016 FLASH DASH
"Hey bastard! I thought you'd never come… do you know how much stress I've been since your uncle got sick," Melody shouted, shaking Damen awake from his sleep.
Damen's eyes fluttered open. "I've been here all night," he replied, swinging his legs over the couch and standing.
Melody blinked. She was surprised by Damen's appearance. Damen had grown noticeably taller.
"When did you get so… tall?" she asked, her curiosity was mixed with awe.
Without proper nutrition at home, it was impossible that Damen would have a chance to grow.
Damen smirked. "I have been growing lately. You just didn't have the chance to notice… you were too busy playing poker."
Previously when he was still living with his uncle's family, Damen often left the house before anyone woke and returned late from the mine. By the time he came back, Melody was usually already asleep.
She hadn't seen him properly in a while.
Shoving aside the question of his growth, Melody crossed her arms. "Where've you been these past few nights? I had to get Beck to cover for you in the hospital. You'd better stay here and watch over your uncle until he recovers."
She expected it was Damen's responsibility to take care of Ralph and not them.
"Didn't Beck tell you?" Damen asked cautiously.
"Becky tell me what?" she replied, confused.
Apparently, Beck had never mentioned snatching Damen from his mock test or losing his medals.
"Ah, never mind. I'll be going," Damen said, already turning toward the door.
"Stay there! You're not supposed to go anywhere!" Melody yelled.
The outburst drew the attention of the other patients and visitors. Heads turned. Murmurs rose.
Damen smiled and gave a casual wave. "Hi, I'm Damen," he said loudly.
"I am this sick man's nephew. His own family doesn't want to take care of him, so they dumped the responsibility on me. I stayed here all night watching over him… and now my aunt wants me to keep doing it while she goes off to play poker."
He tilted his head innocently. "What do you think?"
The crowd erupted in disapproving grumbles. Fingers pointed. Accusations flew toward Melody, branding her careless and heartless.
That was exactly what Damen wanted.
He needed witnesses—people who would remember him, remember that he had been here the entire night. A perfect alibi for the murder committed hours earlier.
Satisfied that every eye had seen him, he added lightly, "Bye."
Then he was gone.
Melody lunged after him, but the hallway was already empty. She stomped the floor in frustration, her breath unsteady.
"How does he run so fast?" she muttered, awe and irritation twisting together.
"…Damen."
----
Damen returned to the café outside Heroes' Gym. The handsome waiter who had served him yesterday wasn't on duty—probably hospitalized after Damen had taken his Charm the night before.
"Serves him right for being rude."
He sank into his usual corner seat and pulled out his phone, ready to start the day's mining again. This would become his routine and soon with the help of the app, he would become strong enough to stop being bullied.
"What the hell is this?" he muttered suddenly.
A notification blinked across the screen, "You have a message."
He tapped the message. "You have acquired a new ability from your mining target. Do you accept? Y/N."
Curiosity piqued him, so he read on. The ability's name was: Flash Dash.
He clicked Yes immediately, and the notification vanished.
Damen acquired a new skill from a mining target. In his mind that could only be Mad Cat because he acquired from him a total of four times. The didn't take more than once from his other mining targets before.
"Did I… just gain an ability from Mad Cat?" he whispered to himself.
He thought it through.
After a moment, a theory formed: this must be a new feature unlocked by the app's recent upgrade. "I have a chance to acquire a victim's skill after acquiring from them repeatedly… or it could be because he killed Mad Cat while he was mining him…those were the two possible explanations," he concluded.
"This is a cruel method to acquire a skill", Damen admitted although he still couldn't confirm the mechanism of skill acquisition from the mining app.
But after surviving life-and-death situations, morality seemed meaningless. Nothing matters more than being alive.
"Now… how do I access this skill—Flash Dash?" he wondered.
Then an idea struck.
Flash Dash was an acquired skill just like his Summon Shield. It's just obtained differently… from the mining app instead of from a meta training chip.
Like Summon Shield, Flash Dash probably required training before it could manifest. He'd need to learn it, master it, before he could truly wield it.
-----
Damen returned to Heroes Gym. The moment Dorin saw him, she walked over.
"You're back again? Another unlimited day pass for you?" she asked with a teasing smile.
One hundred Aurs a day wasn't small change—most people didn't even earn that much in a month.
"Yeah, may I?" Damen replied.
Dorin masked her surprise, snatched his Aur card, and debited the cash. Damen signed up for another day of training. He wasn't worried about the expensive fees.
The Aurs were courtesy of Mad Cat and his thugs.
Knowing his way around now, he didn't wait for Dorin's guidance. He strode straight to the changing room.
Dorin watched him leave, a thought flickering through her mind.
"Why do I find him… a little sexy? I didn't notice it yesterday." She brushed it off. It was not important.
Damen's increased Charm had manifested after a night's rest. His Strength increase probably helped to improve his height and physique.
He's grown taller and he's dropped the use of his cumbersome glasses. His looks also changed with minor changes here and there.
Overall, Damen has grown more charming.
Soon, Damen entered the score-testing room and ran his self-check.
Strength: 13 Meta: 2.1 Command: 2.4
He quickly stepped off the machine, his eyes darting around. "Dorin better not see this," he muttered.
The improvement overnight was too suspicious. He didn't know what trouble he'd get into if anyone found out.
Understanding that, he approached an information terminal detailing the gym's meta skill training. Each skill had a recommended routine.
"There's no need to ask Dorin for guidance now," he thought as he browsed through the machine.
He spotted Summon Shield (a Class H Skill), a defensive skill that is supposed to be trained in the defensive targeting room, just as Dorin had suggested.
"Useful info," he murmured.
Then he found what he was really looking for: Flash Dash.
Flash Dash, (a Class H skill) was a common meta graft skill for novice metas, widely offered at training centers.
No wonder Mad Cat, a local thug, had it. Reading on, Damen found instructions: "To train Flash Dash, proceed to the Spinning Tunnel."
"The Spinning Tunnel? What's that?" he muttered.
He located it immediately and booked the room. The tunnel was exactly as the name implied—a long, rotating cylinder where the only way to stay upright was to run.
Damen stepped in. The tunnel spun around him, forcing him to sprint. The rotation accelerated until he stumbled and rolled, finally coming to a stop.
"Damn, this room makes my head spin," he groaned.
But he pressed on. After hundreds of attempts, nothing much happened except bruised knees and ankles. But Damen tried again when everything clicked.
He suddenly emerged from the tunnel, panting and breathless.
"What just happened? I was inside the tunnel only a blink ago, Did I do it- Flash Dash?" he asked aloud as he stood several meters away from the tunnel. He's just transported more than 30 meters away in a dash.
Then something unexpected.
Dorin's voice answered from behind to his shock and worry: "Damen, you've mastered Flash Dash. Congratulations."
Damen froze. She'd discovered his new meta skill so quickly! Panic flared in his mind.
"How do I explain to her where I got Flash Dash from? I should find a new gym next time," he thought.
But the important thing right now was to find an excuse, a reason to explain to Dorin. He couldn't tell her outright that he got the skill Flash Dash by killing Mad Cat.
His mind was racing for an answer.