Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

101  The plan

'Hmmm?'

The moment Alex launched himself 100 metres in the air, he created quite a disturbance in his surroundings, creating a dull boom and sending soundwaves across the nearby landscape.

His movements didn't go unnoticed, as just over 3 kilometres away, a man dressed in all black, with a hood covering his face, shifted his gaze to the source of the sound.

He sat on top of one of the many towering trees of this jungle, and he could see the faint figure of Alex rapidly rising through the air before he came to a stop, and started falling back down again immediately after.

'Found you!'

Immediately after he spotted Alex, he jumped from tree to tree, with no sounds at all reverberating from each of his landings.

***

Even though Alex only spent half a second at most suspended 100 metres in the air, with his incredibly high thinking speed, it was like minutes passed in the air before he started descending.

During this time, he made sure to observe any and every piece of scenery surrounding his immediate vicinity, checking for anything that might be of value, while also checking for enemies.

Considering there was an incredibly valuable Mutant class D- rank sword stored here for safekeeping, it wasn't unlikely that there might be something else here.

But from his short time in the air, he spotted nothing to indicate this was the case. In fact, the whole place now looked like a shadow of its former self. Although the place was literally ruins before Alex had arrived, now it just looked like a huge pile of shattered stones with a few upstanding buildings here and there in the middle of the jungle.

If someone passing by didn't know any better, they might just glance over this place and move on, thinking it was just a collapsed mountain.

'It's finally time to start grinding!'

Now that Alex had achieved everything he set out to do in this place, it was finally time to focus on his main goal — to earn some fucking money!

This whole time his net gains were a big fat zero, which was quite a bad sign considering he had already spent 3 weeks out of his 4 months in this place. But armed with the knowledge that he could actually leave whenever he wanted now, he wasn't bothered by this in the slightest.

He could hunt until the very last second if he was so desperate.

But before Alex could even make impact with the ground again, his expression soured and he prepared for the worst.

Crash!

Right as he was just 2 metres from landing, a figure dressed in an all black cloak, clearly in an attempt to hide their identity, slammed directly into him. The impact sent both of them crashing for dozens of metres through the already destroyed ruins, wrestling with each other in mid air the whole time.

"Who are you? What's your problem!?" Alex exploded in anger at this mysterious new figure. His hands still tightly holding onto the hilt of his sword the entire time.

But due to the awkward position he found himself in, he was unable to make proper use of it due to its lengthy nature. This was one of the major problems with longswords and spears.

When an opponent came within point blank distance, just a few inches away from touching each other, your long reach would turn from an advantage to a disadvantage real quick.

But thankfully, Alex was more experienced without a weapon than with one. Using his sword as a distraction, he hid the movements of his other arm, which had cocked back and finally… BAM!

Alex delivered a gut punch to the black cloaked figure, finally separating the two from each other.

It was around this time that their momentum also slowed down, and they both crashed into a few trees, knocking them down and finally bringing their speed to a halt.

From that single clash alone, Alex landed over a kilometre away from his previous position, no longer inside the ruins anymore and he was back on the jungle floor.

'This guy is strong!'

The power the black cloaked figure would need to achieve this, was at least on par with Alex.

'But the real question is whether he's a Mutant class like me or not!'

So far, Alex had only ever met Mutant class beasts and he was able to distinguish the difference between Mutant and Ordinary class due to their distinctive difference in energy signatures.

But he had never met another human Mutant class, and he felt no kind of difference in his own energy signature when his own class upgraded.

'Now that I think about it, I couldn't tell any difference between Professor Will's energy and Mira's, even though Professor Will was a Variant class human!'

The reasoning soon became clear to Alex, and he wasn't happy with the answer. It meant he'd have to be a lot more cautious in the future in fights with other humans, as if he was right, then humans were different from beasts and could naturally conceal their energy signatures.

It wasn't that there was no difference in energy between the two classes — that would be impossible. It was actually the case that when one upgraded their class from Ordinary to Mutant and so on, they instinctively start to conceal their real energy. Alex just hadn't realised this until now. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Only a half a second had passed since Alex stepped foot on the jungle floor, yet these thoughts flew by at lightning speed. This was just one of the many perks of being an awakened.

"You don't need to know who I am. Just know that you disrupted a plan much bigger than both of us, and now you're going to pay the price for it." The mysterious black cloaked figure broke his silence. His voice sounded deep and croaky, as if he had been chain smoking for the last 50 years straight.

'??? What plan? What kind of bullshit have I been pulled into this time!?'

Alex was at a total loss on what to think. He hadn't expected for the man to have such a random reason to attack him.

But after his attempt to kill him right off the bat, Alex knew this guy meant business. He wasn't here to chat, he was here to get a job done, and he'd use any means to get it done.

But Alex wasn't going to just back down either.

Alex was ready to kill anyone who threatened him.

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