Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

55  No friends, no hobbies, no money

Alex left the application centre, and was left standing there on the pavement with a blank look on his face.

'What the hell am I supposed to do for a week?'

A sudden realisation came to him that his life so far was really boring.

Before the Primordial Expanse, every day just consisted of work at the mines, eating, reading a few novels or browsing the web.

He didn't have any hobbies, friends, or money…

'Oh shit! How could I forget.'

But when he was stressing over how he was going to spend the next week, he suddenly remembered the message he had just received on his communicator.

'I can use this week to study my new technique! Perfect!'

With a new goal in mind, Alex made his way over to a quiet, decent sized park in the middle of the city and sat down in the grass and pulled up the information about Phoenix Fury.

'Let's see here… Stretch this… Do this stance…'

He read through the whole document for the next 30 minutes, not blinking or taking his eyes off the contents once.

A few passer-by even mistook him for someone sleeping, until they saw his eyes were wide open and he was looking intensely at his communicator.

Finally, he had read through the entire document and stood up all of a sudden. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

It didn't take much for him to memorise the contents. His mind had been strengthened and evolved when he had become an Evolver.

Soon he started taking on a few weird angled poses, targeting specific muscles in his chest, arms and legs that he would otherwise not be able to train.

'I have to hold this stance for 2 hours??'

Alex had to stay in this exact position for 2 hours, but he was feeling the effects of exhaustion after only 20 minutes.

'How can such a simple exercise have an effect on an Evolver like me…'

It was only after experiencing it first hand that Alex realised why this technique was targeted towards awakened.

If a normal person used this, they'd probably fall into a coma just for holding the stance for 30 seconds.

'I can feel energy pouring into my body from my surroundings!'

14:24

After 40 minutes passed, Alex started to feel the naturally occurring fire element in the air slowly being attracted towards him — entering his body and slowly strengthening his muscles.

The force was invisible to the naked eye, but the air around Alex had heated up by a few degrees.

'This feeling is magical!'

By now, Alex had gained a few curious onlookers who gazed at him with confusion.

To them it just looked like some strange teenager was performing a weird act in the middle of the park.

Some even mistook him as a homeless performer and threw a couple pennies his way…

But with the state of his clothes it made sense.

He was still wearing his dirty miner's clothes he was wearing when he first entered the Primordial Expanse.

But Alex didn't take any notice of this, his entire attention was focused on keeping up his stance and absorbing the fire element in his surroundings.

Eventually, 2 hours finally passed and Alex was covered in sweat from head to toe.

It looked like he had been standing in pouring rain for the last hour, but the clear blue and the shining sun in the sky said otherwise.

Finally relaxing himself, Alex couldn't even stand and flopped onto his back, cushioned by the grass.

He was heavily breathing, but a smile adorned his face.

'It's not much, but I feel like my punches will pack an extra kilo or two of force!'

The difference was practically negligible, but Alex was only making use of the weakest version of the technique.

The whole foundation of the technique relies on Alex being injured, and guiding that fire elemental energy into his body, simultaneously repairing it and strengthening it in the process.

***

A week soon passed.

Alex had kept up with his training every day.

He would show up to that same spot in the park every day and perform the same stance.

He felt like he could maybe improve his physical strength score by maybe 10kg if he took it again.

The funny thing was that he even had some of the same onlookers coming to watch him every day.

There was even one old man who waited for him at the same time every day, and captured the image of Alex in his stance onto the canvas he was painting on.

The small amount of money people threw allowed him to buy himself a simple meal every day, which he found quite funny.

Other than that, he would just find a park bench to sleep on when night came.

If the people knew that this was an Evolver who they mistook for a homeless person, who knows how they'd react...

He wasn't bothered with this as he often slept in the wilderness in the Primordial Expanse when he was investigating the sleeper.

But now that seven days had passed, this would be his last time training in this park.

After finishing up his usual 2 hour training session, he packed up all his things, mainly a few leftover credits, and made his way over to the transport ship.

Applicants to the top five universities took a separate transport ship to their testing site, this was the one Alex was taking.

The ship had a similar design to the one he took to Planet Hortus, except for the fact that it was the size of a skyscraper turned on its side.

When he arrived, he saw a myriad of excited and chatty youngsters like himself, waiting to enter the ship.

He looked around and noticed that everyone seemed to have a friend to talk with, while he himself just stood there alone.

Instead of embarrassing himself by trying to strike a conversation with someone, he closed his eyes and listened in on others conversations while waiting for the doors of the ship to open.

"Did you hear? Beacon Darius died in the Primordial Expanse! It's said he fought a mighty B rank beast and would have won if not for the beast horde intervening in the battle. I heard that a city was destroyed in the process too!"

'Huh?'

Alex didn't know this Beacon Darius but he recognised the scenario the spiky haired youth was describing.

'Was the B rank outsider who died this Beacon Darius? How did news of Valentis' destruction even reach this place?'

Alex had many questions, but when he opened his eyes to ask he was immediately faced with a serious and stern looking face standing right in front of him, gazing right at his… chest?

'This girl's here too?'

It was the same girl he had entered the Awakened association with.