Welcoming

I stepped out of the elevator, keeping my eyes on the fight the entire time. A stray ability could kill me, so I had to be wary.

One of the fighters was a woman, standing almost 6 feet tall, and the other was a short man who was about 5 feet tall. They were surrounded by a circular crowd of people who were placing bets on the outcome.

"Take that back!" The man yelled as he shot forth with a boost of Fire beneath his feet.

"No, I don't date short guys!" The girl responded in kind, using Earth instead of Fire. "Also, your personality sucks."

CLANG!

They met in the middle with a clash of swords, the metal of their blades clanging as a result.

"Says you, you bitch! I only asked you out because you had big tits!" The man swung his sword again, only to have his blade blocked by hers.

'Oh my god! Are they fighting because she rejected him? They're fucking lunatics!' I thought, sidling along the wall, trying to avoid the crowd that would suck me in if I got too close. Not too far along the wall, I was met with the first private room.

The number on the door read '1', and re-checking my tag, I found that my door was 11. Counting the number of doors, on the floor, I found that my room was on the other side of the room.

'This is going to take a while.' I thought, not wanting to get involved. I had to avoid all the gym equipment on the wall, but that wasn't too much of a problem.

I reached about half the distance before the accident happened. One of the man's attacks had been deflected by a wall of Earth, and the Fireball was now headed toward me.

I first heard the ball of Fire, the immolating heat crackling and warping the air, notifying me of its presence. My eyes widened when I looked at it, and I saw that I only had a few seconds to get out of its blast radius.

I stopped sidling along the wall, scrambling in an attempt to run, but I only made it a few meters, so I was forced to jump away.

BOOM!

The Fireball exploded against the wall, its impact creating a dent in the wall and sending debris all over. I had luckily made it out of range, but my ass was assaulted by a foreign object; a hot piece of brick-like material landed on it, attempting to burn through my clothes.

I rolled to remove the dangerous object, and then stood to my feet, dusting myself off. It was only then that I realized the sounds of fighting had stopped. 

My head slowly turned to face the crowd and fighters, and I saw that all of them faced me. 

None of them spoke, and it wasn't until one of them shouted out that I was a newbie that they reacted.

As if they were seagulls around a piece of bread, I was instantly surrounded, consumed by a mass of bodies.

"OH MY GOD!" I could hear one say.

"Where are you from, cutie?" A woman who looked about 30 asked.

'Ma'am, I'm 17. Please, stay away.' I thought.

All of them clamored around me, touching my body and asking for personal details. They were all more hyperactive than a pack of golden retrievers.

Suddenly, a voice broke through the din, one that commanded respect.

"STOP!" The man yelled.

He stood at the back of the group, uninvolved in the harassment and uncaring of my presence. Or so it seemed.

"All of you, stand back." He closed in on me.

The man stood in front of me, over 6 feet tall, with silver hair and pink eyes. A weird combination. He was extremely muscular, similar in stature to a certain bodybuilder named after a stone.

"What's your name, son?" His voice was deep and full of gravitas, hence why I said it commanded respect.

"Arthur, sir." I replied for I had an inkling of who he was.

"Nice to meet you, Arthur. I'm Connel." He said, turning around after.

'Knew it!' I mentally fist-pumped, my guess correct. Connel was the unofficial leader of the floor. Being the strongest, people listened to him. He didn't hold any special rights, however.

"EVERYONE!" He suddenly yelled, now facing the crowd. "WE HAVE A NEWCOMER! THE FIRST IN 4 YEARS! BE NICE TO HIM!"

All the gym members on the floor saluted Connel, which was strange, but I was thankful for it. No matter how bad of a person these guys were, they wouldn't disobey Connel. I hoped.

"NOW! BRING THE ALCOHOL! WE GETTING DRUNK TONIGHT BOYS!" He cried.

'''WOOOO RAAAAAAR!''' All of them responded with a war cry.

'Ah, crap. I won't get to work out, will I?"

---

That day, that night, and even the following dawn, we partied. They had brought out tables and chairs, and massive barrels of alcohol.

Several gallons worth of alcohol were consumed in total, and it wasn't cheap alcohol either. The one they had brought out was made of a similar vegetable to potatoes, and the name was also similar to beer.

The alcohol was called God's Blood and was very popular among bodybuilders as it didn't affect the body negatively, even when drunk in large quantities. It had a property similar to anabolic steroids, in that it helped gain muscle, except you wouldn't experience the cruel fate of losing a ball for them.

I managed to escape drinking more than 2 glasses of the stuff, stating that I felt like I was going to throw up. They didn't bother me after that, as they were all aware of the negatives of drinking after going past your limit. I hadn't hit my limit, hell the stuff barely affected me, but I was in no mood to find out how much alcohol I could consume.

By the end of the party, everyone other than me had fallen asleep, experiencing alcohol-induced comas. They would be out for at least a day.

I stood up from my chair, wiped my ass, and then moved toward my private room. I avoided all the sticky patches I could see on the floor, but I still stepped in some alcohol. It would be cleaned when the robots came, but they would be a couple of hours, so my shoes had to suffer.

I finally arrived in front of my room, ready to train. The door was white, with a black '11' painted on it, and the room was the same. 4 walls of smooth white material, with a black '11' painted on each.

The room was adorned with nothing else, except a single machine in the center. The door closed behind me silently, leaving me to marvel at the room's size.

It was about as big as a football pitch, something that was only possible with the help of a Space formation. The entire width of the building on the outside would barely be half of one football pitch, so there had to be some dimension twisting somewhere.

I made my way over to the machine in the middle of the room quickly, eager to test out my strength. That was what the machine was for.

There existed a universal measurement of strength, called Impact. Each race had their own method of measuring someone's Impact —humans used a punching target.

I stood in front of the machine, got into what I thought was the correct posture, and unleashed a punch with as much force as I could. 

thud-

There was a small thud sound, and what I swore was a creaking from my knuckle bones.

The average human's Impact, if they hadn't eaten a crystal was 100.

For reference, Alexander's first attempt at measuring Impact was a measly 167. 

I had scored 126. Utterly terrible.

'Wait a second.' I quickly scrolled through the book, from the beginning to where Alexander measured his Impact for the first time.

'That sounds about right.' After reading, I realized the fatal error I had made.

I had no clue how to fight. In the novel, Alexander had come to Averia with the second batch, then met the collector, and had then been scouted by a reclusive master. Which was quite a cliché, if you ask me. And was trained in hand-to-hand. It was only then that he tested his Impact. For a simple punch, it seemed to have quite the difference.

There had to be some way for me to go about learning some kind of hand-to-hand combat because if I didn't have that, I wouldn't be able to draw out all of my strength.

'I can't meet the reclusive master, he only shows up in 4 years, but anything else wouldn't be beneficial.'

If there was one thing the book had taught me, it was that I needed to have everything that Alexander had. One thing that going back through the book had jogged my memory of, was that the martial art he learned was the strongest one known to humans. Because, like all good protagonists, Alexander needed to have the best of the best —and if he did, so did I.

His mentor had never spoken of his past, or anything. He had kidnapped Alexander and then shoved his martial arts down his throat before leaving. That meant that I had no clue of his whereabouts.

I was at an impasse.