Nova walks out of the room Asher and Lucius were discussing in...
As she stepped out of the door, the sun's bright rays immediately obscured her eyesight, so she covered her face with her palm.
But on second thought, she remembered that her body could withstand the blinding light. In fact, it empowered her.
She looked straight at the sun, realizing that her mind was somewhere else. How could it not be.
In the past she had to rely on Asher and Yenn to get out of tough situations, but that looked like it was about to change when she got her powers.
It would have changed if it wasn't for that one traumatic experience in the past. That experience broke her to the very core of her system.
Now it felt like her body was afraid to grow stronger. Nova couldn't level up like the rest because her body only absorbed at most, half of whatever EXP she was to gain.
When others got a 100EXP points for defeating beasts, she'd be lucky to get forty, when they got five hundred, a hundred might be her limit. Her body always absorbed her her EXP in wrong proportions.
But it was all thanks to this defect that she spent sleepless nights killing monsters and honing the little skills her ability allowed her, to win a fights.
With her scary battle wits and crazy intensity when killing monsters, those who've fought alongside her, amongst her rank gave her the nickname, Hell Fairy.
A title that was not without rationality, considering her whatever–means–to–win battle style and the myriad of corpses her girly hands had piled up.
Nova clenched her fist.
She felt like she was close to making some kind of breakthrough. And with just a little more EXP, she would evolve into a level 60 superhuman.
'Maybe, things will improve then.'
She bent her knees a little and flew out of the forest.
Her free time was over and now it was time to head to class.
---
In a classroom full of students wearing purple shirts, jackets and other top garments, all in the same colour, a teacher was at the front, teaching.
In front of her was a digital screen, that responded to her voice by changing, enhancing and zooming out of pre–written digital texts. It was like the board was alive, knowing what to do without being told to do it, a benefit of AI technology.
Miss Hailey, the teacher, was very experienced with her job and she actually found some kind of tranquility whilst teaching.
It was a bliss that only a few with the same profession would confess that they had felt before. But even more relatable than the joy of passing on knowledge, was the torment she got from those she sought to pass it on to.
"Neven, where do you think you're going?" Miss Hailey asked the student that was trying to sneak out of class.
She could see him from the slight reflection on the screen, trying to go out through the back door.
"Uhh, I wanted to use the bathroom. Can I?" The boy asked.
Miss Hailey knew it was an obvious excuse, but she still played along. "We're in Anlan right now, couldn't you find a better way to say that?"
[A/N: Anlan means Ancient Languages. It's one of the few theory classes on Ansel.]
"Oh, sorry mam." Neven thought of his words seriously before saying,
"Excuse me ma'am, may I defecate in the school's flushable latrine?"
"Pff." A student couldn't hold in their laughter, listening to him. And soon all the others joined.
Miss Hailey could feel an annoyed pang in her head as she looked at the boy. She thought he was making a mockery of her class, but Neven really wasn't trying to do that.
He was the number one student amongst the violet vests, well, number two because he was extremely bad at the theoretical aspects of learning.
"Sit down, the class will be over in thirty minutes." She turned around to complete the class.
"Aw~, come on Miss Hailey this is an emergency. I even got a letter of approval from the mayor himself." He tapped his watch and a digital file popped out.
"Oh really? Well from what I can see, the document says you're free only nine days from now so sit down." She refuted.
"But I have to prepare for—"
While Neven was talking, his eyes mistakenly fell on the the gaze of the silver haired girl beside him.
"Eek! Don't look at me like that... Robot lady." Neven jumped because of how focused her staring was. But unexpectedly, he sat back down on his chair, covering his chest. He stopped causing trouble.
The teacher nodded in approval. Neven might be the number one talent in the class, but he was quite a handful.
However, for some reason Nova could always help keep him in check. No one knew why this was, but it was effective, so no one really cared.
Nova retracted her indifferent gaze and focused back on the board. She didn't even realize she was looking at Neven as she was lost in her own thoughts.
———
Two days later, in one of the farming grounds on Ansel...
A silver haired girl, wearing an outfit that looked a bit like a Knight's from fantasy stories, was running as fast as she could through the forest.
Her gentle looking face was covered in sweat and dust, with a trail of blood sliding down her lips as she took in heavy breaths while running.
She was inhaling and taking in large gulps of the air like each one was her last and exhaling, like that same air was a poison she didn't want in her body.
But this pitiful but in fact, not so much looking girl wasn't the only thing running so desperately through the forest.
ROAR!!!
A huge beast stampeded through the trees, following Nova from behind and breaking every obstruction that was in its way.
The beast looked like a wild boar with two horns on its head and a hard brown skin. It looked very heavy but it was surprisingly fast enough to not lose any distance that was between it and Nova. And from the ease at which it was uprooting massive trees from the ground, it was no exaggeration to say that if it caught up with Nova, she would most likely not survive for a second more.
But thankfully, the boar also had bruises on places like it's legs, neck and stomach, making it hard for it to move at it's usual speed.
[Warning, your Stamina is very low: 105/ 7500.
Your body will suffer extreme pain at 90 Stamina Points (stp).]
The notification was bad news, but Nova was already used to receiving news like this so she just ignored it.
Nova stumped hard on her left foot and pushed herself to the back of a tree with an abnormally wide trunk. And as the boar got to the tree, it bulldozed it just like it had been doing all this while.
But as soon as it knocked over the wide and tall tree, it saw that Nova was no where to be found, she had disappeared.
However, it soon discovered that something was on its back, something long and very dangerous.
ROOOOAAAR!!!
The boar's strange roar filled the surrounding as it tried to shake off the brown python slithering around its body. But this only made the python only coiled harder around it.
Activating it's ability, the boar started preparing to charge and it's body started hardening like drying clay. It was increasing it's toughness and was going to smash it's body on every single thing it could, to kill the snake.
But alas, it had not even taken two steps forward when the ground beneath it's feet suddenly crumbled for some reason and it's feet sunk in.
It roared even louder than before at it's misfortune. It couldn't move, but the snake also couldn't squeeze the life out of it because of its almost invulnerable skin, so the two beasts were at a stalemate.
But the snake soon caught sight of a wide gash around the boar's neck.
So it turned it's head and then stretched it's jaws till it was almost ten feet apart. A mature human could even use that space as a mini cave, assuming the human had a death wish of course.
And within that mini cave was it's arsenal; long black fangs fully packed with poison. Just a touch of it could make the skin of most victims melt and kill them in milliseconds.
Soon the snake's head turned into a blur as it went for a bite. It sunk its two poisonous fangs into the wound of the boar.
Black veins spread out from the bit part and started crawling their way around the boar's body at an unbelievable speed.
The boar's threatening voice was now one of fear as it struggled even harder. But, it was going to be put out of it's misery soon.
[Light Combustible: Spear]
[EP consumed: 9000]
As the black veins started to converge towards the very weakened boar's heart, a flash of light suddenly shot down from the sky towards the python's head.
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A dome of yellow rose to the sky and spread so much that everything within a hundred meter diameter was disintegrated and turned to ash and dust, with the two monsters right at the center of it, one step past the gates of death.
Nova came down like a meteoroid and struck her white and gold colored greatsword right at the head of the snake and the neck of the boar, to deliver the finishing blow.
But the snake suddenly rose and shot it's head upwards at an incredible speed.
"!!!"
Nova hurriedly placed her sword in front of her to block the lunging snake.
BOOM!!!
As the snake and sword met, Nova was sent flying into the branch of another tree.
"Gkh!" She tried to hold in the urge to scream as her spine bent backwards.
She started to fall down, but the snake was already right in her face again, with it's mouth open wide like the opened door to the underworld.
At this point, Nova's stamina was incredibly low and every movement she made now made her feel like her tissues were tearing apart.
Gritting her teeth, she stabbed into the snakes mouth and pushed back.
But before she could withdraw completely, the snake turned its head for one of its fangs to slice through her armor.
As Nova landed on the ground, she noticed that there was a little bit of poison on her skin.
So using a few of the energy points she had just gotten back, she moulded a knife with light and sliced that part of her skin off.
The snake hadn't bitten her, but she still had to cut quite deep into her arm for the drop of poison not to affect her.
The snake hissed madly at her, angry that she wasn't dead yet. It was on the verge of death itself and only sought to bring her down with it.
Nova's light spear had really damaged its head and it couldn't even see clearly. This was because half of it's head was entirely pulverized, gone and left to be a mash of blood.
It slithered at a great speed towards Nova. But the girl herself just knelt on the floor. It looked like she had already given up.
With a new certainty that she would surely die soon, it moved even faster. But just as it was about to reach her, a pole suddenly shot out from the ground, into the snake's head.
*Hiss!!!*
It shook it's body and writhed in pain, meanwhile Nova walked up to it and struck its other eye with her sword.
BOOM!
BOOM!!
BOOM!!!
The snake eventually stopped moving.
[You have killed the Rank 4 Furnace Clay Boar: 500EXP gained.]
[You have killed the Rank 4.5 Black Masher Python: 600EXP gained.]
[Total EXP: 40,050/ 40,000]
Nova stared at the screen for a while; at her exp count going above the required number to move to the next level.
'So this is the change?' She had been feeling like she was close to some kind of breakthrough in understanding her weird system, but it only got worse.
Normally, she only suffered a reduction in her exp by almost more than half, but now, the system wouldn't even let her go past level fifty nine.
What was the point of everything? She had almost died trying to see her plan through, and all for what?
She had lured the boar to the python's tree, depleted almost all her stamina to wound it at the right places, set a risky traps so the boar would stay put and used ninety percent of her energy points to try and kill the two beasts at once.
All that planning and suffering to earn an exp barely more than only one of the monster's normal amount, and to find a more defective system.
Nova's face looked indifferent. Try as the system might, she had already lost her feelings of surprise. And now, the nonsense it did just felt like your everyday scat to her.
'Well, I just have to keep at it, right, sis?'
She dragged her aching body and heavy greatsword to a safe path, out of the forest.
[SP: 25/ 7500]
'That's not good.' Her vision faded.