章節 19: 19. The Third Gathering
Ten days had passed since we had been given the Elixir to take.
Five out of the ten days were to provide room for those who had consumed such a valuable potion to exhibit the effect of consuming it.
The rest of the days were to allow everyone who had awakened to discover their skills, if any, and use them, while also familiarising themselves to an extent with their newfound powers.
Over the course of these ten days, I managed to gather close to sixty units of Essence.
Even with the additional physical training that I added to my routine, I had no noticeable increase in how much Essence I could accumulate per day.
Sigh–
Nonetheless, having sixty units before the upcoming Skill Exhibition was still a welcomed progress if I checked back to the same moment in the past when I barely reached two-fifths of what I had now.
The Cube has afforded enough time for the sake of those who were yet to discard their Virgin Body Constitutions despite consuming the Elixir.
The reason being that today, the eleventh day post-Elixir consumption, was the day set out for us to show our Skills and those of us who had taken the potion and still failed to awaken would be expelled from the facility.
One might think not opting to take the potion was a better option.
Pfft! As if…
Those who had not taken the potion had a grace of thirty days in all.
This meant that in the next nineteen days, those of them left among the rest would be assessed again and anyone found wanting would be thrown out.
Crazy, sort of.
I had woken up earlier today and performed my usual priority task of sitting for a few hours and gathering Essence into my innate pool, widening it bit by bit.
After about four hours of sharp focus and unmoving meditation, I opened my eyes and yawned before falling back onto my bed.
It was slowly growing on me but sitting still for hours to gather just six units of Essence was exhausting, frustrating and for my young body as it is… back breaking.
As I laid down, I glanced at the clock that sat beside me.
'Past six o'clock,' I subconsciously noted the time.
Somehow I felt a little relief from seeing it.
'I can comfortably steal an hour of sleep,' I thought to myself as I sighed and shut my eyes.
Despite being tired, I was unable to sleep immediately.
As I laid down with my eyes shut, I went into deep thought, analysing every skill that I had witnessed in the past ten days.
Critically and consciously, I tried sorting them out in my head.
It was during this time of deep thought that I eventually fell into a deep slumber and snored away.
Trust me, as far as I was concerned I had only gotten a few minutes of sleep.
So why the hell am I getting up by 7:45 a.m when the gathering is by 8 a.m!
"Hurry up, man!" Bright chided me as he buttoned up his shirt.
'What the fuck?' I frantically cursed in my heart as I hurriedly slipped my feet into my footwear and dashed to the bathroom.
I overslept!
And it was thanks to Bright that I hadn't slept past the scheduled time for the gathering this morning.
It would have been quite disastrous.
Rushing through brushing my teeth, I forwent taking my bath and settled for just washing my face and using deodorants and perfumes to mask my morning stench.
I stared into the mirror after I was done and sighed.
'What the hell, Lux!'
Surely, I had planned to not arrive at the hall for the Exhibition early, but at the same time, I didn't plan to be this late.
Thank goodness for Bright.
I stepped out from my wardrobe and shut it while Bright was waiting for me, his feet constantly tapping the floor, creating uncoordinated sounds.
I could see the flames of impatience erupting from his eyes but he still waited, knowing that I needed him very much at this moment.
"Yes!" I shouted excitedly like a man who had struck major success. "I'm done! Sorry, I kept you, man. Let's go."
Bright rose from his bed and shook his head. "No problem. Let's go."
Following Bright, I left the dormitory and we both headed outside.
Stepping outside, I glanced at my watch and breathed a sigh of relief.
'We still have three minutes to go.'
Meanwhile, my roommate was busy stretching his arms and adjusting himself with several popping sounds manifesting.
"Ah, That hit the spot!" the white-haired boy moaned loudly.
He turned back at me and winked.
"Let's go."
Bright grabbed my hand and the last thing I had was a zing.
Before I knew it, we had covered a fourth of the total distance and in the next moment, another fourth before he stopped to catch his breath.
My brain wobbled inside my head causing me to feel a little drowsy from the high-speed travel that we underwent.
This body wasn't used to very quick movements like Bright's yet.
"Are you okay?" I let out, barely holding my own weight as I slightly staggered about, almost convulsing.
Bright, whose chest was visibly heaving, smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.
"Yeah. I'm alright," he replied.
I furrowed my eyebrows in disbelief as I could clearly see how strained he was from travelling some hundreds of metres.
"Ready when you are," I said to him as I glanced at my watch and sat on the ground to regain my sanity.
In truth, I wasn't and surely wouldn't be ready when Bright was.
I was immensely nauseated at this point, only that I was keeping it in.
We had some seconds short of two minutes left, but I couldn't force him to keep going.
If anything, he needed to rest for us to make it in anything.
So I had to be patient with him.
"Alright!" he exclaimed, arching his back and cracking his spine in satisfyingly loud pops.
I got up and joined him, giving him my hand.
In a second…
Zing–!
Bright vanished, along with me, from the spot.
Appearing a few hundred metres away from where we stood just a second ago.
I had expected him to stop as usual but those eyes of his didn't look like that of a person making any halts.
As we jumped from one distance to another, it then hit me why Bright was pushing himself a bit too hard.
He was using it to train his body to get used to his super speed ability.
I smiled inwardly as I was barely able to do anything in this fast travel but hope for the best and a safe arrival.
Before our three minutes of grace expired, we arrived at the hall.
Letting go of me, we both staggered like mindless, drunk duds as we walked towards the entrance, our hands hanging on each other's shoulder for support.
Luckily for us, we were on time.
…On time for the third gathering.
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