Palm trees were everywhere but I didn't crash into them. I was using alpha particles because I didn't want a bruise on my face. Judging from the pain on my hands, they'd at least take another day to properly heal.

'But seriously, I have better healing now? Just what else was sealed?' I actually wanted to know. But I guess, poking too much into this could have had negative effects too.

​​

I didn't like these trees but they were a good exercise in the morning.

'Wasn't there an electronic shop in the south?'

It was a ten-minute jog and I needed new gloves.

I kept my jogging up and eventually reached an electronics store near the south corner of the academy. If I ran to the city, I could have found better things, but I didn't have that much luxury.

It wasn't like I was just being lazy, okay?

But if everything in here was subpar, then I'd have no choice but to head over there anyway. Meaning, life was a drag.

'I wish I could just fly.'

With a sigh, I entered the store. The owner was still cleaning up the dust from the shelves. But the moment he saw me, he ran back behind the counter.

"Welcome." He greeted me with a smile.

And judging by the display, everything in here, really was subpar.

"Do you have good quality plasma gloves and perhaps a memory instiller?"

I kind of always wanted a memory instiller. But never really got around to it. Mom had enough salary but we were too much into debts because of our occasional distruct- ahem, mistakes.

So, I never had enough money to buy anything that I fancied, till now that is.

I wanted to buy a Holo too, but this place only had the old models. If I was going to spend money on something, I was going to spend on something good.

"Of course, check this out!" The man behind the counter was kind of big and middle-aged. The big part wasn't anything other than his belly, by the way. And from the looks, he hadn't shaved in a few months.

He gave me a pair of gloves.

"These are too weak. They'll get burned instantly." The ones I had before were a bit more basic than these though.

The guy gave me a weird look and ravaged through his stuff. "How about this?"

I checked the quality and it was good enough for yellow plasma. But everything else would have scorched me.

"Don't you have anything better?"

His attitude took a U-turn. "What are you, some spoiled rich kid? This is a great glove and it can protect you even if you touched plasma directly. Why would you want something more expensive?"

I gave him a dull look. "I didn't say expensive. I said something BETTER!" I showed him my hands. "This happened despite me wearing these." Of course, I lied, I was using cheap gloves at the time.

I hated lying but this time I made an exception. After all, I knew this glove wouldn't have been worth it, and I needed something better. And this guy wasn't going to budge otherwise.

He sighed. "Rough user huh? Sorry, yesterday some rich kid annoyed me too much." He went in the back and came back a minute later. "Try these." I guess I couldn't blame him either.

The gloves looked awfully janky and even had a bit of a smell: used stuff. But as I took a closer look, the smell really hit me. "Oh my god!" It smelled terrible. I kind of had a bit of cold today, my nose was blocked. And thank the heavens for it, otherwise, I might have died from this. This stuff smelled worse than my foot when I had Athlete's foot! But just from the texture of the glove, I knew- "Not bad. These things even come with a small barrier." I wanted to get away from it though.

'I might be able to use blue with these.'

But it was too precious to pass away too.

This was one of the toughest decisions of my life.

"Not bad too kid. Didn't know you could tell. These were worn but Alfred, the previous sword king. He kind of sold them to me before leaving though. Oh, and a memory instiller right. I'll give you a good one."

I didn't know why but whoever the name of the sword king came up, there were two names, one Albert, and the other, Alfred. Albert was my father, but who was this Alfred? "Tell me? Were there two sword kings?"

And I didn't believe this guy one bit. After all, shopkeepers would basically say anything to sell their products.

Anything that could instill memories in me was fine though. I didn't want to debate on things I didn't know about.

The guy smiled when he heard my question. "That's four gold and thirty silvers. Would that be all?"

I guess he wasn't answering me.

"Keep it to three gold and ten silvers. And as you can tell, I'm not some rich kid. And things thing smells. "

"Kid, I'm already giving you a discount because you are my first customer of the day."

And the guy just gave me a major clue. A clue I could not avoid. A clue that made me smile involuntarily. He wanted to sell this stuff to me, no matter what.

We went back and forth a couple of times and in the end, settled for three and a half gold. Not a bad deal.

In the end, we both sealed the deal with a smile and a shake.

"Oh, and btw, I think one of them was my old man." Even I was confused, which one was which. All I knew was that my old man was called Burt, and so I assumed it was Albert, but honestly, I didn't know.

The man chuckled. "See ya later, kid."

With that done, I started jogging again. This time with two bags hanging down both of my arms. 'What did the owner of these gloves even do with it?' I didn't know and I didn't want to know. I was definitely going to bleach the hell out of the gloves first though before anything else.

I guess that went without saying.