In a certain location, somewhere on the outskirts of Luckage city, but not too far from the cities borders, there was an abundance of very tall trees.So tall that it was difficult to see the birds nests that nestled at the top of the tree.Each tree was absurdly thin, so thin that it was a stretch to even call them trees, yet their leaves spread out so far, that even though each tree was roughly 10 meters apart, it's branches and leaves touched and intertwined with one another.They stretched so far and bundles so much, that the shadow it cast remained both day and night, allowing only a little sunlight- enough to make the lighting resemble that of a calm afternoon- to pass through its leaves.For this reason and this reason alone, travelers called it the umbrella forest, others called it the tall overcast forest, and the locals at Luckage city and the small settlements around it, all called it evernoon.The lush peaceful green nature of the ground that slowly went up and down in slo
As Julian stood in front of the approaching carriages, he wore a tired nonchalant sour look on his face.The sound of the approaching carriages became louder and louder, and the sour look on his face became even more so as he recalled the look on Sidney's face."Damn freeloader..." He said as he recalled the words that he told to Sidney, "why the hell did I even tell him that?..." He thought to himself.A few images flashed through his mind, one where he was on the floor with someone standing over him, with a hot rod, one where he stood over dead bodies, one where he cried in the rain, one where he was freezing and had frostbite on his fingertips.As the images flashed through, his face became even more sour, "pfft! Hell? You haven't seen shit yet" he said as he raised up his hand.The carts were now up close, and the very first one stopped right in front of Julian.Seeing him, the guard riding shotgun was the first to hop off and walk towards Julian, who had a nonchalant look on his
The trek back to his cell was silent. There was still all the noise from the jail cells as usual, but it was quieter than usual.Neither Kipple, nor any of the other Drakemen warriors that accompanied him said a single word. And with a bag over his head, Earl didn't say anything either.It's not like he was particularly talkative since he arrived here. The Drakemen weren't exactly so kind to talk with him either, so it wasn't anything new.But that wasn't the reason for the silence, that much was known by everyone. The Drakemen warriors were escorting a zombie back to its cell, a man who had died and came back to life. That's why they were silent.And what's more, after Earl--a human--was able to take down Nonomo, a beast considered nigh unbeatable even by the superior Drakemen, he did so with powers they had never seen or heard of, and with a smile that he couldn't seem to erase from his face.Even now, he was smiling under the bag over his head.As he and Kipple continued to walk, t
Earl sat with his stats open in front of him. All were significantly higher than as far back as he could remember, but he didn't have any problems with that.What he wanted to address was the 195 unread system messages. So he wasted no time in addressing them.The first ten to twenty messages were very similar. They were repeated messages of having a system error, the system trying to reboot, failing to reboot, and then trying all over again.The next twenty messages were messages of successful rebooting, but failing to start up.The next thirty messages were messages of the system manually rebooting and restricting certain sections of the system.The next thirty messages were a lot more concerning. They were off his resistance stat resisting different poisons, as well as some of his spiritual energy being consumed to increase his stamina, strength, and resistance stat specifically to increase his chances of survival.With that, he had made it past his first hundred unread messages.T
Earl, still overcome with Grief and sadness was hit with a bit of shock and confusion when he heard what his dad had said."Earl White, your alchemy is Greed"To be fair, Earl had never really understood just what exactly his alchemy was or how it worked, but frankly he didn't care much.As someone who'd lived without alchemy nearly all his life, getting an alchemy was all that really mattered to him.He never really cared about how or why, all he wanted was to become an Alchemist.He named his alchemy White Alchemy on the fly without even knowing what his alchemy was or how it worked, and he always wondered and found it strange how the system had just asked him to name his alchemy without even knowing what it was.But like earlier mentioned he'd never really cared. The mere fact of getting an alchemy just overwhelmed him to the point where he was completely happy just having one without knowing how it worked.He could do an AP shot, Bang, and he knew that his alchemy form was clouds,
Sidney rode faster and faster on the back of Gy, trying desperately to catch up with the ORA agent."I'll capture you at any cost," he said to himself while going as fast as he could.The ORA agent turned back and locked eyes with Sidney, "I'm being followed!?" He grunted while sprinting.The distance was closing fast between the two, it was only a matter of time before Sidney would catch up with him."Wait... I've seen that kid before! It's the one from Welgrid!" He grunted before dipping his hand into his pockets, pulling out a walkie talkie."Come in Alpha," there was a slight buzz on the walkie talkie, but eventually someone responded, "what is it Bravo?" "I'm being pursued by the Dragon Bandits, and they've got one of the kids from Welgrid with them.""Did you say a kid from Welgrid? As in Wallace's academy?" He turned behind him to confirm, "yes, it's definitely one of them!""And what's more it's the failure of project zero, I've clashed with him before," he said with a grunt i
Sidney stood his ground, gasping with his arms in front of him and his feet dug into the floor beneath them.Blood ran down the side of his head. His stomach churned, he could barely open one of his eyes from the excessive swelling , his nose was bloody, his mouth was bloody... Still, he was standing.He stood there, his gaze fixed to his opponent. "Think Sidney," he said to himself, "how the heck does this guy's alchemy work?" His opponent in question, sewn-mouth, was completely unscathed—aside from the initial blows and damage Sidney managed to land and incur.He stood with a smile on his face, "what was that about you only leaving a hand undamaged? Something about you beating me?" He laughed.Sidney remained quiet with a straight look on his face. "This makes no sense. I have no idea how he's doing it... He says a word and then I find myself beaten on the floor," thought Sidney.He held out his bloody thumb dripping with blood and waved it violently at his opponent. The blood flew
By using the ants that he summoned as a sort of auto zapper for himself, Sidney could finally keep up with sewn-mouth.He did this by issuing a small command to all of his ants on his arm, the moment he stopped moving or his brainwaves stopped or slowed down for whatever reason, they would explode one by one till he began moving again.This was his ultimate plan.This way whether or not he could bypass it with self-inflicted pain or by not being able to hear his command, he would bypass his spell one way or another.Sidney rushed out towards sewn-mouth with his arm thrown back. He stopped right in front of him and planted his feet on the floor.He swung hard at sewn-mouth, their two fists clashed in a heavy test of strength. Sidney's small frame up against the hulking figure of the ORA agent.The two hand a short standoff."This kid's strength!... I'm semi-king tier when it comes to strength, and this kid is matching me after being beaten so badly!?" Thought sewn-mouth.Sidney threw
With the pact made amongst one another, talks about the ORA continued, and eventually everyone started sharing their experiences specifically with them.One-way or the other, it eventually divulged into a topic of backstorues, making all the students share details of their transformations during the search for Sidney and Earl.They all were glad to hear that Williams lost his stutter. Hearing his back story and what happened to him only lit a fire in their hearts concerning the ORA.They'd hated them deeply already, but to think they'd take advantage of abandoned children like that... It reminded them that there was nothing the ORA weren't willing to do for their goal.Giving them all the more reason to train and become strong enough to fight them and take them down.Henry revealed the promise he made with his village elder, and everyone showed their support, especially Crystal and Ruby.Earl, Sidney, Annie, and Ruby never knew anything about this, and how could they? Henry was always
Jake laid down on his back, completely shocked silent. He watched Earl distinguished the attack he would've hit Jake with, before smiling and saying the words, "I win."It took a moment for Jake to realise it, but he'd lost the match. The final match in the mini tournament that they were holding, he'd lost that match. He'd lost to Earl.He was completely shocked by the whole thing. The moment he and Earl's fists collided, he felt the brunt of Earl's attack send him flying backwards, and he saw Earl fly off too.But it seemed Earl either recovered insanely quickly, or Jake was thrown a lot harder by Earl's attack than he would've liked to think he did.Before he knew it, Earl was standing over him with an attack ready to be launched straight at him.For some reason his mind went back to when they were kids, back when he'd bully Earl, call him names, and always boss his around because he was stronger than he was.He then remembered the fight that happened back in the entrance exams, the
"Flaming lotus!" Said Earl. "Vortex!" Said Jake. "Whoa!" Said Sidney, "what the hell are those moves?" He asked. "I don't know... But this is getting fun," said Crystal.Both Crystal and Sidney knew that Earl was going to lose the contest no matter what. It didn't really matter what happened when it came to him, he'd already lost two matches, nothing could make up for that now.However the situation for Jake was different. If he won, he would 'officially' be the strongest soon to be second year student in the entire school.Earl wasn't fighting to win, or at least not to win the current mini tournament they were all having. He was fighting for his pride, he was fighting to win and prove himself.Jake was fighting for the same reason. For the longest time he'd been on top of Earl when it came to power and fighting prowess. Ever since Earl got his alchemy, he'd been growing extremely fast, but he still hadn't been able to beat Jake once.This fight wasn't just for the title of strongest
As the smoke cleared from the battle fought, on the floor was Jake and Sidney, both with satisfied looks on their faces.Earl and Crystal had their mouths held open in complete shock. They had a feeling the match would end quickly, but not in one attack.Both of them had their mouths held open in complete and utter shock and confusion. Crystal slowly turned to look and Earl, and Earl slowly turned to look at Crystal."That was..." Said Earl, "... So cool," said Crystal. Their shocked expressions slowly turned into huge smiles."Those guys are crazy," laughed Crystal. "I know right... They're even crazier than I am," said Earl with a huge smile on his face.Both of them hopped down from the training dummies and made their way over to the middle of the training grounds.Sidney and Jake were both huffing and puffing on the floor, breathing heavily. Blood ran down the side of both their faces."Wh-what... are we gonna... do now?" Said Jake. "What do you mean?" Said Sidney, "I won that fig
The explosion was large and huge, far bigger than what anyone was expecting. Not Jake, not Sidney, not Crystal, not Earl.However as the dust slowly settled, the aftermath came into view. The dome of crystals that Crystal had made to protect herself from Earl's attack was shattered to pieces, with only a few stems of crystals sticking out of the ground.Earl was standing there, with his hand held out, and with dust all over him. He began coughing as he waved his hand in front of his face, trying to clear away the dust.It didn't work very well. Earl opened one eye, looking at the place where Crystal was supposed to be. The dust hadn't cleared up, and as a result, he hadn't seen her to confirm she was down.'On second thought, maybe I used way too much firepower,' thought Earl, 'I hope she's okay,' he thought to himself.As he looked down into where she was once—the shattered dome of crystals, he saw a silhouette, one that closely resembled Crystal. It wasn't moving, and it was laid d
Sidney was there, holding himself up using nothing but one of his hands, and with a crystal spike not too far away from his throat, he accepted whole heartedly that he lost the fight."I can win her in close quarters combat," said Crystal. "That's probably what you were thinking right?" She smiled. Sidney couldn't help but see the irony of the whole situation.He'd known that the Lloyd's were stronger than normal, but he'd put his hopes in his enhanced body holding out. And it was the right call at the end. He bet on himself and won.His enhanced body proved strong enough to withstand the 100% force of the Lloyd's, but what he'd misjudged was Crystal's battle iq.She waited for the instant his hand made contact with the floor and picked her moment to strike perfectly.As Sidney remained upside down, he dispersed the mana he'd gathered in his throat, allowing the tiny alchemy circle to show itself.A mouth came out from the alchemy circle, biting repeatedly like a pair of jittering tee
Earl was panting on the floor, pinned down by a butt load of straw, which doubled as the other end of Sidney's arm.Earl messed up. He'd let the curious side of him out too much, egging Sidney on to press on the offensive. This was what ultimately caused his failure. Earl hadn't even shown all the tricks he had up his sleeve. But to be fair, neither had Sidney, both men had simply fought, and one ended up being the winner.Earl didn't feel bad in the slightest though. The thrill of fighting Sidney for the first time left him with a smile on his face."That's the match!!!" Yelled Jake, "Sidney wins, and Earl loses!" He added. "You're amazing, Sid," said Earl, wide grin on his face as he remained pinned down. Sidney reverted back to normal, the straw dissipated.He walked over and held out his hand, "that was a lot harder than I expected," he smiled. Earl grabbed his hand, Sidney pulled him up."So you can like, transform into Gy now?" Asked Earl. "It's a new spell I got," said Sidney
Chapters 225: A winner, Earl Vs SidneyCrystal still stayed in shock as she slowly turned her head around to see Jake. He had most likely used his wind to slow his fall so that when he landed next to her it would sound like he was farther away.She was still completely capable of fighting. They'd only just started the fight after all, and she hadn't shown all she had to offer, but the fight was already over.If this was a real fight to the death, he would've lopped off her head in that moment. Perhaps she was just overconfident before, but she'd been sloppy in her first match.No, she couldn't even make herself think she would've done better. There were still two people she would fight later, she could show more of her power then.As for now? She'd totally lost. A smile sat on her face. "Whoa... You weren't playing around," said Crystal. "I kept your face in tact, now you can seduce Henry another time without worrying about how pretty you are," Jake smirked."You think I'm pretty?" As
The rules of the mini-tournament were clear enough for everyone to follow. Whoever won the most battles would be the winner, and the ones who lost the most would be the fourth strongest.Though it wasn't completely official, it was still going to be had. The four of them knew that the difference in power between them would most likely be miniscule at best.Crystal was a natural talent, and she came from the family of the Lloyds, known for being incredible combatants. She was bound to be one of the strongest in the school from birth alone. Jake was the epitome of hard work. Luck was on his side from the beginning, so he was something of a big fish in a small pond.But now that he'd been introduced to the river, he still held his own. Wind alchemy wasn't seen as something incredible or noteworthy by most, but Jake had changed that fact in the minds of the students.He'd held his own as one of the strongest people amongst them, and he didn't look like he would stop growing anytime soon