Quin stayed at Leyn’s house for another hour or so and then headed home. Thanks to her most of his injuries were tended to do, but he was still mentally exhausted nonetheless. Thus after eating dinner he decided to go to bed early.

Dream did not come easily to his eyes that night though, sleepless, he turned left and right. He did not have any particular kind of pain, but he did feel rather uncomfortable. It was quite a strange sensation: first of all his body felt like it had been a battlefield between fire and ice, and he could not decide whether he was hot or cold. Next, under his skin, it felt like ants were constantly marching and they wanted to find a way out. Lastly, he was simply unable to get the idea out of his head, that something was not just right.

It’s not my main Core, and it’s not the fight today... What could it be? Why can’t I figure it out? It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I still can’t say it! What happened today that was strange? I went to school, it may have been a bit unusual but nothing strange. There were a few lessons there and I was transferred into a new class, but that’s still not what I’m searching for. Then I went to talk with Aline and she got angry. He stopped at that thought for a moment. Oh, then that jerk appeared, it should be because of him, right? No, that’s still not it! Other than these, I fought those guys and went to Leyn afterward with stomach pains, but I’ve already excluded those. Damn, why won’t it let me rest?

Quin only managed to fall asleep after hours of struggling and on the next day he woke up quite tired. At the school nothing noteworthy happened and it seemed that yesterday’s fight did its intended effect.

The following days passed in the same manner, however, he felt a bit depressed, and as someone who was not fitting in. There were only three people who he had a good relationship with, but they were all in different classes. Furthermore, Aline was still quite busy and though Alinor was his best friend, and they met often during breaks or after the school, the whole time they spent together felt a bit strange to Quin. The interaction between them, their talks just seemed a little forced to him. Alinor was not the person anymore, who he could hang out with without having to think what they would talk about or do.

At least he had made up with Leyn, so she was there for him when needed. There was not any kind of extraordinary thing they did together, most of the times they were just strolling in the schoolyard and talking. Often they just chatted about their everyday life and similarly common topics. It was not that Quin did not have more interesting topics, but he did not want to simply mention them and honestly he did not even find their conversations boring.

Fortunately, though sometimes he still felt his main Core pulsating, it did not bring him any pain, just some uncomfortable feelings. Not so surprisingly, even those times were enough to induce a smaller panic attack on him, but after realizing that it did not even hurt, he managed to calm down himself. Furthermore, he noticed that as the days passed, the less frequent these pulsations became, thus combining this with the fact that his previous seizure appeared after he exhausted himself, he inferred that it was probably connected to physical exertion. Consequently, despite that he wanted to start regularly exercising again, he decided against it.

Life was not that easy for Quin though, and after about three weeks had passed since he started going school again, he was confronted once again, on his way to home. A dozen of youths surrounded him and there were no mysteries regarding their intentions. After observing them he noticed that the trio he had fought before was among them as well.

It seems that our attempt to intimidate them only lasted for so long. He sighed. I doubt this will turn out good.

He stopped, and looked straight at the water element user he had defeated before and said, “So, what now? Are you really this afraid me that you only dare to face me with a crowd like this?” He snorted.

“Shut your mouth! We’re not here to talk!” the youth yelled back, his face filled with embarrassment. He leaped and attacked right in the next moment.

Quin sidestepped, however when he was just about to kick the water element user, his head was hit by something hard. Shit! It’s so difficult to fight a crowd without my Qi Sense.

Although it hurt and he felt that even blood started to drop from his head, it was not something to stop him. Quin had no chance at all in this situation however, and before he could do anything, he was met by a volley of attacks from all sides. Damn! They’ve got no shame!

They were not enough to incapacitate him or cause serious damage, but still enough to make him fall on the ground and cause a great amount of pain to him. The next several moments were quite fuzzy to him, as the youths started to kick him anywhere they could, while he lay helplessly on the ground.

When it finally ceased, Quin got up, standing on all four of his limbs and spat out mouthfuls of blood. Fuck! Are they trying to kill me here?

“You remember me, don’t you?” the one in front of him asked. He had not much distinguishing feature, only maybe his big bulky shape, but then again, the city had a lot of earth element users who shared his body type.

Quin looked at him for a few moments and had no idea at all who he was, but what he could clearly see was the anger on his face.

“You don’t even remember me?!” he yelled and powerfully kicked Quin in the stomach, making him spat blood again. “That day at the cafeteria! You don’t know how much you humiliated me there, and what’s more, this was in front of my girlfriend! It’s all your fault that he left me!” He kicked him another time. “That day I vowed that I’d pay it back to you a hundred times!”

Quin did not pay much attention to his attacker’s rambling though, as his thoughts were rather occupied by something he feared much more: his pulsating main Core. He did not know why, but he had a really bad premonition about it, which filled him with dread.

Several moments and kicks later, he finally managed to gather his thoughts. That damn Core of mine! Why does it hurt so much? I had no trouble with it this week, so I thought that I’d be able to finally got rid of this. Will I really die here? Even though he has been through of these kinds situation with his Core before and came out totally fine, for some reason he could not get the feeling of impending death out of his head. With all of his willpower, he managed to calm himself down before panic would have completely overcome him. During my life, I’ve faced death multiple times and even that ball of smoke told me that I’ve been longer overdue for death. If I die, I die, why should I be afraid of it? Yeah, it might be scary to disappear from existence, but if it’s inevitable then what good does it do me to live the remaining moments of my life in dread and fear? Besides that’d also give these guys what they want and I’m not going to do that!

Quin pushed himself up from the ground and started to laugh. Looking at him would give someone a quite strange image: his clothes were dirty, and stained in blood, however there he was laughing without a care in the world.

“Hey, has he become crazy, or what?” one member of the group asked.

“What are you laughing at!” asked the youth, who previously blamed him for losing his girlfriend. He gave him another kick, but Quin got back up, still laughing. “What are you laughing at?!” the youth asked again. “You think that you’ll be able to get back at us, huh? You can dream on! Even if you tell about this to your friends, you still don’t know all of us and the next time we might even accidentally kill you!” He yelled at him fiercely, but it was obvious that he was quite fearful that Quin would actually do what he just said.

“Don’t worry, I’m not someone as pathetic like you, who needs others for settling his own affairs,” Quin replied and snorted. Although it took a lot of his strength to say this and he even had to stop for a few moments to continue, he thought it was definitely worth it. He was not able to defend himself physically anymore, but at least he could retort verbally and thus humiliate them.

His attacker’s face become completely red, and not just due to the anger but to his embarrassment as well. In revenge, he gave Quin another round of beatings, however when he stopped, Quin turned onto his back and after laughing he said, “You know guys what’s that I’ve been laughing about? It’s you. You’ve searched for me to get your revenge on me, right?”

“So what’s then?” one of the asked in contempt.

“And why did you want to do it? I guess you’re all like that loser who lost his girlfriend and want to take your revenge on me because I had humiliated you before?” Quin asked.

“Of course it’s because you’ve humiliated us, you had been always so lofty and arrogant, stepping down on everybody in your path!” someone from the group replied.

“And that’s why it’s so pathetic and ridiculous! You came here with a dozen people, only to beat up a single guy who doesn’t even have a cultivation! Don’t you see that what you’ve done in order to make you feel less humiliated in the end just made you even more pathetic and humiliated!”

Thinking through what Quin said, most of them realized that what he said was indeed true and from an outsider’s perspective they have only seemed to make a bigger fool out of themselves. However, the anger inside them did not wade, only increased and they needed someone to channel it.

Author's note: Previously I had promised to release chapters daily to the 10th and today it's the 11th. I'd be happy to continue with the daily releases in the next week as well, but unfortunately, I won't have the time to do so. My schedule will probably change quite a few times in the upcoming months, however, I'll always try to let you know how it'll be in the next week in the author's notes on each Sunday.

On the next week, I'll release 5 chapters in total, one on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.