CHAPTER 68: CHAPTER 67: SENIOR SISTER!?

"Right, before I forget about it, my name is Eira Vale, and I’m the current director of this academy."

"Yes, Director."

"...don’t be so formal," Eira sighed, shaking her head. "If you want to call me something, call me senior sister."

"...eh?"

A vein bulged on Eria’s forehead when Zaen hesitated. Obviously, Zaen couldn’t see it. As for calling her senior sister, who in their sane minds would do that?

Have you read too many Asian web novels? Besides, you’re closer to my mother’s age than anyone else!

"I was your father’s only disciple, doesn’t that makes us siblings?"

"Right, senior sister..."

Eira puffed out her chest, not like there was much to puff out, but Zaen had learned to keep his tongue and mind in control when engaging with females.

Maybe I should ask Ann to share some of her assets with her. It’ll do both of them some good.

Eira linked her arm with Zaen before showing him around the place. The campus was surrounded by mountains on all sides, each of which had been created artificially, much like the rest of the place.

It was just as Captain Rhino had informed him. The campus was huge. They had all kinds of areas like forests, industrial zones, residential areas, and even an underwater ’city’. These were all areas where they’ll train and master techniques to fight anomalies while protecting those around them.

There was even a research facility where they kept some anomalies imprisoned for research purposes. Right now, all the resources were being dumped on the Phoenix project, something his father was a part of.

"Naturally, the higher-ups wish you would be a part of the research too," Eira said, though her voice had lost the cheery tone she had before.

Zaen wasn’t a genius, nor did he have to be one to know Eira despised that place for some reason. If he had to guess, the research facility had to have something to do with his dad’s disappearance.

They didn’t linger around the place for long before heading to the first training location.

"Over there is the training ground, most physical training is done there," Eira said, pointing at the area three times as big as an American football field. "Physical training would be the focus for your batch for the first month or so before we start fortitude training."

She then looked Zaen up and down and chuckled, "Not like you need any of that, given your physique. Must be your mother’s genes because teacher Nolan was built like a twig."

The two shared a laugh at that because it was true. The way Zaen looked now, he could easily fit two of his fathers into him.

Zaen noticed hundreds of silhouettes on the massive ground, engaged in hand-to-hand combat. In the crowd, he even noticed someone familiar, but turned around before Hina could notice him.

The tour continued well after sunset.

There was the cafeteria, classrooms to learn theoretical knowledge as might wasn’t enough to deal with all anomalies. Then there was a shooting range for using both guns and other projectile-based weaponry.

Finally, they stopped before a building that felt out of place among the specialized buildings.

"What is this? A convenience store?"

"...I often forget you can see to some extent with that stick of yours," Eira mumbled and then nodded. "Yes, it is a store. Though, don’t get your hopes up. You can only access the store with an instructor’s written permission."

"...no cola for me?"

"Call me senior sister first," Eira said with a smug look.

She knew Zaen was uncomfortable with the strange relationship, and didn’t know she was doing it for his own benefit. It was definitely not because she wanted to tease him.

"I see, no cola for me indeed," he mumbled and turned to continue the tour.

Watching him go, Eira clicked her tongue, went into the store, and grabbed him a six-pack of cola. She was planning to get him something either way, so it wasn’t a big deal.

"Consider it your welcome gift," she said, looking away while pouting.

"Thank you," Zaen said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Senior sister."

Eira’s neck snapped in his direction faster than lightning when she heard those words.

"What did you call me?"

"Just what you wanted me to call you for the cola," Zaen shrugged, walking ahead.

As he did, he noticed some people, probably other instructors, pointing at him before whispering to one another.

"Don’t mind them," Eira said, dragging him ahead. "They’re just curious."

"About?"

"You, of course. You might not have grasped it yet, but your parents were legends for most of the agents. You could say that, for our kind, they were the golden standard. Naturally, everyone else has similar expectations of you and Aeron."

"You sure know a lot about my family."

"Who do you think named you two?"

"...you did?"

"Of course not," Eira shrugged. "It was all your mother’s doing."

"..."

"Come on, it’s getting late. I’ll drop you at the dorms."

***

Zaen flopped on the bed like he had returned after running a marathon. Technically, it wasn’t a lie, since he did walk the trail and covered most of the campus on his feet.

"At least I have this," he smiled and opened a can of cola. "Alright then, let’s see what I got from the wheel this time."

He already had a grip on the blindfold’s mechanics, so he jumped to the next reward, the Ring of Thorns.

Unlike his other gear, the ring didn’t provide any stats. It just had a skill, which was more than enough to make up for not having additional stats.

—x—

Skill:

[Thorns] (Active skill): Consumes the wearer’s 2% max HP per minute to deal the same amount of damage per second to a chosen target. Additional targets can be hit for the same damage with a 1% increased HP depletion.

—x—

"In other words, it means I can deal 186 HP damage per minute to someone, while losing only 3.1 HP per second?"

At that moment, Zaen forgot about the cola and sat right up.

"Including additional targets would still get hit with the same damage, but I’ll lose around... 4.65 HP per second? This effect is broken! What about the other thing?"

—x—

Just like the ring, the mark didn’t have an elaborate detail page, but it did provide a small HP boost along with two skills.

—x—

[Item: Mark of Aceso]

[Type: Blessing]

[Rarity: Enhanced]

[Status: Passive | Bound]

Effect:

[HP: +500]

Skills:

[Mend] (Passive): If the bearer remains idle for more than three seconds, the mark enters mending state, restoring 0.035% of max HP per second. The state remains as such as long as the bearer remains idle.

[Aceso’s Sapling] (Passive): The skill levels up with the bearer. Mend’s healing increases by 0.001% for every anomaly killed while [Mend] is active.

—x—

0.035% per second meant 2.1% per minute. It completely invalidated the thorn’s HP leak. As long as he remained idle, not only would he be hurting his target, but he would also heal. Well, as long as he only had one target.

As for the sapling skill, it was probably instated so the skill wouldn’t become overpowered. After all, how could someone kill an anomaly while staying idle? But with the [Ring of Thorns] in the mix, the restriction became meaningless.

"...Dad, I forgive you for designing the shitty shop."