Webnovel

Chapter 1: Chapter 5: don’t start something you can’t handle.

Leo

He had some wheel rims tied to his legs with some chains he had found and he was using them to increase the strain on his body as he did some chin ups in his training field. The day had finally arrived and he was feeling quite proud of himself and what he had achieved in the short time he had been training. perhaps the level of control he now had over his body had allowed him to acclimate faster to everything which sped up his training. when he finished his hundredth lift up he dropped from the makeshift ledge he was using and an audible boom resounded when the weights he made hit the ground below him.

He removed them and stretched his feet a little to return the feeling to them as they had been slightly numbed by the restricting chains. He looked up at the early morning sun and figured it was around ten and then made his run to the basketball court for his intuition training to see if he could push it a bit more before they arrived. He ran the 5 km distance in a matter of minutes and his breathing was fine and smooth.

He finally stood in the middle of his machines which were now in a 6-metre radius around him and put on his blindfold, he then turned them on remotely. He felt a field of awareness extend from him and intuitively felt the projectiles as they made their way towards him. He began his fluid movements as he shifted his position by a hairs breadth and dodged the balls. It looked effortless but he was straining his sixth sense along with his echo location and any other tools at his disposal.

He dodged at least 70% of the balls by the time all the machines were out of ammo which showed just how great his improvement had been. He checked his intuition and found it at 0.7 which exceeded his goal by a bit and was quite happy at the achievement. He was finding it harder to raise it past that point though. It seemed that there was a missing element to that particular method of training and he would have to find a new way to practice it into 1 % before he finally left for a war zone.

He then filled up the machines with the balls and went back into position without the blindfold this time and took a martial arts stance at the ready. When the projectiles began their flight to him, he suddenly raised a fast roundhouse to meet the first and transitioned into an effortless pivot spin that dodged three others and finally completed it with a back hand slap for two more. He began to fuse the three martial arts he practised to fend off the balls. Training his ability to fuse his martial arts as well as finding ways of making them versatile.

He did this for three more hours and finally went to rest and grab something to eat. He had discovered that his appetite was a hundred times greater than he previously had which worried him about food shortage. He wondered how many settlers would arrive that day. He showered to wash off all the day's sweat and then he went to kneel by his collection of personal objects. The past week he had found himself drowning in the countless feelings and emotions that he saw amongst them. He had struggled to maintain his sense of self on many occasions and on some days, he had been left in a semi-comatose state for hours on end.

Regardless of it all he had kept on at it and he had developed an attachment to the connection he had developed through that one worn teddy bear to that girl. He had seen three separate visions from her and was surprised at the strength of her emotions. The fear had been a lot to handle on itself and then he had felt her joy at one instant and marvelled at how it was possible for her. She had been slightly older perhaps twelve and she was smiling up at someone although he could not make out who it was before he was drawn out the memory. The final time had been a grief that seemed to mirror his own at the loss of his mother.

What intrigued him was that for most objects, he could only draw one strong and distinct feeling from them, however with Chrys he saw three visions with emotions that grabbed him tightly and also felt a weird understanding and camaraderie with her. This was the first week he had ever spent away from any human connection for so long but he did not truly feel alone because of that connection.

He checked his psychometry and found it at 0.49% just a tiny step away from his goal. It dismayed him to think that the mental and emotional strain he had gone through only affording him such a small improvement that was just short of his mark. He finally took a calming breathe (it was not wise to go into this with a disturbed mind or heart) and grabbed Chrys's teddy bear. He felt the shock up his right hand before he suddenly heard a voice like a sweet whisper.

"My Chrys, Chrysanth, the November flower which holds the meaning of joy and life. My daughter you will always be my joy and my life and I hope you hold these words in your heart forever," the whispered words sent a shiver of love in Leo's heart and reminded him of his own mother and how she taught him the meaning of his own name and what she hopped for him. It seemed their parents both drew inspiration of their names from the time of their birth, with hers being a flower in November and his being his zodiac sign in August. His mother thought it was funny how much fate he had with the month august and named him Leo.

Leo felt two emotions from that vision, joy and love. He had never felt two emotions before at the same time and ones that were so positive that he welcomed the flood that could leave him comatose for hours and yet he maintained his sense of self. The sensation finally faded and he checked and saw the reason for his new stability. His skill had climbed to 0.55 from that one instance. He had made it.

He was quite proud his pulled up his status screen and saw….

[LEO AUGUST]

Life form: Awakened Mortal

Classification: Superhuman

Level: 1

Basic skills: intuition [0.7 % fusion]

Hyper cognition [0.62 % fusion]

Psychometry [0.55 % fusion]

Bestowal points: 0

He headed to the roof of his place to watch for the new settlers. He watched the direction of the entrance where that woman had taken out a week ago. He waited as he did mental simulations in his head to train it. Around 4pm he still saw no sign of a large group of people coming there. He felt slightly relieved and also kind of let down that he had pushed himself out of worry for no reason. And then it happened. A large portal opened in the middle of town which alarmed him as he realised it was an attack. He watched the portal to assess the numbers and out of it came a large truck. It was one of those military trucks that they used to transport troops.

In it he could see soldiers, human soldiers and he let out the breath he had not realised he had been holding. After the military truck, some more vehicles followed after. There were a lot of people which increased his desire to leave. He got down and dashed towards where they were. When he came dashing, he spooked a few soldiers who were alert and they aimed guns in his direction. His intuition went into hyper drive and he pivoted to the left and narrowly missed a shot that was fired a second later.

"I come in peace. I do not know if you were told about me. "Leo raised his arms non threateningly as he walked slowly towards the envoy. They assessed him and finally lowered their weapons. They were stumped by how he had avoided getting shot and then simply chalked it up to luck since he looked like an 18-year-old kid. Leo was led to the main group where a man was issuing orders. The man was briefed and scrutinised him.

"so, you are the kid who was too chicken to make his way to the Main base huh, well its good you survived out here all alone," the man said in an insulting tone. Leo did not get annoyed though because he noticed that although his words were annoying the man was watching him as if gauging his reaction.

Leo smiled to him and said," well calling me chicken is a bit too much, it would be better to call me smart since it does not take a genius to figure out that such a large gathering of people would easily suffer from all the problems of over population. Why join a sinking ship, seems like it's stupid to me?"

His words were said lightly and friendly however the rebuke was sharp none the less. Leo suddenly felt a shiver on his back and dodged swiftly and a well-built guy came barrelling through where he had been a second before. Leo looked at him playfully before doing a flip as he dodged a second slender assailant.

"you got a real mouth on you kid to talk to the commander that way. Let's teach him a lesson Shawn," the well-built guy said to his friend as they walked towards him. Leo merely smiled as he stood in one position. They dashed at him and threw attacks at him seamlessly with perfect coordination which showed they knew each other well. Their attacks were very good, since the military martial arts were extremely well rounded however to Leo's hyper cognition, they seemed like they were moving in extremely slow motion. He could easily have countered each attack however he merely dodged.

The two attackers grew more frustrated and that opened the room for mistakes and a few moves later, Leo dodged and placed his foot to trip the Shawn guy who went and collided with his buddy, their coordination broken. The fell down and Leo made his way to them with a smile that was very creepy on his face and said in soft voice, "Do not start something you cannot finish gents."

He helped them up and then he looked at the stunned solders and what he assumed were civilians around him. "August, pleased to meet you all, hope we will get along well." The commander guy had not said a word the entire time but suddenly cracked smile, "Not bad kid, seems you are more than meets the eye."