Unlike a few moments ago, Gary kept his legs normal and only transformed his hand. Still, even without transforming, Gary was much faster than those taking the assessment, at least before they had transformed into their Altered forms.
Before Izzy could make up her mind about what to do, Gary was in front of her. He raised his fur hand above her, holding the ball.
“Catch.” Gary dropped the ball, and Izzy held onto it as she was told. The image on the screen had now changed to hers, but she didn’t care about that.
Looking at Ian lying on the ground with his broken legs, she could only imagine what would happen to her. But, on the other hand, Gary hadn’t even transformed back then, nor was he angry.
“For the next few seconds, just hold the ball for me, or you know what, hold it as long as you can.”
Then raising his head, Gary stared at her teammates. He suspected they were all in on the plan together, and there wasn’t just one person to blame for all of this.
Noticing his gaze, the teammates started running away, acting as if Gary was the ball himself.
‘Let’s see how this thing works.’
[You have used Magnetic Howl.]
It was the first time Gary had used this skill, at least in a fighting situation like this. Before, he had used this skill in his regular practices, but it didn’t seem quite spectacular. However, he believed that things might change for him this time.
In the next moment, Gary suddenly felt like he was choking, and it was as if something was happening to his throat as if it was changing. Soon, his larynx was no longer like a normal human. Once the skill completed the transformation, he looked up at the sky and then when he opened his mouth, a loud howl resounded throughout the area.
“AWHOOO!”
It wasn’t short either. Instead, it was a loud one that seemed to bounce off the walls and create echoes, amplifying the howl. It wasn’t the strangest thing for the others to see, especially since Gary had revealed himself to be a Wolf Altered.
After hearing this howl, the students running in the opposite direction turned around and started to head straight towards Gary. It was as if they couldn’t control their body and were naturally moving toward him.
“What is going on?!” Most students panicked. Their bodies couldn’t stop themselves from running at Gary.
“It looks like it worked.” Gary smiled.
He had already taken a fighting stance, ready to kick with his legs.
As soon as the first student got close to him, he threw it out fast, kicking the latter right in the side, and possibly breaking a rib. Then, he threw a fist at another student near him, hitting the him right on the face and sending him stumbling back.
By now, the other students who realised they had no control over what they wanted to do, had decided to try their best to at least attack. They couldn’t entirely control where they were going but could control their body to some degree.
However, they had failed to note Gary’s transformed hands, which had claws on them.
“This might sting a little bit, but I’m sure you bastards have experienced a bit of pain before!” Gary enunciated.
Seeing the claws made the incoming students’ fists freeze, and they instead focused on doing anything they could to avoid the incoming attack. However, Gary never planned to hurt them seriously to begin with, so instead, he just used this opportunity to take advantage of their stupor to send them flying with his kicks or punch and slap across their face, before turning his hands back to normal.
The one-sided beating didn’t take long before he had knocked out four more students. As for the others, they no longer felt like they were being pulled toward Gary, but they didn’t want to come any closer.
‘That skill was quite useful for a situation like this, but if I was going up against the Underdogs, I can see how I wouldn’t want to use it.’
The System unlocked the Magnetic Howl Skill as a reward after defeating Kirk. However, based on the description, he knew he wouldn’t be able to use it for most of his battles because this skill was an agro type.
According to the description, it made the enemies around him focus their attack on him. No matter who they were fighting against or what they were doing, they would choose to come toward him and attack him. However, the skill stated that it would work longer on particular types of individuals and less on others.
This skill was also why Gary wanted to continue raising his Health and Energy. Because he wanted to become a tank character who could take on all his own gang’s enemies, and at the same time, in a desperate situation, this skill combined with Last stand could work well.
The only drawback here was the skill had a ten-minute cooldown and took up to 25 points of energy which was quite a large amount. Of course, Gary would not become a pure tank, but there were other ways for him to improve his stats.
[Exp 2788/5302]
‘I got quite a bit of exp for beating those guys, even though the Underdogs seemed like a harder lot to deal with. Is it because they’re Altered? And that damned notification kept telling me to devour them for extra stat points.’ Gary thought before turning his attention towards Izzy.
“Thank you for holding the ball all this time.” Gary smiled at her, whose legs were practically shaking. There was no doubt in her mind that if she threw the ball, she would pay for it dearly, and by then, the buzzer had gone off.
Looking at the timer, Gary found it strange. It had stopped with five seconds to spare. In fact, it was as if someone paused the machine to halt the timer.
“Due to an unexpected turn of events, we have had to pause the assessment. So, Can all the able students head towards the exit that will soon open up in the room?”
——
On the top floor, where the three professors were watching the whole thing, Humfree shook his head.
“Well, this has become quite a headache!”
——
Soon, all of the students had gathered in a single waiting room. It looked like it was a practice room for fighters of some sort. The room was quite old, and there were even spots on the walls which were used as punching targets by the fighters.
Meanwhile, the professors were in a meeting room, although it wasn’t just three of them. There was a room full of around ten other teachers there as well, and they were all here to assess the situation and make a decision on the next step.
Just then, Humfrey pressed a button and turned off the TV.
“As you can see, that is how the assessment has gone so far, which is why it has come to this,” Humfree explained. “Usually, this assessment has worked out for us, and it has done for years, but if we had let things continue, then those who passed and failed would have been dictated by a single person.
“A few talented students would have failed this assessment before we even went through the rounds, which is why I have called all of you to decide who will go through to the next assessment.”
Mr Wood handed out papers from a file he had created for all teachers to see. This way, they could fully assess who would be best. They were also to consider the video they had seen, so they weren’t just basing their judgement on paper.
“I’m sorry I can’t really focus.” Miss White, a teacher who had her hair tied up in a bun and glasses on her face. She was one of the teachers who focused on more of the theory lessons in the class. “I just keep thinking, how was a student like that not scouted by our academy?
“Don’t we have scouts in every city to keep an eye out for such talents so a situation like this doesn’t happen?”
A lot of the teachers there thought the same thing. It was clear Gary was just as good as their scouted students this year.
“I’ll answer that,” Someone spoke up instead of the Professors. He was Gabe, a teacher dressed in a military-style uniform with a large cut over one of his eyes. He was also older than the other teachers but not as much as the professors. “The boy hails from a tier-three city. Although we kept track of all Alterds in each city, this one didn’t get on our radar.
“It seems like he is being backed by a group that suddenly rose in his city. This rarely happens, which is why we missed this one.”
It was a simple explanation but a rare one. An uprising in power hardly happened. A change in management from a city gang taking over another was common, but not a single person had heard of the Howlers group before.
After Teacher Gabe cleared that up, the teachers and the professors spent the next few minutes deciding who would pass the test.
“Well, there is only one thing left to do before we end this meeting. Professor Humfrey sighed, “We need to decide what we should do with Gary Dem.”
*****
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