Chapter 21: 'Freak'

As soon as Alex looked towards the small gathering of people, his face was covered in horror. A certain prompt appeared in front of him.

[Human - Mind-controlled]

Alex quickly looked at Hana but before he said he he wanted to confirm what he saw. Alex looked back towards the crowd to be sure of what he saw but was confused to see that the prompt was gone. Alex, however, felt restless. 'It's not like this powerful of a system can just make a random error. Does that mean that there was someone who was controlled for a split second? I don't know how that happened but I will keep my faith in the system and say that what I saw was real. It means I need to tell Hana.'

Alex looked at Hana and said,"I don't know why but I think History might repeat itself."

Hana turned towards Alex and said, "What do you mean history might repeat itself today?" She then quickly looked at the crowd but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"I can see that there are many people here but I don't think that something bad could happen here. The last time was a random mind controlling reaper that just happened to get to the facility. I do have a question on how It entered and similar but I don't think that a place like this bureau can be infiltrated by a mere reaper… Don't stress, I will keep an eye out but I don't think anything like that will happen."

Alex knew that Hana wouldn't completely believe his words so but he wanted to at least make her more aware of the situation. 'I'll just have to be ready to use might any second. I might have fewer health points and mana because of the de-buff from today morning but It doesn't matter. But I can still use might to protect myself and maybe even these people if they are attacked.' Alex said as he was on the prompt of Might. The words [Use] came in front of him. Alex was ready to press that at any moment.

Master Zhun looked towards the crowd and said, "You all are early. I guess It is to hear about the appraisal of the new awakened."

As soon as he said those words the crowd had their complete attention on Alex. They wanted to hear what he had.

Master Zhun sighed and smiled, "well, you will all be disappointed. I don't know. The appraisal was nothing. My powers weren't even allowed to penetrate any part of Alex. It just dissipated." Alex looked at Master Zhun and said to himself, 'So that's how the system prevented him from seeing into my powers.'

The crowd looked towards Master Zhun with confused expressions. They then changed their gaze to Alex.

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Does that mean that only he knows his powers."

"This has happened before, right?"

The people said in a confused manner.

Master Zhun smiled once more and replied, "Indeed, something similar did happen before. It wasn't comparable to completely cutting my powers off, but something like this did happen." He looked towards Hana.

Hana looked at the crowd and sighed, she then looked at Alex, "Welcome to my world of isolation. They either like you or they hate you to their guts. I've never seen anyone in between."

Alex nodded and looked at the crowd. It didn't matter much to him about how people felt. He had already experienced a life of being isolated by others.

Master Zhun looked at the crowd once more and smiled," I think you all are now satisfied to hear about the new awakened we have. So… Why don't we just go and start the meeting, the sooner the better." His wrinkly face showed signs of annoyance on top of his smile. It looked like Master Han also disliked these crowds.

Hearing Master Zhun's words, the lower rank leaders slowly emptied the rooms. Only the high ranked stayed behind.

"Ah, the youth. How I wish to be young and powerful again." Master Zhun laughed as he looked at the remaining people in the room.

Alex looked at everyone and said to himself, 'I don't think any of them are weak enough to be mind-controlled easily. It might be one of the lower rank leaders who are infected. For now, at least it seems like they haven't been completely controlled or were in the process. I will have to keep an eye on them once the meeting begins.'

Gold looked at Alex with some anger and annoyance in his eyes. He turned to the door and said as he walked out, "Freaks."

Behind him, 2 more followed. Both looked at Alex with anger.

"What did I do?" Alex let out a confused mumble.

Hana turned towards Alex and a small smile peaked on her face, "You did nothing. They are either jealous or annoyed. I have my entire life as experience dealing with them, ignore them. It's no use entertaining them, ignore,"

Alex nodded in agreement when he heard Hana, he could do nothing but ignore them. It was the only logical action to take.

A man walked up to Alex and smiled, Alex, even though he was a bit surprised by the man's sudden action smiled back.

"Hmmm" The man looked at Alex from top to bottom. Alex, although a bit surprised also had a better look at the man.

The man was around 170 cm tall, and his most prominent feature was his eye patch. He also had scars all over his face and had an overall scare demeanor.

Hana looked at the man and sighed, "Shawn, at you could have done this from afar as well. Why get so uncomfortably close?"

The man's name seemed to be Shawn. He looked towards Hana and a small smile formed on his face, "Hehe. I didn't know that the cold queen could say that. What happened to change you so quickly?" He then looked towards Alex and slowly walked towards the room, still mumbling, " A handsome lad, tall and fit come in and you change instantly. Ahh, and I thought that it would be Gold."

Alex looked towards Hana with a confused expression. Hana sighed, "No one knows. If it wasn't for his powers, I don't think people would be able to deal with him. From what I've seen, he might just be acting like a crazy person. But again, he might just be drunk."

The remaining 3 in the room looked at Master Zhun.

Master Zhun smiled when he looked at the 3, "You need not do anything, I am safe. Ryan is with me. I shall ask you to take care of Alex here. He might have made new enemies, protect him when you can."

Alex looked at Master Zhun with confusion, "Why protect me?"

Master Zhun smiled and said, "Nothing. I'm just looking out for a newbie."

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