I believe in you! Although I have power now, I will use it to take care of you, to do good in the world, to help our broken and uncaring society-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU MONSTER!"

Wu Bao was kicked in the chest and flung a small way backwards. His pain seal was turned off, yet he didn't feel anything. He didn't care. All he could do was look at his mother.

"He was so good when he was little," his mother mumbled to no one in particular. "He was nice, and weak, and I could still hug him, and love him, and not fear him."

"You can still hug me!" he pleaded. "I will never push you away!"

"Go away."

"You don't have to fear me! I still love you! I love you with all my heart!"

"Go away."

"..." Tears started falling from Wu Bao's face.

"Or I'll use my only seal to end it all."

Wu Bao gulped. He knew what seal she was talking about. He raised his hands peacefully and slowly backed away from his mother, inch by inch.

Meanwhile, in his mental space, he rapidly accessed the memory archive seal for a solution to his current problem… breaking his mother's only seal.

Unfortunately, the memory archive was practically empty because of how new it was.

Wu Bao activated the Iridescent seal's probing abilities and started analyzing the seal on his mother.

His feet shuffled backwards in small steps.

"The strong and the weak can be equal. Our relationship is proof of that."

"GO AWAY!" his mother wailed.

Wu Bao continued at the same pace.

Finally, the Iridescent seal returned a hit. Several seals with similar makeup displayed themselves. Unfortunately, no specific model number was identified, meaning his mother's seal was modified in some way.

The Iridescent seal gave him a few seal-breaking suggestions, of which Wu Bao quickly skimmed through their details, saving everything to the memory archive.

"GO AWAY OR I'LL END IT RIGHT N-"

His mother seemed to be losing patience, so Wu Bao turned into a shadow and left the building. There was nothing else he could do right now.

His mother was clearly unstable, and the only seal she had, after all, was a suicide seal.