George was inspecting the end result of a hard day of work with fear in his eyes, he only had a couple of chances left and was filled with self-doubt. This was one of the first times he had enough elemental energy to finish a batch, but he didn’t feel in control of the apparatus, it felt like his elemental energy was being sucked out like a vampire sucking the blood of a young girl.

“Activate test,” George said anxiously. He could test it manually, but he had the luxury not to. The first time he had seen this it felt like something out of this world, a drone appeared in front of the barrel and started to scan the content.

Effect: Stomach ache.>

George looked at the description and it made him a little angry, the first couple of days he would look at it and smile, but little by little it was getting to him. Deep inside he knew the problem, the apparatus was controlling him and that was a bad sign.

It felt like he didn’t have any control on how the energy was being sucked out of his body, the ending particulate made him feel like nothing but a battery with no control over his own body.

He knew that he needed to keep trying and that he would learn it in time, there was no point in making himself anxious. It was time to train martial arts, surprisingly he was good at it, it didn’t take him long to learn most of the defensive moves. He had memorized all the skills and was working on his offensive skills where he had made little progress when Tyler arrived.

George had a look of surprise on his face which quickly turned into a smile. “So he finally beat you,” George said mockingly, liking this little competition the two had invented.

Only a couple of days after George had left for the cave, Martin showed up looking pretty angry. George couldn’t get much out of him, but over the weeks he learned more when Martin would show up every day asking for a match at the exact same time.

From what he understood the two had made a bet, they would fight at sunset and the loser would go to George and challenge him to a dual.

At first, George felt a little bad that they had to do this to help him, they were wasting time walking to and from the mines every day that they could spend training, but when he saw the improvement in Martin’s moves he changed his mind.

They were challenging each other and improving at a higher rate because of it, after that he used this time to train himself and use this opportunity to improve. George knew that using a basic move was not a hard thing, especially the defensive once, but the hard part was to use them correctly in fights. When two fighters have the same strength, fighting becomes about strategy, the winner is decided by the moves he used and if he could outsmart his opponent.

In the beginning, Martin would beat him in seconds and be on his way, but with time George improved and was able to hold on for a minute on average. From what he could tell, Martin wasn’t holding back, he would waste no time and try to get back to his training as soon as possible, and seeing George stop his moves that would have knocked him out a week ago didn’t help, it only made him angrier.

The reason George lost so quickly was that he didn’t have any elemental power left after his Winemakers training. So when Martin used his wind element energy to attack he didn’t have any chance of blocking it.

George had to admit that he admired the passion Martin had for fighting, but he also liked to use it to tease him a little. Every day after Martin turned around and walked out of the cave without saying anything he would mockingly say his goodbyes and that he looked forward to seeing him tomorrow.

“Yeah he got the better of me this time, I didn’t expect to win every time anyway.” Said Tyler with a grin on his face, he looked like he didn’t mind losing at all, but George could swear he heard a bit of disappointment in his voice. That was the one thing he never understood about Tyler, he always looked calm and George couldn’t read him like he could read others.

When George asked about how everything was going Tyler told him about his training and that he and Martin would go on a daily hunt tomorrow to train and that he was excited because it was his first hunt. George hearing this felt a little bad about not being able to make more money, he had asked them to succeed but he himself had failed consistently.

Tyler wasn’t his talkative self which showed that he was a little angry about losing and they started their battle. George quickly noticed that long-range enemies were the worst possible opponent for protectors. Him using the practice weapon he quickly bought before moving to the mines didn’t help either, the weapon was not steady enough to block the arrows and that would cause him to take some damaged, and worse, slow down his momentum. But he knew that he wasn’t fast enough to catch Tyler, either way, the way he was moving farther away with ease was amazing, every move was perfect. George finally understood why Martin had lost every time, it felt like they were playing cat and mouse and like in the cartoons, only this time the mouse would still crush him even if he got lucky and got close. Luckily for him, the arrows were made of rubber and wouldn’t kill him but they still hurt like hell.

What made the arrows scary was the speed, not only did it make the arrows harder to follow but also stronger on impact. With every arrow coming towards him George started to get better at blocking them, he had this amazing ability to read the attacks and react ten times faster, especially if the moves were predictable.

George didn’t know if Tyler was helping him train or is this was his full strength but he was able to block the attacks for five minutes and with every second it became easier, but there was no chance he could get a hit in, even if he tried to move one step he would lose his focus and the arrows would get through his defense. With every fight, he understood why teams were needed and that fighting alone against high mobility classes was not something he could do as a protector.

Another minute went by before Tyler made his move, by now George felt comfortable blocking the arrows and he was trying to thinking of a way to move. Tyler stopped his rapid attacks and shot an arrow that was a lot slower than the others. Seeing the attack coming towards him that slowly made George mistrust the situation, he could dodge or block the attack. Seeing Tyler stand there not shooting anymore made George suspicious, was he baiting him to dodge? The arrow was moving closer by the second and George had to make a decision, and not having a way to damage Tyler he decided to play it safe and block the arrow.

The arrow heading straight came inches to connecting with the Bo staff before it disappeared and appeared right in front of George’s chest. The impact was hard enough to hit George back against the wall and even draw some blood.

“You are not the only one who can read people, playing it save it not always the best option.” Said Tyler with a smile on his face, the same way he enjoyed beating Martin at fighting he enjoyed beating George at what he was best, reading people.

George was lying on the ground still dizzy from the hit, it was the same kind of attack he had seen Wilton use against Thaddeus. The hit had shaken him awake, was he really that predictable, when was the last time he had taken a chance?

After Tyler helped George get up and brought him back to his room he said his goodbyes and went back home, he had a big day tomorrow and wanted to get some sleep.

George sat there and looked at the ceiling of his room thinking about what Tyler had said. Was he taking a chance the answer?

Not being able to sleep he at least could give it a try, he got up and got the one dark energy stone from his pocket he had found in the array and decided to take a chance.

The energy that the machine was using was not part of his body and it became a lot easier to control the output. Just as George was thinking that the end was here and that he had won the apparatus didn’t stop and kept sucking the energy out of the stone that was in his hand until the stone became empty and the stone shattered in thousand pieces.

Why had it not stopped?

Why was this damn machine so inconsistent?

“Activate test,”

Effect: Stomach ache.>

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