It was the break of dawn of the day that the Summer Vacations began. Quinn was prepared to go the Vampire planet alongside with Aaron. However, he was still waiting on his newly made equipment—to be made by the one and only: Andre Arlo; perhaps the best forger to exist—especially after creating the Soul Catcher a potential Divine Artefact.
Quinn had given him 7 Celestial Essences, a source of near-infinite energy, to make some gear exclusively for him. He only needed 5 if he wanted to make a whole set of armour, save for the shoulder pads that would be integrated with the torso armour by Quinn's request, for Quinn alongside a new type of weapon: a three-section staff that would require yet another Celestial Essence. Quinn had his eyes on this kind of weapon ever since seeing it in Sector III.
He also desired the Soul Catcher that Andre had recently made, but he was not sure that the forger would just give it to him; such a powerful item in the hands of a naive boy—at least to him. But, the feeling was mutual for Quinn as well; he thought that it would be dangerous for Andre to have something like that in his hands at all time.
Quinn needed to be stronger to face the unforeseen dangers that lie beyond the plane of existence in which the mortals lived. And to do so, he not only needed himself to be strong, but also needed armaments that would support and not fail him. A quasi-divine tier equipment set was just what he needed as of now.
In the few days prior to the present, he spoke with Aaron and Andre, wishing upon their knowledge of the Vampire world, and the Humas that lived in coexistence with them. He called them so because they were only slightly different from the humans on Earth, and having another species that is exactly the same as them is terrifying; thus, the slight alteration to the name.
The matter with Luna and Sen: Quinn decided against informing Luna of anything regarding anything outside of the realm of humans. He would merely tell her that he was going to a distant planet to do his own thing. But of course, as expected, Luna asked to tag along; to which, Quinn immediately refused. When she instisted, he snapped at her. Quinn had been getting surges of negative emotions as of lately. He did not know why; matter of fact, there was a point and time when he felt as though he had lost his human emotions altogether, but right now, it was not the case, it seemed.
He felt terrible after seeing how scared Luna was after that incident. Unknown to himself, his emotions caused his face to flicker with multiple emotions in the span of a second; his eyes seemed to multiply and were spread around his face, displaced very slightly. He did not even notice a Shadow Heart notification message that appeared and disappeared: [...8%].
Quinn felt... conflicted, to say the least. He never liked treating Luna this way, but he wanted to make sure that she was safe from the mess that he had been in the middle of; even if that meant pushing her away.
To Sen, however, he had only disclosed the minimum amount of information. Quinn only told him that he was going to the Vampire planet and some other information that was only necessary. He threatened rip out Sen's tongue if he were to say anything to Luna.
He had bought some gear from the Shop that he was planning to gift to both Sen and Luna before he left. Since he had seen Sen with some decent weapon, he did not bother to buy another one. However, Luna's claymore was close to garbage in his eyes, being at D-rank; so he bought an A-rank [Wyrm-Scaled Drake Claw] for her: a claymore the same dimensions as her's, but it also had a good Active Skill. On top of the weapon, he bought accessories for the two of them: an S-Rank [Phoenix Feather] for Luna, and a Minor S-Rank [Second Heart] for Sen.
The [Phoenix Feather] was supposed to destroy itself to save the User from a fatal attack, heal them, and raise their attack and defense by 2 times for 3 Hours. The [Second Heart] would continuously pump more and more blood, and store it in itself for Sen to use; it would help him with the use of his ability greatly without straining his own body.
———
The students were to leave now; it was 10 AM in the morning. The skies were clear and the Sun was shining brilliantly, causing most of the people to sweat a lot. Quinn thought to himself how he would miss the clear sky and the Sun; he had never once thought of such things, because he never left Earth in the first place. But, now that he was leaving Earth for a whole new realm, his mind started to wander.
The students were to line up in an orderly manner to salute the military officials before stepping through the teleporters to leave the military academy's island after 10:30 AM. But, before that, Quinn had to collect his new gear from Andre, back in Section V of the City. Hopefully, it would be done before the designated time for the students leaving the island.
As he arrived at the area where the students gathered: an open area where Military-grade Spaceships were kept, he saw all of the students of the military academy base 1 standing in an orderly manner, in rows and columns. In front of all the students, stood the two Lieutenants Generals and three Sergeant Majors along with their Head General. One of the Lieutenant Generals, Madam Yang, and Quinn's eyes met each other; as Quinn recoiled and shuddered, Madam Yang waved her hand towards him with a smile as her eyes turned to slits. Quinn was somewhere in the first few rows, so it was quite easy to spot the muscular and lean figure of the six foot unit of a teenager.
Some of the male students who noticed where the wave was directed, glared at him, but could not do much; not in front of their peers and the military officials. Plus, they had all seen the strength that Quinn had displayed as of lately.
After recovering, Quinn also spotted Aaron amidst the group of military officials. He wondered why that was so; Aaron was not a person of high ranking in the military. But, even the military knew of Aaron's great powers, so they cherished his presence in the military and wished to keep him for themselves; thus, the premium treatment.
At that moment, Quinn received a message; it was from none other than Andre. It stated that his equipment was ready and he could come to pick it up whenever. 'Sweet! Perfect timing, Andre.'
Quinn unsealed his inhumane perception of the world and time seemed to slow down by at least 30% for him; while he was able to move completely normally, the others seemed to move in slow-motion. He used his Authority over Shadows to disappear from where he once stood and simultaneously, place a clone of him in that place that would act like him, and finally proceeded to move to Sector V of the city, triggering a strong gust of wind as he launched away.
Quinn's Shadow powers were beyond versitile and the cosmos was the limit for its utility, and he was grateful for this. His Authority over Darkness could not even compete; but, then again, he never even tried to use the Darkness that bolstered him when he was weak now that it was an Authoriy. 'I might need to experiment with the Darkness Authority as well, I suppose...'
Quinn reached the door of the forge that Andre occupied and opened it without hesitation. He was greeted with Andre behind a giant table with his equipment on it, covered under cloth. Andre seemed like he was beat; his eyes were red and he was sniffling for some reason. But nevertheless, he wore a giant grin on his countenance.
"Have you been crying or something, gramps?" Quinn asked, quite worried, for once. After all, Andre was the best black-smith in the mortal realms—as far as he knew—and was capable of producing near-divine tier equipment. He did not know much about him, but he never saw him worry about anything else other than his craft.
"Ah, this?" Andre sniffled once again, "You won't even understand, kid. You won't be able to understand... the honour, and the reward for forging something like this. When I made that Soul Catcher... I knew that I was near ascendence to the level of a Divine Smith. I just never had the chance to work with such great materials, other than that Netherstone, and the Tear of a Dying Star that I got from the body of a god, by pure luck.
"These Celestial Essences that you gave me, kid... they were just what I needed: to ascend to a Divine Smith. These things that I've made... are the best pieces of equipment that I've ever made in my hundreds of years of life! They're a fuckin' Divine-tier armour set and weapon! Made by yours truly, the Divine Smith, Andre Arlo! Take a look-!"
Andre pulled the cloth away, revealing the most alluring pieces of armour that Quinn had ever seen...
[Celestial Lich King's Crown of Malignance]
[Celestial Green-Dragon's Scaled Torso]
[Celestial Balrog's Gauntlets]
[Celestial Titan-Bladed Mantis' Legs]
[Celestial Fenrir's Boots]
Before Quinn could move on and look at all of their details using his [Scrutinize] Skill, Andre cleared his throat to catch his attention. Finally, he pulled another cloth, revealing a long staff that was longer than Quinn's height.
[Celestial Leviathan's Elemental Staff]
...