Chapter Twenty-One
"Hey, you fucking bastard!" Shinwoo yelled, grabbing Tesamu and slamming him against the school wall with one arm, but with enough force to crack the brick.
"Oh, my. Did I do something to anger you, Shinwoo? If so, I apologize." Tesamu said smoothly. Shinwoo growled.
"How dare you attack my friends!? If you ever go near my friends again, I swear I'll absorb you faster than you can say 'what?'!"
"Oh, you mean Miss Yuna. Could you let me down? I'm certain that we can come to some sort of understanding if you'll give me a chance to explain my actions." Tesamu replied, still smiling.
"What excuse could you possibly have for using mind control on Yuna!?"
"Well… First of all, I would like to correct a misconception of yours. I did not use mind control on her. I merely planted the merest seed of biomass in her brain to create a minor suggestion in her mind. I was certain that she would bring me up eventually in conversation with you and Woo Ikhan, or with the Noblesse, and that you or they would catch on to what was done and rectify it.
"However, until then, the suggestion was only to develop a minor physical attraction to me. She is quite beautiful, is she not? I wouldn't mind having her as a girlfriend, even if she is only a common human… And a weak willed one at that…"
"What did you say!? How dare you!? Don't you dare talk about Yuna like that!"
"I am merely speaking the truth. If she were stronger willed, she would easily have overpowered my suggestion. Think of the suggestion that I planted in her head to be a person's voice. Now, the louder the voice, the stronger the suggestion, the more compulsion one would feel to obey it.
"After all, if someone was screaming in your ear to do something, you would probably do it, if only to get them to shut up, correct? It's the same thing here. But this 'suggestion' was little more than the lightest whisper. It would require excellent hearing just to hear the whisper, and any background noise would easily drown the whisper out. She really is either very weak-willed, or incredibly vapid and dim-witted. Perhaps that is merely a common aspect of modern day youth.
"Unconcerned with anything besides the latest trends and what make up to wear, and who's dating whom… I do wish I could understand this fascination with the shallow and the uninspired. The Professor was so much more fascinating than any young people today are. Could you perhaps explain it to me?" Tesamu asked unenthusiastically, completely ignoring the fact that Shinwoo was seething with barely concealed rage at Tesamu's badmouthing of his friends.
"Look… If you come near my friends, I'll…"
"You'll what, Han Shinwoo? You'll kill me? I can see that you would if you could. But frankly, you aren't capable of such a feat. I have more than 800 years of experience on you. You've no idea what I could teach you if you would just open your mind and allow me to help you. I really do want to help you, but… Thus far, you've been unreceptive to me."
Shinwoo growled and slammed Tesamu against the wall again, cracking it even further, and breaking several ribs in Tesamu's ribcage. The ribs quickly healed, though.
"I will kill you… I don't care how hard it is, or how long it takes… But… Seira!" Shinwoo yelped, dropping Tesamu to the ground.
"It is almost time for class… I was instructed by Principal Lee to tell you to finish with your intimidation of Tesamu and hurry to class."
"I'm done… Remember me, bastard! I won't let you touch my friends!" Shinwoo snapped angrily. Tesamu nodded, bowing politely to Shinwoo as they went to class.
When lunch came around, Tesamu came up to Shinwoo and asked to speak to him privately.
"Are you certain that I can't help you learn to control your Biomass Manipulation better? With my help, you could make nearly anything with no more biomass than would fit in your hand. Right now, you have a somewhat uneven level of expertise. I made it possible for you to absorb information, skills, etcetera without absorbing the person.
"However, you still require a relatively large amount of biomass in order to create anything, or to improve yourself. It doesn't have to be that way. With more skill, you could enhance your physical strength and invulnerability exponentially with no more biomass than a fingernail. You could create a dragon out of a handful of biomass. I think you really don't understand how efficient Biomass Manipulation can be. How large do you think the average dragon is?"
"I dunno… That's Ikhan's area of expertise. He's the expert at that Dungeons and Dragons stuff."
"Figure that a typical Colossal dragon is about 30 feet by 30 feet. However, size is not necessarily the main issue for a dragon. A dragon needs power. It needs strength, speed, maneuverability with its wings. A user of Biomass Manipulation could easily create a dragon… Well, an experienced user could. You, sadly don't have that experience yet. But you could gain the experience with me."
"No. I warned you not to come near me or my friends again. You have no business with me. I'm not joining the Union. My father joined, and you Consumed him. What does that say about what you do to your supposed allies?"
"That is specious reasoning. I consumed him because he turned against the Union. He said he was going to leave the Union. Nobody leaves the Union. There are those who try. But in the vast majority of cases, we catch them and execute them as traitors."
"But what gives you the right? Sure, my dad has made mistakes, but he's not evil. Unlike you."
"I am not evil. The Union has fallen far from its noble roots. Originally, the Union was intended to protect humans, to be there for humans when the Nobles could not or would not intervene. We had supporters amongst humans, amongst Werewolves and amongst the Nobles, even. We were powerful, and we intended to use that power for good.
"But we became arrogant. I want to try to change that. But I'm only one of the thirteen Elders. There's only so much I can do. Even though I'm the top Elder of the Union, I cannot change anything by myself. That's why I want your help. That's why I want the Professor's help. Between the three of us, I believe that we can bring about the change that I desire in the Union, bring it back to its noble heritage. We needn't be enemies, Shinwoo…"
"I will not work with you, ever… And I can assure you that Principal Lee will never work with you, either. Now, excuse me, my lunch is getting cold."
"You don't really need to eat, you know. You're no longer human. You can keep yourself sustained on a small amount of Biomass. If you were to start running low, you might need to consume human food. But as you are, there's no need."
"You mean… I can never eat again?"
"Of course you can. But why waste your time? You also don't need to sleep, breathe, drink, or bathe. Your Biomass Manipulation can do all that for you. You can use biomass to automatically clean your body every day, and then just discard the biomass, or reabsorb it.
"And as long as you have any amount of spare biomass inside you that isn't being used to serve a direct purpose, you won't need to eat. Biomass will keep your body going. You'll never get tired. Your brain does not require rest to reset at the end of each day. Biomass will take care of that. You can program biomass to keep you consistently hydrated. You can modify your brain so you don't need sleep. You can modify your lungs, or perhaps your red blood cells so that they produce their own Oxygen.
"You're thinking way too small scale in terms of how you can modify yourself. Your ability to use biomass and the uses to which they can be put are almost limitless. For instance, what temperature does combustion happen at?"
"232.78oC."
"Correct. Do you have biomass inside you at the moment? Right now?"
"Yes…" Shinwoo replied.
"Command your brain to be able to utilize pyrokinesis." Tesamu said excitedly. Shinwoo raised an eyebrow.
"You want me to set things on fire?"
"No. I want you to command your brain to allow yourself to do so. You don't have to do it now, but know that you can do it if you want to. In fact, the uses to which you've been putting your Biomass Manipulation are so limited as to almost be laughable. Even one of the Elders, who only has the Redlight version of Biomass Manipulation could modify circles around you. You're really thinking inside the box."
"Fine…" Shinwoo huffed, thinking hard for a moment. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind, and he imagined a fireball in his hand. Suddenly, a bright blue-white flame came roaring to life in Shinwoo's hand. Shinwoo yelped and shook his hand, extinguishing it.
"Excellent, Han Shinwoo… You may have used more energy than you needed to in order to create fire, but from what I could tell, your fire was burning at around 4,000oK.
"If you want it to burn at a lower temperature, command it to do so. Set a flame in your hand again. You won't burn yourself. Good, keep it steady. Now, imagine the flame getting larger. See it growing? Now, imagine it getting hotter, command it to be 6,000oK." As Shinwoo did this, the air around the flame began to burn as well due to the sheer heat of the flame. It started off bright blue, then receded to a darker blue, then to orange as it got further out.
"Okay, now, put out the flame. Just… Order it to go out. You've done well enough for today. You've also made yourself potentially highly resistant to fire. Since you can now control fire at will, if you can see the fire coming, you can control it. Consider other elements to be about the same. Plasma, which oxygen will turn into at high enough temperatures, electricity, etcetera.
"Now, we have to go back to class. I apologize for taking up your lunch period. Here's reimbursement for the money you wasted on lunch. Have a good day, Han Shinwoo. And, I promise that I, Tesamu will not touch, talk to, or approach your friends except when unavoidable such as in situations when I am in class with them. My word is my honor, Han Shinwoo." Tesamu said, hurrying off to class just as the first bell rang.
As Han Shinwoo walked to class, he thought hard in his mind about telekinesis, then focused on a rock, and watched it lift off the ground in front of him. Laughing with satisfied humor, he went to gym class, where he knew that they would likely be playing soccer again. Raizel would likely abstain, but as he was essentially exempt from all classes, it would not be brought up.
"Shinwoo! Hurry up!" The teacher called. Shinwoo nodded and ran over. The teacher noted that he had an almost animalistic grace about his stride that he seemed to lack before. Shinwoo had been right. It was soccer that day. He joined one of the teams, and was sent over to be goalie. Shinwoo never minded being goalie, but he would have preferred to be on the field.
He paid close attention, though, and soon, the ball came flying at him and he jumped up into the air, twisted and kicked the ball all the way across the field into the other goal. Both teams gaped at Shinwoo's sudden prowess. He was usually half asleep at this time, or not paying attention. But now, he was razor sharp and alert. He had just jumped four feet in the air to block a ball, and kicked it more than a football field away with such great accuracy. For a moment, the field was silent. Then his team cheered, and began to play again.
Shortly, the other team began to play as well, and the game went on. At one point, Shinwoo joined his team on the field, and led the team to victory with ease. When they went back to class, he was stopped by a well groomed and well dressed man with straight black hair combed back and a thin beard wearing dark sunglasses.
"Hey, you Han Shinwoo?" The man asked. Shinwoo looked suspiciously at the man.
"Depends. Who's asking?"
"Aha! I like your cautiousness. I'm Katsuro Moon. I'm a headhunter for the South Korean National Football Team. I was watching you play. Your ability to play both defense and offense is extraordinarily impressive. I wanted to ask if you would be interested in joining our team. We could pay for any college education you wanted, find you all the martial arts instructors you could ever need…
"We know how involved in martial arts you are. Everything you could ever want could be yours…"
"Ahaha… Thank you for the offer. But I'm enjoying my high school life as it is right now. I already have everything I want. But I appreciate it."
"Well, if you ever change your mind, here's my card…" Katsuro Moon said, handing Shinwoo a business card. Shinwoo bowed politely, and took the card, putting it in his pocket. Just at that moment, though, Seira came up to Shinwoo, kissing him and hugging him tightly, blushing slightly. She wasn't used to being this expressive in public. She was usually as expressive as a wax statue in public. She smiled occasionally, but she rarely showed much emotion, or raised her voice.
Even the talent agent blushed when he saw her, understanding now that Shinwoo would likely never have any intention of leaving someone as gorgeous as Seira.
"Hey, Seira… I was just coming to class. See ya later, Mr. Moon…" Shinwoo said, though Katsuro doubted that Shinwoo had any intention of seeing him again.
"Who was that?" Seira asked, seeming just slightly jealous. It was unusual for Seira to portray her opinions so openly like that. She had opinions just like anyone else. But she was very shy and introverted, and tended to be quiet around other people. Very traditional people would consider her the perfect woman. She rarely spoke unless spoken to. She didn't show her emotions openly. She was polite and elegant. She seemed like a woman that belonged 200 years in the past.
It was ironic, really that she was 220 years old, and yet was still considered very young by her race's standards. Nobles could live eternally. Raizel was living proof of that. He was over 2,000 years old. The Previous Lord was also very old by Noble standards. Most other Nobles were still children in comparison.
"He… Just wanted to offer me a sports career. He saw me playing football, and he wanted me to join the National Team. I… I said no… I have everything I want right here. Money, fame… Mansions… I don't need any of those things. I've got the love of a beautiful, smart, strong, powerful woman. I have my friends, and more than that, I have the ability to protect them, now. I can keep my friends and loved ones safe. I was so weak when my father died. I couldn't do anything.
"But… Although it's sort of ironic, that moment allowed me the chance to have all the power I could ever need. I never asked for the power, but now that I have it, I swear that I'll use it well, to protect those that matter to me. What is that little club that M-21, Tao and Takeo are in?"
"RK-5…"
"Yeah. I'll join that. I'll be one of his knights as well. I've started having weird dreams lately about Rai and Principal Lee saving my friends and I on many occasions. I owe him my life. And my life is here. I could never leave it."
"I'm glad you decided that. It would be sad to see you go, Han Shinwoo…" Seira said, a gentle smile gracing her face, her blood red eyes lighting up, driving the breath from Shinwoo's lungs. As they walked into their classroom, and sat in the back, where Shinwoo almost promptly fell asleep. He had no need to listen. He had learned all of what was in the class by touching his teacher just a short while ago, and it was now permanently in his mind.