Chapter 16 A new look   Classes for the day had finally finished, since it was the first day most of the classes were just introductions and about what they would learn during their time at the school.

Peter and Quinn did their best to avoid most of the other students for the day and it seemed like after everything they had been through, they weren’t going to get into any more trouble.

Once classes had finished it was time to go for dinner. Quinn still had this hunger in his stomach so he was looking forward to dinner more than usual. This time, Quinn and Peter both sat on their own at a table in the low-level area. Then Peter started to look around the room as if he was trying to spot someone.

"I don’t see Vorden anywhere, do you think he’s okay?" Peter asked.

Quinn then scouted around the room and he too couldn’t see Vorden at the canteen.

"I wouldn’t worry about it too much, trust me when I say this but he is a lot safer than us at this school."

The two continued to eat and once they had finished dinner decided to head back to their dorm room. To their surprise, Vorden was already in the dorm room on his own lying on his bed.

When the two of them closed the door behind them, Vorden lifted his head and immediately smiled at Peter and Quinn.

"Hey, I’ve been waiting for you two for a while now," Vorden said as he got off the bed. "I wanted to say sorry about earlier, I wasn’t angry at you guys but just at this whole situation."

When Vorden got up from the bed, Quinn noticed a slight mark on the side of Vorden’s face. It was a little red and a little swollen.

"What happened to your face?" Peter asked.

"Oh, this?" Vorden said as he touched the marking. "I got into a little scuffle of my own but don’t worry I didn’t lose. You don’t have to worry about me I’m strong."

Then suddenly, a loud growling noise was heard in the room. Peter and Vorden immediately looked at Quinn whose face had gone bright red.

"Sorry, I guess I’m still hungry after dinner," Quinn said laughing nervously.

"Why don’t you grab something from the convenience store, it’s not too far away?" Vorden said.

Quinn looked at his watch and realized even if he did go to the convenience store to grab something, he wouldn’t be able to buy anything in the first place since he had no credits but before he could even say anything, Vorden had come over and tapped his watch against Quinn’s.

"Transfer of ten credits successful" The notification sounded.

"Don’t even say anything and go grab something," Vorden said with a smile.

"Thanks."

With that Quinn left Peter and Vorden on their own while Quinn rushed off to the convenience store. The convenience store wasn’t too far away from military school. If you walked out, it would take you around 20 minutes.

At the front of the school was a huge gate that had two guards stood at the entrance at all times, only students, teachers, and certain military personal were allowed on the school grounds. So when you exited students were required to show their wristwatch to the guard and same upon entering again.

Once past the gates, Quinn decided to test out how much ten stamina points really was. He started to jog at a relatively fast pace to the convenience store. After running for about 5 minutes he realized that he wasn’t out of breath or anything like he usually would be.

He decided to run even faster eventually making it to the convenience store in 7 minutes.

"I think I was doing about a kilometre in under five minutes, and I’m not even out of breath." Quinn thought.

The stats given to him were that of an athlete’s body, it wasn’t the same weak body he had before but at the same time, it wasn’t a supernatural body that surpassed human limits.

Another thing he noticed while running at night, he could see everything super clear. Even when there were no street lights, it was as if the moon had lightened everything up. A type of night vision of sorts.

\u003c Your hunger grows slightly \u003e

"I know, I don’t need the system to tell me when I’m hungry."

When Quinn entered the convenience store he went and grabbed a few of his favourite snacks. Some late-night ice cream and potato chips. That’s when he suddenly spotted Rylee and his friends in the same store down another aisle.

Quinn ducked down quietly and waited for them to finish shopping before doing anything else.

"What luck, I thought I would have to track him down but it seems like he’s come right to me."

While Quinn was hiding, he noticed he was in the middle of the masks section. There was one particular mask that stood out to him. It was a fully black mask that covered the top half of the face so the mouth could be seen. Across the mask was blood splatter on it.

"Kinda spooky looking."

Once Rylee and the others had left the store, Quinn decided to grab the mask and snacks and placed them on the counter.

Layla who was also in the store noticed the mask that Quinn had bought.

"What the, it’s not Halloween yet, what is he doing buying a mask like that?" she thought.

Layla decided to continue to follow Quinn while Quinn was busy following Rylee and his friends.

"Hey, we’re going to shoot some hoops in the park, you want to join?" One of the boys asked.

"Nah, you know my ability useless for playing games like that." Rylee replied, "I think ill just head back and wait by the school gate, see if there are any more suckers I can leach some credits from."

The other two boys looked at each other, they knew what they were doing was wrong but were only doing it because they themselves didn’t want to get beaten up by a higher power level. Where it seemed like Rylee was starting to get a little pleasure from bullying those weaker than him.

Rylee started to head back to school and eventually reached a small park on the way back. An area that was completely void of people and had very little lights. There were also plenty of trees for Quinn to hide himself.

"It’s showtime," Quinn said as he put the mask on his face.