BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Once Erik returned to the Red Palace, he went to his room after briefly talking to Benedict. It was understandable; he wasn't really there to interact with other people but to train.

"I'll be training for a while," he shouted to Benedict as soon as he entered his bedroom.

"OK!" Benedict replied from the other room.

Erik then changed into more comfortable clothes and headed straight toward the bed, where he planned to stay for the remaining of the day.

Time quickly flew by, with the young man in the lotus position trying to make new neural links. Since he had fixed his deformity problem, Erik started this training routine to make new neural links.

He still was at a lower level compared to all the other people his age, so he had much work to do to catch up. However, making neural links was not easy, and he always felt like he was making no progress at all.

"Dammit..." His voice echoed through his room. He spent four hours training, and it seemed like he made no progress. Though, the young man didn't quit and kept making neural links for the rest of the evening. It was only after he reached the six hours mark that Erik could sense something different.

<C'mon, I'm almost there...> the young man thought. Focusing on channeling mana from and to his brain crystal.

The feeling was the same as ever, and it grew stronger as time passed. The mana contained inside his cranium was whirling and flowing rapidly around the brain, creating a weird heating sensation.

And as Erik felt the flow reaching its apex, the young man's mana surged and rapidly spread inside his body. This continued until he started to sense that the ethereal substance connected his brain with the crystal within it.

A tiny mana thread connected the brain and the crystal as a mini bridge. After a few seconds had gone, the phenomena started to fade away until it was to the point where he could no longer feel anything.

<I made it!> Erik thought in happiness. That was just but a small step to becoming stronger, yet, it felt incomparably satisfactory for the awakener as if he suddenly became a master. The new neural link was related to the sharpening power.

<System, show me my stats!>

And the usual blue and white window characteristic of the biological supercomputer's power appeared.

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[Host Information]

NAME: Erik Romano

AGE: 16

LEVEL: 15

EXPERIENCE: 2453.825/2944

DNA POINTS: 1760

HEALTH: 840 /840

MANA: 770 /770

[Attributes]

STRENGTH: 20

INTELLIGENCE: 11

DEXTERITY: 26

ENERGY: 37

Available Attributes point: 10

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<It's not that bad...> Erik thought. He then looked at the last voice about the available attribute points. <I still have ten... what will I do with them?>

The young man started thinking about what to do next. If he improved his strength, he would fake being weaker, and since going out to the forest with those monsters was akin to suicide, it was useless to improve his already sufficiently high strength.

Then there was Energy; for sure, it was essential to increase it, but he didn't know of any way to fake the amount he had.

The last two options were dexterity and intelligence. The first would allow him to improve faster since his ability to control his own body would increase, but he had already improved his dexterity quite a bit.

The last was intelligence. The young man never directly increased it since he didn't clearly understand what it did.

The system said that this statistic influences a person's ability to think quickly and memory quality. However, something inside him changed whenever Erik got a new neural link and his intelligence increased.

It wasn't just that it was easier for him to recall things or that his thinking speed increased, but it was also that he noticed things he wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

The extra stat points slowly changed the way he thought and allowed him to understand things he couldn't previously understand.

Maybe that was because he was able to think faster, or maybe it was the effect of better memory; Erik didn't know. However, since this stat was there, it meant it had a purpose.

<After all, why not?> the young man thought with a pensive look. And so, he decided to massively boost it to see what would happen in the future. It would be easier to see the difference before and after the rise by increasing it a lot.

<System, increase intelligence by ten points!> the young man thought.

[UNDERSTOOD. INTELLIGENCE INCREASED TO 21]

Erik felt a surge of energy inside his brain, a weird tingling feeling that lasted only for an instant. However, after that, the young man felt nothing, it was as if he didn't increase the stat at all, and he wondered how much the change would affect him.

Erik did look at the clock hung on the wall in front of the bed; it was already 22:00.

"I'm hungry..."

Since he could make a new neural link, the young man decided to quit and head to the cafeteria. Once he got out of his room, he saw Benedict seated on the sofa.

"You took your time, uh?"

"Yeah, I made another neural link. I'm now SIGMA3 with the sharpening power..." Erik said.

Benedict talked to Amber and the others when Erik went to work, so he more or less knew that his roommate had just recently started to develop neural links. He made 3 of them in less than two months, which was an impressive feat. However, he was still behind the others, and as the number of links increased, it became harder to make new ones. However, Benedict was genuinely happy for Erik. "Congratulations," he said, smiling.

"Thank you!" Erik said.

"I'm heading to the cafeteria then."

"I'll come with you. I haven't eaten yet," Benedict said.

"Why not?"

"I was waiting for you!"

"What? Why?"

"I didn't want to make you eat alone. It would have been depressing. I guess that after a day of training and working, you needed a little company, so I did wait," Benedict said. Erik's impression of him increased a lot.

"Let's go then!"

They headed to the cafeteria together, where they sat at a table and ordered food. Erik was glad that finally, he could go to such places without other people trying to stop him as it happened at school.

If he didn't have that problem, he would have saved a ton of money on food, and he wouldn't even need to cook, also saving a lot of time.

Both Benedict and Erik ordered meat as the main dish, with salad on the side and some carbonated drinks. They chatted until the meal arrived. When it came, the two devoured their meals like wolves, eating everything with great appetite. Erik because the food was great, tasting much better than the one he cooked, while Benedict just because he was a ravenous eater.

"Have you read the email yet?" Benedict asked.

"No, not yet," Eriks said.

"You better do since everything is explained there," Benedict said while giving a bite of the meat.

"I will do it tomorrow. I'm too tired now. Care to tell me what it said?" Erik asked.

"Well, I can't go into full details, but I will tell you this. Tomorrow classes will start; we will do martial art training, weapon training, weightlifting training, and lastly, an obstacle course."

"That's it?" Erik asked.

"Well, what did you expect? This is not a military school. This place has been thought only to teach how to fight..." Benedict said.

The first thing that struck Erik was that they would learn about weapons. The young man had always wanted to know more about blades. In addition, learning to use different kinds of weapons sounded interesting. That was something that he looked forward to.

However, the news of the next day's schedule disappointed Erik, as it wasn't that different compared to what he already did at school.

"And the following days?" Erik said.

"It's always the same. The schedule change according to each individual student. On the first day, we will be evaluated and assigned a weapon to learn. As much as I understood, we cannot choose the weapons since they will be assigned to use by the teachers. Martial art is always the same; even the weightlifting training won't be different from high school. The schedule will end after launch, and after that, it will be on us to train the neural links."

"It isn't so different compared to high school," Erik said disappointedly.

"Well, if you consider we will have the best teachers the nation has available, and the best resources out there, i won't say they will be exactly the same," Benedict said.