BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

"No, no! Not like that!" Master Nieminen was training Erik in the Crypt of the desert weapon style.

The young man was quickly improving by leaps and bounds, and he knew it was due to his high dexterity. This fact was partially known even by the teacher. However, the woman thought it was primarily due to his talent.

The method of measuring physical characteristics was not widely used, mainly because it was an uncertain method. Basically, just the Red Palace and a few other institutions used it. What exactly did dexterity influence? What about strength? It was relative to the power one could muster but then? Did It also influence other unknown factors?

Scientists had a general consensus about the stats measuring. However, there was no certainty in it. Only Erik knew what these really did since he had the system fully integrated with his body. He knew he had no talent, well, at least compared to monsters like Nathaniel, Anderson, and Amber.

However, he had the system and a strong will to improve, and as long as he practiced hard, he thought he would be able to reach whatever goal he had.

Erik was trying to learn the various stances that Master Nieminen's style required. After that, he had to learn footwork to keep his balance and stances while moving.

"Good, now try slashing!"

SWOOOOSH

What Erik executed was a perfect strike which left Master Nieminen pleasantly surprised.

"Well done!" she said.

"Thank you, master..."

Two hours passed, and it was time for Erik to train with the others inside the gym to improve his physical condition. However, before going, Master Nieminen stopped the young man.

"I heard you won against your opponent yesterday; congratulation on your first victory," the woman said.

"Thank you very much, master. I trained hard..."

"I Know. However, do not stop here. This is just but a small victory. You will have to fight countless times in the following years." She said, giving him her usual stern look. "Now get out of here. I don't want you to be late..."

Erik bowed politely. He grabbed his bag from the nearby locker and reached the main entrance, where he met up with the rest of the group waiting for the bus. He greeted them with a friendly smile. They returned the greeting with smiles of their own.

"Hey, Erik!" Amber said. "I heard about your employer. How are you?"

"Why? What happened," Floyd asked.

"He died," Gwen said. "Apparently, he was murdered, and Erik was the one who found the body. It was on every newspaper being related to the awakener..."

"Really? I'm sorry to hear this, man..."

"It's not a problem... I'm fine, by the way," Erik said.

"Are you sure? You can talk to me if you need it..." Amber said.

Erik didn't pay attention to this, but Floyd and Gwen looked at each other.

Since a week ago, Amber started behaving weirdly around Erik, and she frequently asked about him when he wasn't around; It was weird behavior for the young woman. Unbeknownst to them, this started when she, Emily, and Erik trained at her house. Something sparked inside of her.

The two started to think that Amber could have fallen in love with the young man, which would explain many things.

Knowing Amber, initially, they believed that she did what she did because of her kind personality, but as more time passed and the more she grew attached to the young man.

However, the young woman didn't say anything to them, so they said nothing about it. If that was true, they wondered what the students who fell in love with her at school would have thought.

"Thank you, Amber..."

"How was the old man? The one who died," Floyd asked.

"Hmmm, well, he was a difficult man and was quite harsh," Erik said while looking down. "To be completely honest with you, he wasn't even that good of a person. He paid me misery despite making him earn a huge fortune with my power. He was always stern before I awakened, only for him to bootlick me a little bit when I awakened, and my power grew stronger," Erik said with a slight tint of anger.

"Besides, he constantly remembered me how no one would have employed a dud like me..."

"That's horrible," Amber said.

"Yeah, he was that kind of guy. Greedy to the bone and mean to other people. It was just a matter of time before someone would have killed him."

"Do you have any hint about who could have done something like that?" Erik was confident it was the Crystal Cross gang who did it. He was sure it was due to a missing payment or something like that, not knowing it was because of him.

However, he couldn't say it was a gang since Erik was there every time the man paid the gang. He could be considered an accomplice to whatever the old man did.

"No, I have no idea. And to be honest, I don't want to know..."

As they waited for the bus, Benedict, Anderson, and the others arrived.

"Yo, guys!" Benedict said with a happy look.

"Hey, man!" Floyd energetically replied.

"What are we going to train today?" Benedict asked.

"Shoulders," Gwen said.

"Good, I can't wait!"

They then boarded the bus and quickly arrived at the Red Palace, and after reaching the gym, they split as usual. With Aaron, Mikey, Erik, and Anderson training the same muscle groups.

Anderson went straight to the dumbbells to work on his arms while Gwen went to a machine. Today she decided to focus only on the weight training machines and work with heavy loads. Her arms were already pretty big, but she wanted to make them bigger.

***

"Quick! Quick! Burn that fuckers!" a soldier shouted.

"There are too many of them! We must retreat!" another said.

Countless horde's thaids were attacking them from many sides. The team they belonged to was sent, with countless others, to kill as many horde's thaid as possible since they were headed to the city.

However, the situation was dire. Each day more and more monsters joined the rank of this vast army, and fighting with so many beasts was becoming increasingly difficult.

They needed more soldiers to do their job, knowing full well that the most they could do was to slow down the horde and prepare better defenses.

However, the number of soldiers was insufficient since most were fighting in the war against Hin. Despite this, the soldiers were fighting valiantly. This group was led by a veteran warrior named Lain; she tried her best to kill all the thaids who got too close to the ranged fighters with her mana sword.

The woman cut off the head of a Leylarhad with a single motion as it was attempting to bite the head off of a squad member. However, she couldn't be everywhere, so, here and there, soldiers died.

"Shit... This can't go on..."

Lain looked around and saw a lot of dead bodies lying on the ground. She sighed deeply, seeing their comrades dying left and right. Even though she had been leading this group for years now, she never thought things would end up like this.

But if they didn't thin the monster's population soon, a huge disaster would befall the city. There were supposed to be more thaids joining the horde soon, as they were spotted several kilometers from here.

She took a deep breath and focused herself; she needed to stay calm, control her emotions and fight at best as she could.

She slashed another thaid, chopping an arm this time, crippling the beast. However, the sheer number of creatures was too high for her to make a difference.