Chapter 6: Upgrade

“Calm your mind, try to think of nothing, but heighten your senses at the same time” Trip told Alex.

Trip was trying to help Alex achieve control over Hyuru. Overall Alex had managed to enter Hyuru once, but his control was very average, he was unable to go into Hyuru whenever he wanted to.

Trip wanted his friend to become strong, so he gave Alex personal guidance on how to gain access to Hyuru. Unfortunately, Alex was easily distracted and he was a nightmare to teach. Trip was rather annoyed by this, but today was also the day that he would gain access to his new room. This had been promised to him by the teacher. Trip was of course excited by getting a bigger space to work in, but the main thing he was excited about was that now he would get ventilation! Too long had he been held back by the poor ventilation in his current dorm room, he was truly incomparably excited by the prospect of clean air in his room.

“Trip!” Alex shouted excitedly

“W-What?” Trip asked, waking up from his daydreams

“I did it, I entered Hyuru. It was crazy I saw all these red particles!” Alex said

“Oh. Good job. That means you should have good affinity for fire magic! How long were you in Hyuru?” Trip asked, this was a good sign. For Alex to have seen red particles showed that he was quite talented in magic. This made Trip happy, having strong friends was always a good sign.

“I was in Hyuru for around 10 seconds, then I felt like I was forced out, because my mind got so tired. How long do you think it will take for me to gain full control over Hyuru?” Alex asked, hoping for a good answer

“Hmm, it seems your mental stamina isn’t very good. With your talent I would imagine it would take you a couple of months to almost a year maximum.” Trip said

Alex was slightly disappointed by this, but if the time Trip mentioned was true, then that would mean he would achieve Hyuru when he was 9 years old. This would mean he would still be considered incomparable genius.

Meanwhile in a large room the teacher who examined Trip stood in front of a man sitting at a desk. The man had many scars on his face, and seemed very intimidating at first, but he seemed to have a kind and inviting smile. This man was of course the principal of the school called Ponter Livis.

“I’m telling you sir, this kid is an absolute genius. He got 90% on my exam. That exam contained questions which even the 4th years wouldn’t be able to answer.” the teacher said “The scariest thing is that he would have gotten 100%, but he crossed out some of his answers in order to not seem so terrifyingly smart.”

“Hmm, while I appreciate you telling me this. What do you hope to achieve or gain by informing me of this?” Ponter clearly could tell there was something the teacher needed, otherwise the teacher would have never informed him.

“Well, hehe. I happened to make a little bet with him...” The teacher said, laughing awkwardly.

“You made a bet with an 8 year old child, and lost?” Ponter questioned, finding it hard to contain his laughter. Was this kid really a genius, or was this man just an idiot?

“I bet that if he got 90% on the test I would upgrade his dorm room. Unfortunately, this would take around 3 months of my salary, and…” Finding it hard to contain his frustration the teacher stopped mid-sentence.

“So you want me to pay for the dorm room in exchange for you giving me information?” Ponter asked. Could a man actually be this stupid? He already said all the information Ponter would need to investigate the child, any idiot would realise that in order to make a deal one would withhold the information until the deal had been struck. However, Ponter was a compassionate man, and he wouldn’t want to have one of his employees dissatisfied by the treatment they were receiving. Seeing the face of the pleading teacher he couldn’t help but agree to pay for the dorm room.

This made the teacher very happy, as he quite literally skipped away, leaving behind the name of the student who aced the test.

Ponter looked down at the paper the teacher gave him “Hmm, Trip huh. That’s an interesting name. No last name either…”

Suddenly Ponter’s eyes went wide “Could it be? That student that came here with special conditions?”

Ponter thought back to several days before the semester started, a shadow had appeared in front of him. This shadow had such strength that Ponter found it difficult to even speak in the shadow’s presence. The shadow did not say anything, but left behind a note: ‘A child will be attending your school. His name is Trip. If you so much as touch this child you will not live very long.’

Some time had passed, and Ponter was always too afraid to investigate the child by the name of Trip. He decided that he would leave Trip alone; he didn’t want to accidently piss him off and get murdered by the terrifying shadow.

Trip met with the teacher after classes, whom gleefully handed Trip the keys for his new dorm room. Seeing Trip’s childlike smile the teacher smiled, he had taken quite a liking to this child. He would only hope that Trip would remember him after he became rich and famous.

Alex tagged along to see what Trip’s new dorm room would look like. Alex still lived in one of the smaller dorms, this was not due to lack of funds, but by choice, as the rich children would recognise him if he stayed in the higher level dorms. Alex realised that now the entire school knew who he was anyway so there was no longer any reason to stay in the lower level dorms, so he sent a letter to his grandfather to send money to improve his dorm room to the one next to Trip.

Trip stood at the door. Number 027 it said on the door. Trip learned from his mistakes and decided to take a deep breath outside of the room, just in case it was dusty inside. Trip slowly opened the door, and gasped. ‘This was a dorm room?’ he thought. It was massive, it had a large space which could be customised into a living room, a private bathroom, and the bedroom was also separate to the main room. Trip was shocked, he took a deep breath and smelled the room. ‘The air! It’s so clean. Such perfect ventilation. This is perfect for practicing magic! And the smell, how to describe it other than just being homely.’ Whereas Trip was very surprised, Alex was unimpressed. This was a school for rich kids after all, how could the school face its students if it didn’t have an incredibly nice room designed by experts and cleaned by maids.

Trip couldn’t contain his excitement as he jumped on his king sized bed and sighed in pure childlike happiness. He looked out of the large window in the living room and admired the view. Suddenly an unsightly look appeared on Trip’s face.

“Hey Alex?” Trip asked anxiously

“Why are you so nervous? What’s wrong?” Alex asked, it was rare to see Trip act this way

“This dorm room has massive windows! How am I supposed to train here if everyone can see me!?” Trip exploded in a flurry of rage and panic

“Pfff HAHAHA!” Alex couldn’t contain his laughter “Trip hahaha, sometimes I forget that you are not from a rich family. Honestly, have you never heard of one way windows before?”

“One-way windows?” Trip asked confusedly

“Wow, I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of them. I guess your orphanage wouldn’t have been able to afford them, but one-way windows are windows which you can see through from inside, but from the outside they just look like black walls. Pretty much every rich person has one.” Alex explained

Trip sighed in relief; he was really worried for a second there. After hearing Alex’s words he immediately started to practice his water magic. Increasing his control and stamina was vital before he would be able to practice intermediate level magic.

Trip realised how comfortable he felt in this room. The pure white walls and simple floors made it very easy for him to concentrate. After practicing some water magic at the standard level of density he started to increase the density. Weeks of training this really had paid off. Trip not only gained a much higher level of control for higher density water, he also increased his base control level for normal density water. This made his overall water magic increase dramatically in strength.

Unknown to Trip was that he was actually being watched. A shadow watched Trip from far away, a bright white smile appeared across the dark face.

“They grow up so fast” The shadow said as he appeared to fly away at an incredible speed. Leaving behind nothing but a blur of darkness.