Chapter 31: Encounter

It was now the following week.Michael had spent most of his time practicing mana control and the progress he made was considerable.

If the fist sized blob of mana used to cost 20% of his total mana, now it only cost 10%.

He lowered the cost by half, he was quite happy with that.

But alas, it was not even close to being put into practice.

Claire had been pretty surprised when he told her about Physical Enhancement, she didn't expect him to achieve it so quickly.

As for mana projection? She did not give Michael any tips, she seemed to want to keep everything to herself.

However her interest could definitely not be hidden, Michael assumed if he finally realizes how to use mana projection properly, she would teach him what she knew.

He regretted asking for a blank check, the sum was nice and all but maybe he could have asked Amanda for something more.

Maybe a mana controlling lesson from her?

Michael shook his head at that thought 'That bullshit oath would probably prevent her from saying anything anyway..'

The oath only applies to those who don't have mana cores, it's not as restrictive as you might think.

'I mean what if someone accidentally blurts it out and some child hears it? Do they just die then?' Michael scoffed. To say it was not restrictive was an interesting take, the price is quite literally your life. Searᴄh the nôvel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Overhearing is not something common, if it does happen, the oath binds itself to the person who heard it. It's practically the same, they would lose their life if they talked about it openly.

'Yeah all this oath stuff sounds like a big pile of shit, does that mean someone will tell me about the mana core once I reach level 200?'

Maybe, maybe not.

Michael was a bit surprised 'Since you answered I assume that's not the case?'

And he was met with silence, though that did not discourage Michael as he finally found a way to get some information out of the system.

It looked like it wasn't against sharing information indirectly, Michael was happy to know that.

Anyway..it was time for the excursion.

Michael had been in the classroom waiting patiently for the others to arrive.

'Going early sucks..' He sighed to himself. There were only a handful of kids gathered, Lena wasn't even here yet.

Michael was just staring at the door and Kevin walked in, earlier than usual.

'Why is he looking at me again? Don't tell me..' Shivers ran down Michael's spine as he suddenly stood up and walked towards Kevin.

"Can we talk?"

Kevin stared in silence for a moment before nodding "Sure."

Michael nudged with his chin towards the classroom door, signaling for them to talk privately.

And they did just that, the lesson won't start for at least the next 20 minutes.

Walking over to a quiet corner, Michael suddenly turned around, his saintly smile no longer present.

"What is your problem?"

"What do you mean?" Kevin acted like he didn't know what Michael was talking about.

"You know very well what I mean, you are like some creepy stalker, can't you just fu- back off?" Michael almost cussed, if Amanda found out she would definitely give him an earful.

Kevin flashed a small smile and murmured under his breath "You are still the same.."

However, Michael heard that, he focused on having Physical Enhancement up as long as he could, at this point keeping it up for the whole day was possible as long as he was not fighting.

"Still the same? What, you think you know me?" Michael asked in an annoyed tone.

However, Kevin's unexpected answer shocked him.

"On the contrary, I do and no I am not a stalker" Kevin said in a smug tone before continuing.

"You used to live in the Amara orphanage where you suddenly awakened at the age of 8"

"You started working in the hospital and finally reached level 5, where you finally got the opportunity to move up the ladder"

"Though that didn't go as planned, your transport vehicle was attacked and you were taken hostage, eventually being trafficked to this continent." Kevin finally looked up at Michael with a smirk, however, he was met with a disgusted look.

'Is this kid having some sort of fantasies about me?'

"Hey, look, I don't know what is wrong with your head, quite frankly even as a Saint I can't do anything. The only part you got right was the orphanage, after that your story strayed off."

Kevin had a puzzled yet wary look "Don't you have that system thingy? Are you really him?"

As soon as those words finished, a fist flew right at Kevin's face. He tried blocking it with his shadow skill, however, with Michael's Physical Enhancement, it was futile.

-Crack

Kevin's nose caved in and blood started pouring down his face, the impact even reaching his brain, dazing him and making him fall to the ground, holding his broken nose.

A slight chuckle escaped Kevin's mouth "Yeah, you are the same."

Though Michael was staring down at him, debating what he should do.

Michael's first instinctive thought was to punch him in the face, he never planned on keeping the system a close secret, however, he also did not plan on revealing it to anyone this soon.

Yet Kevin knew about it.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Michael exclaimed and picked up Kevin by the collar.

"Relax, I am a long time buddy of yours, well not of the current you I guess."

"A long time buddy? I am 12 years old you imbecile" Michael proceeded to tighten his grip on the collar.

However, the next words made Michael freeze "I regressed, you and I were friends, though I noticed you are a lot different from the Michael I knew, that begs the question. Who exactly are you?"

'Regression? I can see that being possible since I reincarnated but..why is he saying I am different from the former Michael, I don't think turning back time should change me. System?' He asked the system for answers, however, not expecting to get any.

I.. don't know...

He did and did not get an answer, it left him even more clueless, the system knew a lot, yet nothing of what is happening now?

As Michael was in deep thought while holding Kevin by the collar, he suddenly heard a bunch of steps and voices heading in their direction.

He quickly cast a heal on Kevin and put him down on the ground.

The people arrived around the corner and saw the both of them just standing, Michael's saintly smile radiated like the morning sun.

They didn't pay attention to Kevin, who still had blood all over his face.

Michael kept his smile and whispered "Don't pull any bullshit, I have an image to maintain."

He was met with a shrug from Kevin "We can talk during the excursion."

They both acted like their usual selves and headed back to the classroom.

Michael did not pay attention to the time, once he arrived he noticed everyone already gathered, with Lena staring daggers at the both of them.

'Fuck..I am late.' Michael held back the urge to facepalm and sat down in his seat.

Lena cleared her throat "Now that we are all here, I can start the rundown of what we will be doing, as well as the monsters we will be facing."

Michael just lazily listened to her explanation, it was the plain old stay in groups, no causing havoc and how could anyone forget, no having fun.

She didn't exactly imply that, but he could surmise from all her rules, Lena wanted them to take this seriously, as if they were doing an actual assignment.

He couldn't blame her, everyone would be facing real monsters, something most had yet to face.

That was what the dungeons were for, but due to Michael's incident, they were closed down until further notice.

The monsters were grizzly bears, most under level 20, nothing noteworthy of note.

They were just strong but slow monsters, a perfect fight for a low level group.

The class had a few tanks, yet only 2 healers, Michael and Tony so the group dispositions were not going to be very fair.

As Michael was about to begin enjoying his chance at a warmup Lena once again spoke.

"Oh and Michael, you are too high leveled so you will sit the fighting out. You can only step in if there is an emergency, if you break that rule I will deduct your grade" She finished in a stern voice.

'Why is this world against me...'

His chance to talk to Kevin greatly diminished, he will mostly be fighting the monsters anyway.

Don't worry, I am also trying to make sense of the situation, some pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together.

The system informed him and he simply nodded.

Lena finally finished explaining the rest and they finally went outside.

'Woah'

In front of everyone's eyes, was a very long floating limousine, definitely big enough to fit at least 50 people.

Lena turned to the class "Shall we?"

'At least it's a floating limo..' Michael couldn't hide his smirk. He had never been inside of a limousine, it would be a first.

Control your facial expression, everyone is looking at you like you are some sort of a pervert.