At exactly 12:00 PM in the afternoon, a boy and a girl were standing outside a big 3000 sq. foot house in the outskirts of a well-respected neighborhood.
The boy was wearing commoner's clothing with no armor and a sword was hanging by the right side of his waist.
The girl, however, looked like a matchstick with weak arms and legs. She wore a white dress with a blue flowery pattern that exposed a good part of her skin and a hat that made her look almost lady-like if not for her weak constitution.
"Hello, Mr. Avi, Please call me Ms. Omni. I'm the realtor."
Another girl that had just gotten out of a black convertible approached the pair of siblings and smiled gently with a seller's uncategorizable grin as she stretched out her hands in a greeting.
"Ah, Yes Ms. Omni, Please show us around."
The 3000 sq foot house was well maintained and had spacious rooms. The whole house was divided into two sections consisting of the actual house and a garden with a 75/25 split.
The house itself had two floors co-joined into a duplex with wide stairs leading up to the second floor. There was an open and wide kitchen joined to the dining and living room with gaming and reading rooms separated on either side by soundproof walls.
The second floor only consisted of three bedrooms with attached bathrooms and a training room with hardened floors and walls that were capable of withstanding a 35000 Newton force.
With Vikram's current physical strength which was higher than an experienced boxer at 5000N (>500 Kg), the training room was practically a fortress he would never be able to break into.
~Bhaiya! We can't rent this house! I'm not going to allow it~
After going through the detailed inspection of the house, Maya quickly ran up to her brother and whispered in his ears.
~Why? You don't like it?~
~Of course not. It is too big for the two of us. I don't even want to imagine the rent and the amount of work I would need to clean this house~
~Pfft!~ Vikram laughed looking at his sister which made her pout even more.
~Don't worry about that. I already checked online, there are robots that can do the cleaning for you, although they are slightly expensive, I will be able to get one after I get my Shika license.~
Maya wasn't convinced by her brother and it was apparent on her face. Her brother was basically counting his chickens before the eggs hatched.
Although Shikas earned quite a big sum of money in little time, that was only true for Shikas with combat mutation. Not only had her brother awakened a Resident mutation, it hadn't even been more than 24 hours yet, meaning he had zero experience how his abilities worked.
~Not to mention, we won't ever be able to rent such a fully-furnished house even if we spent 10,000 UC a month. At 999 coins, it is basically a loot. Come on you know, I'm not wrong.~
Vikram begged his sister and Maya couldn't argue with his logic either.
~Do you have any other problems with the house except for work and rent? Otherwise, I'll finalize this one.~
~Nooo, I don't~ Maya pouted and stared at the ground as she realized that all this time she had been acting like an over-protective mother.
~We will move in first and then think about other stuff later.~
Maya looked at her brother's back as he moved to talk with the realtor, 'I know you'll figure it out. You always do'. A confident smile appeared on her face.
**
"Ms. Omni, We like the house and going to rent it out. When can we move in?"
"Oh, great Mr. Avi. It is really a great decision on your part. You will not regret your decision at all."
"So?"
"Yes. If you can finalize the payment, I can hand over the keys right away"
Ms. Omni sent a contract for 3 months to Avi's ID and Vikram took his sweet time reading the contents of the document while sitting at the sofa that came with the house.
"It says something about isolated paranormal damage. That the house owner will not be responsible and the tenants will have to cover up the cost?"
"Ah! Yes. As you might have already seen on the website. According to the residents, this house seems to be haunted, and that's also why nobody is willing to rent or buy this house"
"Hmm"
"Then in case a tenant gives a reason like it is a haunted house and wants to negate this contract, he will bear the whole cost."
"Is it true about the ghost?"
"I'll not hide anything from you: Although we have scanned this house countless no. of times and found that there was nothing wrong with it, the tenants still keep on leaving this house without specifying the reason why they are doing so."
Omni continued explaining to Avi how her organization had dispatched an Illusionist to take care of the ghost but they weren't able to find anything wrong with the house either.
Vikram thought for a while and decided to rent the house. According to his inspection, he hadn't found any energy near the vicinity of the house and his instincts were also surprisingly good when it came to dangerous areas but this house hadn't raised any flags.
"Okay. Then let's finalize the payment"
Vikram said and paid a 3000 UC deposit for the next three months of rent and utilities. He was feeling extremely grateful to the old man who had sent him a sword in the morning alongside the promised potions.
This had greatly reduced his spending as he returned the previously ordered sword and saved 2500 UC of the original 5000 left after exam registration.
If not for the old man's generous gifts, Vikram would not have had enough money to sign the 3-month mandatory contract.
"I will remember this favor, old man!"
Vikram was someone who always returned a favor 10x and revenges with 100x.
*****
{ 6:00 PM | Villa, Sector 19 | Zone Y }
Vikram had spent all day navigating the busy streets of the market to purchase basic stuff for his new home like utensils, cutlery, raw food for the kitchen, some linens for the bedroom, etc.
He even had to go back to the shack house one time to carry all their belongings back home which wasn't much.
At dusk, Vikram prepared a hearty supper for both him and his sister and gave her one of the recovery potions that he had received from the old man and also told Maya to practice the Prana breathing technique.
According to Vikram, the Prana breathing technique was something that was oddly compatible with the recovery potions of the world and almost upgraded the effects of a basic recovery potion to a bronze recovery potion of high quality.
"Do not tell anyone about this breathing technique, Okay Maya? It can bring unwanted attention and someone might want to steal the technique from you!"
"Okay! I understand brother. I'll keep this a secret", a sweet Maya replied imitating zipping her lips.
*****
{ 10:00 PM, Training Room }
Vikram had exactly 12 hours till his exam and he was currently using this time to properly align his motor functions, muscle memory, and physical instincts with his soul and mind.
This was one of his greatest disadvantages right now and Vikram was planing on either completely overcoming this limitation or at least reducing it to its minimal effects.
He had noticed it during the train incident as well as when he wanted to run away from the rampant energy from the meteor, but there was a slight delay between him thinking of action and his body actually executing it.
It didn't hamper his day-to-day tasks, but during clutch moments even the slight mishap could lead to one's death and his extremely tactical mind wouldn't let things to chance. It could have been due to his soul being recently transported to Avi's body, but Vikram was not going to find it the hard way.
'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'
He thought of sir KRM as he remembered a famous quote from the Empire and continued to execute extremely strenuous sword movements in the silence of the training room.
**
{ Two hours later }
Despite having just gone through an intense sword practicing session to get used to his body, Vikram didn't feel tired or sleepy at all.
'Is it the side effect of the mutation that I don't feel like sleeping?'
Although he had already prepared to the best of his ability, he still couldn't be sure before fighting a Monster that he would be able to beat them.
From one of Avi's memory where he had snuck out of the Wall's safety perimeter to gather some herbs illegally, Vikram remembered Avi fighting an E-rank monster and barely making it out alive. Although Avi didn't have a weapon and hadn't gone through awakening, it was still shameful in Vikram's eye that he couldn't outrun an E-rank Snail-Mantis.
"I shouldn't get to face a monster above E-rank for the first exam, but Avi's memory still gives me nightmares."
**
'Akashvani, are you there?'
[ Yes ]
'Can you explain in detail about my abilities once more?'
Vikram was finally getting to use the Akashvani System, or AV, as it was intended to be used. From the moment he found himself half-dead to the current moment, Vikram just hadn't had a single second to himself to properly learn about his newfound abilities.
---
[ Adaptation ]
The body of the host can adapt to extreme temperatures very quickly and purify all foreign energy trying to take control of the host's mind into his own strength. Adaptation ability allows the host to also mimick his own energy to any known gene or energy signature after prior exposure.
[ Viral Thought ]
Akashik Parasites are one of the purest energy-type viral entities of the Chaos world and are only visible to the children of Arajakta. The parasites are part of a collective hive mind inhabiting the host and they will only listen to the hive's command or die resisting.
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