Alex reached home and immediately retrieved the bloodied clothes.
"I need to burn them." He quickly took some spare pieces of wood lying around and in the back of his house, after making sure no one could see, poured lighter fluid on them.
He placed the wood around and the clothes to keep the flames going. He struck the matchstick and dropped it on the clothes.
They roared into a pillar of flames, and Alex watched in silence as the clothes burned. Smoke threatened to suffocate him but he didn't move.
He was more worried that someone would come and put the fire out, and if they did, they'd see the clothes.
'I still can't believe that I claimed a life.' His eyes teared up before he forced his sadness down, 'He tried to kill me!! I should not feel bad for saving myself.' He held on to whatever thought alleviated his conscience.
After the clothes had turned to a thick pile of black material and the wood to ash, he took out garbage bags and shoved the 'clothes' into them.
Alex disposed of the bags and spent the next hour cleaning to get rid of the ash, soot, and pungent odor of smoke.
He collapsed on the floor after he was done. "I still can't rest; I have to prepare for the exchange program."
Alex groaned, stood up, and dragged his feet to his room.
He carefully packed and folded clothes before shoving them unceremoniously into his bag. Soon, his bag was on the verge of ripping apart but he kept on trying to zip it.
With a lot of effort, he managed to zip it up but made a mental promise to himself not to open it for anything else, or he doubted he would be able to open it again.
Whether it was the mental exhaustion of cleaning up his murder or the actual physical strain involved in wiping the house, Alex was dead tired.
'No, I can't sleep.' He pulled out the beast art from under his bed where he was hiding it.
Giving it a look, Alex sat in a lotus position and resumed from where he had stopped, and what he saw shocked him deeply.
Most of the pathways required for the process had already been fully made with a few being a bit incomplete.
'Was this because of my core shattering? If so, why didn't I shatter my core earlier?' Alex laughed at his own joke.
He took a sliver of energy from his core and resumed the process once more.
It flowed steadily along the pathway and as it did, a wave of energy and vigor washed over Alex.
The energy he was moving within the pathway, on the other hand, vanished.
"It worked?!" Alex screamed before taking a larger amount of energy and running it through the pathway.
Boundless energy and strength filled his muscles as the energy cascaded through the pathways.
Alex opened his eyes and placed his hand on the ground, he put his weight on his hand and lifted himself off the ground and into a single-handed handstand.
Before, he would have sprained his muscles or broken his hand if he had tried this but now, he had succeeded with ease and from an odd position at that.
He placed his second hand on the ground and started doing vertical pushups with both hands, then one hand. "Haha."
Alex continued to draw energy from his core to fuel his strength as he resumed his push-ups.
Placing both legs on the ground, he stood up properly and faced the wall. He pulled back his fist and drew a large amount of energy from his core before thrusting his fist.
His knuckles connected with the wall and punched a hole through it with ease. "I can already imagine myself on the level of the Elites." The bruise on his knuckles healed as quickly as it had formed.
Before he could celebrate his strength, a sharp pulse of pain shot through his abdomen.
'Shit! Don't tell me it shattered.'
He focused inward and flinched. His core, once a sphere of dark energy, was now a pale, ashen gray. It was completely drained, only now beginning to draw faint wisps of energy to refill itself. He was powerless until he recovered.
"I still need to practice this first before progressing. The likes of Blessing Of The Sky have near divine control of their strength when using it. I also need to have that." Alex hummed before walking to his bed but sleep seemed to evade him as his excitement and anticipation kept him up.
Soon, however, the physical and mental exhaustion from his earlier activities caught up to him, and he fell asleep.
________
Alex and Tony were in school together when nobody else was there, "You have got to be kidding me! I never thought I'd be in school on a Saturday." Tony yelled just within earshot of Mr. Tyson.
"Stop yelling!" Alex and Mr. Tyson yelled in unison as the latter walked to meet them.
Tony glared at Alex but paid rapt attention to what Mr. Tyson had to say, "You will be taken by this bus to the airport and then you'll fly to the city. The teacher there would provide you with more details on what this entire exchange program is about."
Alex wanted to walk away, 'In conclusion, he doesn't know what it's about.'
Mr Tyson gave them his number to call if anything came up. After that, the two boarded the bus.