Chapter 10: Status Screen
The house was dark when I let myself in.
I closed the front door quietly behind me, slipped my shoes off in the entryway, and started down the hall toward the stairs.
The kitchen was dark. The dining room was dark. The only light in the entire ground floor came from a single lamp in the living room.
Cecilia sat under it.
She was in pajamas.
Her legs were folded beneath her on the couch, a book open in her lap, her silver hair loose over one shoulder. She didn’t look up when I walked in.
"Where were you this whole time?"
The temperature in the living room dropped several degrees.
The book in her lap closed without her hand moving. Frost crept across the inside of the front window in slow, delicate fans, spreading from the corner of the frame.
Her grey eyes lifted.
"I was out with my friends."
Cecilia’s eyes didn’t move off mine. "Since when do you have friends?"
"Since today. I’ve gotten a few friends after the fight, I’ve become a cool awakener. Just like you."
"You don’t have friends, Ash."
"Maybe I made new ones."
"In one day."
"Well, it’s been a busy day."
She tilted her head a fraction. The frost on the window crept another inch along the frame. "You are lying now?"
I shrugged off my coat and folded it over the arm of the chair by the door. "It’s not a lie. I was out. With a friend. Singular, if you want to be picky."
"Who."
"Why do you care anyway?"
Cecilia went still.
The frost on the window stopped spreading. For a moment the only sound in the room was the soft tick of the clock on the mantel, and I could hear my own pulse under the collar of my shirt, where the cold air she was pushing into the room had started raising the hair on the back of my neck.
She didn’t answer for a long beat.
"Because mother was worried about you."
"Ah."
"She called twice while you were out. She and Father are on vacation. They won’t be back for another nine days. If you die outside while they’re gone, I’ll be the one who gets blamed."
I grinned.
"Is that the only reason?"
Cecilia closed the book in her lap with a small motion. She set it on the side table. Then she stood up, and started walking toward me across the rug.
Her bare feet didn’t make a sound on the floor.
"Yes." She stopped two paces in front of me. The cold rolling off her was sharp enough now that my breath fogged faintly when I exhaled. "That’s the only reason. Do you think there’s another one?"
Her eyes held mine, pale and pale all the way through, the centers white as a frozen lake.
"No."
"I’m tired." I held her gaze for one more second. "I’m heading to bed."
I stepped around her toward the stairs.
She didn’t follow. The cold stayed in the room behind me, and I could feel her eyes on my back all the way up the first flight, until I turned the landing and the angle broke her line of sight.
I made it to my room and closed the door behind me with a soft click.
The lock turned under my thumb.
I stood there for a moment with my back against the wood, breathing out slowly.
I crossed to the bed and dropped onto the edge of the mattress, then leaned back against the headboard.
’System. Status.’
The blue screen unfolded in front of me.
[ASH ROWAN]
[Class: Physical Enhancement]
[Rank: D ]
[Strength: 60] [Agility: 40] [Stamina: 39] [Mana: 30]
[Skills: Afterimage Step <A>, Tempered Channels <D>]
[Inventory: Core Improving Pill]
I stared at the numbers.
Strength was my highest stat, it made sense considering the fact I had a physical enhancement class.
The previous Ash’s file had him at twelve.
The average E-rank sat around twenty-five to thirty depending on the class, with the physical specialists pushing into the forties in one stat.
Sixty put me above every E-rank in my year and into the lower bracket of D-rank physical awakeners.
Mana was the weak spot. My channels were healing, but the pool itself was small, and the A-rank skill was going to drink from that pool the moment I unsealed it. If I used it again before the mana number came up, I’d collapse the same way I had this morning.
I closed the screen and let my head fall back against the headboard.
The next day, I woke up feeling energised, being a human with super powers was really good. I no longer felt the fatigue you had after waking up, or the laziness.
Heading to the shower, I took off my clothes and stepped inside. After staying under the water for close to fifteen minutes, I decided it was time to leave.
"I can’t be late...I still need to meet Hart." I muttered under my breath, quickly putting on the academy’s uniform, and stepping out.
Cecilia was nowhere to be seen. ’Seems like she left already...’ I thought, taking a piece of bread from the kitchen and stepping out myself.
I munched on it on the way, something to fill my stomach before the day started. I arrived at the infirmary early.
Hart diverted her gaze from the screen, her beautiful eyes locking onto mine. "You really came early."
"Of course. Anything for you." I smirked.
Hart shook her head, her lips twitching at the corner like she was fighting a smile and losing the fight by inches.
"Sit." She pointed at the examination bed by the window. "Shirt off. I want a clean scan before any students come in with broken bones from fighting each other."
"Bossy."
"Move it."
"Fine." I smiled.
