Ability Wielders

"There can only be two possibilities here," Hayden speculated as to what happened. "Either Divine Perception"s usage wasn"t as bad yesterday because of me playing War of Honor in alternative of playing the keyboard, or Indestructible Devil evolved, which is unlikely as I don"t use it all that much..."

Thinking more, he changed his conjecture. "Wait, I always exercise and dance in the morning intensively, which uses Devil"s Persistence to give my body energy and repair the muscle tears… Well, both are possible, so, let"s just say that both contributed as factors."

Hayden closed the matter as it was no use theorizing about it. After stretching, he learnt seven routines from CHORUS, t.i.tANIUM, and from one of the best dancers in Korea, Sungha.

He performed all of them perfectly without any mistakes. "It seems that the adoptive muscle memory of Divine Perception is getting stronger."

Because of the constant usage of Divine Perception, and the continual use of Devil"s Persistence, Hayden thought that both Abilities were starting to evolve.

Shrugging this matter off once more, he proceeded to exercise for an hour. When he finished, he smelled bacon being cooked downstairs.

Going down, he saw his mom cooking food. A rare sight, but a welcome one!

"Good morning, sweetie." Hayden"s mom said as she cracked an egg to make a sunny side up. "How"s your dancing?"

Hayden froze at the mention of this. "What dancing? I don"t dance…"

"Psh," Hayden"s mom laughed. "I opened your door to see the commotion, only to see you concentrated on your dancing. I didn"t know you were such a good dancer! You hid it well."

"I was simply practicing," Hayden awkwardly laughed. He didn"t like his parents seeing him doing anything like practicing as they always bragged about how good their son was on things he was merely trying. "On top of that, because of Asw.a.n.g, I don"t like going out, I feel unsafe."

"True," Hayden"s mother agreed with him. Abruptly, she brought up another topic that made Hayden freeze in his tracks. "You"ve never touched the keyboard we bought for you. It"s such a pity it"s gathering dust on your bedroom closet. Jeez…"

"I-I play at times…" Hayden scratched his head. "You guys purely don"t know because I play the keyboard when you"re out of the house."

"Sure, sweetie," Hayden"s mom gave him a meaningful look. She finished cooking, plated it, put in rice, and handed the perfectly cooked egg and bacon to Hayden. "Eat up."

"Thanks mom!" Putting the bacon in his mouth, along with egg and some rice. "Food cooked by you really is still the best!"

Sometimes, when a person cook for you, especially your mother, food tastes much better. When Hayden cooks for himself, it tastes good, yes, but it doesn"t taste as good even if he was following the exact same steps his mother do.

"The real secret ingredient is love, honey," Hayden"s mom winked at him as she cracked another egg and put another batch of bacon on another pan. "You"ll learn that when you get a girlfriend."

Hayden"s bacon got stuck in his throat when he heard that. "Jeez, mom, why do you have to make me depressed!"

His mom simply laughed, which cracked a smile on Hayden. This was a nice peaceful moment for Hayden that made him lose any sense of having powers, feeling like a regular teenager again.

After eating, he immediately went to shower before going up to his room again to put his uniform on. "Oh, yeah, it"s Friday…"

Due to using his Divine Perception to listen in on his lessons, giving him a calm mind, time always pa.s.sed so quickly for him. Unlike in his previous years, he wasn"t bored at all, resulting in his perception of time becoming faster.

"First Friday of the school year, huh?" Hayden put on his black uniform, took his bag, and went downstairs to put on his shoes. Subsequently, he waved goodbye to his mom so that he can go to school.

He pa.s.sed the day like regular without interacting with anyone willingly. Of course, Hayden didn"t complain that n.o.body bothered him, laying low again. The basketball matter a few days ago was already off the mind of others as they were stressing of what to do the next few weeks, which will be the real start of the school year. a.s.signments, projects, and everything will be given out more often starting next week.

Going home, he wanted to visit a sports store first. He had the perfect store in mind, which was the John"s Sports Goods in the marketplace near their house. This was where their family bought Hayden"s first workout equipment.

Nearing the place, Hayden heard a hubbub in an alleyway. Turning on his Divine Perception, he saw five men that looked like extorting a student from his school. Hayden felt perplexed as to why the kid was in this kind of a situation as the world was a much better place ever since decades ago, this kind of thing rarely happened.

"I guess he is in the same generation as me, after all…" Sighing, Hayden decided to take action. When he was about to go in the alleyway, through his Divine Perception, he noticed a glow on the chest of the student. "f.u.c.k, a wielder?"

Hayden knew he had to rush. For the first time, he activated the superhuman strength and speed of Indestructible Devil, allowing him to appear inside the alleyway in an instant.

As Divine Perception was still active, Hayden deduced that there were four thugs among them, and one student belonging from Makati City Scholar Academy. When he arrived, Hayden saw what they were doing to the student.

His initial thought was that they were extorting the poor student; on the contrary, hearing their conversation, they were hara.s.sing him for being a student of the Scholar Academy!

"You guys, using physical force because you can"t compete in the brains department, huh?" Hayden"s sudden appearance startled the six people in the alleyway, including the student who was about to use his Ability.

"What did you say, kid?" One of the gangsters asked in a menacing manner. "You picking a fight, eh? Oh, another smarty-pants b.i.t.c.h?

The hooligan noticed Hayden"s uniform, which belonged to the Makati City Scholar Academy. As a result, all six of them knew that Hayden was a student of the revered academy.

"Heh, smarty-pants b.i.t.c.h? Don"t have any other word in your vocabulary?" Hayden coldly smiled as he mocked. "Birds of the same feather truly do flock together. A bunch of low-lives are hara.s.sing a single student. Ahh, I thought the world has already become a better place. To think that it is still harboring such trash!"

Hayden spat out on the man"s shoes. This will look rude to others, but they disrespected him first. Plus, bullying a person with the reason that they had higher intellect than them was such a bulls.h.i.t reason!

This action of Hayden angered everyone. The rich-looking student"s face twitched as he smiled. "What a silver-tongued smarta.s.s!"

"Just because you"re smart doesn"t mean you can fight!" The rich student smirked. "All of you, what are you doing? Attack already!"

Hayden turned off Indestructible Devil as he thought that fighting regular humans with his current strength would be enough. At that moment, a soothing calmness spread from his body towards his mind, which in turn made him see the world as if it was in slow motion.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" Hayden didn"t expect this development. Seeing the world in slow motion was a cool power, and Hayden always liked this power! "Now, this is something!"

a.n.a.lyzing every single movement of the four men, he knew that they had little to no combat experience. With this, he was confident that he can win this fight. The alleyway was relatively wide, allowing the four men to surround him.

Of course, Hayden wanted to be surrounded, because if he didn"t want to be surrounded, he would"ve already reacted.

"Feeling scared now, eh boy?" One of the hooligans laughed because he thought that Hayden not making a move was him being terrified. "Too late for regrets now! You have thoroughly offended that young master already. Now, you have to face his wrath!"

The man who talked threw a punch at Hayden"s back. Hayden felt the airwaves from this punch, allowing him to know the exact velocity, angle, and power of this punch. With his perfect reflexes, he reacted to this punch by stepping to the right, turning around, and countering the man"s punch with another punch.

As the man put all of his weight into this punch, with Hayden"s strength and the weight from the man"s own attack, his head was thrown back. The man was instantly knocked out!

This single retaliation from Hayden made all the others re-evaluate him. Punching a person out cold with a single punch was a feat that only boxers will be able to do against a regular human! However, the one in front of them was a regular high school student, how can he possibly possess such power?

"Boys, we have to charge at the same time." The one who Hayden mocked at the start of this whole mess spoke. They all nodded when they heard this as seeing Hayden knocking out their comrade left a big impression on them.

Seeing the three thugs charging towards him, Hayden snorted. He was surrounded, so he was being a.s.saulted in three directions. The three arrived before him at arm"s reach, punching Hayden with a right hook almost at the same time.

Observing this, Hayden ducked and did a sweep kick, making the two unfortunate enough to receive this sweep kick lose their balance, with their arms. .h.i.tting the cement ground first. Hayden deliberately left the leader, basing on the looks, for last.

Looking at his comrades writhing on the ground because of the pain they experienced on the arm they fell on and the ankles they were kicked by Hayden, he was absolutely scared out of his wits.

"Boss, I think we have to run," The leader turned around hurriedly. "Run, boss!"

The rich kid was also scared and astounded at this moment. The hooligans" leader"s shout woke him up from his daze, wanting to run away. When the fellow student from the Scholar Academy saw this, Hayden noticed that his Origin Crystal lit up, as his eyes changed color.

"Don"t." Hayden said as he put his hand on the shoulder of his schoolmate. "I"ll handle it, don"t use your power on regular humans."

Gathering energy on his legs, Hayden rushed towards the two people escaping, easily catching up to them with his speed. He did a karate chop with both of his right and left hands simultaneously towards their neck to make them faint, which was successful.

Turning around, Hayden saw his fellow student was speechless. "Are you okay? You"re also from Makati City Scholar Academy, right?"

"Yes," the student was speechless. "How do you know I was planning to use my power? You"re also someone who has a power?"

Hayden simply nodded. "Don"t casually use that power, it"s dangerous. Imagine if the Triple A caught wind of you using your power."

When the student heard this, his face changed. "f.u.c.k, I forgot about them. True. I have you to thank for stopping me. My name is Daniel, Daniel Luntiang-Dahon (1). 9th Grade, Cla.s.s 1-5."

"Hayden," he similarly introduced himself. "Hayden Emperador. 9th Grade, Cla.s.s 1-8."

"Let"s talk tomorrow at school, lunch, for now, go home, you look tired." Hayden said towards Daniel.

"But, it"s Sat.u.r.day tomorrow…" Daniel awkwardly said. "You mean Monday, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, right," Hayden smiled with embarra.s.sment. "Monday, you rest for two days. Look out for Asw.a.n.g, most likely, he"s also someone like you and me. Oh yeah, don"t forget to touch that prism on your chest, with the question "how can I hide this" in mind. You"re smart enough to figure out the next part."

Daniel nodded, acknowledging Hayden"s warning, before picking up the bag he dropped and scurrying away. Hayden, who saw this, felt delight on finally finding a fellow wielder.

Eyeing the people who was knocked out on the ground, he snorted once more. "Utter trash. Bullying people with such a s.h.i.tty reason."

He then left them lying on the ground as he went back to his original plan of looking at exercise equipment. He wanted to buy so many workout equipment. Despite that, he refused to give in when he saw the credits in his account.

Shaking his head, he went to leave, dispirited. Arriving at his home, Hayden changed clothes and learned Korean again. When he finished, he tried practicing what he learned.

"It"s already been five days, huh?" Hayden spoke in perfect Korean. "I"m pretty eloquent already, knowing the sentence structures, and many more… I can also read Korean now. In fact, I"ve pretty much mastered the language…"

Nodding his head, he was fulfilled of what he was able to learn in a short five days. He was still speaking Korean as he talked to himself. "It seems that I can go to Korea without ever having to get lost. I want to meet those girls…"

Hayden exhaled as he thought of those girls. The girls he was referring to was naturally CHORUS, specifically, Kim Eun-Ha. "Why is she so pretty? And her personality is utterly flawless… Well, if that"s her true personality even while off camera anyways…"

He knew that sometimes, celebrities, as long as they were famous enough, were conceited and arrogant in real life, only having respect for their fellow artists, always looking down on non-celebrities. Hayden wished that Kim Eun-Ha wasn"t like this at all, hoping that what he saw on camera is what she was really like. "I mean, KTM Entertainment does find people with good ethics…"

"Well, time to move on to j.a.panese!" Throwing the matter out of the window, feeling it was too farfetched to meet them, Hayden moved on. With the intent of watching anime raw, he must learn the j.a.panese language! "There"re also some j.a.panese members in CHORUS, perhaps I can impress them…"

At the thought of this, he became more eager to learn j.a.panese (2). Thinking of it, there was also a Taiwanese member in CHORUS! Thinking of this, he was also excited to learn Chinese Mandarin now!

"Wait, three weeks to learn three languages? Wouldn"t polyglots, some of whom dedicated their entire lives learning languages, kill me?" Hayden bemused to himself. Laughing at his own joke, he turned on War of Honor. "I"ll learn tomorrow, there"s no rush."

Playing five ranked games, Hayden"s team won, solo-carrying every single game with perfect strategies and micromanagement skills. Hayden was delighted because, without Divine Perception, his rate of improvement was still something to behold.

Finishing the last game, he heard their doorbell ring. The stuff he ordered was here! Going downstairs with fast steps, he opened the door to see the package in his front door.

He then carried it towards his room and opened it. He set up the computer for recording. For now, he didn"t set up the backdrop yet as he wouldn"t record his face anyways, only the keyboard. Instead, he put the backdrop on one corner of the room, leaving it there for the future.

After testing recording for a single War of Honor game, he was satisfied. "Wait, this camera can also be used to record piano tutorials, which is equally as popular in Streamlink!"

Once he realized this, he felt that his income already doubled. The remaining question is where he would post the piano tutorials, in his channel where he game, or in another channel?

"I guess I"m going to post it in my gaming channel. I"m named Supremacy anyways, showing two talents at once to show to the world isn"t really odd compared to the narcissistic-sounding name." Hayden promptly made a decision before going to sleep.

"Tomorrow, I"ll record and edit for the entire day! Releasing three videos at once!" Saying this, Hayden closed his eyes. A few minutes later, he went into deep sleep.

…..

1 Luntiang-Dahon – Can be directly translated to English as Green-Leaf.

2 I"m not using the official language names of the languages I stated. I apologize for referring to Pyojun-eo as simply Korean language. Why would I do this? For the sake of simplicity. I humbly apologize for any offense I would"ve brought upon to anyone. For those of you all who don"t know, j.a.panese in its native language is Nihongo, while Chinese Mandarin is Putonghua. Note: Putonghua still has tone marks. I will keep referring to these languages as simply Korean, j.a.panese, and Chinese Mandarin now for the sake of keeping it simple, thank you for understanding!