THE STRONGEST NEXULYTE

The light train arrived at one of the stations in San Pluto after a short three minute drive, they had crossed hundreds of kilometers within these short three minutes.

San Pluto, one of the remaining three cities that had managed to survive the bloody battle between humanity and the habitants of the dreamscape that has dragged on for years in which humanity had almost been wiped out, now housed almost a quarter of what was left of humanity's population.

The first thing that the boys noticed the instant they got off of the light train was how populated and prosperous San Pluto was compared to their small outskirt where they were from.

People of various heights, skin colors, languages, and dressing styles could be seen all over the place. Moving machines that Ivan could not recognize alongside the ones he was familiar with swept through the streets as residents of San Pluto carried on with their daily lives, unaware of the three visitors who had just entered their city.

Ralph stared at all of these with a neutral expression on his face but his dark green eyes could not hide how nostalgic he felt upon returning to the place he had once lived in.

Glen was almost shaking from excitement as he stared at the tall magnificent buildings of San Pluto with a gleeful glint in his eyes, he could not wait to explore this new place.

Ivan, on the other hand, felt that this place…had too many people!

The sight of so many people made him so uncomfortable, he even saw a family of three who were smiling at each other while holding hands. The sight of this public display was like an eyesore to Ivan who never had a family and he felt suffocated.

"Ralph, this was where you used to live, right? Where are we? What is this place called? Where is your old house?" Glen launched a wave of questions at Ralph as his eyes sparkled with excitement.

Ralph stared at him with a bit of annoyance before pushing away the boy's face as he was getting too close.

"Can you behave? You are already a grown up so act like one instead of behaving so childish. Besides it's been years since I left San Pluto and can't possibly remember everywhere, who knew if changes had been made?

Also, for your information, San Pluto is larger than you can imagine and this is only a small part of it" Ralph said as his eyes flashed with intelligence while fixing his glasses; this seemed like an old habit he had developed because he would do it whenever he made long sentences even if his glasses were well placed.

Ivan glanced at the two before redirecting his gaze to the bustling street in front of them, a particular machine caught his eyes and for the first time Ivan felt a longing for something that wasn't food.

It was a strange looking machine that didn't have a cover, it was over three meters long but the rider only had a space of one meter to sit while holding onto two handle like objects that poked out from the side of the machine's head.

The machine made a loud vroom sound that Ivan found pleasing to the ears as it sped off at high speed, it was so fast that Ivan saw its tires as a blur.

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"Ivan!"

Ivan was pulled out of his trance by Ralph's loud voice, he reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the direction that the strange machine had disappeared into to look at Ralph who was calling out to him only to see the boy staring at him with a sharp glint in his eyes.

Turned out that Ralph had stopped a cab and had been calling out to Ivan for more than five seconds while he stood beside the open door of the car.

Ivan , realizing what must have happened, gazes at Ralph blankly for a while before quietly entering the car and sitting beside Glen at the back. Ralph glared at the white haired fellow for a few seconds before entering the car as well.

"Oi, and were y'all heading to, Young sirs?" The driver, who happened to be a man who seemed to be in his sixties voiced out from the front as he began to move the steering of the car.

" The closest awakening center, " Ralph responded.

He noticed the expression of the driver suddenly turn into one of shock as he stared at the three young men through the rearview mirror of his car.

"Y'all going to awaken!?" The old man could not help but ask, his voice expressed his delightful surprise.

"Yeah, we are all going to awaken!" Glen was the one who replied, his excitement was so evident that it might even be contagious.

"That's awesome! How about I offer you three a free ride to the awakening center but in return, y'all must have dinner at my place; what ya think?" The driver proposed as he flashed his full set of teeth in a wide smile.

Ralph's face immediately turned serious as his eyes and the eyes of the driver made contact through the rearview mirror, his gaze seemed to question why the driver would want to give them a free ride and also invite them to his home.

"Oi, calm down now boy. No need to be so suspicious, I mean no harm" the driver gave a reassuring smile before proceeding to explain himself.

Turned out that he had a daughter who was around their age and had awakened her Nexus energy but refused to awaken her talent  because she was nervous.

According to the driver, his daughter was so introverted that she didn't have any friends and only talked with him and his wife. She had already awakened her Nexus energy for over a month now but had locked herself in her room and only came out occasionally, the young lady even refused to go to school anymore.

So he was hoping to invite Ralph and friends over after they had awakened and see if they would manage to motivate his daughter and disperse her nervousness by sharing their awakening experience.

After hearing that this was the case, Ralph calmed down and accepted the offer, they had nowhere to go after their awakening anyway so such a deal wasn't necessarily a bad deal.

The car continued to drive as the driver hummed happily to himself while the three boys sat quietly at the back.

Glen was busy staring at the place through the window of the car, Ralph had his eyes fixed in front as if trying to store the routes they were driving through to memory, while Ivan…Ivan had his eyes closed as the image of the machine and its rider played in his mind repeatedly.

They arrived at their destination after a five minute drive and came down from the car after the driver found a spot to park.

"Oi, I'll wait for you boys here so get back here after you're done, alright?" The driver called out to them from inside the car with half of his body poking out through the car window.

Ralph turned and nodded at the driver before continuing to walk.

It took them two minutes to leave the parking space where countless types of vehicles were packed, there were so many that they were unable to count.

Standing at the entrance of the awakening center, Ivan and Glen were finally able to take a close up look at the enormous building that they had seen from afar even before the car arrived here. The building was so tall that they had to bend their necks fully just to look at the top.

Numerous people could be seen going in and out of the building in an endless stream that one might think that an event was being held here.

Ivan saw a lot of young people around their age too, some had excited faces while some had sad expressions on their faces.

"I thought Nexulytes were rare? Why are there so many people here? Are all of them here to awaken? Is it like this everyday or is there something going on today?" Ivan could not help but mutter absentmindedly seeing the large number of people here.

There were only four Nexulytes in the entire outskirt that they came from but the number of people at the awakening center made him start to think that Nexulytes were not as rare as he had thought, he was also starting to feel uncomfortable with so many people around.

"If judging by the entire population of San Pluto, the number of people here can't even be considered as many. Also, they are not all Nexulytes because while there is a larger population of Nexulytes in San Pluto, they are only about twenty percent of the entire population" Ralph explained as pushed his glasses with his fingers.

Even Glen, who had been distracted all the way due to excitement, had started to listen carefully to Ralph's explanation because he had been shocked to see so many people at the place where they had come to awaken.

'If all of these people were here to awaken, wouldn't that mean that my awakening isn't anything special? So vexing!'

"Then why are all these people here?" Ivan asked after listening to Ralph's explanation. He was glad that not all these people were Nexulytes or about-to-be-Nexulytes but seeing so many people still wasn't alright with him.

"Well, a lot of people come everyday to try their luck. Even people who had failed to awaken their talents after countless trials would still come back as long as they had the money for it.

That's enough about them, let's go in" Ralph said and led the two who has looks of realizations on their faces through the wide door of the awakening center