Aida also came up with a new interesting training for Lucifer while they monitored the surroundings. She provided him with a needle and a thread. His task was to stick the thread through the needle 10,000 times. This was not an easy feat to do even on a normal basis with hands, let alone with his mind. Despite this, Lucifer had no hesitation about the task and immediately went to work.
Staring intently, he made the needle rise and then used his mind to lift the string as well. This was the first part of training, which is learning how to control two items simultaneously. The next part of training would be on precision and sensing, which is the action of actually pushing the thread through the needle.
Aida propped her head up with her elbows as she watched Randy struggle.After a while, she got bored and left him with a tip before leaving to do her own thing. "This task is about sensing and perceiving, not about how good your eyesight is. You may find it easier to do this task with your eyes closed. You need to make your mental senses as well honed as your fingers."
She drew inspiration from the korean drama, Jewel in the Palace. There was a scene in the drama where the protagonist,a young girl in the palace, was being trained and had to put pine nuts onto pine needles [1]. The exercise lasted till the evening and all her classmates also struggled greatly with the exercise. They quickly moved to a place with light to try their best to stick the needle in, but eventually she realized that closing her eyes and doing it with her senses was most effective as her eyes were not always reliable.
Wanting to take a break and relax for the rest of the night, Aida closed her eyes as she leaned against the wall and accessed the system. There, she pulled up her favorite anime and began watching. If only she had a can of cola and some chips, she would be in utter bliss.
She simultaneously pulled out her gacha game to continue playing. 'AH~ this is what life should be,' thought Aida.
Since long ago, she had developed an RPA to automate most of the daily tasks on the game [2]. It was a cheat that could help her do everything. However, it never beat the satisfaction of doing it herself especially after having neglected it for so long, so she was glad to get back onto the game after so long. She originally created the RPA because she used to have to go on extended assassination trips that could last days, weeks or months for the organization where she could not bring anything that could reveal her identity.
As the episode came to an end, she got up to stretch out for a bit. Waving to Lucifer, she decided to take a light jog around the cabin. While doing this, she also scanned the area, manipulating the scan to form different shapes. As she felt no killing intent, she was fairly relaxed.
On her scan, she noticed that there were a few larger dots nearby that seemed to appear and disappear, but none that approached the cabin. Ignoring the dots, she continued to jog and stretch. She had no intention of killing every Reaper and Variant that appeared. It wasn't their fault for becoming what they were. She would only kill them if they chose to directly oppose her or hinder her.
Returning to the cabin, she saw that everyone had woken up and were preparing to leave. Light was making a meal while the others were packing up the items that were useful. They sat down together for the meal.
"Itadakimasu!"
Aida, Ace and Yukio were ecstatic to have edible food again. Ace even had a torrent of tears raining down his face as he ate. During their time at base, Light was not in the best frame of mind and refused to take on the task of cooking. The folks in the kitchen continued to heckle them and monopolize the food, so Aida was forced to "cook" for Yukio, Ace and herself. Every night, they ate all the food without swallowing and then gulped a whole bottle of water to make the food semi-palatable.
Here in this cabin, everyone ate in silence as they were immersed in the joys of their taste buds. Everything felt harmonious once again. At the end, Yukio said in a quiet voice, "Brother, please stay this way forever."
Hearing this, Light patted his head as he solemnly promised to his new family, "Always."
After the meal, Aida helped clean the dishes with Light and they all hopped onto the jeep and headed off. The twins resumed their meditative state as did Light. It seems these past couple weeks have lit a fuse under them, pushing them to continually improve. She saw that Lucifer had sustained his training as well.
Hugging Xiao Ai as she looked out the jeep, she used her scan to check the area constantly. Much like how she instructed Lucifer to push his limits, she also needed to do so with her scan, within boundaries of course since she was still quite injured.
During her casual scan, she noticed that as they travelled along, there appeared to be a sizable white dot that was following them. However, it seemed to keep a measured distance from them but was definitely tracking them. Aida's interest peaked. Pondering a bit, she decided to continue monitoring the situation for a while longer. The person following them didn't appear to want to cause them harm, so there was no need for action just yet.
Leaning back against the seat, she closed her eyes and began inventorying her abilities. It was time to practice what she preached and start honing her own skills to be ready for the upcoming battles.
[1] Jewel in the Palace Episode 4 is where she is required to do this exercise of sticking pine needles onto pine nuts.
[2] RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation and is a way to automate repetitive computer clicks and other actions on a device.