“Who are you guys?” Andel asked curiously. The shine in their eyes when they looked at him made Andel feel cold chills down his spine. There was a look of worship.

“We are pupils of Miss Selina.” A boy around 6 years old with a crew-cut hairstyle answered. His fat cheeks jiggled when he introduced himself. “My name is Emon. Nice to meet you, big brother.”

“I am Ellie.” A cute girl in twin tails came forward to introduce herself. She looked the oldest of the group, but from her mannerism, Andel doubted that. She acted way too childish. After her, one by one, the rest also introduced themselves. Five children, from youngest to oldest, Andel remembered their names.

His would-be coach was their teacher. In terms of seniority, they should be his seniors. Thankfully, none of these kids understood that yet. Or else, Andel would have really ashamed to show his face in the dojo ever again.

Kids aside, he really wondered why that Paul was so aggressive. Logically, no adult would try to pick a fight with a child, no matter how unreasonable they were. Then why was this Paul did so?

‘Is he a mental?’ Andel wondered before shrugging his shoulders and focussing on the kids around him.

Actually, unknown to him, outside the dojo and in a café, Paul’s two cronies were also wondering the same thing. Though Paul was usually an ass, he wasn’t someone without reason. He would never try to pick a fight with a kid. The worst part, he got his ass handed to him by that kid.

“Ah!” Suddenly, Paul screamed as he clutched his head tightly. He angrily slapped the table, creating cracks on the wooden surface. The teacups fell down from the impact. The two cronies shook involuntarily, as they were sitting directly opposite to him.

“How did this happen?” After a brief silence, Paul growled out while pulling his hair. When he looked at his two fellows, his eyes were red. A vein was throbbing on his forehead. “How did I make such a huge mistake!?” He asked himself that after that Travis squeezed his shoulders.

He felt like waking up from a drug-induced sleep. Before Travis intervened, Paul had no idea of anything he did. After recalling everything, he felt ashamed of himself. Moreover, there was the humiliation of his defeat at the hands of a small child.

“Boss! Are you okay?” One of his subordinates, a man of the same age as he, asked in an unsure tone. He had a similar hairstyle as Paul, and blue eyes that looked like a precious stone. Among the three, he was the handsome one.

“What okay!? Can’t you see I went ahead and found trouble for myself?” Paul growled through his gritted teeth. He wished he could bang his head on the wall and die. The humiliation was worse than any physical pain he received. “Why didn’t you guys stop me back then?” He directed his angry stare at the two.

“This…” the handsome Mohawk looked anxiously to his friend before stuttering. “You looked very pissed there. I was afraid we would be the ones to get beaten if we stop you.”

“That would have been better than this!” Paul roared and slammed his hand on the already half-broken table. The poor thing reduced to small splintered due to Paul activating his Talent unconsciously. “What the point of me feeding you if you two couldn’t protect my dignity? You would have got beaten up, at worst a few broken bones. That way, I wouldn’t have been humiliated like this! How the fuck am I gonna show my face to Selina from now on?”

The commotion attracted attention from nearby people as well as the café staff. However, seeing the red claw as well as the splintered coffee table, they stayed put and acted as if nothing was wrong.

As for the two cronies, they could only look down and silently curse at Paul for his unreasonableness.

…

“Captain, I want to report you something.” Back in the dojo, while Frendez was busy teaching the trainees, his handphone rang. Seeing the caller was none other than Travis, he frowned and went back to a secluded space. The fact that one of his subordinates was calling him when he could have directly reported was suspicious enough. So when he picked up the call, Travis sounded unusually serious.

“What is it?” Frendez asked back solemnly.

“Back then, I detected a volatile hormonal activity on Paul’s body.” Travis continued without losing his serious attitude. “I thought it was because he couldn’t control his power, letting it affect him negatively. However, after coming back, I realized the mistake in my assumption.”

“A level 6 Warrior shouldn’t have that kind of volatile side effect from their Talent, right?” Frendez finished for him. By now, his brows already joined together, and his lips stretched to a grim frown.

“Right. Anyway, I have already warned Andel. So it should be fine for the time being.” Travis cut off the call after that. Frendez pocketed the phone before going back to his pupils. His eyes landed on the other corner of the dojo, where Two was teaching knife arts to a few people. Frendez didn’t rule out any possibility, and thus he made a mental note to keep an eye out on every action of Two towards Andel.

‘I hope it's not what I think it is.’ It was the last thing on his mind before he resumed teaching.

…

“Well, I am also a student like you. But I haven’t met Selina yet.” While others were busy with matters on their own hands, Andel was having a great time with the five kids. These kids already started training in ki and thus were mature enough to hold a little conversation. Andel figured out that compared to the kids back at his house, these five were more intelligent.

It was especially true for Samuel, who was the second oldest of the group, right next to Ellie. He had the intelligence level of a ten years old child. In fact, he was intelligent enough to understand complex emotions and reading the atmosphere.

“Selina is a nice big sister. She gives me candies every day.” Katie, the other girl said with a smile that displayed her white teeth. Though her upper row lacked a few teeth, she was still cute when she smiled with the two dimples forming on her cheeks.

“She is very strict, though,” Emon complained. “By the way, how did you defeat that bully?”

“It was so cool! You don’t look that much older than us. How can you be this strong?” Asked Ellie with a pout. “The way you throw him to the ground, it looked so cool!!”

“You must have trained a lot, right?” Samuel asked. As the one with an IQ higher than the rest of his age group, he was silent for most of the time. However, whenever he did speak, it would never be something childish. Speaking of silence, the last kid, Ergo, was mute from birth. However, he was the most expressive one of the five.

Since Andel couldn’t understand sign language, Katie would translate it for him.

Andel engaged in the chatter for a while before he took his leave. However, before he left, he did teach them a few katas of Judo. They took a liking towards the art the first time they saw him using it. Although they were unwilling to let him go, after a quick promise to meet them again tomorrow, Andel was finally allowed to leave.

Back in his room downstairs, Andel took in a deep breath before rapidly going through all the moves of Krav Maga and other stamina extensive arts. An hour later, when he was ready to kiss the ground, a very satisfying blue box appeared before him.

Stamina +1

Reflex +2

But obviously, those two weren’t the only ones that saw growth.

Pain Immunity +20 EXP Fatigue Immunity +40 EXP