3 months later
Allen has been training hard, but was busy only improving himself physically and trained in some unusual combat arts. Nothing related to his weird crushing ability.
He did train that bit in secret though.
Alise was busy checking some data on her heads up holo display, "Allen, you have made remarkable progress. You have a knack for the combat arts."
Allen studied his body for a bit. He was really ripped, even on places he didn't even know he had.
A lot of things changed during this period, he wasn't a complete noob on all the new technologies, but still a semi noob.
Alise swiped downwards, to remove the holo display, "Okay, that's enough training here it's time that you move on to elemental manipulation, and join the others."
Wahoo, Allen was ecstatic, He was going to become a big boy too.
He was told to join the rest of the group, and sits on an empty spot away from everybody. The only other guy in the group speaks up, "Hey, minger. We too good for you now. We already have a hell of a heads up on you so know your place."
This felt like high school all over again, the reason he dislikes people, but recently he has been forced to become friendly with both Isla and Andrew, due to Mea.
It did not sit well with him, but he definitely didn't like being called a minger, "Suck a dick, fat boy."
The whole class goes Ooo. It wasn't like the guy was fat by any means, but calling someone 'fat' really does hit home if timed right.
"It seems someone has a death wish."
"How old are you two, perhaps two maybe three? Guess we will never know."
"I am 21 you fuck-weed. You better watch your tongue before I rip it out for you."
Allen sighs, the world hasn't changed one iota. You still get the immature ones and the lackeys that follow them.
Allen didn't like conflict, he prefers to avoid it. It's fine if it's in good fun, but not like this. He just sighs again.
The man was about to go to his chair, but Alise speaks up, "That's enough mister Jake. We are all here to learn. While you are up mister Jake, why not give us a demonstration of elemental manipulation."
Jake sighs and nods. He had quite the large build. It looked like a bodybuilder with short neatly trimmed black hair. Though slightly short, he was still a hefty bloke at 110kg (almost 250 pounds) and a height of 1.67m (almost 5'5 feet).
In rapid succession he goes through the steps for manipulation. First stage: Gathering. The hands or body parts starts emitting black ethereal smoke. Basically just gathering dark matter.
Solidifying: The process of basically making the smoke rigid. It looks like an ever moving iridescent black line around the hands, depending upon the point of view.
Forming: The most pivotal process of actually making a form depending on the needs, like Allen's translucent black sphere.
Elementalisation: Adding of a primal element as needed. For example, like turning a circle into a fireball. This is not a required phase.
Execution: Not all abilities requires this phase, because some of them are passive boosts. It self-explanatory. You throw the fireball once it is completely formed.
Jake shoot the lesser fireball towards a holo target, as Alise continues, "Now, depending on your elemental persuasion, it will become stronger or weaker accordingly."
One of the girls raises their hand, "Ma'am we already know these things."
"Yes, yes, of course. I'm just giving the new addition a quick rundown. Now as I was saying. Jake is a fire manipulator, if he was to try and use something in ice, or the element water, it would be massively underwhelming. Though it's never a bad idea to learn as many elemental abilities as possible. Okay Allen the first ability that you will be learning in the Null-Shield. It's a universal shield for all manipulators. As for the rest of you, go one with what you were busy with yesterday."
Alise beckons Allen over to s separate training area, "You are behind the class so your training will be done separately. I don't expect you to catch up with them honestly said, even though you are the 70th, but I do expect that you would catch up faster than them, except for Lucia and Jake. They both are prodigies among the prodigies. Little is known about the training the 69 underwent, so I can't compare. All that is said is that they are gifted."
Alise signals Allen to begin. Allen shrugs and immediately produces a perfect shield, even going as far as to change the shape, "Well, that was easy."
This is the second time Alise was astonished in her life, what's more is he was changing the shape at will. After a little while she replies, "You sure you haven't done this before?"
Allen shrugs, "No, I just don't need the weird preparation process to form."
Alise was hesitant, something produced that quickly would be weak, right?
She had an acute sense for dark-matter abilities which was different from normal androids. She touches the shield where her eyes grows as large a saucers. This is a shield that was two times stronger than the Aegis Shield which is the strongest form of shield that could only be created by the most advanced of manipulators, and he was producing it like it was nothing, ON HIS FIRST TRY!!!
Alise needed to breath. Androids needed air just like any other being in existence, due to the fact that they were created to be an exact copy of human beings.
She suddenly got excited. If Jake and Lucia was prodigies among prodigies, then Allen would be that three times over. Allen broke all the rules which was expected of him, and then some. Peerless talent.
At the end of the day Allen was already able to produce the basic fire and also the ice ball, better than Lucia and Jake, and they are gifted in the arts. Alise just wanted to go lie down. So this is the power of the 69 or should she rather say 70.
Alise retired earlier than usual that day due to shock.
Jake saw an opportunity in this. He was going to teach Allen a lesson he wasn't going to forget anytime soon.
As Allen was getting ready to call Mea, he gets shoved from behind. It caught him off-guard, so he fell to the ground after a few steps. He quickly looks to see who it was. Jake, should have guessed, "Real mature. Is this some kind of initiation rite?", obviously he was aware of Jake's intentions, but Allen wanted to avoid it.
Jake smiles at him, "How about a friendly sparring match, huh?"
Allen sighs, yeah right, friendly sparring my ass. He just shrugs, he was going to have to deal with it sooner or later. "Sure, why not."
The two of them stood opposite each other in the training room. Jake made the first move by sending eight fireballs at him.
Allen casually deploys his null shield and easily deflects the incoming barrage.
Jake just saw something incredible. Didn't he learn that just today, and why was it so massive?
Allen was doing training in secret so he learned that his power was a form of compression and release. He compresses the air around his feet and release it, giving him one hell of a forward boost, at the same time he creates a transparent sphere over both his fists.
Jake didn't even have enough time to wrap his head around what was going on as Allen nails him into the ground, KO!
The entire group wanted to intervene, due to the excessive scale of Jake's attack, but seeing Allen nonchalantly flick it off, even they were shaken by Allen's talent.
Lucia had both an hint of admiration as well as shock on her face. Allen just schooled the top student.