Chapter 9: Calm
"Hey, Ingen!" I heard a voice from across the dorms. "Quit being a loner and get over here!"
It was definitely Devin. I jogged over to him and his friends.
"Hey, what's up?" I asked.
"We're gonna play some Tana, wanna join?"
"Sure, who are these guys?"
"From the left, it's Teo, Ben, Vincent, and Yomo." My log got four new entries.
This time the game was fair, everyone was a Natural so the only one who had any advantage was Teo, who was quite strong compared to us.
"Why are -huff- you -huff- so goddamn strong?!" I asked
"I exercise."
'Really?! That's it?'
I hadn't exercised the whole time I've been here except when I played with John because I was convinced that I wouldn't ever catch up to humans, but apparently, you can be strong, albeit not as strong as the humans, but strong nonetheless. I will try to get stronger from now on, but for now, I have a plan.
"I've got to go guys, I have studying to do, see you tomorrow."
"See you Ingen!"
After a short walk, I made it to the forest, and after confirming that I was alone, I tried recreating the armor I made during the sparring match. Back then I just desperately made a plate in front of a few attacks, now is the time to make a proper armor set.
The first attempt was an utter failure, I tried to make a full-body plate set but that was too heavy, making the armor effective meant it had to be dense and while that kind of armor would work as a protective, almost unbreakable shell, I couldn't move with it on.
The second attempt worked, it just was almost useless for protection, it was nothing more than a skeleton, but a skeleton I could manipulate, I could use telekinesis to empower my exoskeleton of wood and make myself faster.
That wasn't its only use though, I had nearly perfect control over the living wood I surrounded myself with, I simply couldn't add material without extreme amounts of Eneru. The first thing I did was take material from his legs and made an extra set of arms, these arms weren't super strong because I had to make them move solely with intuitive manipulation, and during my testing I was getting exhausted of Eneru, resigning to go back to the dorm and rest. I carried my new armor back to the dorm and planted it out front, using much of my remaining Eneru to make it back into a tree.
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Teo was walking back to his room to get his money for lunch when he noticed that something was out of place. He thought for a moment when it hit him.
"Where the hell did this big-ass tree come from?!"
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Orin was practically dragging me to the cafeteria, I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but Orin had to eat too and he recognized that food would definitely make me feel better.
"Come on Ingen, use your legs!"
"Too tired..."
"Ugh, fine hop on my back."
Orin suddenly became the size of a small pony, just large enough for me to ride on his back. When I climbed on I quickly fell asleep on his back, he had his father's fur.
"Wake up Ingen! I'm hungry!"
"Orin, you're adorable, but damn, give me a minute."
I stood up and saw a group of people staring at me and Orin.
"Oi! What are you looking at?"
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
'ORIN! SHADOW! NOW!'
Orin immediately disappeared and a knife of fire went past his last location.
"What the hell!?" I shouted in the direction the knife came from.
"Oh, I was just hunting demons." an angry girl's voice was audible
"Looks to me like you're trying to kill my companion."
The red-haired girl pulled out a wooden knife and lit it aflame "So you're a demon too?"
I got into a mock fighting stance and started to test my second experiment, air conducted Eneru, albeit not well but enough. a high-pressure air shield appeared in front of me, but before she could throw her knife, one of the professors doused her flames with water and restrained her.
"That's enough out of you! You could be expelled just for using Eneru in the building without permission, let alone attacking a student!" the professor exclaimed before dragging her out of the cafeteria towards the headmaster's office.
'You're safe now Orin, come out small.'
'You got it,
dude!'
Orin came out of my shadow being as adorable as possible. The people who stared before changed their demeanor, coming out to pet Orin who loved the attention. The kitchen staff also thought he was adorable and brought out scraps for him to eat.
"The standard meal please."
"That will be 5 coppers"
I sat down with Devin and the rest and ate, it was very bland, but after my experiments, it was refreshing.
"What was that all about?" I asked, hoping that one of them would have any idea what's going on.
Yomo spoke up "That was Laura, she hates all types of Spirit Beasts for some reason."
"Hmm, that would explain why she didn't attack Orin yesterday, you can't really tell that he isn't a normal fox when he's small unless you touch the horn on the back of his neck."
The boys and I chatted for a while but I decided with my pockets lighter and my belly fuller, to go back to my dorm. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Captain_Wonders
Captain_Wonders Thank you for reading thus far, writing is way hard!
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