Chapter 29: Where is Samantha?
Walking out of school, Sebastian had between his hands one of the manuals Lenard mentioned.
The little book was barely bigger than the hand, and it was so thin that even a high schooler would read it.
Just like the MDW Army high-ranked man described, its pages contained all the basics a 'Novitiate' Manifester should know to not end up in a dilemma with the law, the society, or with other Manifesters for a change.
And speaking of which, the term 'Novitiate' is attributed to this first rank of the Manifestor power system. The intent of that name is a reminder that, despite being different from the rest of the humans, you're are still incredibly weak, 'so don't try anything funny'.
In this stage, the newbie Manifester is in the process of learning how to control their new power, their physically improved body, and all that is related to mana.
Each rank contains ten sub-levels. So later, when by training the person crosses the threshold of 'Novitiate X', they become a 'Handler': a Manifester that has mastered the control of mana.
The next rank after that is called 'Macher', the average level of soldiers of the MDW Army is in this rank.
And finally, 'Ruler', without any other information in the book other than its name.
Why?
Sebastian has no idea whatsoever.
The only thing that he is aware of is that according to the system, he's at 'Novitiate IV'.
Not much different from his 'Novitiate I' classmates. Those who, with the Mana absorption technique, will be able to reach him in no time if he does nothing about it.
Is there a rank higher than 'Ruler'?
That was out of Sebastian's consideration. Just like for most people on the planet, there's not much difference between a millionaire with ten million and one with a hundred million.
…
"Since when!"
A yell was heard from not very far away.
When Sebastian turned around, he saw Alexandra making a fake megaphone with her hands, and Miriam at her side carrying two backpacks.
"Since when what?" He waited until the girls approached to ask back.
"Since when you got your ability!"
"Like… a month or so?" Sebastian smiled, lying with the ease with which he breathes.
"And you didn't plan to tell us?" The curly-haired continued pushing.
"I signed a non-disclosure agreement." He shrugged and then used the Ol' reliable, theoretically not lying. "Trust me that, unlike today, it was much stricter before."
"Hmmmmm, that doesn't convince me… at all" Alexandra kept looking at him with the same resentment, not planning to accept that explanation.
"It is what it is." He shrugged, it was a 'take it or leave it'.
"Don't give me that bullsh*t." She replied with a poker face.
A confrontation was set out of nowhere.
Seeing this, Miriam rapidly intermediated before these two started arguing for real.
"So what is it? Your initial ability. And what class?"
She seemed to have a leaf through the manual already, calling the things by their actual name.
Sebastian indeed had 'nothing to hide'.
"I can summon a doll that can fight, in quotation marks, because it's just one meter high. Honestly, most of the time I just use it to clean my house. It's D-class, nothing special."
"Can we see it?" Both asked.
"Here?" His head tilted to look at the girls, his eyes seemed to say, 'Did you forget that we can't use our skills in public?'
"Touché." Miriam snapped her fingers.
Maybe their curiosity could be satisfied the next time.
"So, what do we do now?"
The curly hair girl asked, breathing the air of freedom sooner on this morning.
When they came back to the classroom, the teachers told them that they were free to leave school early today, no one quite knows why or for what reason, but those that didn't manifest left already, so naturally, they were not going to stay.
"Do you guys wanna go grab lunch?" Sebastian asked, starting to feel a little hungry.
"Where?" Alexandra was enthusiastic about the idea.
"Up to you."
"What about some Thai food?" She consulted both.
"Good for me."
"Sure, let's just wait for Samantha," Miriam said, she of course couldn't forget the friend that wasn't with them.
During these months, the original group of seven friends now only had four left. Diana went back to Mexico immediately after the Clericland incident when things started to turn shady. Michael and Victor on the other hand moved to another city with their parents a time later, after the global announcement.
And no one blames them.
Even today, Sebastian knows that the parents of each one of the three girls are still indecisive. It wouldn't be weird if the next day one of them is gone of town without previously notifying.
It would be much safer that way.
"She's not replying to my messages, neither to my phone calls." Miriam dropped her hand with the phone to speak to both of them. "Should we go inside to find her? I think I have a photo of her schedule on my phone."
"Maybe we should just wait, at some point, she has to come out." Alexandra proposed.
So the three of them waited, for a while, but the face of Samantha didn't appear between the students leaving the school.
In that meantime, Sebastian tested the absorption technique written in the manual. But as imagined, he had few successes, it couldn't be that easy.
Ten minutes later, as they saw the number of students leaving decreasing, someone lost her temperament.
"Sebas, you stay here, Mimi and I will go find her." Alexandra, who was the person that first suggested to wait changed her mind.
Sebastian had no reason to say 'no', after all, it wasn't he the person who had to move.
But suddenly, Alexandra ran away, leaving Miriam and him planted.
"Hey, you're in Samantha's class, right?" Alexandra caught a student from the exit. "Do you know where is she?"
The student entered in shock for a moment but still answered the question.
"The soldier took her with them."
"What?" Alexandra was stupefy. "What did she do?!"
"She-"
"Babe, what's going on?" Miriam approached with Sebastian at her side.
"The soldiers took Samantha with them." She explained briefly, then asked the student again. "What happened inside?"
The guy doubted for a few seconds whether he should talk or not, mainly because of what he signed. But then he saw the manual in Sebastian's hand and confirmed that these three were Manifesters too.
"I don't know much either, we were there doing the regular testing. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that duck that by screaming made us lose control of our body and use the ability. But when it was Samantha's turn, she didn't react no matter how many times the duck screamed."
"So after the white coats started asking around if she was a Manifester at all, a sunglasses man approached her and gave her a crystal, telling her to 'equip it'."
"The crystal disappeared from her hands and then the next time the duck screamed, there was this gigantic tower in the middle of the gym, it was so tall that almost broke the roof."
"And wait, that isn't even the best part yet, next thing, the tower started shooting arrows made of water to all the people around. The soldiers had to use their abilities to protect us the students and the white coats. Then, inside the shield the soldier next to me made, I saw that sunglasses guy throwing a knife at the tower."
"And when I thought 'what the hell is that tiny knife gonna do', the entire tower broke into pieces and then disappeared. After that, the soldiers took Samantha out of the gym and I don't know much what happened later."
The four pairs of eyes looked at each other, three of them not sure of what to do with that information.
So they looked again at the student.
"That's all I know, I swear." He said. "Can I go now?"
"Thank you for telling us all this."
"You're welcome."
...
"So… what do we do now? Should we call Samantha's parent?" Miriam pop the question.
"What are you gonna say? Hey ma'am, your daughter has been arrested. By the police? No, by the army actually." Alexandra created a surreal but yet possible scenario.
"Yeah, but we still need to tell them, there's nothing we can do, unless… Sebastian, don't you know that sunglasses man? Can't you ask him what happened?"
"Who? Lenard? I don't have his number or anything."
"But we could-"
Suddenly, the music of a harp interrupted the conversation.
Miriam recognized the sound since that was her personalized notification timber for close friends.
She hurried to take her phone out.
"Guys! Samantha just texted me back! She says she… Holy sh*t!" Miriam who never curses did it this time.
Still impressed by what she saw, she showed the phone to Sebastian and Alexandra that approached to see what stunned her.
On-screen, there were two messages from Samantha only:
The first one being "You guys don't need to wait for me, they said they needed to talk to my parents."
And the second one was "I awoke an A-class ability!!!"
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone