Sunday, August 12th, 218 UD.
Early afternoon.
The days and months had slowly passed by in Zeta City while they subtly carried out the changes between the two seasons.
With the artificial climates of Olympus Station actively working in-place, each Sector had had their own pre-configured seasons that came and went with precise timing following their programmed schedules.
As an example, for the Northern Sector and all the cities built on its level, the seasons had only ever consisted of one spring and one autumn all year round, without the extreme heat nor cold of summer or winter.
.
.
For the citizens of Zeta City as well, this month of August was pretty much the beginning of another autumn season.
At this time of the month, the winds blowing pass the roads and buildings were just starting to get a little bit cooler and stronger. Creating a refreshing breeze for many of the city's streetwalkers.
But Inside the huge Orthos Gym in the middle of the city, the atmosphere was quite different.
The coldness of the air conditioning clashing against the heat of the people exercising was creating a contrasting and unique feel of its own that surrounded the many rooms within the gym.
Today as well, the place was bustling with activities.
From casual members getting their daily exercise routine, to onlookers trying out their free-trial classes for yoga and other similar types of programs.
Orthos Gym had successfully created their own community within this large downtown area.
.
Inside one of the private sparring rooms.
*tap* *swish* *thump*
Two figures were fighting each other with speed and intensity that left the rest of the trainers watching slack-jawed with fright and envy.
"...It's only been a few months and none of us can spar with them anymore." One of the largely-built trainer spoke with a depressed attitude.
"Well, whaddya expect? They're monsters from the very beginning, and now both of 'em already got their Abilities and started to train in it. None of us normal people can fight with them now." The middle-aged Dylan replied to the first trainer's comment with a tired look.
"Gene Mod man... I should've focused more on Arena and getting a license when I was younger. Those Abilities look so cool!"
"Give it up now lad, people with no platform to compete in Arena ain't eligible to apply for the Arena Athlete License anyway."
"I know... God I should've joined the Arena team in my college years."
"..."
In front of them.
One of the figures, a young woman, was swinging around her bow as a stick to fight against the bare-handed man opposite of her.
Irvine was parrying each and every blows aimed at him with both his arms while trying to find the gap in Medea's defense for him to grapple.
*swish* *tap*
And before long,
'There!'
He finally found his one chance when Medea had unintentionally extended one of her hands too far out.
*grip*
"!"
Not wasting the chance, Irvine quickly snatched and twisted her stretched-out hand by the wrist as he encircled her and repositioned himself to her back. Ultimately putting Medea into an arm and shoulder hold.
Even in that stance, he didn't dare to linger too much before he dragged her whole body towards facing the ground by leveraging his hold on her. But at the end, instead of throwing her down with his hands...
*BOOM*
A sudden invisible force of impact exploded on Medea's back, pushing her downward faster than anything humanly possible!
"Agh...!" *BUMP*
Fortunately, her fall was cushioned properly by the rubbery ground that made up the sparring ring, preventing her from registering any lasting pain on her front side.
Behind her, Irvine's hand that had been sticking Medea's arm to her back had already been opened in the form of a palm with leftover dust and smoke floating in front of it.
This was the ability that Irvine had gotten from his Gene Modification shortly after receiving his license.
The official name of it was [Blast].
In the end, Irvine had decided to choose the same Ability and Gene Mod as his future self. The one that he was most proficient in using since a long time ago.
[Blast] was one of the earliest and oldest type of Gene Modification Ability ever available to mankind.
Similar to its name, its Ability allowed the user to compress and pressurize the air and many other atmospheric particles close to or around the user's body until it was dense enough to create a blast of explosion outward.
Just now, Irvine had utilized the most direct usage of his Gene Mod Ability to blow Medea's body down towards the ground by compressing the air in front of his palm.
.
.
"Good job."
As their last sparring session of the day ended, Irvine offered his hand to pull Medea up from her prone position.
"Ugh... And he's getting better with grappling technique as well..." She reluctantly accepted the gesture and pulled her own body up with the help of his hand,
"Lost again... How are you so good in using your Ability already??" Medea asked exasperatedly afterwards.
Getting a metaphysical ability after a procedure of Gene Mod was like a person being given a new set of limbs.
The new limbs quickly became a part of you, but because it was something that you never had before in your whole life, at first, most people would hardly have any control over it.
That's why after someone had successfully gotten their genes modified, they would be required by the facility to go through a strict rehabilitation program of sort to get their Ability under control at least in their everyday life.
And this process itself could take between 3 days to 2 weeks depending on the effort of the people getting their Gene Mod.
Even after that process, most people could only barely invoke their Abilities consciously and not let them go off beyond their wills.
However, for Irvine...
Needless to say, he was already very comfortable with the [Blast] modification mere moments after the procedure had been completed.
Even his 3 days of stay in the facility after the initial procedure had been nothing more than a formality done because of the laws regarding Gene Modification.
He could still remember his doctor's stupefied reaction after he'd managed to intentionally create a blast of pressurized air through his palm right after the procedure.
'For me, the first few weeks without this Ability right after returning to the past had felt more unnatural instead...' He silently looked at his hand before turning to Medea beside him.
"Maybe [Blast] is just that much more compatible with me." He shrugged.
"Yea right." On her part, Medea was already very used to his non-committal responses to her questions.
Irvine's proficiency had gone way beyond an athlete's normal few months of progress in utilizing one's Ability.
Even for the diligent and gifted Medea, it was only recently that she'd been able to try and use her [Overload] in a sparring environment where every single second was comprised of many exchanges between movements.
Even then, her usages of the Ability had been way too limited and straightforward, only capable of using it whenever she had planned for them in advance.
On the contrary, Irvine's had looked like a player who had gotten his Ability months, if not years in advance.
In just that last sparring, he had managed to imbue his every punch and kick with mini-explosions of air that was always precisely activated at the moment of impact!
Just those moves alone had increased his damage output to more than double of his normal punches, perfectly covering his previous lack in strength with the Ability.
And adding the fact that Irvine could even use his [Blast] on reflex when he was attacked...
"...It's like you don't even go through the adaptation period of your Gene Modification." Medea told him outright.
"Haha... Actually, don't you think this spar is rather unfair to you in the first place? [Overload] is a harder Ability to get used to in combat. Because it's not a direct offensive Ability."
Unlike [Blast] that was already a weapon-like Ability by its definition, The initial Ability of [Overload] simply allowed its users to quicken their heartbeat and thought processes.
At its first level, when [Overload] was activated, its user will suddenly experience a slow-down in time for the world around them.
Of course, this slowed-down world was just their own false perception of time getting distorted because of their steep increase in focus.
That's why even their own bodies also felt similarly slowed-down when they're in this state.
Every Gene Mod Abilities had different levels to indicate the users' proficiencies in utilizing them.
In its first level, [Overload] was only useful to increase a person's time to think on the battlefield.
Rangers would use it to adjust their pinpoint accuracy faster while Solver would use the Ability to think on the puzzle longer when they're entering this focused state.
In a direct combat, a higher proficiency in [Overload] would allow a person to go in and out of the focused state almost on reflex to predict the opponent's movements and plan ahead accordingly.
And finally, at an even higher proficiency, the users could eventually force their bodies to move at heightened speed even during their focused state where the world felt like its slowing down.
When they did this, from a third-person point of view, it was like the user's movements were getting fast-forwarded in real life.
Of course, the trade-off for this was that the users would exhaust their energies quicker and give themselves sorer muscles right after.
The name [Overload] referred to its ability to overload the user's concentration, body, and thought process for a short period of time.
.
Compared to it, [Blast] was far more straightforward in its progression through the proficiency levels.
As the users of [Blast] got more skillful with its usage, they could compress a larger and denser amount of air before setting it loose to create stronger explosions.
On the other hand, they could also choose to improve their control over the directions or the contained radius of an explosion before and after the release.
Or lastly, they could learn to compress the explosions further away from their bodies and maintain the connections to utilize them as mid-range weapon.
Range, power, and control were the 3 completely different directions for [Blast] users development.
.
.
After the spars, both Medea and Irvine washed away their sweats in separate washrooms available in the gym before meeting back up in the lounge.
The two of them had decided to finish a little earlier today because of one reason.
"So it's tomorrow, huh..."
"Yep. Tomorrow indeed."
Tomorrow was the official first day of college life for each of the two of them.
After they had succeeded in becoming Starseeds back in April, waves of invitation letters had come in droves afterwards.
This time, not only were they invited to almost all of the Tier-1 schools in Northern Sector, even some of the top colleges and universities in Central and Southern Sectors had sent them both some invitations.
But unlike Medea who had decided to go to one in Zeta City, the situation had put Irvine in a bit of a dilemma as to how he should choose between the many different colleges.
In the end, as per his original plan, he had decided to spend a full week to tour and explore at least the ones commutable by public transport from his current location.
His trip this time had not only included the three top schools in Zeta City such as Verdant, Ravenville, and Eastern Zeta. But also some of the renowned Tier-1 schools in the neighbouring Epsilon City.
In the end, after a careful look through each of the Arena teams' previous matches and rosters. Irvine too, finally made his decision on the one he'd felt would fit his skillset best.
But funnily enough, even until now, neither Irvine nor Medea had asked each other of their final choice. Even after the both of them had finalized their enrollment procedure for their school.
In Irvine's case, it had everything to do with him not wanting his decision to get influenced by the illusions of shortcuts he could take following the future rising star Medea's footsteps.
.
The official start of the new academic terms of year 218-219 had long been decided to be on the 27th of August.
On that day, all the schools and colleges all over Olympus would all begin their classes at the same time.
However, for college students with an athletic scholarship, their registration would need to start 2 weeks earlier than everybody else to prepare them and the school's team for the following season opener.
the 2 weeks would be considered the orientation period for new members to smoothen their integration with the team's coaches and older students.
The new team's first ever training camp so to speak.
And for Both Irvine and Medea, that day was exactly tomorrow on August the 13th.
To Irvine, it would also be the day to find out if he would become a teammate or enemy of Medea for the next 4 years.
*SIGH*
'I've also chosen to stay in Zeta City in the end, huh...'