(Oct 19)

After two days of not going to training or work, I feel much better.

But if I take any more days off, I might become too lazy, which is not something I want.

So today I’m going to go back to training again.

It’s been two days so I’m not sure if my training group is doing anything different or if we’re still going to be playing capture the flag again.

Well, I’m leaving now. I’ll continue writing later.

.

As usual, I went to the meeting place where my training group gathered and assimilated myself into a group of soldiers that were just standing there waiting for Alisha to show up.

It was relatively early in the morning, so most of the soldiers were still tired and drowsy but I was full of energy due to my break, and due to the power up I received after my thinking meditation exercise I did a few days ago.

We waited around for a bit, until Alisha eventually showed up and told us what we were doing for the day; we were playing capture the flag again against another team.

I wasn’t as excited for it as I was as before and this time, I knew I had to be careful not to use too much of my dragon essence.

However, a bit before the capture the flag match began, Alisha called me over to speak with me in private.

“Anthony, where were you the last two days?” she questioned me.

“Oh, I was taking a couple days off.”

Alisha’s brows furrowed as she stared at me.

“What the hell happened to you…?”

I was confused by what she meant by this.

“What do you mean?”

“Your aura… it feels a lot stronger now. When I last saw you a few days ago, you had a decent amount of magic, but it felt… unstable and uncertain. However now, your magic has increased by a noticeable amount, and it feels so much more empowering…”

Alisha circled around me, analysing me as she explained what she meant.

She was able to notice the change in my magic caused by my thinking exercise.

“Did you… take drugs? Are you on drugs? Are you using drugs to boost your magic??”

Out of nowhere, she accused me of taking drugs.

“What? No!”

Alisha leaned close into my ear and whisper, “don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Just… ahem… let me know who your supplier is…”

Is she… actually serious?

Did she just…

Um.

Again, I denied the fact that I took any drugs.

“Come on man, there’s no way anyone can increase their magic that much in a few days by any normal means.”

It’s true that by normal means you can’t increase your magic by this much, but I was a special case.

I explained to her what happened during the two days off and how my strength increased due to my thinking exercise.

“What? You’re telling me… simply by… thinking, you can increase your strength and become stronger…?”

Alisha raised one eyebrow and stared at me.

I nodded my head in response.

“What the fuck is this bullshit. I had to train, spilling blood, sweat and tears for years to get to where I am and then some random guy shows up who can grow stronger simply by thinking. I’m jealous!”

Well… if she puts it that way… it makes me look very spoiled in comparison…

I mean it is a lot more complicated than just simply that, with how my mental state is connected to my power and with my dragonification and stuff.

But yes, what Alisha said is technically true.

However, I never picked this power, it picked me. I’m just going with the flow.

Alisha decided to wrap up our conversation here.

“That’s it. I don’t feel like talking to you anymore. But next time, at least let me fucking know if you’re going to take a day off. I was going to yell at you until I found out you had a sudden power boost out of nowhere. At least let me know beforehand so I can rearrange my damn plan.”

She sounded pissed.

I’m not sure why she’s so mad though, all I did was take two days off.

She mentioned a plan, which I’m not exactly sure what she was referring to.

I just can’t understand her.

She was also strangely interested if I was on drugs earlier too… not in a strict way either, it sounded as if she wanted some for herself…

Besides that interaction with Alisha this morning, the rest of the day was pretty dull and mundane.

The capture the flag match we played afterwards was short, our team won by a landslide.

Alisha found the enemy flag in only an hour, and within that hour over three quatres of the enemy team was wiped out by me alone.

The A ranked group leader on the opposing team didn’t even have time to react.

So that was everything that happened, not much really.

(Oct 20)

Two days left until The Grinch subjugation.

To my surprise, I’m not as nervous as I thought I would be.

The Grinch has been terrorizing my life for the last several weeks, and in a couple days, I might be able to end it once and for all… and yet I don’t feel that nervous.

Today was also the last day of our weeklong training session.

Cornelia came by this morning and told me to meet up with William tomorrow to talk about stuff, which I assume we’re going to discuss the plans for fighting and confronting The Grinch.

Additionally, there will be a meeting tomorrow night where all the soldiers who are participating in The Grinch subjugation will gather with the A rankers to discuss the plan.

Now, I’m just patiently waiting for tomorrow to roll around.

(Oct 21)

This morning, I went to William’s place and my first interaction was:

“Hello Anthony, how are y- woah, what the fuck!?!”

Not even finishing the sentence, William pulled down his glasses and stared at me.

“What the hell happened to you? Your magic… it feels so much stronger!”

Just like Alisha, William had noticed the sudden boost in my dragon essence.

I explained to William what had happened, yada yada, and other stuff that I did with my thinking exercise and out of nowhere I got some random power boost.

I already explained this before to Alisha before, so I was just repeating what I said to William.

Despite William being the most knowledgeable person on my dragon powers and doing research it, even he was surprised at my sudden power up.

“I’ve seen many monks claim that mastering your own mind can grant oneself power, however I’d never expected it to be true to such an extent… but then again, you’re an exception since your strength is directly influence by your mind…

Well, as much as I would love to spend hours studying your dragon essence and its science behind it, I’m a bit tight on time. I need to make sure that capturing The Grinch goes well. So, onto our main topic…”

William was the one leading this entire subjugation and he’s the one who organized it in the first place, so he was busy planning everything.

We started discussing what William had planned so far and what we were going to do for the big day.

“So what’s the plan, Willy?” I asked.

“Don’t call me that, you lil piece of shit. Ahem… so we know that The Grinch is a green beast like creature, but based on the information and data we’ve gathered, I’ve reasons to believe that The Grinch can transform, probably into a human form or such.”

Well, that would explain the condition in the contract I signed that said: “You must not be The Grinch.”

By having this as part of the contract that everyone must sign, it eliminates the possibility of the soldiers participating being The Grinch.

“Locating The Grinch is going to be difficult, so instead we’re going to lure it out.”

William went on to explain that tomorrow, the day of the subjugation, we will bait The Grinch into showing up at an abandoned cemetery at the edge of the city.

“For some reason, The Grinch is attracted to your dragon essence. Remember when I gave you the laxatives and then stuff happened, and you released your magic? The Grinch showed up nearby.

So I was curious and conducted a little experiment. I took a bit of your dragon essence and injected it into magic stones and placed them around the city. There wasn’t any major difference in The Grinch’s movements, but when I looked closely at the data, The Grinch attacks were narrowing in on the areas where I placed your dragon essence.”

For some reason The Grinch is being lured towards my dragon essence? Hm. But why?

And I could see where William was going with this. He wanted to use my magic as a way to bait out The Grinch.

“But even with your dragon essence, it’s only a minor attraction. The Grinch is not guaranteed to show up at the cemetery just because we release your magic. It does increase the chances though. So… here’s the real plan.”

William explained the plan for tomorrow.

The city will release an announcement that a disease is spreading through the city so people would be advised to stay indoors and only leave when absolutely needed.

Almost no one people will leave their homes, but if someone does, Alisha will watch over them and look for suspicious movements.

This will decease the chances of The Grinch attacking innocent civilians on the streets, but it will also put William’s plan into motion.

Based on William’s data, The Grinch is less likely to attack people in large groups, so we will place groups of ten to twenty soldiers all over the city. An A ranker will travel with each group of soldiers just in case The Grinch does decide to attack any groups.

The groups of soldiers will patrol the city in a way that they will leave an empty pathway that leads to the abandoned cemetery

The Grinch will try to avoid the groups of soldiers, so it will move away from the soldiers towards the cemetery in the pathway that we created.

Not only that, William plans on setting a subtle trail of my dragon essence to the cemetery to attract The Grinch.

Once The Grinch shows up at the cemetery, we will ambush it and will send a signal to all the soldiers that were patrolling the city to come towards the cemetery, and they will surround The Grinch to avoid it from fleeing.

A majority of the soldiers in the city will be participating so we’ll basically be immobilizing an entire army just to take down The Grinch.

This may sound overboard, but we don’t know how strong The Grinch is so we’re going use the entire city’s military force to ensure the plan does well.

The plan seemed solid at first, but then I realized how inconsistent the plan was.

From what William told me so far, the plan has a very high chance of not working.

“What if The Grinch doesn’t show up? What if The Grinch just decides to not leave his house tomorrow? Our plan will go down the drain and we won’t even get to see The Grinch.”