148: Inner Spirit

Inner Spirit

It was 7:59 am when Moby and Abby finally reached their classroom, 1 minute before the bell rang. As they entered, they noticed that the class was smaller than usual as there were various empty seats. It was also unusually quiet compared to the mornings of most days, even without professor Leo's presence making them behave and settle down.2

Only the sound of faint whispers was heard as many of the students had an extremely stiff expression with sweat running down their faces. 

'Damn… it seems like the news spreads really fast… impressive…' Moby thought, looking at his classmate's faces and listening in onto a few of their conversations.

Moby's class was undeniably one of the weakest classes in the entire school, consisting of only E ranks, D ranks, a few C ranks and 2 B ranks in Moby and Abby who were leagues above everyone else. 

It was not exactly a place for them to fit in, making them outliers among everyone else. 

Many of the students that had insulted or attempted anything on Moby in the past cursed their entire existence and prayed that he had forgotten all the shit they made him go through. However, Moby never forgets such things and never forgives. But, he decided to leave things be for now and not go out of his way for stupid and petty revenge as they were not worth his time. Plus, he can't be too cruel to the lower ranks in order to enact his many future plans.

As soon as he heard the bell ring, he walked to his usual seat at the bottom left corner of the room, making all the kids he passed by look down in shame and fear before sitting down on his chair with a sigh. Then, as not to waste any precious time, he closed his eyes to practice his new "Freezing Time" skill with his remaining mana and demon energy until professor Leo arrived to teach the lesson.

Not even 10 seconds later, the sound of the classroom door opening was heard and the familiar figure of the tall, muscular, dark orange spiky haired professor Leo wearing his usual attire of a white button up shirt with his sleeves rolled and standard black pants. 

'Damn… these kids are awfully quiet today even before I came… Are they still depressed about the deaths of their classmates during the exam?' Leo thought, looking at the class that was usually loud and noisy that was now more quiet than a funeral home.

"Okay class, good morning. It has been a while since I have last seen you and I hope that you are doing well."

"Anyways, let me get straight to the point, I have noticed you guys have gotten much quieter since I last saw you. I understand that you must still be down and depressed about the deaths of your friends and classmates in that hell hole they called an exam. But, that is how life is, expect the unexpected. That is the life of a soldier, remember that. We have many, many important things to go through today and we have no time to be sad and depressed, it would only lower your concentration," 

"This will be a good learning experience for you all so I hope you think of it that way,"

"Does that sound like a plan? Does anyone have any objections?" Leo asked in a cold, almost heartless voice, completely missing the mark on why his students were acting the way they were. 

"No questions? Okay then good, let's get started with today's lesson,"

"So, today we will be taking a more in depth look at abilities," Leo said, making Moby listen intently to his every word as it was a great subject of interest to him as he did not have enough time to go too in depth in his research about them, looking at only the general skills and uses, making this lesson extremely beneficial and invaluable to him. 

"I bet you guys have been wondering many things, "Why are some people stronger than others?""How do I get stronger?" etc,"

"Well, the answer is really complex yet really simple. I am sure that by now many of you have heard this before each ability has some sort of inner spirit or beast that resides within them. We simply call these, "Inner spirits". They are almost completely unseen spirits that reside inside a person's ability core that is found inside of their body. The only people that can see their inner spirit is when they grow such a tight connection and bond with the user that they become almost as one. But, all of you are far, far away from that level in your current state and probably will never reach that level in your short life spans,"

"The stronger your bond with your inner spirit the stronger your ability will be. Also, the stronger your physical body gets the stronger your ability will be as well. That is why it is important to do both physical and mental training in order to maximize your growth speed. All of these, and many other factors are what go into your ability levels and power,"

"You now might be wondering how one even strengthens their ability core and grows stronger with their inner spirit. That is where the hard part comes in, it is different for each person and ability, making all training methods slightly different than others."

"Like, fighting in tough, near death battles will unlock part of your hidden potential, making you grow a connection with your inner spirit completely unconsciously without you even noticing. This is just an example and of course, that does not work for everyone but it works for many people. And, the level of growth is not at all the same from person to person, even if they have the same ability."

"For example in this class, Moby Kane and Abby Reid have exponentially grown stronger from the exam due to all their hard fought encounters and body strengthening along the way, they are definitely people that benefit the most from that type of training. I am not saying that they were the only ones that have gotten stronger during the exam seeing that some of you went from D to C rank from it but, they were the ones to definitely benefit the most from that type of method of training. And, that means, for the rest of the class, your true strengths lie in different areas,"

"The thing is, although they may not be too effective, there usually are some pretty common training methods that help increase a person's mental strength with their inner spirit like meditation and things of that sort. Also, there are common ones between abilities that families with exclusive abilities use to train their offsprings. That is part of the reason why the big families stay at the top, it is due to their secret training methods that are reserved for them and their families alone,"

"And, don't worry, the military also has some secrets of their own that are reserved for high class personnel. So, feel free to enlist with us, we are in no way inferior to them,"

"In future classes, we will be experimenting with what training methods suit each one of you the best. It will be one of your first steps on your long path of becoming your ability core strengthening journey and by far one of the most important,"

"That will be the bare basic and general gist of things. Does anyone have any questions or was that all clear?" Professor Leo asked, looking at the quiet class before smiling and saying "Good."

Moby had been listening keenly to every single word uttered out of professor Leo's mouth, with his limited knowledge and usage of the internet, all of those facts were new to him and completely blew his mind, making his brain spin in circles as he had so many questions he wanted answered.

'Avilia… Did you know about this? And if so how long?' Moby asked Avilia, his mind still in shock.

'I've known about this for a while now, I am not sure why you are surprised by all of this, It's pretty common knowledge. I am sure that all your servants know about it quite well. Like, look at red head, she seems completely calm and composed,' Avilia said in a casual tone, referring to Abby who was sitting in her usual seat at the front of the class.

'Wait, what do you mean by you thought I knew? Can't you read my mind?' Moby asked in confusion. 

'Do you really think I am reading your mind 24/7? That's too much work and would cause me a headache. I just do it when it's convenient for me and when I am bored, and I only look at your surface thoughts so, many things were hidden from me anyways,' Avilia responded, shuddering at just the thought of her listening to Moby's thoughts at all time with no means of turning it off.

'Well, anyway, I think I get all this inner spirit thing, you just form a connection with it and try to increase your bond by doing some mental stuff. I am not sure how hard this will be but I can't imagine that it would be that hard right? Oh, and by the way, since I now have an ability, does that mean that I also have an inner spirit? Have you seen or sensed it before when it entered my body!?' Moby asked Avilia with clear excitement in his voice clenching his fists in anticipation.

'Heh heh… ummm… well about that… I've been meaning to tell you this for a while now but I didn't know when it would be the right moment to do so… well… ummm… how can I put this…'

'Your inner spirit is kinda…'

'dead…'

pqdm.com