Chapter 11 - A Taste of Heaven

It was now August of the year 2115, a bit less than a month before my twentieth birthday. After my birthday, I'll be able to apply for the next upcoming entrance exam at the X-Warrior Academy. It'll take place at the end of December, and if I pass, I'll be enrolled for the January intake of Level J students.

If I fail, I'll be able to try again for the July intake six months later, but...I'm not going to rely on that cushion, I'll just have to make sure I pass my first attempt. My sister had graduated the X-Warrior Academy over three years ago at the end of 2112, and was already an Ace X-Warrior, the highest rank amongst all X-Warriors and of which there were only eleven others.

Anyway, in preparation for the entrance exam, I had been keeping track of the most notable Prodigies in my age group in the Sanctuary. See, the X-Warrior Zone throws an annual inter-high fighting tournament for young Paragons to compete in, though it was rare to see a participant who wasn't a Prodigy. I had already finished high school with no problems, and only kept track of the Prodigies who would be old enough to apply for the same entrance exam that I plan to apply for.

Of course, it was limited to Prodigies who had participated in the inter-high tournaments, if there were any that were flying under the radar, I had no way of getting information on them.

I couldn't be sure until I directly faced them at the upcoming entrance exam, but...based on the tournament footage I'd studied, I think I should be able to beat them if the exam involves having to fight them, I was confident in my arsenal of skills, though I definitely can't let my guard down.

I was going to apply as a regular Paragon, not as an Anomaly. The power I have was most effective as a hidden weapon, so I saw no reason to reveal it. Who knows, I might be forced to reveal it if and when I gain access to the locked tiers of my ability, but for now, I had no intention of showing it off publicly.

I had developed a reliable and solid fighting style, which emphasized unorthodoxy and flexibility. It mainly consisted of kicks, while I used my arms to wield my X-Weapons. I had X-Blasters that strapped on my wrists and extended halfway up my forearms, they could fire XFE-generated bullets and crossing them across each other would form a defensive barrier around myself, though if I moved my arms away from each other, the barrier would go down.

As for my hands, I switched between a pair of X-Pistols and a pair of slightly longer than dagger-length X-Blades. You might be wondering whether there's a point to having both X-Blasters and X-Pistols...well, there is. The former fired stronger but slightly slower shots, it was more suited for mid range. And the latter fired smaller but faster and more penetrative shots, and had a longer range.

My current weapon models were X-Wr-0-2115, X-Pt-2-2112 and X-Bd-0-2114. I should explain how the model codes work. First, they all start with X. Second, is the type. Pt stands for pistol, Wr stands for wrist-blasters, Bd stands for blade(dagger), and there were also Bsw which stood for blade(sword), Bk which stood for blade(knife), Rf for rifle, and there were a whole bunch of other types too. Third was a number from 0 to 3, the lower the number the higher the quality. And the last one was the year that the model was introduced for public retail.

The wrist-blasters and daggers were really important to my fighting style, so I got zero models of each pair, even though they were pretty damn expensive. The pistols weren't as important, so I got quality level two models.

My fighting style didn't really incorporate punches, but just in case, I wore fingerless gloves with metal knuckles that tasered anyone who came into contact with them.

I also bought myself a lightly armored outfit. I'd have preferred something more strongly armored, but any more than this would be too heavy and slow down my movements. My outfit consisted of black trousers and a sleeveless white undershirt with a hood under a long-sleeved dark blue jean jacket.

Today was one of my fortnightly days off, and I was currently in the Shopping District, on my way to Delectables. They were having a limited time new dessert item available just for today, and I had no intention of missing it.

I reached it soon enough, feeling a sense of giddiness and excitement as it came into sigh. There was a promotional banner by the entrance, advertising the limited edition item. Let's see, it's called...'Ultimate Chocolate Sandwich', and it looked like chocolate cake and chocolate cream sandwiched between two slices of brownies that were themselves filled with dark chocolate chips...h-holy fuck, that sounds like heaven...

I eagerly walked in and headed to the front counter, the cashier had her back turned to me, she was arranging some containers or something.

"Uh, excuse me, about the limited edition item...I'll take ten," I ordered, after ringing the bell on the front counter.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. We only have eight left, and we're only allowed to sell a maximum of two per customer," She replied apologetically, as she began to turn around.

Her voice sounded kinda familiar, but that wasn't important right now.

"What if I pay double-...price," I began, before trailing off as she turned around.

Of all the people to run into...

"I-it's you...," She stuttered in surprise, averting her gaze awkwardly.

A familiar head of brown hair and green eyes...Bytra Lichood. This is annoying...tch, whatever, I'll just pretend like I don't know her.

"I'll take two of the limited item, please and thank you," I remarked blankly, holding up my I-Watch to pay for the order.

She didn't say a word, and silently got my order ready before handing it to me after scanning my I-Watch to take the payment. I took it from her and began to leave, when it occurred to me that she might have messed with it. I opened the bag and scanned the contents...hm, doesn't look like anything has been done to them. Well, she is an employee here, so I don't think she would, but still...

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier One: Save>," I mumbled quietly, before heading out of the shop.

If she had messed with my order, I'll just use my ability to return to this point in time and beat the crap out of her. Tampering with my sweets was unforgivable, I'll straight up kill anyone who does...

...

A few hours later, I was sprawled on my bed feeling satisfied and content, having finished the desserts I bought. Oh, wow, those had been fucking delicious...I really hope they bring back this limited item soon. They definitely hadn't been tampered with, so that's good.

You might think that much chocolate would have been overwhelming, but no...the Ultimate Chocolate Sandwich truly was the, uh, ultimate chocolate sandwich! They achieved an incredible balance with a mix of light and dark chocolate, the brownies weren't very sweet, but the cake and cream was richly sweet, and the chocolate chips in the brownies were bitter, which went perfectly with the sweetness of the middle of the sandwich. Each and every bite was pure bliss. So, yeah...that was the day I experienced the taste of heaven.

...

...

A few months later, around late-November, I was getting ready for the entrance exam, which was a little over a month away, on the 28th of December. I had mailed in my application for the January intake pretty much immediately after my twenty-first birthday, but I got a call the next day asking if it was a mistake. That ticked me off a lot, but I remained calm and replied that no, it wasn't a mistake.

My sister was coming over tonight, so I pulled my gym schedule forward a couple of hours so that I'd be done early today, and I was currently at a martial arts training gym, specifically capoeira.

I was working on my kicks, in an exercise that involved standing on my hands with my arms behind me and swinging my legs up repeatedly with weighted anklets around my ankles. I had initially opted to pay the fee to get the instructors here to train me, but these days I trained on my own, I had learnt all I could from them so I just had to repeatedly practice the basic exercises and moves, and then expand on that on my own, combining it with the techniques and moves from the other martial arts I was training in.

After two hours at that gym, I headed off to a regular gym and did some light weight-lifting and flexibility exercises for a couple of hours, before deciding to call it a day and heading back home.

I got back home, took a cold shower, got changed and lay down on the bed with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling as I put on some relaxing music. I let out a yawn and closed my eyes, dozing off before long...

I woke up about an hour later to the sound of my door being pounded. Grr, and I'd just been having a great dream too. Well, whatever. I got up with a sigh and headed for the door, opening it with a stifled yawn.

"Hey, bro, what's up? Wait, were you sleeping just now?"

More importantly...

"...you didn't bring any sweets," I remarked, looking at her empty hands.

"Oh, uh...my bad? But I bet I've got something that'll be even sweeter!" She replied with confident grin.

"Ew, is that an innuendo?"

"H-huh, of course not!"

"Your grin looked kinda suggestive, guess I misunderstood," I shrugged, before letting her in.

"You're just half-asleep, so you're not thinking straight, dummy," She sighed, flicking my forehead.

"Ow," I responded, before tugging on her ponytail in retaliation.

"No, no, no, don't mess up my hair, I got the ponytail perfectly done today!" She exclaimed, pulling my hands off, "It's always either too tight or too loose, but I got the perfect balance today, so hands off."

"You started it," I muttered, heading into the kitchen and taking out a bottle of apple juice from the fridge and taking a couple of gulps.

"Use a cup, Zax," She remarked, following me into the kitchen.

"Nah. This is less effort...if I use a cup, I'll have to wash the cup after I'm done. Plus it's my place, I can do what I want," I argued, putting it back after offering her some but she shook her head.

"I've got a bit of a cold, so no cool drinks for me, thanks anyway."

"So, that thing you said earlier...if it wasn't a badly executed dirty joke, then what did you mean by that?" I inquired, walking back to my room.

"It wasn't anything dirty, you little idiot-...! Well, it's like this...I was delivering some requested weapons to the X-Warrior Academy from the Guild, and when I was about to leave, I overheard some of the Academy instructors talking, and I can give you a hint on what your entrance exam will be like."

Oh?

"Go on, I'm listening."

"I think what I overheard was only about a part of the exam and not the whole thing, so keep that in mind. I heard them saying something about collecting J-Ranked Mutants and using a teleportation platform...so, yeah, part of the exam will probably involve fighting Mutants," She explained.

"Huh, that's pretty useful to know...hey, just how strong are J-Ranked Mutants, as in how much does it take to kill them?"

"Hm, let's see...I think you can one-shot them with your wrist-blasters or pistols if you can land a headshot or something equally lethal. They're pretty weak."

"Not sure how reliable your assessment is, to you pretty much anything would be weak," I replied with a shrug.

"Hey, I'm not that powerful, you know!"

"No, you definitely are."

Just like X-Warriors were ranked from J, Q, K and Ace, Mutants were also ranked using the same letters. J-Ranked Mutants were the weakest types, and were small to medium sized creatures. There were hundreds if not thousands of Mutants that fell into the J-Ranked category, so they weren't classified by individual species or type. Q-Ranked Mutants were a step above J, these creatures were typically human-sized or bigger, and there were about fifty classified species that fell into the Q-Ranked category so far.

Next were the K-Ranked Mutants, these were large and powerful creatures that were typically two to three times the size of humans, and generally would require a team of X-Warriors to take down. There were eighteen such species discovered and classified so far.

And finally, the Ace Mutants. There were only four types that were known so far, and they rarely appeared, but...they were unbelievably powerful and massive, and in theory would require dozens of X-Warriors to defeat. I say in theory because no one had ever taken down an Ace Mutant before. There had only been one attempt, against a massive eighty-meter tall Mutant that was called Bahamut, which resembled a dragon.

It was a massive reptile that seemed to live in the ocean, and had only appeared once so far, about thirty kilometers away from the Sanctuary. In response, about thirty X-Warriors were sent to defeat it, since it could potentially have been strong enough to break the Sanctuary dome. The result...they managed to somehow drive it away, but not before it killed twenty-four of the thirty who were sent out to kill it. All the survivors had been Aces or K-Ranked X-Warriors, and of the six survivors, four had been in critical condition.

The other Ace Mutants that had been discovered so far had only been observed via satellite, they were far away from the Sanctuary's location right now and there was no reason to attack or provoke them if that remained the case.

"So, hey...not that I'm complaining or anything, but are you sure an Ace X-Warrior like yourself should be giving away classified information like this?"

"Wow, you make it sound like a much bigger deal than it actually is, it's just an entrance exam. And you know I've always disliked goody two-shoes type characters."

"Actually, no...I didn't know that, but I can relate. Evil or cold-hearted protagonists are way more interesting," I agreed with a nod.

"Hm, I dunno about evil..."

Well, I had gotten a pretty useful bit of information from her, but...

"This info is pretty sweet, but...it's definitely not sweeter than-."

"Alright, alright, jeez...I'll bring you an extra amount of sweets next time, happy now?" She inquired with mock irritation, ruffling my hair with a smile, "You can still be such a little kid sometimes."

"No, I'm not...," I mumbled while averting my gaze.

She stayed over for a while longer before heading out, leaving me to return to my nap. Well, I had a lot to think about and work on, I only had a few weeks left before the entrance exam...but for now, I sleep.

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