"What's wrong?"
Numoral asked me.
I showed him my palm.
"The star has not reappeared."
"I was not talking about that, what do you feel about the fight?"
Ah, that.
I turned to look at the disturbed sand where the Cor had breathed its last.
"It felt too weak for a stage 4."
I had killed it quite easily, and without taking any damage.
"That's because of the difference in the thought processes between you and it."
I turned to Numoral.
"I believe I said it before, this Cor had just advanced to stage 4 recently, not more than two days, give or take a few hours, this means that it had not gained the intelligence that it would have possessed if it had managed to live for a month."
A small white fragment appeared in his hands.
"You were lucky this time, Cors like those, they possess sufficient intelligence to know not to waste their Da on big, slow, wasteful attacks, they can even make feint attacks to bait you into making a mistake and take advantage of it. If a stage 4 manages to live for more than a year, then it can actually understand our speech, no matter what language we speak."
He tossed the fragment into the air a few times.
"That is not even mentioning that this Cor's shell hadn't even formed properly, showing that its advancement process had been disturbed, most likely by a stage 3."
He put the fragment away.
"Overall, all this means that you were very lucky to encounter this Cor, against a regular stage 4 you would have a much, much harder time."
"I see..."
I scratched my chin while I processed his words.
He turned to the others with us.
"You're free to go."
One of the men stepped forward.
"Thank you, sir."
Numoral waved and they disappeared.
He turned back to me as he brought out his Notetaker No.17 and started doing something on it.
A moment later he put it away and looked up at me, making eye contact.
"Let's head back."
The next moment, I felt the familiar sensation of being carried.
So I prepared myself for the journey back and just closed my eyes.
***
Numoral seemed excited as he entered the room.
"This is incredible..." He murmured before looking towards me.
I was sitting on a couch with a glass of green liquid in my hands.
The one who offered it to me called it a 'Citmix', not that I knew what it meant, but it did taste quite nice. It tasted sweet and salty at the same time.
I knew what sugar and salt were, but even mixed they did not taste like what this drink did.
"Your body is upgrading itself." Numoral announced.
I met his eyes.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you have the potential to be more powerful than any other creature we have discovered so far, and it also means that the effects of the expansion are finally coming into the light."
Suddenly, he blinked, and then a jerk ran through his body.
The next moment, he ran back through the door he had just come through.
I watched as the door closed behind him, thinking about what he could have thought about or remembered that would have warranted that reaction.
A few moments later, I gave up that line of thought because there could very well be more than a hundred different reasons for the answer to that question.
I decided to wait for him to come back.
Time passed hour after hour, but he did not come back, so I decided to leave a few minutes after the sun disappeared below the horizon.
The next morning, I tried to meet him, but I was informed that he had locked himself in a lab with a 'Do not disturb unless extremely important' order.
I left the building and decided to find Berthalia to see if she could teach me something.
Unfortunately for me, I was told that she was on a routine inspection, and would not be back for a few days.
So I decided to find my melee teacher, Arquero.
Thankfully, he was not away or busy, so I managed to get some combat experience along with a few tips from him.
The day after that, Numoral was still in the middle of whatever experiment he was doing this time, so I told them to inform me when he was out and left.
For the next few days, the only thing I did was practice my spells alone and train under Arquero.
He said that I was learning very fast and told me to fight against five of his more experienced students at the same time, which is where I am now.
Holding a sword that is almost the same size as me and waiting for one of my opponents to attack.
I could not take the initiative, because that would allow them to attack me from the sides, so I had to wait for them to make the first move, since then I could react accordingly.
I moved my eyes over them rapidly, keeping my eyes around their chest areas so that I could keep as much of their body within my field of view as I could.
The mask on my face hid my expression, but I could not see theirs either, which could have helped me prepare better.
Suddenly, the second from the left moved forward, his dulled blade thrusting towards my chest.
I pushed my blade against it so that I could bring it closer to another attacker's blade, but he pulled back as I parried the second attack.
For the next few moments, I retreated steadily as I continuously parried and deflected attacks.
As I neared the wall, I knew I had to find an opening.
An instant later, I parried a blade thrusting at me, then grabbed it with my left hand and pulled the attacker forward and into another attack.
The sudden obstacle stopped the attacks for an instant, and the next the attacker whose blade I had grabbed flew back as I kicked her into her teammates knocking two of them down.
I charged forward, parrying a diagonal slash and thrusting into the attacker's chest, eliminating him from the match.
I made quick work of the other as the three who had been knocked off their feet got back up.
Only for Arquero to pull out the one who I had kicked.
"You're out."
I had no objection to this, this was even better for me.
The two remaining seemed to reach a decision as they started to circle to either side of me.
That would put me in a horrible position, so I suddenly jumped upon the one who was moving to my left.
The force behind my sudden movement was strong enough to throw them back a few meters even when they blocked the blade.
I swung around with my blade already in motion,deflecting the thrust coming from the other one.
He had overcommitted to his attack, and my deflection left him open to my counter-attack, and so another was eliminated, leaving only one.
I swept my feet back around my sword up and ready to parry or block any incoming attacks.
Only for Arquero to call the match.
"That's enough."
The both of us turned to look at him.
"Going further won't teach either of you anything."
For some reason, I felt that that wasn't the only reason he stopped us.
As I tried to think about this feeling, my opponent took her helmet off, showing green eyes and shoulder-length black hair.
Her face and body language told me that she did not feel good after our match.
"May I be excused?" She asked and Arquero sighed.
"You're free to go." He said, and she left without another word.
I thought that maybe the fight was stopped because of her.
My teacher looked at me and sighed again.
"I knew you were learning fast, but this is quite frankly ridiculous."
"Is something wrong?" Was this a similar situation to the one I had with Berthalia? But Arquero didn't look jealous or annoyed.
"You see, if people see someone ahead of them, it prompts them to do better, igniting a competitive spirit that pushes them during training and practice, but if the gap is too large, it has the opposite effect."
So my talent was discouraging them... Why?
"It can't be helped." He said after taking note of my expression of confusion. "People want to be better than others, but if the chasm between their ability is too big, they don't even want to attempt to cross it."
"The reasoning is something like: 'By the time I get to that point, how far ahead will he be?', or something."
I nodded, understanding what he was trying to say.
"Of course, it's not your fault, but you have learned most of what I am supposed to teach, would you mind if I sent you to another teacher?"
I thought about his proposal, if I left, it would be better for his other students, and I could learn more from a different teacher.
I nodded.
"Very good, I'll give a few people a call, see if they can take you in, I'll let you know when I find someone, until then, you're free to occupy a practice room if you want."
I shook my head.
"I have something to do."
Arqeuro raised an eyebrow but did not ask.
"Go ahead, I'll just call you then, is that okay?"
"That is fine."