Hearing his name, Hao lifted his head and looked at the front of the class. He saw three third-year students and the rest of his classmates staring at him.
"Can I assume you're one of the two we're looking for?"
Seeing all of the students turn their gaze toward Hao, Nicholas also did the same and asked him.
At the sudden question, Hao looked at him with a raised eyebrow, trying to figure out what reason Leonard would have to call for both him and Jon.
Remembering the events that happened the previous day, Hao couldn't help a deep frown from appearing on his face.
'Fuck'
He sighed as he thought to himself and got up from around his desk, walked toward Nicholas at the front of the class, and stood directly in front of him.
"I'm Hao. What do you want with me?"
"Don't play dumb; you know what you and your little friend did? You started a turf war with those Southland fuckers."
Nocholas looked down at Hao with an amused look on his face.
'This little fucker isn't afraid of me? Or is he just acting tough?'
Hao looked at him dead in the eye with his hands in his pockets. He had no fear of these upperclassmen, but Leonard was a different story.
"Little friend? You mean the transfer student? Sorry to break it to you, but we aren't friends, and he was just passing by when that whole incident was taking place."
"Oh, is that so? Well, that isn't for you to decide. By the way, where is that little friend of yours?"
Nicholas asked as he turned his head and started to look around the class. Making various eye contact with some of the students, causing them to look away in fear.
"Sorry to break it to you, but Jon isn't here."
The sound of Victoria's voice drew Nicholas's attention towards her, and he looked at her with an amused expression before he began speaking.
"Oh, are you trying to protect him? I've heard rumors about something going on between you and some transfer students going around, but I didn't think it was true."
"Cut the crap, Nicholas; I was just doing my duty as president of the student body and showing him around the school."
Victoria sent him a vicious glare as she walked over toward him and looked him directly in the eye before continuing.
"And what makes Leonard think that he can send his little errand boys to my class and take away one of my classmates?"
"We both know that he's the type to do whatever he wants. The real question is,What are you going to do to stop these errand boys?"
Nicholas leaned over toward Victoria and looked down on her with an arrogant smirk on his face.
Victoria gave him a furious glare as she clenched her fist tightly. Seeing that she wasn't going to answer him, he looked at her amusingly before turning his attention back to Hao.
"Seeing that your little friend isn't here, I guess you alone will have to do. Now, will you obediently come with us? Or do we have to make you?"
Nicholas had a sinister smirk on his face when he was talking to Hao; however, Hao continued to look at the situation around him with an apathetic look on his face.
After a few seconds of silence, Hao let out a deep sigh, looked at him with an impassive look, and replied.
"Whatever, lead the way."
"It's good that you understand your position."
'This bastard still isn't showing any form of fear. Let's see how long you can keep up that tough guy act.'
Nicholas thought as he turned and walked toward the door to exit the class with his friends and Hao following behind.
The entire class watched in silence as they made their exit and closed the door behind them. Every student in this school knows what Leonard and his followers are capable of, and no one wanted to be on his bad side, so no one except Victoria interfered when they came to take Hao away.
"Damn it."
Victoria muttered to herself as she thought about what just happened. She may be the student council president, but that's just how far her power and her ability to help have extended.
Even if she was able to stop them from taking Hao, what would happen after school when he was about to go home?
She couldn't inform the teachers because, just like her, Leonard's father was the chairman of the school and also the mayor of the city; after all, they were siblings.
She knew the amount of time Leonard had escaped charges when he got in trouble with the police due to extreme violence.
Their father was close friends with the police chief of this entire city. She doesn't know how much he lined the police's pockets just to make sure Leonard's deeds didn't go public, but she knew it was quite a lot. After all, he had to keep the perfect image as a mayor and a businessman.
"Fuck"
Victoria muttered silently to herself in frustration as she thought about her uselessness in these situations.
She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned around to see Emilia looking at her with concern in her eyes.
"Victoria, is everything okay?"
"I'm alright; there's no need to worry about me."
Victoria gave her friend a fake smile to reassure her that she was okay; however, as one of her closest friends, Emilia knew her smile was fake.
***
While all of this was happening at his school, Jon was at home, going through the various folders on the flash drive, totally unaware of what was happening.
He spent the last few hours skimming through various videos that were in those folders, but he didn't find any more information on his grandfather than he had initially thought.
But it wasn't like the videos that he found were completely useless. In fact, they were incredibly useful.
What he found in those files were videos of various martial arts styles and information on how to train his body to gain the most optimum physique for any fighting style he wanted to pursue.
The provided training methods showed information on how to increase power, speed, technique, endurance, etc. To put it in gaming terms, he now had the information to build whatever character he wanted to focus on.
And the best thing about all that information was that he could mix and match them and build whatever physique he wanted.
'But something is strange about all of this. It's like he expected us to take the serum.'
"It could also be that you are overthinking things."
Jon heard the voice of his alter and turned to look at him. He didn't seem to be as pissed off as he was the previous night.
'I thought he had disappeared after I took the serum, but I should have known that I'm stuck with him.'
"You do know that I can hear your thoughts, right?"
"Oh, I know, but I just don't care."
Jon replied to his alter, apathecally, and continued to skim through the files on the flash dive.
"...."
Jon's alter looked at Jon with a deadpan look in his eyes, but Jon continued to ignore him and look through the files, but after a few seconds, he stopped and let out a deep sigh.
"Maybe you're right, though. I could be overthinking things. That being said, I can't draw any concrete conclusions with the amount of information I have now."
"I see. Anyway, have you thought about what kind of physique you want to train your body for?"
Jon's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he noticed how his alter brushed away his previous statement and changed the subject. He let out a brief sigh and decided to explain the decision he came up with.
"I've decided to go with an overall balanced physique. So I'll train my body, speed, power, technique, and endurance."
"Oh, that's actually not a bad decision."
"I'll mostly focus on my body's speed, power, and technique, though. Luckily, I've been trained in martial arts from a young age, so I don't have to waste a lot of time on that aspect of my training."
It might be a coincidence, but Jon thought that this might be the real reason that his grandfather decided to train him and his sister when he was younger instead of his initial reasons of discipline and self-defense.
"Even with that being said, I can't even imagine how strong Grandpa was, and they still managed to eliminate him. I'm not that stupid to believe I can do all of this by myself."
"Oh? What's this? 'Mr. I think I'm the best thing on earth since sliced bread,' just admitted that he needs help."
"I'm not an idiot; I know that I'll need help to get closer to the answers that I need, and the person who has those answers told me that I need to get enough power and influence that can make him acknowledge me."
'But there's a little problem with that. What can a 16-year-old high school student do to gain enough power and influence to make the chairman of the world's leading technological and pharmaceutical company acknowledge him? Nothing. Nothing legally, that is.'
"So I'll need allies, people who can support me and watch my back as I move forward with any plan that I have in the future. In other words, people that I can trust or people that I can control."
Jon with his index finger and his thumb, holding his chin in a thinking pose. He seemed to be thinking long and hard about what he should do.
'I can't involve Natasha in my plans since I would rather her live a life free from all this mess. So I'll bear the burden this time so that she won't have to. I've already made up my mind on what I have to do, so I don't have any thoughts of living a normal life, but she deserves a normal life if anything else.'
Jon thought to himself silently until he noticed his alter looking at him with a look of amusement in his eye.
"What is it?"
"Oh, nothing; I just found a big flaw in that plan of yours."
"And what's that?"
"You have no friends! Pffft Hahaha!"
"...."
Jon sat there silently as he watched his alter hug his belly and laugh as loudly as he could. His brow twitched in annoyance and anger as he directed his gaze toward his alter's neck.
He thought the neck of his alter looked really stangleable right now; it was too bad that he was unable to touch him.
"....I have friends."
"Oh, really? Then, I guess that's why you're sitting alone in your room talking to yourself right now? Hahahaha!!!"
Jon swore he could feel one of the veins in his head burst when he heard what his alter just said. He let out a deep sigh and decided to ignore his alter.
He then thought about a certain youth that he fought with and decided to help out when he was getting beaten up.
'He can be considered a friend, right?'