No Time

My niece, Sherry Shui Bao, is an adorable angel.

Of course, I love her, but I can't compare with the sudden amount of great emotions that Xiao Lai projected onto her.

I didn't know if it was something that would be good or bad, but for right now, it was good. Xiao Lai had finally gotten over Zhang Xing and now was able to move on with life. It sounded dramatic, but he was feeling happy and didn't stay at home all day long stuck in his or my room.

Although Xiao Lai did say his job at the school wasn't very relaxing, I could tell that he found it worthwhile.

Whenever he came back from work, he'd help out with the other hackers'/programmers' work and then go over to Ge's to go see Ah Bao.

Ge told me, "I was going to send him to be a headteacher of the nursery, but even if he isn't doing that job, he's taking care of my kid better than me!"

I was satisfied with how things were now. I might be tired and stressed, but at least my family was safe.

.......

Ah Bao is an angel! She's such a sweet child...

Unlike the weird babies I saw in the nursery that one time, Ah Bao is a quiet and graceful child.

She only eats, sleeps, and shi-poops. I was recommended to not spout out cuss words in front of her. I've been taking it seriously.

Anyways, Ah Bao is such a lovely baby. Sigh, I don't think anyone can compare with her!

Bzzt! Bzzt!

...Damn.

The alarm woke me up. Time for another school day.

But this time, I wasn't a student.

I should've known that my job was sketchy from the moment that Principal Ying was willing to overlook my age. I might've even taken the nursery position to this.

I went into my office and sat on my rolling chair. I twirled around for a bit and put my head back. Sighing, I got back up and pulled out the binder that kept a record of all the kids who were sent here, or came here.

Time schedules were written down sloppily in incomprehensible handwriting, so I had to carefully search through. It wasn't my handwriting, it was the many previous counselors before me. Some of them didn't write in anything. I was trying to study all of it so that I could get schedules and such right and write my own accounts down.

Mhm, Mondays, usually those 3 regulars came in, and sometimes the troublemakers.

My first "client" was a young girl, aged 9 years.

This young girl, who was African American, was terribly shy and polite. She was very lanky, skinny, and had braces and glasses. She was a very polite young girl and had some troubles with talking out.

But this wasn't my problem. My job was to help with power control. If I was a real counselor, I had to get a degree or something in psychology. I don't know the exact details, but the main point is, I didn't have the qualifications to be a "real" counselor.

Besides the girl, Brianna Jones, came to my office since she had a very hard time controlling her powers. She had a very high talent in her water ability, but it would often go haywire and suck water not from the atmosphere but living beings around her. It was dangerous. Yu Ge said that it was a mutated ability since water users usually couldn't do that unless they were at a mid-level.

She had to train to either control this mutated power of hers or to seal it away. Well, rather than sealing it, the better term would be to try to not use it at all.

"Hello, Mr.Lai..."

"Hi Brianna, today we're going to train with the flower pot and cup as usual. You made progress last time, but we need to actively practice."

"Yes..."

The flower pot and cup training was something I thought of for a while before I assigned it to her. Previously, counselors had trained her through the same method of trying to collect water from the air but instead, they were harmed. So they then had her do training in a closed room, which didn't really work and stressed the poor girl further.

Yu Ge had told me that this skill, although dangerous, was very useful when it came to hunting mutant creatures, animals, or zombies. They all had water, with zombies having a minimal amount of it.

So, I decided to train her using the flower pot, either to avoid sucking out water from it or to suck water out of it on purpose. And this way, she'll be more comfortable with using her power actively and not worry if she could find a difference between the two methods.

Last week, on Friday, she for the first time, after practicing for about 2 weeks, made progress. She had squealed in surprise and that was the only time I saw her break out of her quiet persona.

My office was wide and had a door that led into a wide practice space underground. It was practically a stadium. This wide practice area was usually used for power training, but only in the afternoons. In the mornings, it was reserved for the counseled students.

I placed the cup of water and the flower pot on a prepared table and had her sit right in front.

"You know how it goes by now. I know how to protect myself, so go all out. But this time, let's try to have the water come out slower. First, from your surroundings."

"Ok Mr.Lai, I even practiced over the weekends. I think I can do this." Oho, this girl was gaining confidence.

And indeed so, she had succeeded pulling out the water from the air and it came into the cup drop by drop.

"Good, now let's put it back up in the air and bring it back quick."

Brianna had a little trouble sending it back, but pulling it out from the air quickly was no problem.

"Alright, send it back and continue to pull out water from the plant slowly."

Sending water into the air, check, pulling water from plant slowly, check.

"Send it back into the plant and pull it out quickly."

Done.

"A bonus, add extra water into the plant but don't kill it."

Huh, surprisingly she did it decently.

"Get the excess water out and pull more water from the air to push it into the plant. This time, kill it."

She didn't take out the exact amount of excess water, but she completed the assignment.

The young girl had some sweat drops and was gasping a little.

"You've improved a lot. I think after this week, you can continue practicing on your own. You won't have to come to my office anymore. Here's your reward for the day," I told her as I handed her a large cotton candy-flavored lollipop.

Brianna smiled shyly, but brightly.

"Thank you Mr.Lai. I think you're better than the other counselors."

"Psh. Trying to flatter me. Of course, I'm better. Alright, go to class now, you can visit me anytime if you need help or want more candy."

"Bye Mr.Lai!"

After she left, I threw away the dead plant that had been "over-watered".

The student who came in 5 minutes after Brianna, was also a young child.

This Spanish kid's name was Alvaro Perez.

He was 7 and had a bright personality. He acted stupid and clueless to make others laugh, but in reality, he was very smart.

"Hi Mr.Lai, can I have a lollipop first?"

"Nope, let's get on with your training. But if you do well, I'll give you 2 lollipops."

"Ok!"

This kid actually had the guts to try touching fire during his zombie reagent trial. Yu Ge remembered the kid since previously, people couldn't gain the fire element and instead got burnt, but this kid had a friend who had gone right before him to light up a fire with his father's lighter. And this kid touched the flames.

And he was actually accepted and gained what he called "FAAIIAAH!"

Brianna, the girl from earlier had touched water, earth, her pet rabbit, a dragonfly, and a daisy.

This boy had touched fire, water, earth, Aloe vera, and a fruit bat.

This kid had no mutated powers, except for the fact that he couldn't control the size or intensity of his fire.

So, he could either make an extremely hot flame the size of an ant or a weak dying flame the size of a car.

I didn't have the fire ability, but after discussing the problem with Jing Ge who had gained the fire ability from the Red Phase, he said that Fire was only a little different from Electricity, which was something I had.

Therefore, I had Alvaro train the way I was trained.

I placed an ice cube on the prepared table in the practice space.

I was holding a small bucket of ice cubes.

"Ok, we'll start with the ice cube. Get close to it. Think 'small, small' and melt it with whatever intensity of the flame, while not burning the table. I already replaced this table 8 times by now. And it's only been two weeks. So, let's try not to burn it this time."

It would've been easier if I had the air ability. Then I could hold up the ice cube and not have to maybe replace the table a 9th time.

Fortunately, he did manage to control the size. The intensity of the fire was very high and it melted the ice cube almost instantly.

"Ok, further."

We continued until on his eighth try, he was maybe about a meter away and accidentally burned the table by aiming wrong. I quickly put it out, but the charred mess was still smoking.

"Ehehehe... Sorry, Mr.Lai."

Sigh.

"Well, at least, you managed to get the control of the size quite a bit. Next, we'll go on with accuracy and intensity."

For accuracy, Alvaro had to slowly put out bits of low-intensity flame to move around a metal ball.

He had trouble controlling the intensity and the orb, well what was once of it, had turned into a lump that could not easily roll around, only slide awkwardly.

But this was still a huge improvement from two weeks ago.

"Good job, I don't have the fire ability, so I don't know how to train you too well, but I think this is working for you. Remember, don't try to practice at home. If needed, you know how to contact me through the core device. If you think you want or need extra practice, come over to my house anytime. It's the big mansion on the west side of the base. And here you go."

The boy waved his hands at me, not even facing me as he took off with his two lollipops.

"I'll go over today then!"

I only gave this offer starting from today and he snatched it up right away.

It was only recently that I found out that Alvaro was from a single-parent family. His mom and grandma took care of him, but his grandma was old and his mom was very busy. So he usually tried to get his friends to stay out late with him, but their parents called them home or appeared directly to drag the kids back home.

So, he was a lonely child.

Anyways, I finished writing the accounts of today's practice session when the office door was slid open harshly.

I looked up to find a group of familiar faces.

"It's not even lunch break yet." Can't I have some peace?

The teacher who dragged the group in angrily glared at them and turned to me with a pleading look on his face.

"Mr.Shui, could you please keep them for the training period? It's almost lunchtime, so just keep them a little while longer until their classes use the practice stadium."

"...Mr.Saini, why don't you just bring them to me during their class training time?"

"Mr.Shui, you know how it is. Only you can take care of them!"

Hmph. You're just frustrated that they're more powerful than you and you can't discipline them properly.

This Indian man was the training class teacher as well as the 11th-grade math teacher.

He was skinny, not too tall or short and wore polo shirts. He also had a mustache. He was a decent person, but he got easily frustrated when people didn't understand his point of view. He explained his jokes. Basically, he failed at trying to humor people and couldn't tell stories.

The group of troublemakers in front of me were exactly the type that made him frustrated. And he had recently found out that I could handle them.

He smiled brightly at me, but when he turned towards the ones behind him, he had a scowl on his face.

Mr.Saini ushered them in and even pulled a particular kid in by grabbing his ear.

The dragging of feet and the complaints of the ear-pulled kid disrupted me completely from my awaited lunch break.

Sigh. Certainly, this job was bad because there were kids like these who tortured counselors mentally.

"Ok."

"Thank you Mr.Shui! Enjoy your lunch!"

...As if I could!!!

From the stash of snacks, drinks, and food in general, I took them out from my cabinets and refrigerator. What needed to be microwaved was microwaved.

I placed them all on one table and motioned to the troublesome students.

"Have at it."

"Thanks!" "Hey, that's mine!" "Hand that over!"

...

And they're supposed to be my age or older...

I ate my lunch quietly, reading through reports sent by my hacker colleagues. The group ate loudly, talked loudly, and did everything loudly. I didn't have many chairs, so some of them were standing and some sat on the table.

After lunch was over, they cleaned up a little, by throwing trash away. Crumbs were still on the floor and table though.

These kids weren't bad kids, they were just... troublesome.

When I first met them, I didn't know why teachers struggled so much on dealing with them.

They seemed like a rambunctious large group of close friends.

Well, as they say, don't judge a book by its cover.