'Here I am…'
Looking down on the city from high up, Chrome embraced the cold breeze of wind that brushed through him before taking a deep breath and turning around.
'Basic Lightning…'
`~~~`~~~`~~~`
5 days earlier…
"Haaaa…"
Letting out a deep breath, Chrome took the towel that he hung around his neck and dried his hair as he sat in front of his old computer set and turned on the power.
Due to the lack of a smartphone, Chrome could rarely communicate casually with people through the internet, and the only way he could do that was by using this piece of junk PC.
However, it was rare for people to reach out for him anyway, especially in this parallel world where even his 'best-friend' rarely phoned him. In fact, his email, which was his only online communication line, barely even received spam mails…
Thus, the only actual reason Chrome actually opened the junk PC was to surf the internet for several pieces of information, trying to find the more contradicting differences of this world and his world, trying to know more about the supernatural, and sometimes even just browsing for fun, but…
Ding!
This time…
'Eh?'
He did receive an email.
As soon as Chrome had opened the browser that was synchronized with his own email, he immediately received the notification that he had a new mail.
'This is… Link?'
Looking at the weird email name that consisted of nothing but random numbers, Chrome quickly recognized the identity of the sender as he clicked the check the content.
'Sigh…'
Seeing that the email contained an attached video file, Chrome couldn't help but sigh at the buffering sign that seemed to last forever, his 'very dead' internet connection felt like it would drain the life out of him.
Luckily for him, while the video's quality was a bit high, it's length was only slightly over 5 minutes, so Chrome didn't have to wait until he returned from the second training session of the day to see the video, he only had to wait… half an hour.
'This quality is a bit of an overkill isn't it?'
Having had to wait for the 'little' amount of time, Chrome, who almost ran out of both life and patience from staring at the only content of the wordless email buffering, complained a bit in his mind before clicking the start button.
'Completely censored faces…'
Noticing the strikingly suspicious feature of the only man that appeared once the video was downloaded, Chrome frowned a bit as he wondered if he mistook the easily mistakable email of Link for a spam one, fortunately, he quickly confirmed that his suspicion was simply baseless.
'This…'
Though the video was indeed of an 'Underground' nature, it wasn't the type that his youthful brain thought of at first, it was something completely different.
'A black market ability displaying video!'
While special ability users, heroes and supernatural folks were no longer a myth, being as popular as celebrities, what was known to ordinary people about them was rather limited, for a normal man to see an actual supernatural combat was something that hardly happened unless he was caught up in a very unexpected dangerous situation where a gate opened out of nowhere.
Furthermore, exposing one's special abilities to others and showing all of its strong and weak points, how it could be countered and how one could perfect its use, was usually a semi-taboo that people rarely do.
However, a miniature version of a video containing such sensitive information was being displayed in front of Chrome. The only logical explanation that came to his mind, especially when taking the censored face into consideration, was that it was a 'black market' video.
Though such videos that displayed special abilities could have unimaginable value that could rake in more than just a few 'Awakening Pills', this video only displayed the properties of a preliminary ability so it wouldn't even be worth a quarter of the price of an 'Awakening Pill', but it would be at least worth as much as Chrome paid for the gym membership.
The end of the video wasn't a black screen but instead a white page full of words, which made it understandable for Chrome why Link didn't bother adding words to the mail he sent.
{ Dear Chrome, this is my anonymous gift for you to congratulate you on achieving an impossible awakening! Though it's not very common, I was lucky enough to chance upon a mini-displaying vid of 'Generate Electricity'. I hope it will be of help to you, please remember to delete the vid and the whole mail once you are done memorizing the important parts! Wish you all the luck! }
'Link sure is being generous…'
Seeing the mysterious weird note, Chrome had a slight smile on his face as he acknowledged the generous yet weirdly presented gesture of Link before replaying the video once again with more concentration.
Normally, such videos would actually be of great help if one actually managed to find a correctly matched one, saving himself the time of exploring the place in the dark and instead trying a direct path that is full of light, unfortunately for both Chrome and the sender, this one wasn't a real match…
The current ability that Chrome had was sadly [Basic Lightning] and not 'Generate Electricity', and though they were quite alike in nature, Chrome couldn't simply use its paths for this ability that was linked to the 'Self-Reliance Palace'.
The advancing [Basic Lightning] was something that could only be done by spending a yet to be known number of SRPs, so most of the video was basically worthless, but!
'This seems very promising!'
A piece of actually useful knowledge was there!
Strictly speaking, if one was to put aside the difference of the ability name, the source of the ability and the limited damage scope, [Basic Lightning] could be considered identical to 'Generate Electricity', after all, even the 'Testing Chamber' did define it as such, in fact, the specific ability shown in the video was none other than the mentally invoked branch, making it a twin to [Basic Lightning] in pattern of use.
As such, Chrome found the part of the training that he felt that he was missing lately, a way to 'improve' [Basic Lightning] through training and not through SRPs!
Having been putting his physical body to the furnace of training, Chrome has always found it unbalanced to leave his only current special ability unattended as he waited to have enough SRPs for its advancement, there had to be a way to better it!
However, due to the common lack of actual practical material when it came to the special field of the supernatural, Chrome wasn't able to find anything useful, until now that is.
Though Chrome wasn't exactly sure that this method would work 100%, he still found it to be worth giving it a try, if it didn't work, he wouldn't lose anything, either way, the video was an 'anonymous gift' after all.
The only problem that would arise in that case, is the lack of a proper place for practice, doing it at home would destroy it within weeks and special practice rooms were far more expensive than special gym memberships.
Luckily, it only took Chrome a few seconds to find the answer to this critical question thanks to the geography of the city, but that meant that he had to pick up one more skill...