Chapter 4 004

Jobe charged forward with impressive speed, his heavy footsteps echoing through the cafeteria. Kael simply stood still, hands casually crossed behind his back, watching him approach.

When Jobe entered striking range, he threw a powerful straight punch aimed directly at Kael's face.

To Kael, the punch moved in slow motion.

He smoothly swirled his body to the side, dodging the attack completely without even uncrossing his hands.

Gasps erupted across the cafeteria. The students couldn't believe what they were seeing — the boy they had always called trash had just effortlessly dodged a Platinum 2 ranked student's punch.

Enraged, Jobe quickly retracted his arm and threw another furious punch toward Kael's head. Kael ducked low, letting the punch sail harmlessly over him. In the same motion, he twisted his body and drove a heavy fist into Jobe's right ribcage.

BAM!

The impact was brutal. Jobe's face twisted in agony as he felt several ribs shatter. He staggered backward several meters, clutching his side.

'Such insane strength,' Jobe thought in disbelief.

"That felt good," Kael muttered, glancing at his own fist with a faint smirk.

Two more of Matthew's minions rushed at him simultaneously. One stopped suddenly, clasped his palms together, and fired a glowing green energy beam straight at Kael.

Kael shifted sideways at the last moment, letting the beam pass just inches from his body.

The second attacker tried to use the beam as a distraction and threw a fast punch at Kael's face. Kael leaned back, easily avoiding it. When the student followed up with a second punch, its speed suddenly doubled.

'He increased his speed with a technique,' Kael noted calmly.

He tilted his head at the perfect moment, letting the fist miss by a hair's breadth. Before the attacker could pull back, Kael unleashed a rapid barrage of punches.

POW! POW! POW!

The strikes landed cleanly on both cheeks, lifting the student off the ground and sending him crashing into a nearby table, unconscious.

The entire cafeteria fell into stunned silence.

Everyone was speechless. The weak, useless talent user they had bullied for months had just knocked out a Platinum 2 ranker like it was nothing.

"How?"

"Did he awaken a new talent overnight?"

"He looks completely different…"

Whispers spread like wildfire.

"Hey! What are you two idiots standing there for?!" Matthew shouted at his remaining minions, his broken hand already starting to heal. "He's still trash! Don't let him scare you!"

His words snapped the minions out of their daze.

Meanwhile, Jobe's body began to change dramatically. His muscles swelled, his height shot up to nearly eight feet, his hair fell out, and long, vicious claws grew from his fingers. A terrifying beast-like aura radiated from him.

"Jobe transformed?!" a female student exclaimed.

"I thought they were just fighting trash… why did he need to go all out?" another student muttered.

Kael observed the transformation with interest. 'So his talent is a beast transformation type. It greatly boosts his strength, speed, and agility.'

A cold smile crept onto Kael's face. 'Perfect. If this system works like a game, defeating a stronger opponent should give good rewards… and I can also drain his talent.'

The transformed Jobe roared and charged forward. Each step made the floor tremble.

He slashed his deadly claws toward Kael's neck with terrifying speed.

Kael performed a quick backflip, dodging the attack. Another slash came right after, forcing him to dodge again.

'If that hits me, I'd be cut in half,' he thought.

Jobe then raised both massive fists above his head and brought them down in a devastating hammer strike.

At that exact moment, Kael activated his ability.

"Lightning Speed!"

Everything around Kael suddenly froze. The students, the flying chairs, even Jobe's massive fists — all became completely still, as if time itself had stopped.

Kael felt incredibly light. With calm precision, he leaped into the air until he was eye level with the frozen Jobe and delivered a powerful punch straight to the side of his giant head.

BAM!

The moment the ability ended, Jobe was sent flying backward like a cannonball. He crashed violently into several tables before his massive body began shrinking back to normal size. He lay motionless, completely knocked out.

The cafeteria was dead silent.

One punch. That was all it took.

Matthew, whose hand had mostly healed, stepped forward with a furious expression.

"Don't get cocky, trash! I don't know what drug you took or whose core you stole, but you're still nothing to me!"

He clasped his palms together. Black energy rapidly gathered between them, forming a dark, destructive beam that hummed with terrifying power. The temperature in the entire cafeteria seemed to drop several degrees as the beam grew larger and more unstable.

Students scrambled backward, knocking over chairs and tables to get out of range.

"You're going to regret ever laying a hand on me, Kael Voss," Matthew snarled, his orange hair whipping wildly from the sheer force of the gathering energy.

Kael did not move. He simply watched the swirling mass of black energy with calm, calculating eyes.

At the same time, the blue screen materialized in front of him again.

[OPTIONAL QUEST]

Wipe out the last oppressor. Steal his talent. Gain massive rewards.

'Perfect timing,' Kael thought.

Matthew unleashed the beam. It tore through the cafeteria like a freight train, splitting two tables clean in half as it rocketed toward Kael's chest.

Kael dropped low and pushed off the ground hard, launching himself forward in a straight diagonal line beneath the beam. It screamed past just above his back, close enough that he felt the heat scorching through his uniform.

He covered the distance between them in under a second.

Before Matthew could even register what had happened, Kael was already in front of him — close enough to smell the sweat on his skin. Without hesitation, Kael reached out and seized Matthew by the collar, slamming him backward into the wall with one arm.

CRASH!

The wall cracked from the impact. Matthew gasped, all the air knocked from his lungs. He tried to summon more black energy into his palms, but Kael's free hand shot forward and clamped down over both of Matthew's wrists like a vice.

"Let go of me, you worthless—"

"Talent Drain," Kael said quietly.

The words barely left his lips before it began.

A sensation like ice water flooded through Kael's arm and into his entire body. At the same time, Matthew's eyes went wide with horror as he felt something being ripped out of him — not physically, but deep inside, at the very core of his being.

"What… what are you doing to me?!" Matthew screamed.

The black energy that had been gathering in his palms flickered weakly, then vanished entirely. The color drained from his face. His body went limp against the wall, and his legs gave out completely. Kael released him and let him crumple to the floor like an empty sack.

A new screen appeared immediately.

[TALENT DRAIN SUCCESSFUL]

[TALENT ACQUIRED: Dark Cannon — User can concentrate and fire destructive energy beams from the palms. Beam intensity increases with focus and emotion.]

[LEVEL UP: Level 0 to Level 2]

[BONUS REWARD: 20 Attribute Points]

Kael stared down at Matthew's trembling body. The boy who had terrorized every weak student in the academy for years was now lying on the cafeteria floor, shaking like a leaf, staring up at Kael with pure, undiluted terror in his eyes.

"You… you monster," Matthew whispered hoarsely.

Kael crouched down until he was eye level with him. "You called me trash every single day," he said calmly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Remember that word. Because from today, the only trash in this academy… is you."

He stood up slowly and turned away without another glance.

The entire cafeteria remained frozen in complete silence. Hundreds of students stood motionless, not a single one daring to speak or move. The only sounds were Matthew's ragged breathing and the distant hum of the academy's ventilation system.

Danny sat at their table with his mouth hanging open. "Kael… what in the world just happened to you?"

Kael sat back down across from him, reached for his untouched food, and took a calm bite of bread.

"I told you. I'm fine."

Danny opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. He had no words.

The cafeteria doors suddenly swung open with a sharp bang.

A tall woman strode in with measured, deliberate steps. She wore a fitted dark instructor's uniform with a silver badge pinned to her chest — the mark of a Gold ranked teacher. Her sharp eyes swept the scene in one quick glance: the unconscious minions, the cracked wall, the broken tables, and Matthew Kane lying helpless on the floor.

She stopped a few meters from Kael's table and folded her arms.

Her name was Instructor Vera Cross. She had been teaching combat theory at the academy for eleven years and was known for being completely impartial — a rare trait in an institution that openly favored strong talent users.

She looked at Kael for a long moment without speaking.

Then, slowly, something shifted in her expression. Not hostility. Not outrage. Something closer to quiet assessment.

"Kael Voss," she said evenly. "My office. After breakfast."

She turned and walked out without another word.

The cafeteria erupted the moment the doors closed behind her. Students talked over each other in frantic whispers, pointing at Kael, at Matthew, at the damage spread across the room.

Kael ignored all of it. He quietly distributed his new attribute points and finished eating.

Across the table, Danny finally found his voice again.

"Bro," he said slowly. "You need to tell me everything."