By the time Monday rolled around, Beth and Connor were still stuck in that special zone. After the first day, I got a bit worried since I knew that they'd been in MSE for a couple days. So, I called their parents to make sure everything was alright. Connor's dad had already gotten him hooked up to an IV drip, but Beth's parents were out of town. I called the school, and they moved her to the school's infirmary. As apart of the new bootcamp they had apparently foreseen such issues and not long after moving Beth, they moved Connor in too since it was safer there.
There implants have emergency cutoffs, pulling you back to the real world if your body was at serious risk of atrophy, starvation, or dehydration. Thankfully, neither of my friends were even close to that point yet. After entering the body refining realm your body increasingly becomes able to exist off of Elemental Energy, no longer needing the constant intake of food and water. I'd heard that after completing the body refining realm you no longer needed food and water, just most people kept eating because they enjoyed the taste.
Anyway, Rick picked me up on the way to school like usual and we were joking around, trying to ignore our worry over Beth and Connor. None of us had stated in MSE this long before, and neither of us had any idea of what was happening within those statues. Walking into school, we headed to the basement and were surprised that we had to barge our way in. For the past couple of weeks, the special bootcamp program at the school had only allowed 100 people to join at a time. I hadn't noticed it until I'd been down there for a few days, but there were multiple levels to the basement and enough training facilities and formations that the teachers didn't have to supervise us at all times like they had been doing. I'd wondered why they'd only had 100 students, but put it out of my mind after a few days of training.
Rick and I pushed my our through the crowd of at least a thousand students trying to get through the formation guarding the entrance to the basement.
"Hey, don't bother trying to go in!" A voice called out from behind us just as Rick and I reached the front of the milling crowd. "The last person to try had to be rushed to the hospital with a broken arm!"
'If they're rushing to the hospital with just a broken arm then they have no idea what they're getting themselves into.' I thought to myself before turning glance back at the helpful person. Looking at him, I was surprised to find that I didn't feel any energy coming off of him. Examining the crowd, I realized that this group hadn't broken through to the body refining stage at all.
Smiling, I waved and said, "Don't worry about us, see you inside!" As I kept walking through the formation and opened the door to the basement.
An audible gasp went through the crowd as we passed through the door without incident, and I heard people start complaining behind me. "Why were they let in early!" "So unfair!" and "Lucky Bastards!" were just some of the louder comments I heard before I shut the door behind me.
After changing to my workout clothes, I frowned as I saw that no one had arrived at the body training ground. Even Alaric was nowhere to be seen. Waiting for nearly 10 minutes, Rick looked at me and said, "Let's go check out what's going on, we're obviously missing something."
Nodding in agreement, I stood and headed towards the teachers break room with Rick following behind me. Knocking twice, we entered when we heard a garbled voice yell through the door, "ENTER!"
We were surprised to find all of the teachers including Ms. Johanson, and Mr. Gibbins, who I hadn't seen since the day I got my implant. I took a moment to check, yep Mr. Gibbins' nose hair was still waving hypnotically, and I nearly jumped in shock as it suddenly expanded and turned into a hand waving at me in greeting.
"Can you please stop that." Carlos said with a look of obvious disgust on his face, "I never understood why you used the Hair Refinement and Control method on your nose hairs, it's just creepy."
The nose hairs retracted to their normal state, while Mr. Gibbins grinned at Carlos. "That's exactly why I used it on my nose hairs, can't tell you how many times I've caught people off guard and survived when I should've died thanks do these babies."
*Cough*
Curiously, I found that all the teachers except Carlos and Ms. Johanson were effected by whatever ability Principal Hubert was using. "Mr. Hughes, Mr. Pattington, may I ask what you are doing here today?"
Rick and I looked at each other confused before he said, "We came to class, no one told us not too and today is the day we were supposed to come back."
Sighing, Principal Hubert shook his head, "We sent messages out on Saturday that class is canceled until Wednesday while we introduce our new students to the program."
'Damn' I thought, thinking of my nice warm bed and how much I'd have loved to sleep a couple more hours. "We were fighting a Goblin Lord on Saturday, must've missed it."
"Oh, you already took out the Goblin Lord?" Carlos asked with a smile on his face.
Rick and I nodded, "Before Beth and Connor got into that special trial or inheritance that we found we killed the Kobolds and the Drake that they summoned. We were originally planning on doing the dungeon, but are waiting for them to run it."
"Nice! I knew sending you to the hardest special zone was the right move." Carlos' grin was back on his face.
"Impressed as we may be with their accomplishments after so little time cultivating, we have an event to start." Master Nguyen was looking disapprovingly at Carlos, his leg twitching impatiently.
"Yes, you should head home. Classes won't start back up until Wednesday for your group." Carlos said, a proud smile still on his face.
Shrugging, we turned to leave without another word. Like any self respecting teenager would complain about getting an extra two days off school! Just as we were about to leave, Ms. Johanson's voice brought us to a halt. "They may be useful, we can have them demonstrate their abilities and help run the test."
I grabbed Rick's arm and we rushed as fast as we could to get away before they could stop us. "Wait!" Principal Hubert's voice called us back. I turned back with a look of dismay on my face as I walked back into the room, Rick at my side. "What do you mean ma'am." The principal was looking at Ms. Johanson with respect and fear on his face, though he covered up the fear quickly.
"After recent events, Gifted Academy along with the other training grounds throughout the world are going public. More and more of our secrets will become known, and eventually the corrupted will become common knowledge." All the teachers around in the room nodded in agreement while Rick and I looked at each other in complete confusion. "I suggest that we have Mr. Hughes and Mr. Pattington demonstrate their abilities in order to motivate our new students while giving hope to the populace in the future. After all, if they could fight like that after only a couple of weeks what will they be able to do in a few years when the wave of corruption hits."
The room was silent for a moment, before they all started nodding in agreement. "Yes, we can tape it and use it as a part of our campaign to make cultivation a requirement for everyone. Even after certain elements of the population were removed, there's still resistance from many parents to allow their children to attend the new program. A demonstration of strength is necessary." Mr. Gibbins was looking at us greedily, his nose hairs expanding in excitement as he spoke.
"Hrmm..." Principal Hubert was contemplating the idea for a moment before he said, "Try and Get Sarah Demitrov, Gunthar, and Bill Evans in and have them do demonstrations too."
Everyone looked at him in confusion, so he explained. "Sam's a mindscape, Rick's a body cultivator, Sarah's an Elementalist, Bill's a dantian tool user, and Gunthar represents Shaman's and other types of cultivators that aren't commonplace. We put them all up as examples of what they could do if they actually worked at cultivating instead of partying for the last couple of weeks."