The next few days passed uneventfully, which Fen was extremely thankful for. He needed the time to experiment with his abilities and adapt his combat skills to various situations in preparation for the Scenario.
The only thing that he was apprehensive about, besides the upcoming Scenario, was Amelia. Their relationship improved a lot, or so Fen believed, but now she was avoiding making eye contact with him and leaving him confused. Damn, and he was just happy that he was able to make a friend during the Program, and now he had to worry about what went wrong...
She went into this period after he carried her back into the Squad room, but her awkwardness slowly disappeared after a few days passed, so he didn't think too hard about it. It was probably caused from his being half-naked, but what was he supposed to do? Mug someone for their clothes? No one was willing to lend them something to cover himself, so he didn't have a choice... Thankfully, Fen was able to find a new uniform inside his room, so the clothing problem was solved.
It wasn't a massive problem while she was in that phase anyway; the two of them continued to practice together in their Training Hall (with much less explosions) so she wasn't being too shy around him.
The training session with Qin and Gray also came up during this time, slightly delayed because of his recovery period. Fen believed that they performed very well. They corrected his form where they could, and taught him entirely new stances where his knowledge was lacking. Fen was a little frustrated that he couldn't progress any further because of the delay created by his recovery, but the changes his body went through more than made up for it.
Besides his training and practice, Fen also found some time to finally experiment with his body and the changes he went through. He needed to better understand his abilities and how his Vitul nature would affect him; it didn't appear that he needed to drink blood or eat brains to survive, but what if there was some sort of material that his body needed to survive? Finding if there was such a thing was a minor goal of his experiments, the main goal was to become familiar with the changes.
There wasn't a massive transfiguration or transformation with his body, it was more like a comprehensive upgrade to every part of his body, especially his senses. If he was a computer, the change was similar to updating his 'software'. He also gained some new 'hardware'.
Now, he could feel and direct his energy through his body to gain a feeling of his cells, and he could make them more active to increase his healing capabilities, or decreasing their activity to slow his metabolism and lower the amount of energy he needed per day in the case he ever wanted to be lazy (Which wouldn't happen anytime soon).
His entire body felt full of Vital energy, with his cells packed with Mana. The mix of the two energies was creating a nurturing hum the passively strengthened his body over time. Fen suspected this effect was a natural skill or ability for Vituls; Dey had mentioned something like that, his body changing the longer he lived until he became a whole Vitul and not a mix of human.
The greatly appreciated abs were simply an unexpected benefit. In fact, all of his muscles seemed much denser and compact, a result of the Vital energy stimulating his muscle fibers and making them denser as well as increasing their number to give him a ripped look. He gained weight to accompany all these muscle fibers too. He didn't have a scale to be sure, but he was pretty sure that he currently weighed in at about 80 kilograms (180 lbs). Not heavy, but definitely not light but any standards.
But, his daily nutritional intake remained the same, which didn't make any sense from a biological standpoint.
The only thing that increased was the amount of Mana his body dragged in from the environment, but Fen wasn't sure that using magic to increase body mass was possible. Using Vital energy made sense because it could stimulate his organs and biological processes, but magical energy? His body wasn't entirely composed of energy so how could he gain mass from energy? Did energy even have a weight??
He wrote it off as another Vitul thing... so he didn't really gain anything in relation to knowledge.
The extra weight didn't slow him down at all, it instead made him more agile. As Fen continued his physical training, it became much more natural for him to alter his center of gravity, and he could move with more power in his limbs as he used more muscle groups in every movement.
And his eyes changed as well. He had noticed a few times when the others in his Squad called him out for it, but Fen might've gained the ability to see in the dark; they had told him to turn on a light whenever he was working, although it seemed bright as day for him! This could only be seen as a plus.
He could see objects more vividly too, and see them from a further distance. The 'how' for this was beyond his understanding, but he could sense a slight change in his eyes when he focused his senses on that part of his body. The changes were like biological lenses; although humans already had one lenses covering their eyes, Fen could feel more lenses, but they weren't always in use.
They were there in the same position as his original human lenses, but they felt blurry whenever Fen focused his senses on them. The feeling was the same as what his body felt whenever he switched reality, as if that part of his body wasn't actually in the same reality as him.
When he needed them, like when he looked at an object at a far distance or at a really close distance, one or more of these lenses would materialize and aid his eyes in perceiving the object.
And when Fen was in the dark, the lenses would remain inactive, but another part of his eyes would be stimulated, so he could sense all of the light in his environment and use it to see the rest of the room.
Essentially, his body had received so many improvements that he could barely call himself human anymore. Well, Fen had to get used to that fact, that he was no longer a human anymore. Sometimes he wondered if he ever was a human, or if he only became a Vitul when he was exposed to the Void's abundant Mana.
Asking those types of questions wasn't efficient however, so Fen held off putting too much effort into trying to provide answers for himself.
Finally, the time came.
After days of preparation and training, Fen believed that he was ready for the Scenario.
Before he did the final run with the Points Table, he needed to talk with Raisen however. He had been putting it off and delaying, but he needed to tell his instructor about the Mark he received from Dey. Fen had stressed at night, trying to think of a believable lie about the Mark, at one point thinking that blaming it on his Vitul nature would be alright, but Raisen deserved to know the truth. Even if the old Knight was a crazy bastard, Fen owed it to him for all the support he had given him in the Program.
The two of them had built up a foundation of trust between each other; although they couldn't be called friends, Fen trusted Raisen enough to confide in him about Dey and how the strange God kept pulling him into his reality at night.
When Fen entered the Training Hall, the old man was lazily browsing the interface. Seriously, did he not have anything else to do?!
"Oh, you're here again. Did I forget about a Lesson again?" Raisen blinked innocently, while Fen sat down in a chair opposite his instructor.
Before saying anything, the youth took off the top half of his uniform and revealed his bare chest, sparking a comment from the old Knight.
"Woah buddy, we don't have that kind of relationship, so keep the clothes on please!"
Fen shot him a glare before he started to speak.
"Creepy old man... no, this is about this," He said, pointing at the star-shaped Mark on the left side of his chest.
"Well shit, I thought you forgot about promising to explain that thing to me," Raisen said, covering up for the fact that he was the one to forget about the Mark.
"Uhuh. Sure. So, what do you want to know about it?"
Raisen stroked his chin and the few strands of red hair he still had left on his beard, thinking. It wasn't that he didn't have any questions, but more like he had forgotten about them, so he had to focus in order to remember them.
Also, wasn't this a little strange? When Fen had just entered the Program, Raisen was the one in the position to answer all questions, but now there positions were reversed. The old Knight sighed at how quickly time passed.
"...listen, I don't think I want to know where it came from."
"What?!" Fen shot and slammed the desk, confusion written all over his face.
"Everybody's got their secrets?" The old Knight tried to justify his actions.
"That's bullshit!"
"No, what you're saying is bullshit!" Now Raisen too shot up from his chair, his face inches away from Fen's. "I'm trying to let you keep your secret, but you're pressuring me about it?! What kind of shit is that? I'm almost sixty yea-"
Raisen strangled himself before regaining his cool.
"Ahem. Thirty years old. You should give some respect to your seniors, you know."
'This delusional old man...' Fen's eye twitched.
Well, Raisen wasn't his problem, it was the Foundation's. May the Heavens help them. Oh shit, wasn't Heaven bad? Ah, well that's how he was raised, Fen couldn't change the way he spoke without spending lots of effort. Besides, the intent is more important than the words themselves, right?
He put his uniform back on, covering his bare chests and arms before leaving the Training Hall without saying a word to the delusional Knight.
Raisen was speechless as he stared at his back, amazed at how quickly Fen was able to turn himself around without embarrassing himself.
Just as he was about to turn back towards his interface, Fen's face poked into the Training Hall.
"Just to let you know, I'm entering the Scenario today."
And with that, Fen's head went back into the hallway, leaving Raisen alone in the Training Hall once more.
'Did he just say Scenario? Shit... actually, he should be fine. I did everything I could; the rest is up to him.' Raisen thought to himself before fully immersing himself into the wonderfulness of the interface games and entertainment system.
When the old man wasn't looking, a hand with a very rude gesture poked into the room before rapidly disappearing, along with the sound of feet hitting the rocky floor as Fen escaped, not knowing that Raisen didn't notice.
****
"Fuuu."
Fen was alone in the Squad room. Everyone else was either in their personal Training Hall or asleep in their rooms at this time. Knowing this, he thought that this was the ideal time to enter the Scenario after getting everything packed and ready to go.
Currently, his points were down to a miserable 31 points; he was too poor to even afford the cheapest item in the Shop, which was a healing salve that sold for 50 points. If he wanted to obtain more points and gain more power from learning new skills, he needed more points.
That was the reason why Fen was standing alone with a bag packed next to him. Raisen was kind enough to lend him his old backpack, a tight fitting green camouflaged pack small enough to not limit his movements. Consequently, he also couldn't carry many items. Until Fen managed to learn dimensional magic, he'd be stuck with carrying everything he needed. For now it wouldn't be a problem because he didn't need that many items.
Inside the pack were a small amount of food and water, mostly consisting of nutritional bars and water. Although he was only supposed to survive for half an hour, it was better to come prepared than be caught unaware.
Caution towards everything. Fen had adopted that as one of his core principles.
There was also an electric flashlight that his instructor had given to him inside the pack, which came free because the tool became useless with the production of magical lights that were much cheaper and versatile to use. Fen himself didn't need it because of the changes in his eyes, but, once again, better safe than sorry.
Towards the back of the backpack, where it would touch his back, there was a strap that Raisen had attached in order to Fen to carry his Iberian short sword without cumbering himself.
There were a few more miscellaneous items in the pack, but that was it. If the Scenario lasted for a few days than he would've packed more, but the Scenario was listed as thirty minutes, so Fen didn't see the purpose in packing more.
That was everything Fen had done to prepare. He began to perform the final check; his body. He took the time to stretch his limbs, and at the same time sent pulses of Vital energy to different parts of his body, rejuvenating his cells and enabling himself to act in peak performance as soon as he needed.
His eyes changed in color as the different lenses materialized and dematerialized, changing his vision with every new lens. Fen had noticed that his eyes changed with every new lens during his experiments, his eye color staying the same frigid brown but rather the white of his eyes changed.
In dark environments his whites would completely be replaced by complete blackness, he assumed to absorb the most light, and depending on the distance his eyes would become brighter or darker. His pupils would also shrink down to impossible sizes the farther he was looking in order to reduce the amount of light his eyes saw, and therefor increase his ability to see further distances.
The new lens would materialize in the center of his eye right behind his pupil, and along with the reduced or increased amount of light entering his eye, he'd be able to see using his vision in all sorts of environments.
When the final check was done, Fen input his Mark into the interface, and the large screen flashed as massive amounts of data sprawled across the screen for him to look through. After selecting and changing a few parameters, the Scenario Fen wanted popped onto the screen for him to look at.
[Points Table]
[Candidate 178-3001: Fen Altairus]
[Scenario-37a]
[Type: Survival]
[Grade: Erudite]
[Description: Placed in a lively and lush forest, your only goal is to survive within the allotted time; 30 minutes. Failure to do so results in death, both in the scenario and in the Program.]
[Rewarded points: 100 upon completion]
The Scenario was the same as Fen remembered. The youth's eyes slightly wavered as his hand hovered above the [Select] button on the very bottom of the interface.
"..." He hesitated for a few moments before the familiar feeling of rage rushed from his chest.
Snarling, Fen grabbed and pushed his hand onto the surface of the interface, the golden glowing particles feeling solid underneath his strong hands.
With a flash of brilliant light, Fen disappeared from the Squad room, leaving behind a glowing interface that beeped a few times before returning back into the stone of the room that housed it.
In a corner of reality, Deion watched on with interest as Fen shifted between dimensions and space before finally landing in a luscious forest, filled with unknown plants of different colors and sizes.
As Fen focused his senses, he could hear all kinds of animals around him; thankfully, none of them seemed large enough to pose any danger. He knew that size wasn't always proportional with strength however, and so raised his awareness to find a safe place to spend the half hour.
Meanwhile, Deion was asking himself a question as he watched Fen enter the Scenario.
"Did I tell him to mask his Vital energy? Oh shit..."