As Cole had his encounter with one of his gang's suppliers, Brandyn had already returned to the outpost that he was familiar with.
Once he started to close in on the outpost, Carbine had already left and was standing outside in anticipation of his arrival. More than pleased to have completed his mission, he handed him the briefcase and Carbine kindly took it with a smile on his face.
[Quest Complete!]
[+1 Level Up]
[+1 Stat Point]
[ELEMENTS UNLOCKED]
"Good stuff, kid. There seems to be as much as we anticipated in here. There's about 14,000 marks up for grabs." He said, opening up the case to reveal wads of cash in 10s and 20s.
"Okay. Here you go. A thousand." He said in a nonchalant voice and manner.
"A thousand?! This could pay off my expenses for more than a month! This crime thing doesn't even seem too bad." He replied, taking the money with his non-injured arm.
"What happened to you? Did you get hit by one of the mega pellets?"
"Uh, I think so. It was big and rocky but I swear it was harder than rock." Brandyn briefly explained, thinking back to when he had been hit with the ammunition.
"Yeah that was a mega pellet. I imagine they arm all of their regular-born men with them but the pellet goes too slow to really kill anyone. How come you still completed the mission after getting hit by one?" Carbine asked, quite confused at the supposed good health of the boy.
"I don't know. My chest hurts pretty bad but that's pretty much it."
"Good. Use that phone and come back here once I inform you. The only numbers you have and can have on that are mine and emergency services. Only use emergency services if absolutely necessary since we aren't exactly following the law here." Carbine said jokingly.
"Thank you!" Brandyn said, almost completely ignoring the system panel that had appeared beside his fellow gang member.
"Let's go. Remember, this is an unknown outpost. Just head home." Carbine stated, turning to walk in the opposite direction.
As he left, Brandyn switched his focus to the new system panel that had appeared in front of him and he was immediately interested in this panel.
[Spin for Element]
[-Free-]
"Another spinning thing? How many elements can they really have though? Oh well, let's see."
This time, Brandyn was only spinning for one item as a single slot was switching between various elements. He was unable to discern any of the elements that were speedily crossing the system panel but as it slowed, he saw the 5 core elements. Water, wind, fire, earth and lightning.
[Spin Complete!]
[Element: Lightning]
"Lightning! That's pretty decent. I'm happy I didn't get anything like water. That seems pretty lame." Brandyn thought to himself as he started to walk back home.
Once this appeared, another set of notifications appeared, informing him on something completely new.
[User: Brandyn Santiago]
[Level: 5]
[Strength: 6]
[Speed: 6]
[Durability: 7]
[HP:29/50]
[MP: 10/10]
[XP: 0/500]
"MP? That must be the cost of using this element. So this is the cost that will be appearing in my new skills. Well, I think it'll only be used for skills involving my element."
[+1 Skill]
[Skill: Bolt]
[The user can output a bolt of electricity from either hand. It is short in length highly destructive.]
[COST: 4 MP]
"4? I can only do it twice? When does something like this even refill. I guess it'll have something to do with daily refills or something." He said, as he approached his apartment block.
"Well, here goes nothing." He whispered to himself in the quiet street.
As he lifted his arm, he internally activated the skill that he had gained and as he did this,he heard a weird crackling noise next to his left ear.
As this happened, a short spear of lightning condensed into his left hand but the electricity was not blue. Instead, it was a mixture of black and purple electricity that had a far more sinister nature to it.
As the lightning bolt formed in his hand, he simply threw it into the alley that was beside him. The spear soared through the air with the noises of whistling and crackling occurring in tandem.
*CRACK*
*SCREECH*
Once he did this, the spear had stabbed into a wheelie bin and caused an incredibly large dent in it. The damage looked as if someone had just threw a full power punch at the bin, which made Brandyn quite delighted.
"Look at the power with that skill! If my growth continues like this, I might even be stronger than Elias before I leave high school!" He realised.
The city was now darker than before and the sky was a midnight black, only illuminated by twinkling stars that were lightyears away.
Brandyn was most certainly exhausted after his day and his rib was busted so he did nothing but cosily fall in his bed, awaiting the next day.
During the next day, Brandyn's school day was pretty much exactly the same as it usually was. Mr Gudbrand and Mr Maximilian did not exactly teach him many new things but they both stressed the practice of the basics before moving on to more advanced, developed techniques.
Brandyn was flying past the rest of his classmates, who were quite stagnant in their growth since they did little work at home. Brandyn put in extra work daily and his results were showing.
As his first lecture ended, Brandyn simply went back to his locker to prepare for the next one. However, he heard the heavy stomping of somebody who approached him. As he turned reflexively, he saw that it was none other than Saru.
This time, Saru didn't even start off the assault with any harsh words and simply swung forwards with a left overhand.
"He's an orthodox but he's throwing a left like that? Rookie mistake." Brandyn thought to himself, parrying the punch with ease.
"Look, these weaklings are fighting again." Someone said in the crowd, only interested in the fight as it inflated their egos even more.
Saru didn't even take time to readjust his position or even pull back his left arm and he just continued with another power punch to the head. However, Brandyn slipped past this attack then backed up to gain some distance as this was quite a spontaneous assault.
Most of the times that he was attacked, it was due to something. However, this seemed to be out of no where. It had been such a long time since he had first beat Saru so if he wanted revenge, why wait so long?
"Don't run from me, trash!" Saru shouted, showing off his growing fangs.