Alex was fixing a hole in the pipe on the side of the house where one of the Lizards bit a hole into the white beam. As he was contemplating the best way patch the bitemark, a ringing sound rang out startling Alex.
*Ring *Ring *Ring
Alex immediately recovered as he turned and saw the light on screen light up indicating people were travelling to the house via transportation tubes. The main tube was located underground with the entrance emerging on the backside of the house where Alex was stationed currently.
He tensed up and put on his guard immediately as almost no one really visited. Occasionally some friends would come but would tell Alex in advance. Also, Amanda and Zalan weren't suppose to return until later in the day.
Both Alex and Amanda's parents died to Chasm-born attacks. Amanda with her unawakened parents being defenceless as the building collapsed on them and Alex's died on the front lines when they were deployed west of Caelum City. A bit further out westward at the outskirts of district A.
They met when Alex saved Amanda from the same fate as her parents. From then on, they felt themselves to be inseparable, and eventually decided to live on this farm far away from others and wars.
Alex hastily placed his tape back into the tool box and warped the box into the spatial storage ring on his left finger before standing up and walking towards the platform.
However, he didn't have to keep his guard up much longer as he noticed the familiar child seated on a woman's lap appearing in the transportation tube.
'Why are they back so early?' Alex thought with a frown.
A gust of wind flew past him as the doors opened before a child hopped out all excited.
"Daddy!" Zalan shouted as he hopped off and charged towards Alex.
'I am acing this role!' Zalan thought whilst putting on a smile.
"Hey Zalan!"
Alex couldn't help but smile back as he bent down ready to greet the Zalan with a hug. But as he did, he noticed strange Vis fluctuations around Zalan before registering what it was. When Alex did, the smile on his face froze once again. So rather than hugging Zalan, Alex clasped down on his sides and held Zalan there as he stared at him with a crestfallen expression.
'That's not possible..' Alex thought as a theory formulated inside his head.
But he waved it off as it was too unlikely to be true. Because even the most gifted children developed their cores and reached tier 1 when they are 8 years old. Ordinary children develop their cores when they are 9 years old. If it were really the case where Zalan developed a core, Alex knew they weren't going to be staying with Zalan for much longer.
'The Vermont Clan will definitely take him if it is what I think it is.'
'But it could be true because he has already surpassed all the other 3 year olds in the world'
'If so I have to teach him the aura concealment technique'.
Alex thought solemnly as part of him still had a hunch that what he was thinking might actually be the case given his child's track record.
'But how did this happened?'
Still squatted on the ground with Zalan in his arms, he turned up to face Amanda.
'What is he doing?' Zalan thought whilst being scrutinized again.
'He probably already found out and is denying it right now!' Zalan guessed from the facial expression Alex was making.
"Amanda what—" Alex said before trailing off as he noticed Amanda's figure closing the distance between them. Her warm and airy demeanour was no where to be seen as she currently reflected a pale, confused ghost with no idea what was happening.
"Amanda what's wrong!" Alex said in a slightly louder voice. Temporarily startling Zalan, Alex set Zalan aside as he dashed towards Amanda and embraced her with worried eyes. Soon, his expression almost matched hers after he heard what she was muttering.
"Z—Zalan is a tier 1!" She said, barely audible to Alex. Amanda could only stutter whilst still looking down at the floor.
"Oh no" Alex whispered snapping his head back at Zalan.
Normally, any parent would be ecstatic if their child awakened before 9 years old — let alone 3–but Alex was concerned that if word ever got out then the Vermont Clan would definitely make a move to take Zalan away from them to grow him into a superpower to fight for dominance in the guild wars. The youngest child ever to form a core was at 6 years old and was done by the the firstborn of the Immortal Clan. He was revered as a 1 in a billion genius. Now that Zalan broke the record by 2 and a half years, how would the world react?
"Zalan, this is very important. How did you develop your core?" Alex asked as he turned around and guided Amanda towards his direction. Together, they walked towards the house.
"I absorbed Vis from a red crystal and compressed it".
"Huuu…" Alex replied with a sigh.
"Where did you get the crystal?"
"From the machine inside a hospital."
"Why were you in a hospital?"
"Uhh, I injured my head" Zalan said turning away whilst feeling his face heat up.
"How did you do that?"
"Can't remember."
Alex paused for a bit because something felt wrong, but he got reminded of something else before delving further into the feeling.
"I didn't even bring up the theory of how it works, how did you manage to form it?" Alex asked once again shooting a confused look at Zalan.
"I just did what felt right." Zalan replied innocently.
"Alright" Alex said stopping his line of questioning. He kicked open the wooden door and set Amanda down on the couch. As she laid there and closed her eyes to rest, Alex shot a glance at Zalan before turning to unlock the door to the basement.
"Let's go inside, I need to teach you a technique to hide your Aura before you go off and scare everyone". Alex said as he typed in the password to the basement.
"Ok."
The duo descended the glass stairs through the hallway into the dimly lit library with a fire burning in the fire place. Alex input the password to enter the reading room and led Zalan inside.
Zalan had come here often with Amanda and had already familiarized himself with the different books on combat and Vis control that were present here. Turns out most of them were books from Snowflake and some Ice awakened Vis control manuals that Alex was still learning techniques from. There was also a stash of Vis crystals inside a hidden compartment in the wall where Alex would come and absorb. Now, Zalan would be able to have access to the same room and develop his own powers along side Alex.