"Hmm?" Jules's eyes slowly fluttered open to the sight of an unfamiliar roof.
"Where?..."
He was then met with two familiar faces.
"Oh my! Jules" Anne spoke with a huge hint of concern.
"You're finally awake buddy" Chris spoke, concern intent in his expression as well.
Jules lifted his upper body into a sitting position on the soft mattress. "Huh? Where am I? What time is it?" He asked.
"Oh, this is the clinic" Anne spoke.
"T..the clinic?" Jules' eyes widened slightly. 'What the hell, they've even got a clinic?!'
"Can't believe you collapsed over a punching bag bro" Anne snickered.
"Hey! That was no ordinary punching bag okay?" Jules protested. Hearing that despite all his previous efforts had really hurt his pride.
"Oh yeah, I know that. I was just messing with ya" Anne chuckled after saying that.
"That punching bag destroyed Kin, my favorite knife" Chris then lifted up a knife with a compressed blade and stared at it in agony.
"Who in their right senses names a knife?" Anne facepalmed.
Chris shot her a glare. "What? Wanna fight?"
Anne scoffed. "Tch"
Jules : "...."
A heavy silence filled the room.
"Ummm..." Jules cleared his throat. "Where's Master?"
"Oh, he's having a talk with Elise or something of that sort" Anne answered nonchalantly.
'Those two do seem pretty close, could they be related?' Jules wondered. Well, the others were also close to master Benjamin so it wasn't all that surprising.
As if on cue, footsteps approached.
"Oh, they're here"...the three turn to meet the master and Elise walking towards them.
"It's late you kids, let's call it a day" master Benjamin spoke as he approached them.
"Oh and good work today Jules" he then turned to Jules and smiled warmly.
Jules thought back at his tantalizing training from earlier. "Yeah...thanks master".
'That was horrible' the thought went through his mind.
"I'm leaving first, it's nap time so the kids must be sleeping, which means extra free time for me" Anne smiled brightly and chuckled. "See y'all" she then waved casually and walked away.
"Let's go buddy, Charlotte might be worried" Chris spoke and wrapped an arm around Jules's shoulder
"Don't call her name so casually bro" Jules spoke abruptly. "And yeah, she'd definitely be worried" he added with a sigh.
Chris laughed. "See y'all then" He said and grabbed Jules away from the clinic.
"Hey....slow down..."
Both Elise and Master Benjamin stared at the others as they walked away, a moment of silence lingering between them.
"I'm out" Elise said and walked away abruptly as well.
'Of course' Master Benjamin sighed.
After a long while, Jules soon arrived home after parting ways with Chris and was faced with Charlotte standing by the gate.
'Oh boy' he paused. 'Why is she standing there like that? Did she catch on to something? Did she....'
"JULES!" Charlotte yelled and began aggressively waving her arms even though he could clearly see her.
"Oh hey sis" Jules let out a smile despite the bead of sweat already rolling down his face, he then walked towards her. 'I do hope she doesn't suspect anything'
"I've been waiting for you!" Charlotte spoke, her eyes peering at him suspiciously.
"Oh really?, That's....new" Jules scratched his neck awkwardly.
"Hmmm" Charlotte squinted her eyes. "Well, anyways. I want you to pick out a dress for my dinner date" her eyes lit up instantly.
"Huh?...oh...is...that...." Jules stammered.
'Oh yeah, I forgot. She's pretty slow witted'
THE NEXT DAY....
School was finally over after a long series of tiring events. The day was pretty much eventful for Jules. He went to school, met up with the other three, had classes and lunch with them, except Elise for some reason. He watched Chris play basketball during free period; he seemed to be popular for being athletic and of course specifically to the female students. As usual, he constantly got ignored by Elise and afterwards, he had a minor conversation with Anne, with whom he seemed to share similar interests with. Eventually, after school.....
"I'll be back sis"
"Oh, you're off to see Chris again?"
"Yep"
With a reassuringly smile, Jules walked out of the house leaving his elder sister with the belief that he was off to meet his new best friend. Well, it wasn't entirely a lie.
'To the Saviours headquarters' he thought with his arms outstretched with his port-crystal. The huge portal appeared before him and he walked into it instantly.
"Heyo!" Chris immediately welcomed Jules as he made his appearance.
"Woah...how'd you know I was gonna teleport to this spot?" Jules was taken aback to see him at his exact location.
"A lucky guess i'd say" Chris said without the slightest hint of geniunity.
"Oh....I see" Jules nodded in understanding. 'Better not ask any further'
"Anyways, Master's been waiting for you. It's time for the third phase of your training" Chris said with a small smile planted in his face.
"Oh...is that so?" Jules knew about that all too well.
"Then, I shall go meet him. Mind telling me where he is?" He asked afterwards.
"He's at the meeting room" Chris replied.
"Oh, alright" Jules said to him and began to step away with the intention to get to the meeting room.
"Alright, good luck buddy" Chris said loudly, the same smile still not leaving his face. Jules simply gave a thumbs up without looking back as he walked further away.
"Good grief, at least I can slack off for a while now" Chris sighed as soon as Jules was out of sight.
"How sly of you, using your best friend's training as an excuse to slack off" A soft voice spoke from behind completely startling him.
"Hey, where the hell did you come from?! And wha...what do you know?!" Chris yelled in his startled state.
"Hmm" Anne smirked. "You look like you've seen a ghost" She spoke with obvious sarcasm.
"Oh and Master put me in charge of today's training so follow me, we're having a combat duel"
"Urgh, you're enjoying this aren't you?" Chris said exasperatedly.
"Of course" Anne chuckled.
Jules soon arrived at the meeting room and just as Chris had mentioned earlier, he was met with Master Benjamin seated on a chair. His fingers fiddled on the pages of a book.
Jules stood there for a while, not moving an inch. Master Benjamin's eyes were completely fixated on the content of the book that he didn't seem to notice his presence, his fingers flipping the pages at regular intervals. Jules peered his eyes to get a glimpse of the title of the book and on it were the words 'THE TWO WORLDS'.
'Sound boring' Jules said inwardly. He presumed that the master must be a fan of philosophical books or nonetheless other genres that enticed old people nowadays.
"Cough! cough!" He then pretended to cough causing master Benjamin's attention to drift instantly.
"Oh Jules, you're here" he turned to Jules with a neutral expression. Like he wasn't the least bit surprised he was there, or perharps he had actually noticed his presence earlier.
The master came standing up from his seat and taking light steps towards Jules.
"Are you ready for the next phase of your training?" He asked and reached out an arm to touch Jules' shoulder.
"Yes" Jules nodded.
In a few minutes, Jules found himself following Master Benjamin towards the steep area of the headquarters, it was like a small mountain with a staircase in between. The two gradually climbed up the staircase and soon arrived at the top. The area was very big and spacious.
Jules raised his head to look straight, in front was a gigantic boulder. 'It's much bigger than the one used for the test' he thought.
"Alright, this phase is going to be very easy for you" master Benjamin spoke, breaking the silence.
'That's what you say everytime' Jules thought and could only sigh inwardly.
"Destroy this boulder and you can move on to the next phase" Master Benjamin said.
'How many phases are there exactly?' Jules questioned inwardly. "Lemme guess, this boulder contains some special, rare and strong element...." He muttered.
"Oh no, it's just a regular boulder" Master Benjamin replied and shrugged afterwards.
"Huh?"
Jules then walked closer to the boulder. 'Just a regular boulder huh?'. He placed a hand on his right shoulder, slowly massaging his joint. He then reached out to roll up his sleeves.
"Ooh, getting serious are we?" Master Benjamin had a smirk on his face.
If there was one thing Jules had learnt about the master during his past few days of officially becoming a saviour, it was that he was brutal. Extremely brutal, so he was certain that's this was not going to be a piece of cake.
Jules began to breath slowly and in less than ten seconds, the usual gust of brown aura surrounded him. He had a fair knowledge of how his energy core worked as of that moment.
POW POW!. He punched the boulder twice with great speed, placing a huge amount of strength into it.
CRASH, CRUMBLE....."Huh?!" Jules was stunned. The boulder crumbled into pieces immediately. He blinked a few times trying to figure out if he was seeing things.
"Nice going, that ends the third phase of your training" the master clapped with a smile.
"Wait, that was too easy" Jules turned to look at him, he wasn't complaining but contrast to the master's tactics, he found it weird how easy this phase turned out to be.
"Like I said, this phase was bound to be easy" master Benjamin said.
Before Jules could say anything, he suddenly spoke once again. "But...."
'But?' Jules wondered.
"The next phase is not gonna be easy" The master spoke.
"Oh...is that so?" Jules asked, he wasn't the least bit surprised. Out of curiousity, he couldn't help but ask...."And what's it gonna be?" He laid out the question.
"Oh, you'll see" The master smiled, a smile Jules had familiarized himself with over the past few days. This was not gonna be good.
A few steps later.....
Jules and master Benjamin arrived at another spacious area, it was much bigger than the top of the stone area they had resided recently. This could rather be described as a battle ground, one you would find in the former years. The floor was well cemented and there were a few poles separated with the same distance consecutively at the far ends. Three figures could be sighted at a far distance...
"Huh, it's the others" Jules said.
Master Benjamin let out a small smile. "Chris, Anne, Elise!" He called out to them and the others turned to look at them both.
"Wait, what are they doing here?" Chris asked. He had a long blade on his hand which when viewed from a distance, one would notice how blunt it was.
"Could it be...." Anne spoke. Rather than speculating, she decided it was best to see what was up and she began to walk towards them. Chris followed after her and Elise did as well, she was also curious to a little extent.
"Yo!" Chris said the moment they were close enough.
"I see you guys are slacking off" master Benjamin raised a brow with his arms folded across his chest.
"Oh of course not master, we were just taking a break" Anne let out a half assed smile.
"I see" the Master replied, he obviously didn't believe her. "Anyways....." He added.
"Elise" he then called out to the girl standing behind both Anne and Chris who completely obstructed his view from seeing her.
"Move over" Elise pushed the other two aside and came to stand before master Benjamin.
"Yes master" she said with a completely unethusiastic expression.
"Jules" the master then called out jolting Jules out of his reverie.
"Oh..huh...yes master!" Jules answered.
Master Benjamin let out a smile. "To the center you two, let's see you pour your skills in a duel"