Chapter 176: Resolve (1/2)

Leonel grilled Jian with several more questions then knocked him out and dragged him back into the Lab Setting. Without a word to his partner, he threw him into one of the snowglobes, causing no small shock to the square jawed man.

Not wanting to end up like Jian, how could he not go all out in an attempt to satisfy Leonel? But the truth remained the same. In the end, he too was knocked out once more and thrown into a snowglobe.

Leonel took a deep breath and sat down, his mind running.

Though he could have asked the two about Aina's past, he decided against it. This was something he wanted Aina to tell him herself. It just wouldn't feel the same if someone else had to tell him. Plus, he wanted to respect her boundaries.

That said, even aside from that, the heavy pressure Simeon brought him was beyond his imagination.

What a joke he was. He had a Tier 3 Bronze ability, but he was being pushed into a corner by a Tier 8 Black ability. He was sure that if his father knew he would never hear the end of it.

Leonel shook his head, staring blankly into space. After a while, his vacant eyes gained a steely coldness.

'I'm certain that Simeon's ability didn't originally have anything related to control. The reason he can now is because he's mastered his ability to the point of squeezing out all of its potential, eventually allowing him to gain this new branch ability. I don't believe for a second that he can do something that I can't.'

The 'branch' abilities of Leonel's main ability seemed to have awoken randomly. First it was Dream World, then it was Dream Sculpt.

On the surface, both appeared without rhyme or reason, but was this really the case?

Dream World appeared to him when he really wanted to calculate the best orientation of his Force Nodes. This will eventually allowed him to gain his ability to simulate matters in his mind.

Dream Sculpt appeared when he wanted to find a way to make use of the treasures he wasn't allowed to take outside of the Zone. This will eventually allowed him the ability to ingrain perfect and permanent thoughts into his Dream World.

There was even the third ability he only recently named, Dream Clone. That ability was birthed when he really wanted to learn the primitive man's combat style as quickly as possible. This allowed him to split his mind and learn the same technique many times faster.

Every time he needed an ability within his means, it felt as though he could produce it as long as these things fell within the purview of his Dream World.

Simeon's ability was a wakeup call to Leonel. He realized now that abilities weren't immutable things. They were made to grow and evolve along with their host. Why else would Leonel's ability still be growing even now? It was likely that it would still grow into the future.

Leonel took a deep breath. 'That's right, I need to open myself up to more possibilities…'

Leonel shook his head furiously. To think that he really almost had thoughts of letting that bastard off for now.

Absolutely not. He would make this hive Simeon's grave.

After a while, Leonel stood.