006 EXCUSE NOT TO MINE
Damen flinched, bracing for Ralph's fist. He half expected the blow to break bone, maybe cripple him. But the hand that reached for him wasn't Ralph's at all.
"Uh… Mr. Yaris," Damen said quickly, forcing his voice steady. "My finals are coming up. I might not be able to keep working part-time this month."
The man in front of him wasn't his drunken uncle but Supervisor Yaris, the foreman of Aur Mine No. 15…the one who signed off Ralph's hours and handed him his wages.
Yaris chuckled. "Don't worry about it. A kid like you have no business in a mine anyway. I've told Ralph that more times than I can count, but he never listens."
"Where's my uncle? I need to talk to him… about stopping work."
"Ral!" Yaris called out, lifting his voice across the pub.
Damen raised a hand quickly. "Please…don't call him. Not yet. I need to figure out how to tell him…in a nice way."
Yaris studied him for a moment, then nodded. "He's over there. Drunk, as usual."
In the corner, Ralph sprawled across a battered couch, one hand clutching a glass, the other draped lazily over the shoulder of a bored-looking hostess.
Damen didn't move toward him. Instead, he pulled out his phone, raised it in Ralph's direction, and tapped the screen.
"Begin mining," he whispered.
Turning on his heel, he made for the stairs.
"You're not going to talk to him?" Yaris called after him.
"No. Not tonight. Maybe in the morning, when he sobers up. He won't take it well if I tell him now."
"Right."
Outside, the night air was cool.
Damen's eyes stayed fixed on his phone, watching as the DemCoin app confirmed the mining process was still locked onto Ralph.
"Heading out already?" the bouncer at the door asked.
"Yeah. Told you it'd be quick," Damen replied.
"Come back in a few years when you can forget about the grandmas and taste the pussy cats inside", the bouncer added with an obscene smile.
"Right, probably not… ever", Damen replied his thumb tapping the next command.
Acquire. Strength.
A smile flickered across his face as he walked into the street. Ralph wouldn't trouble him tonight or for many nights to come.
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Damen wandered the streets with no real destination, dragging his steps. He thought about where he could spend the night when the sudden wail of sirens cut through the air.
"Huh… that was fast," he muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
He guessed the ambulance was for Ralph. The shock of having his strength stripped must have dropped him cold.
"Should I go home?" Damen wondered aloud.
He needed rest after a long day and then after another punishing round under the Meta Amplifier.
But then he shook his head. "No. If I go back, I'll get no peace. The hospital will call, and Aunt Melody will force me to check on Ralph."
That left him with only one option. The school.
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The campus gates were already shut by the time he arrived. The night guard eyed him warily though he recognized him as one of the students of the school. "You're not supposed to be here this late."
"I came for the extended Meta Amplifier training," Damen said smoothly.
The school had rented the Meta Amplifier at a staggering price, so they kept it running day and night. Evening sessions were open for anyone willing to pay a ticket especially students hungry for an edge, professionals desperate to polish their abilities. Damen had never joined. He couldn't afford the fee.
"Are you sure you have a ticket?" the guard asked.
"Yeah… yeah", Damen replied as he walked to school waving his hands without showing proof of his ticket.
But the guard did not insist. He merely waved him off glad that he could return to his snooze.
Soon, Damen reached the Meta Training Center when a voice shouted at him.
"Damen Dark, why aren't you home?"
The voice came with a firm pat on the back. Damen stiffened. It was Mr. Fischer, his Meta class teacher.
"I—uh, I dropped something in the training center earlier," Damen stammered. "Just came to pick it up."
Fischer frowned. "Sorry. You can't go in now. This session is ticket-only. Come back tomorrow and check Lost and Found." He started to walk away.
"Wait, Mr. Fischer." Damen's tone sharpened. "Will you be in the overnight session?"
The teacher blinked at the question, surprised, then sighed. "No. I need rest too."
"Then who's presiding?"
Irritation flickered across Fischer's face. He was clearly exhausted from a long day's work, but he answered anyway and pointed a finger towards someone at the door of the training center receiving the guests.
"Professor Gawdry. From the Meta Human Association." With that, he turned on his heel before Damen could squeeze out more questions.
Damen smiled at his retreating figure. That was all he needed to know.
He lifted his phone, sighted Professor Gawdry across the courtyard, and locked him in the frame. The app recognized the target even from this distance. The range of his app had expanded after the last upgrade.
"Begin mining."
The command pulsed across the screen, and Damen slipped into the shadows near the Training Center. From there, he watched the DemCoin app tick upward.
Gawdry's output was staggering. It was several times richer than Fischer's.
"Damn. I'm going to be rich," Damen whispered, his grin widening as the numbers climbed.
Then the rate spiked again. Gawdry had entered the Amplifier chamber, and under Meta amplification the mining yield skyrocketed.
"This is worth sleeping outside for," Damen murmured, settling into a cross-legged posture in the corner.
The DemCoin app drained energy on its own, but this time something different stirred inside him.
He closed his eyes, letting the steady pulse of harvested power hum quietly in the background. He tried to train in meta power using the techniques he learned in class but never tried at home- breathing rhythms, mind focus and proper form and posture.
To his surprise, the meta energy within his body shivered awake, like embers catching flame.
"So, this… is what Meta training feels like?" Damen whispered to himself, wonder mixing with disbelief.
This was the first time he started Meta training all by himself without teachers and Meta Amplifiers.
For the first time in his life, he could focus. There was no shouting, no fists, no distractions. Just pure practice, pure growth as meta particles slowly gathered around his body.
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