Chapter Twelve

It was morning again. The birds were chirping in their nests and the sun had just lighted the morning sky. The morning breeze blew calmly over me, and squirrels scuttled here and there. The third day had begun, and I needed to continue. I got myself ready, and in about a few minutes, I began my daily trek. I checked my storage to see if the orbs were still there, and thankfully they were. I still remembered that needed to get away from the forest as fast as possible.

The ethereal barrier still surrounded the entire forest island, enclosing us from the rest of the world. I was still walking on, humming a tune to myself as I went on. Funny enough, I hadn't seen any teachers, which meant Donnarunma was just blabbing when he said they were going to assist us. Well, it didn't matter now. A few blood beasts came my way, and I quickly dealt with all of them. After defeating that tiger, my power seemed to have increased significantly.

I had reached a certain point in the forest when I stopped. I had some noise around me.

'The usual rustle', I thought.

I had only taken another step forward when I heard another sound, this time more clearly .

'Hmmn', I muttered to myself, 'Feels like I'm being watched'.

I was already sick of these monotonous fights with blood beasts, to the point where I was getting irritated. Out of nowhere, a shadow drifted past me. I decided to ignore it if it was dimension three or lower, since fighting them would be a waste of time and energy. The shadow came at me again, and I saw it clearer. It was the shadow of a person!

The person came at me with his hands outstretched, and a fist ready to punch my face.

'What the??', I was stunned.

I only managed to barely dodged what should have been a dangerous attack to my face. I really didn't expect any humans to attack me. However, I was mistaken. I turned to see who it was that tried to punch me.

"Sh*t", the person cussed, his back towards me, "That should've worked".

"Hey! Who are you?", I asked loudly.

I got no response. But the person turned, and when I saw his face, I gasped. I was surprised, but not entirely, because the person was familiar. It was the noble kid who got slapped by the baboon blood beast. He was none other than Jack. For some reason, he was attacking me.

"Looks like you recovered", I said.

He looked at me with anger.

"I never expected you to recover from such a slap within such a short period", I continued.

He gnashed his teeth in annoyance, and it was obvious I had touched a sensitive spot.

"Why don't you be a good dog and die?", he asked me disdainfully.

"Why don't you try to kill me?", I responded sarcastically.

Jack flinched. He became further incensed when I began to crack my knuckles.

"Don't get cocky just because you've got four of those orbs", he spat.

"Oh, so that's what all this is about", I smiled.

"Huh??!!",

"You want the orbs, don't you?", I asked him.

He got further pissed. Not because of what I said, but how I said it. He couldn't withhold himself any longer. He lost his head and began to run at me, with no good intent. I was calm despite being attacked because after seeing his display against the baboon, I knew he was nothing worth mentioning. He was probably dimension three.

In our regular world, most of the masses were between dimension one and two. Only one-fourth of the population were dimension three power-users. Therefore, if Jack were to be elsewhere, he might've been considered a prodigy. However, here, he was just an ordinary person. As he made his way towards me, I also began to take my stance, because I wasn't about to let him go scot-free for attacking me meaninglessly, moreso for trying to steal my orbs.

He clenched his fists, ready to deliver a strong punch to my guts, but I neatly avoided that. I was about to respond with a kick of my own when I sensed an attack from behind. Instinctually, I ducked downward and through the corner of my eyes, I saw a whip above me. That was no ordinary whip, but an electric one. It made sizzling sounds, like it wanted to electrify everything to death. It was truly a vicious weapon.

I turned to see the owner of the whip and I wasn't surprised. Another noble stood there, clenching the whip very tightly.

'So there are more people ready to attack me, huh?', I thought.

I recognized the person immediately as Jack's friend. She was Fodena. She had made some condescending comments, and I was not about to tolerate her nonsense.

"A sneak attack, huh?", I said, pumped up, "Not bad at all".

Fodena only scrunched her face, displaying her displeasure.

I ignored her while concentrating on the whip, bursting with high voltages of electricity. Then, my hand moved behind me, and I formed a wind ring. The ring collided with a fireball which was coming at me stealthily.

"Don't be uncharacteristic", I said to the new person, who then emerged from the shadows.

He was a fire-user. It was none other than Grealish.

"Tsk", he muttered.

"Right now, I'm in the mood to take on anyone", I said, "even you".

"I said don't get cocky because you defeated a dimension five beast!!!!", Jack shouted.

."........."

I was shocked, surprised, astonished... you name it. If he was referring to that tiger blood beast, it was supposed to be dimension four.

"Looks like you didn't even know that, as expected of a lowly commoner", continued Grealish.

"We don't know how the heck you did it, but I know miracles don't happen twice", said Fodena triumphantly.

'Am I missing something?', I wondered where they got their confidence from.

Soon, Jack made his way towards me, with clenched fists. But instead of regular fists, his fists were metallic; Not just his fists, but even some of his body had turned metallic.

Serious now, are we?', I thought.

He threw a fist at me which I nearly avoided, except he was faster. BAM!!!

I fell onto the ground, my vision hazy. I felt tingling pain in my head, but before I could recover, I got kicked again by a metallic foot. I flew quite a distance before landing on my rear end onto the hard ground, staining my clothes and body. Blood trickled out of the sides of my head.

"Who was saying this was going to be interesting a few minutes ago?", Jack asked tauntingly.

He then followed with a strong punch to my stomach, and I spat blood. As if that was enough, Grealish decided to join the fray. He sent a fire arrow at me, and it struck me in the shoulder, burning and charring that part. Almost at the time, Jack elbowed me with his metallic body. I fell further back, totally out of breath.

Also, Fodena wasn't just watching. She sent her whip at me, trying to electrocute me with the whip.

Even though I was in a sticky situation, I was definitely not going to let that whip touch me. No matter what. Therefore, I released a wind ball towards the whip and managed to its trajectory, thus saving myself. In so doing, I didn't realise the fireball aimed at my chest. I fell on the floor flat. As I did, I could see wide schadenfreude smiles on the faces of those three.

'They're really working in sync', I thought.

"You said you were ready to take us all on", Fodena laughed, " so why are you lying on the ground?".

"This is just the beginning", Jack said.

"Maybe, we should just snatch the orbs now", Grealish said.

Just then, I ignored all the pain I felt, jumped up and headbutted him.

"Damn you!", roared Grealish angrily and in a supercilious voice, " Know your place, commoner!"

Suddenly, I began to see other nobles coming out. There were about seventeen of them.

'Oh no..You gotta be kidding me', I thought.

Combining them with the three that were attacking me, there were exactly twenty people who were after my orbs.

'Why?", I wondered, " Could it be that I was underestimating the abilities of these orbs?'

I exhaled.

"The joke time is over", I said, as I got up from the ground..........