['Wait, why am I able to see the top of hills and trees when I don't recall going up any stairs, or even going up. There's even an ocean in the distance.'] Alex questioned his alters.
He looked down and saw a huge lump of cloud floating right underneath the patio, then he looked up and saw nothing but the roof of his apartment as the peak of the mountain.
['How do you expect us to know?'] Al answered.
['I…'] Alex didn't know how to counter that, because they had been giving him advice for a while now he unconsciously expected them to have an idea.
['Forget I asked.']
He turned to his left and saw Andrea standing beside him. Looking at her closely he realized that they were the same height. "Andrea, how is this possible? We are at the top of the mountain but I don't remember going up anywhere. We only walked through halls and made turns."
"I will answer your question if you answer mine truthfully."
Alex cocked his head bit. "Sure, I will answer to the best of my ability."
"Then I wouldn't hold back anymore. How did you get your hands on a purple HD-EC? I would have written it off as you finding one during an expedition but your attitude towards ECs says otherwise. You are not fazed by it. Who are you, Alexander? You never mentioned a family name when you were introducing yourself." She made eye contact with Alex.
"Well, that's more than one question." He narrowed his eyelids but still maintained eye contact with her. "How I got my hands on the energy crystals? Let's just say that a distant friend gave them to me. As for your second question, I don't have a family name. I'm an orphan." He finished and broke the eye contact they had been making.
He leaned on the glass railing and did something he hadn't done in years, he tried to remember what his parents looked like. He could still remember his father's features to a certain extent but the image of his mother in his memory had started to blur, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest.
Alex had entered another moment of weakness, it was at this moment Alex had noticed just how much he had changed, psychologically.
Since he had arrived in this world he had stopped acting like the nonchalant, cold-blooded calculative assassin he was trained to be.
['What's going? Am I really me?'] He reflected upon himself. ['I have made rash decisions, foolish mistakes, too trusting and naïve. I understand that you guys used to influence my decisions and characters in the past… at least I know that I have never acted like this before.']
['You finally realize that you have been acting out of character.'] He heard Xander say.
['At first I assumed that it was a moment of weakness caused by the loss of Sheila, but after waiting for a while I started to doubt if that is the only reason. My thesis is that you are subconsciously trying to reject everything about Kain including all that he had made you, without him, you wouldn't be the killer that you are, and without him, you might have already died. But because of him, you lost a loved one.'] Xander expressed his opinions.
For a while Alex had forgotten about Kain, hearing his alter mention his name once more put him in a bad mood. He clenched his fist so hard his palm started to bleed a little.
['See, you are doing it now. Hearing his name puts you in a raging mood. This proves my thesis, to forget about Kain, you subconsciously try to forget and reject everything that he had made you. When you walk your steps create too much sound, for an assassin that's an F9 yet you didn't even notice. If it was in the past and you met someone like Duna, you would have been careful of how you interact with him, yet today you openly made an enemy of someone that you have no way to defeat.']
Everything that Xander had said was true and he knew it, he just couldn't help but feel like he was going against the promises he made to Sheila.
['I know that you think that you have to change to fulfill Sheila's promise, but you don't. She only wanted you to fall in love and live a happy life, not make stupid decisions that can lead to your death or make you a potential target of others.] Xander said bluntly.
['When we were with Sheila our nature didn't change, only the character does. You remained the same person when you were with her, just with some extra emotions. You don't have to force yourself to be who you are not, that's all I am saying.']
['I understand what you mean, I have been going about this the wrong way. Thank you, I owe you one'] Alex said sincerely.
He closed his eyes trying to suppress the rage that was still building up in his heart…
"Alex," he heard Andrea say but he chose to ignore her call. "Alex." She called once more. "Alex?"
"What!!??" He snapped at her and released a dense killing intent. His killing intent was thick enough to increase the speed of Andrea's heartbeat, she jumped backward on instincts. Camron froze in his tracks while Arabella also entered defensive mode on instinct.
'What is this feeling? How is it emanating from him? This is the same kind of feeling I got the first time I saw a monstrous beast.' Andrea thought frantically.
'This is different from his bloodline suppression, all I feel now is bloodlust. It's contagious.' Camron analyzed as he too started to feel the urge to kill.
['Calm down Alex!! Calm down. Deep breaths, deep breaths.'] Xander advised. Alex did as his alter asked and took in deep breaths.
['That's it, in, and then out.'] He repeated the process a few times till his killing intent retracted.
['That's it, this is the second time you are releasing this killing intent since you arrived in this world. The first time it was released was when Voss was scheming through our memories. This intent Is proof of those that you have killed in cold blood, it is proof that you are a killer, it is a part of your nature. Accept it once more and with it you would still be able to keep the promises you made to Sheila in one piece.']
He exhaled for the last time and opened his eyes, the first person he saw was Andrea standing a few feet away from him in a defensive stance. " I'm sorry about that." He said.
Andrea didn't notice that she had entered a defensive stance. As Alex apologized she was brought back into reality, but her heart was still beating fast. Arabella swallowed her saliva as she stared at Alex with a new light.
'To have this kind of dense killing intent, he must have killed a lot of people. But how many people would you have to kill to be able to make it this dense? He is just a rank-6 origin realm cultivator.' Andrea was lost in her thoughts.
'I asked a question I wasn't meant to ask, his family, who are they?' She recalled that his mood changed after he answered the question about his family. He said that he was an orphan but she found it hard to believe him.
The sun started to set. The soft setting rays of the sunlight dusked upon the patio and joined the silence and awkwardness in the air. Alex turned and stared at the setting sun, he closed his eyes and let the rays of the sun hit his face. He smiled and enjoyed the feel of the sun on his skin. His mood was now completely stabilized.
Andrea wanted to speak but she didn't know what to say…
"Classes would be starting the day after tomorrow, but attendance wouldn't be taken till a week after resumption date. You need to search for your class tomorrow and know what your schedule is. General orientation will be held tomorrow."
"You haven't answered my question about how we got to the top of the mountain without going up, was it through teleportation?" Alex reminded her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, it skipped it my mind. No, it is not through teleportation, but something like that. It's called a wrap gate. Here's the difference, a warp gate is a gate that punctures a hole in space and opens up in another location.
Teleportation has to deal with the deconstruction and reconstruction of your body's molecules and its structures, it is a more complex and difficult feat to achieve. The Halls we walked through were built like that of a warp gate." Andrea briefly explained what she knew to him.
"Now that I have answered your question I will be leaving you to explore your suite." She said meekly. Andrea started feeling shy because of the way she reacted when he released his killing intent, despite her, being in a higher realm she reacted like a coward.