"Very well," Frey relented. "To be able to join the process, you must meet three requirements: an agent must sign you up as his or her recruit, your stabilization rate must be above 20%, and the time it takes you to activate then deactivate your ability must fall within the five-minute mark."
Aria's face fell. She pulled her knees up and buried her head. "I haven't accomplished any of them. I don't think I can make it. I really want to join the Field Division."
Frey sighed. "The recruitment will end on the 19th of May, the training will immediately begin the next day. You still have a month to meet the requirements. You don't have to worry about the sign-up part. I can do that for you."
"Really?" She raised her head and looked at him with hopeful eyes.
"Yes, but only if you meet the last two requirements before the training starts. If not, I'm going to put you in another department."
"Okay, okay." She nodded her head vigorously but abruptly stopped as she was struck by a thought. "Frey, I get that you found us and all that. I'm not being ungrateful or anything...but why are you nice to me? Like when I barfed on your shirt, you didn't even get mad. "
Frey just shrugged his shoulders. A ghost of a smile touched his lips and his eyes crinkled a little. "Maybe I'm just really nice or something. Anyway, I've been informed that you have two days left before you go home. You should-" The sound of a phone ringing interrupted him. He took out his phone from his pocket.
"I need to take this. Excuse me." He raised a hand and left the room.
"I should what?" Aria scratched her head. "Oh well. I'm tired." She pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and closed her eyes.
**********
"Hello, Julian. How are you?" A cheerful female voice greeted him.
Frey cleared his throat. "Hello, Aunt Claire. I'm fine." He replied. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. Kai too. He's doing very well compared to when-"
"Oh, that's good. Really good." Frey interrupted Claire. He leaned sideways on the wall. "What's up?"
"Actually, I called you because he has been bugging me since yesterday about it. I told him to wait until the evening to call you." Frey's face relaxed after hearing about Kai.
"You called last night?"
"No. That was the plan but he fell asleep. So when he woke up this morning, he threw a tantrum. I had to scold him so we only called now." Claire then narrated to Frey how the little kid tirelessly bugged that he got so tired.
"I did not!" A voice of a child was heard on the background.
"Yeah?"
"Here he is." There was a brief silence, then a young voice was heard.
"Hi, Uncle Jules!"
"Hey, kid." The corners of Frey's lips curled until he had on a grin. His face slowly changed from its usual passive expression into an amused one as Kai launched into a narrative of his week. He listened attentively and replied accordingly as the little boy went on and on. Frey even teased him from time to time.
"Uncle Jules, Uncle Jules. Gramma says we have to stop the call because you have to work."
"Okay, kid. Take care."
"You too, Uncle Jules! Buh-bye." The sound of a boy clearing his throat was heard on the phone. "Iloveyou." Kai quickly added, which made Frey chuckle. The little boy was starting to become embarrassed saying it.
"Yeah, love you too," Frey said then he ended the call. He went back into the room and noticed that Aria has already gone to sleep. He looked around the room and found a notepad. He scribbled a note and left it by Aria's bedside. Then he left the room.
**********
Aria's whole body felt sore when she woke up. A quick glance around the room confirmed that her body has used up the excess spiritual energy. She assumed that her ability has gone back to its lowest phase of just seeing people's aura because she can no longer see the traces of aura.
After stretching for a bit then seating herself in a comfortable position, she examined the new shirt she was wearing. Miss Nate or Cassandra must have changed her out of her dirty one while she was sleeping. She glanced at the wall clock in her room. Its hands indicated that it is 4:32 in the morning.
"Oh, I slept through next the day." She sighed then closed her eyes and willed her ability to deactivate.
"It's still about twelve minutes..." Aria's eyes strayed back to the clock the moment she opened them. She then let out a groan as she got up from the bed. Her muscles ached more than when she first exercised a few days ago. When she placed a hand on the bedside table to support herself, she felt a piece of paper. Taking it with her other hand, she noticed handwritten small pointy letters on it. It read:
[Training at 5 AM. Wait at the landing.]
Her eyes widened. "Oh, no." She said as she put the paper down on the bedside table and dashed to grab a change of clothes. She headed towards the bathroom to clean up. She barely had time to brush her hair when the clock struck 5 in the morning.
"Oh, crap," She muttered as she scampered toward the elevator landing. The elevator doors have just opened by the time she got there. Frey stood inside the elevator. He was wearing a navy blue shirt with his jogging pants and under his eyes were dark circles.
"Hey." Frey greeted as he raised a hand to signal her to get in.
"Hey. What happened to you?" Aria asked, seeing his appearance and the gauze stained with a bit of blood wrapped around his right hand.
"I got injured on my assignment last night." He replied as the elevator began moving down. "It's almost healed now. I'm fine." He quickly added. "How are you feeling now?"
"I'm okay, mostly." She stepped back and leaned back on the elevator wall. She observed Frey's profile and noticed him favoring one foot over the other.
"You sprained your left foot?" Aria pointed out.
"Oh, yeah. That's-" Frey looked like he was about to say something else but the elevator dinged and its doors opened. "Let's go."
He limped toward the doors of the Training Room. Aria heard him hiss when he had to step his other foot in order to push the doors properly.
"Here we are," Frey said when he opened the Training Room doors. "You will be doing the usual exercise then we will move on gathering spiritual energy and then, we'll see if we can get to the ability training part."
"So it's warm-up, weights, cardio, gathering spiritual energy, and if I manage not to mess it up, activating and deactivating ability?" Aria counted each task and with each mention, her face got grimmer.
"What's with the long face?"
Aria slightly shook her head and began warming up. She diligently did her exercises. By the time she finished her cardio, she was only slightly out of breath.
"I'm done?" She checked the treadmill counter again when it stopped. Her brows furrowed in confusion.
"You're done." Frey walked toward her, the uneven gait caused by the strain on his foot was gone.
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's just your body has gotten stronger due to it being more stable, getting used to your newly activated abilities."
"Oh. So are all the awakened ones stronger than normal humans?"
"Most of you are."
"So I'm, like, a superhuman now?"
"Not really. The you now is on par with Olympic athletes. Maybe in the future, you will be superhuman."
"Okay. Let's do this! I want to be a superhuman ASAP." Aria headed toward the center of the Training Room. She sat, closed her eyes and began concentrating.
Just like the last time, an assortment of color appeared in her mind's eye. She focused on the black and gold energies and pulled them towards her and began absorbing them by pairs. This time, though, Aria did not get carried away by the feeling of absorbing spiritual energies.
She kept absorbing the dark and light energies until she felt a feeling of fullness. When she stopped the process she realized that she missed something.
[Crap! I don't know what to do next.] She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
"You did it this time," Frey said.
"What do I do next?"
"Just do what you did when you deactivated your ability. Will it to activate and when you feel a pull on the spiritual energy on your body, don't fight it. Let go but pay attention to the amount of energy that goes. It will determine the level of your ability."
"So if I release small streams of energy, my ability will be activated in its lowest level?" Aria clarified.
"Yes, and if you use only small amounts, you can use it many more times, but it will be much weaker," Frey told her.
"So it's either strength or the number of times you can use them?"
"You could say that."
Aria closed her eyes and applied Frey's instructions.
[Go!] She repeated this a number times until she felt the pull that Frey talked about. She let the energy in her body trickle out. She opened her eyes and saw Frey's deep red aura.
"Yes!" She quickly stood up and turned to look at the huge clock on the wall. "I did it in about eleven minutes!"
[Let's see what will happen if I continue to increase it.] She turned around with a smirk on her face. As she began increasing the energy flowing out, traces of aura around the Training Room started appearing, faint, at first, then getting more visible.
When she could see them clearly, she stopped increasing the rate she was releasing energy. She looked at the area where the exercise machines are.
"Someone with a dark blue aura used the cycling machine, then the rowing machine and then the bench press." She turned following the trace of dark blue aura around the room. "Then he or she left."
"How did you know the order of the exercise machines the person used?"
"Oh, because of the color! You see, the faintest is the one the cycling machine then I followed it from there."
"That's amazing."
"So what do you think should I do next?"
"You should spend the time to know your ability's strengths and limitations."