“How are you going to deal with someone attacking you from a distance, Zoey?” Lindsay asked.

“Run at them.” Zoey answered.

It wasn’t like she could do anything else. She couldn’t stretch her arms and punch people far away or teleport. Maybe when her Magic stat reaches 1.0 and she could learn spells then maybe something like that’ll be possible. Like using space magic or something and being able to throw punches at anyone no matter the distance. If space magic was even a thing. Right now, Zoey had no idea what kinds of magic were real or not except for lightning and ice magic. Maybe poison magic because of that poison demon lady but poison wouldn’t help her deal with someone far away.

“Zoey has the opposite problem that we do. If someone gets up close in her face, she’ll be fine. While with us, it’s a different story. But if we had to take care of someone from far away, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. With Zoey, it's impossible for her to do anything but try and get closer.” Alexander said.

“Exactly...” Lindsay agreed. “We might have to buy her a magji tool for something like that. Either something to protect her as she gets close to an enemy or a way to attack from afar.”

“The first one would probably work better with her skills.” Alexander thought out loud. Zoey’s most dangerous aspect was the fact that she’s an absolute monster at close range. It would be better for her to focus on that rather than trying to make her good at close and long-range. In a perfect world, maybe it would be possible but they didn’t have the time.

“We’ll have to find something during the week.” Lindsay agreed.

“So, what now?” Zoey asked.

“Now, you will come at us with the intention to kill.” Lindsay said.

“???” Zoey was confused. This was just training, wasn’t it?

“Fifth final lesson of the day: Awaken Alexander and Lindsay’s Killer Nature With Zoey’s Help!” Lindsay explained.

“I’m still confused on that one...” Alexander spoke up.

“Magjistars put their lives on the line every day. Are you confident in saying that you’ll be able to handle doing something like that for the next 10 years? 20 years? Three years, if I'm being realistic. Magjistars don’t live long or happy lives. It’s impossible for anyone without a few screws loose to handle a career like this. Zoey is going to help us loosen a few screws by trying to kill us. Because without that, we’ll either lose our lives or never make it as far as could have as magjistars.” Lindsay said.

‘Is she calling me crazy?’ Zoey had a feeling she was but wasn’t sure. Why couldn’t there be a social skill that she could level up?

Zoey knew she was crazy but that didn’t mean other people could call her crazy. What kind of person would she be if she let people go around calling her crazy? She’s doing her part to act like a normal person with average social skills. It's one of the reasons why she joined the track team! To make friends and seem more like a normal human being. She didn’t want to be a socially awkward loser her entire life! It was already pathetic that she’s made it to age 17 like this.

“I don’t think every magjistar is crazy...” Alexander muttered.

“Every strong magjistar is.” Lindsay stated as a matter of fact.

Alexander gave it some thought before having to agree with her. The most talented magjistars were definitely a little odd. Excluding him and Lindsay, everyone else was weird. But was it really a bad thing that he wasn’t a weirdo? Could his future as a magjistar really be affected by not having some weirdness?

“What do you mean by trying to kill you?” Zoey needed to know.

“Imagine us as daemons.” Lindsay answered simply. “But don’t actually kill us, alright?” Lindsay had to add that part.

Zoey frowned. “I’ll do my best.” She answered. The fact that she felt the need to say that at all was unnecessary. She knew how to control herself. It wasn’t like she was some mindless beast that only thought of fighting and hurting things. But just because of that little extra comment, maybe she won’t hold back a bit when facing her.

“I don’t know if I'm ready for this...” Alexander was slightly frightened to take on a Zoey that wasn’t holding back.

Memories of how she completely dominated that poison daemon flashed through his mind. The female daemon was helpless against Zoey’s fist. Each punch looked like it was more than enough to hospitalize a normal person. She was at Zoey’s absolute mercy and any retaliation or attempt to fight back was shut down instantly. Could he handle something like that?

“Good. That’s the point.” Lindsay said, shivering just as much as Alexander was.

Both of them knew that Zoey was an abomination from the human species after seeing her kill her first daemon. As they spent more time with her, it only proved that their first thought of her was correct. She had strength that no other mortal should have at her age. Her mind didn’t work the same way as other mortals did. And for some reason, she was only getting stronger!

“It's better for us to go through something like this with Zoey instead of against a daemon that would have no problems actually killing us.” Lindsay told him with her shaking legs.

“I guess so...”

“So, you want me to come at you two with everything I got?” Zoey asked for clarification's sake.

“Yes...” Lindsay gulped.

“Alright. I’ll begin in thirty seconds.” She told them.

Zoey began to warm herself up to go all out for once. Getting into her boxing stance, taking a deep breath, and then shadow boxing the air. Loosening up her muscles and bones in preparation for this. This would be more fun if she was actually able to give everything she got without having to worry about suddenly stopping or holding herself back. Because then, her skills would raise more quickly. The Box wanted her to use her skills in real-life situations instead of repeatedly practicing. Both ways worked but one was more beneficial to the growth of her skills and that was using them when she was fighting or just using them.

Like with Gaming and Teaching, those could be raised when she properly used them. For some reason, Gaming rose quickest when she was playing with her brother than when she was playing by herself. Teaching couldn’t gain experience at all unless she was teaching someone else. Apparently studying didn’t count as teaching herself, which she thought was pretty fucking lame and stupid. But it's whatever.

With Boxing, Focus, Endurance, and Abnormal Conditions they gained experience very slowly if she was using them in a non-practice or training session. Outside of that, they quickly rose. Competitions and fights were the way that the Box wanted her to raise them. Zoey did wonder how the Box determined this for her skills.

In the thirty seconds that Zoey was using to warm up, Alexander and Lindsay were preparing themselves for the fight of their lives. Lindsay’s plushie stood in front of her as she covered the ground around her in ice and then after that aimed her wand at Zoey. Alexander created several balls of electricity to circle around himself and then a couple more to protect himself from Zoey’s rush. Both of them understood that Zoey only had one method of attacking them. Rushing in and punching. If they kept her at a distance, it would be much harder for her to attack them.

Zoey was surprised to see them utilizing their spells in new ways. She’s never seen either of them do anything like this before. Usually, Alexander only created one lightning ball and it was just a single big one that slowly flew towards someone but these small little ones were new. Lindsay freezing the ground was also new. Her ice magic was only used to freeze demons not anything else.

But it didn’t matter much to Zoey. Seeing things like this only excited Zoey as she could use them to further her boxing style even more! The Ultimate Boxing style that could take on anything in the world! With the Box, it was only a matter of time before she could claim something like that. She was also sure that Lindsay and Alexander’s magic fell under Abnormal Condition’s requirements. So, she could use this chance to finally raise that to level two if she was right.

With an impactful pound of her boxing gloves against each other, she rushed towards Alexander and his field of lightning balls. Her boxing gloves smashed apart the numerous little balls of magic while shocking herself at the same time. The pain jolting up and down her body from the shock of the magic was painful but knowing that Abnormal Condition was gaining experience was more than enough to fill her with pleasure to numb the pain. After leveling up, the pain was reduced even further as she was about to make her way to Alexander. Then suddenly, she was almost hit directly in the stomach by his lightning bolt.

‘Ah shit... I was too focused on the balls...’ Zoey was blasted to the gym floor with her boxing gloves blasted apart, taking the brunt of the spell.