The night in the EIA base was cold and silent, with only a few students moving through the long streets, in twos or threes.
“Cold. Is it nearing winter…” Zeras muttered feeling the abrupt decrease in temperature that could only signify it was slowly closing in on winter.
But the cold wasn’t a problem, at least to the Awakeners. All sorts of harrowing degrees of temperature can withstand as their Cultivation increases.
Those at the Cosmic Rank stage are even able to ignore the effect of gravity while Galaxy Rank experts are even able to stay in space without wearing a spacesuit.
This was just how quickly awakeners can become immune to anything and are vastly greater than regular humans.
Dragging the travel bag on the ground, its tires making a rolling noise that echoed in the silence, Zeras moved towards the Interdimensional combat hall, and in just five minutes, he arrived before the large structure, his hands pushing it open as he entered into the place before heading towards the door at the corner that led to the teleporter.
— — —
A small table had been placed in the ExcelSpace Lab, which seated a group of four including Instructor Moneca, Egon, Annalise, and the gooish-skinned Evan.
On the table were different dishes, strange fishes, fruits, edible leaves, and bottles of drinks.
The four slowly raised their spoon as they dug into the food but here and now, they would turn to stare at the empty fifth seat on the table that was unoccupied but the space was left.
The atmosphere was melancholic and filled with silence but that was broken by the noise of the door violently blown open and jumping into it was a Zeras who flung the travel bag in his hands on the floor as he took in breaths as fast as he could.
“Tch, Damn it, they couldn’t make the lab any simpler to find…” Zeras murmured angrily.
He had walked around the entire structure, entering into different labs where he almost got roasted alive, only now did he know just how good it was to increase his speed.
Finally after waking around the structures, climbing hundreds of steps. He finally arrived in this place and he noticed the ExcelSpace Lab at the top of the door, something he didn’t understand how he formerly failed to notice.
“Mph, Mph…” Zeras suddenly sniffed as he took notice of a strange smell in the air that made his stomach give an angry roar of a lion.
Zeras slowly turned and looking at him with a raised eyebrow were the four psychopathic nerds.
Zeras looked dumbly as he couldn’t believe they’d been sitting down there since he entered the place yet he still didn’t sense them.
“Hello, Seniors…” Zeras said jumping up as he quickly raised the travel bag, flashing a smile at the four.
“Hey kid, how long have you last eating anything…” Evan, the gooish alien asked his eyes staring at Zera’s stomach which was still giving an angry lion roar.
“Well, um, three weeks ago?” Zeras replied as he tried to silence the roar made by his Intestines but to no avail. His stomach kept growling loudly.
“Why don’t you join us, and you’ll be packing in later…” Aurelia, the pink-haired lady, said as Zeras dropped his bag and moved toward the table.
“Well, since I can’t say no. Might as well oblige…” Zeras said not giving in as he sat down at the last seat present before digging into the food, like a hungry beast.
Zeras repeatedly picked up hundreds of food plates, sending them into the bottomless abyss he called a stomach as all the other four people looked at him dumbfounded.
After taking in around 70% of what was present on the table. Zeras gave an uncontrollable loud belch as he released his belt a little, finding it suddenly uncomfortably tightening.
Finally turning to look at the other people, Zeras raised an eyebrow as he saw them looking at him with their jaws on the ground.
“What?” Zeras asked looking at them strangely, especially Instructor Moneca who seemed to want to find a place to dig into in the moment.
“It seems you’ve truly not eaten for the last three weeks…” Annalise said, but Zera wasn’t the least offended as he stood up and gave a bow.
“Thank you, seniors. This act of kindness, this young one will never forget and pay back tenfold,” Zeras said heroically before grabbing his travel back and scurrying away.
Why did he run?
Because Zeras could tell, that Instructor Moneca was just a second away from pouncing on him and giving him the beating of his life.
So to avoid such an embarrassing scenario, he immediately ran away.
“He truly understood you a lot, Moneca, don’t you think?” Aurelia asked giggling to herself as she looked at Moneca whose popping-out veins slowly entered back into her skin.
“Tch, he’s an idiot…”
“Well, don’t you guys think he looked just like Daeva…” Evan suddenly asked as all of them suddenly directed their gaze at him.
“Um, I mean the former Daeva…” Evan said correcting himself as the group nodded before continuing their meal which had been vastly reduced, but who were they kidding, their current level of cultivation could make them go years without food at all. They do this due to their love and remembrance of one of their own.
— — —
Zeras slowly entered the room taking in the fresh breath of books smelling in the room.
Zeras dropped his travel bag at the side of his shelves before landing on the bed tiredly.
Activating his Chaotic Existence Skill, Hollow Domain caused a great amount of pain to him and also swallowed away his energy like a whale.
HHiswalking here was already quite the effort as he relied mainly on his Mana to stop himself from fainting on his way. Thankfully, the small meal gave him quite the energy to continue.
Zeras felt the softness of the sofa and to be honest. It wasn’t as bad as he thought. He could at least say it was around 60% just as soft as the bed in his dorm room.
Zeras stretched out his hands, mistakenly knocking them on the shelve beside the sofa.
His hands simply entered into the shelf as he picked a simple uninteresting book among the millions present.
Looking at the cover were the words:
INTRODUCTION TO SPACE ENGINEERING.
“Hmm, let’s see just what this is all about…” Zeras immediately opened to the first page and began reading the textbook with a lackadaisical attitude but after 3 minutes, he slowly sat upright as he began reading seriously, the sound of page shuffling resounding throughout the entire room, with a speed that would have made the fastest human reader collapse in shock.
— — —
30 minutes later…
“Interesting, really interesting…” Zeras slowly closed the book having read its 1054 pages in less than 35 minutes.
The content of the book was something he had never heard of before and he was like a sponge absorbing an endless amount of knowledge into his head.
Due to his increased intelligence, Zeras was able to completely digest the entire content of ten books and could say everything from head to toe from the heart if asked.
Dropping the book on the table, he immediately began the next one, and then the next one, and the next one.
Instructor Moneca arrived at the door and pushed it open but raised an eyebrow when she saw a total of 100 books lying on the table while Zeras sat there completely absorbed, not even noticing her entrance.
‘He can’t have read all those books on the table finish right?’