章節 18: ch18- Awakening Uncertainty
"Twenty-three Awakening Stones! Plus the four we already had, that's enough for each person in the class to have one!" Sarah exclaimed, counting the haul from Alex and the others' expedition. Her face reflected both amazement and concern because she understood what this kind of reward meant. It meant Alex and his team had faced a deadly amount of danger.
According to what Alex had told them before, each monster only drops one Awakening Stone, which meant they had killed over twenty-three monsters. That number was already more than double their squad size, but that was just the number they had killed, not the total number they had faced.
Just thinking about the kind of battle it took to collect those stones brought tears to the eyes of some of the classmates who had stayed behind. Though they hadn't been there themselves, they could only imagine how hard it must have been for Alex and the others to get their hands on those precious stones.
"Come on, don't look at us like that," Alex chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "Most of the credit belongs to Alex here," said Mark with a grin, quickly throwing Alex under the bus. "We were just there for the ride."
"Yeah, totally! Alex did all the heavy lifting," joked another classmate, teasing as Alex made a mock threat to hit them, breaking the tense atmosphere and earning laughs from the girls who were caught between being upset and amused.
Once things quieted down, Alex addressed the group about how to distribute the Awakening Stones. "As I mentioned earlier, each of you gets one for 1,500 points. We'll split the points among those of us who went on the mission."
Nobody in the class had any objections to the price. They knew that on the open market, an N-Rank Awakening Stone could easily go for 3,000 points, so this was a generous deal.
There were 26 students who hadn't fought, including six boys like Ryan and twenty girls. After handing out the 26 stones, one was still left. Sarah, who had been organizing the distribution, started to hand the extra stone back to Alex, but he waved it off. "Hold onto it for now. If Lin and the others return, we'll give it to them," he said, referring to one of the missing boys.
At the mention of Lin's name, the mood turned somber again as everyone thought of their classmates who hadn't made it back yet.
After the stones were distributed, Sarah collected a total of 39,000 points. But Mark and the others were uncomfortable with Alex's suggestion of splitting the points evenly among the team. "Most of the stones were earned by you, Alex. It wouldn't be fair to split them like that," Mark argued.
After some back-and-forth, Alex came up with a compromise. "Alright, I'll take 10,000 points, and we'll give 1,000 to Ethan since he was part of the earlier clean-up. The remaining 28,000 will be split among the rest of you—3,000 each. We'll leave the extra 4,000 with Sarah as a fund for anyone who might need to borrow later. Sound good?"
Ethan was the only one who hadn't gone on the expedition, and seeing Alex's consideration for him made everyone nod in agreement. Although Mark and the others still thought Alex should have taken a larger share, they eventually relented and agreed.
Alex found it amusing when Mark suggested that Tina, who had also been crucial to the fight, should get a bigger share of the points. Tina, however, wasn't having it. Annoyed at the idea of being singled out, she argued fiercely with the boys. In the end, they compromised—everyone would take the 3,000 points as agreed, but each of the boys gave Tina an extra 200 points as a token of appreciation.
"Hey, wait a minute, these Awakening Stones can be used right now!" one of the girls suddenly shouted, catching everyone's attention. The girls, though more hesitant and cautious than the boys, were naturally curious about the stones' power. Some of them, secretly harboring a bit of envy toward Tina, wondered if they might awaken a powerful ability themselves.
It wasn't long before someone tried. Lee, a tall, athletic girl from the track team, was the first to use her stone. She blushed as everyone stared at her, mumbling, "I didn't mean to... I just wanted to see how it worked."
Everyone laughed awkwardly, their curiosity piqued. "Did it work? Did you awaken a new ability?" Mark asked, eager to hear about the result.
Lee nodded slowly, looking at her stats with a confused frown. "I think it worked, but all my stats went down. They were all F-Rank before, but now they're F-minus."
"What?!" The group was stunned. They had expected that using an Awakening Stone would make her stronger, not weaker. Suddenly, Tom, who had been excited to use his stone as well, hesitated.
After asking more questions, they found out that Lee's abilities had shifted to close combat ones, but her overall potential was still ranked N, no change there. Apart from that, nothing too significant had happened.
Alex, recalling something Quinn had mentioned earlier, realized that energy potions were crucial after using an Awakening Stone. Still, they didn't know how exactly to use them.
The group decided it was best not to use the stones for the fighters yet, to avoid weakening themselves before the next battle. Instead, they agreed that the girls, who were not likely to fight soon, could try using the stones first and see if anyone awakened something exceptional.
So one by one, the girls in the class used their stones. However, the results were not what anyone expected. Out of the 20 girls who used the stones, only 12 successfully awakened an ability. The other 8 failed completely.
"What the heck? There's a chance to fail at this? And it's almost fifty-fifty?" Tom exclaimed, horrified. He, like many others, had hoped to awaken something powerful, but this terrifying failure rate had them all second-guessing their decisions.
Tom's outburst echoed the thoughts of many in the room. Everyone's expectations of getting stronger had taken a hit, and the road ahead seemed even more uncertain.
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