"Ugh" I held my head as I start to opening my eyelids, which was very hard, to say the least.
My head was hurting a lot, it was as if two nails being hammered into it. Though, I could still manage the pain, I had suffered worse - like being burned to death.
After trying my best to open my eye, I finally "woke up" - though I didn't wake up fully. "Ugh," I held my head and said, "w-whaa happpeee?". Sadly, I couldn't speak properly, yet. And had a sleepy expression, as my eyelids weren't fully opened and my face looked as if I had just gotten out of bed.
I looked at the two people in front of me, Rind and Emma. They were looking down on me, as I was still lying down on the white floor.
I then turned my head to its side and found Osiric lying on the ground, as me. He was unconscious, I didn't know why he was unconscious, though.
"Whaa?" I said, very confused.
My brain wasn't working properly, and couldn't process what was happening, truth to be told, I didn't even know where and who I was, I didn't understand anything.
It felt like I could see, but I couldn't see. I couldn't properly figure out what I was thinking about. I knew my name was Tyler, but I didn't know it.
It was a feeling of disconnect. It was a weird feeling, though, it still felt great. It was just like the saying, 'Ignorance is bliss'.
To find out more, my body then tried to stand up. I didn't want to lie down on the ground doing nothing, after all.
I then put energy on my feet, preparing to stand up.
"Huuuh?" I was then launched high up to the sky, I think I also saw the surprised face of Emma, though, Rind still had his arrogant expression.
Due to me lacking proper brain functions, I didn't realize that I was hundreds of meters above the ground. I still had a sleepy expression on my face, something which I still hadn't realized.
After reaching about 400m in the sky, I started falling down. I only thought, 'Woah, I am falling down.' with the most monotone tone I could possibly make.
While I was falling, something clicked in my mind. My eyes widened as I shouted, "What the hell happened!?"
I was very surprised to find myself falling to the ground from an altitude this high - I wasn't scared since this fall wouldn't even scratch me. I could fall from a height of 10,000km and not give a damn, since, resistance skills were very unfair towards things that didn't involve the flow.
I looked down, I could easily make out Rind, Emma, and Osiric- who was unconscious, somehow.
Due to how my mind worked, I could process many things very quickly - effectively slowing down time for me, though it wasn't that much. Because of that, my reaction speed was way faster than my movement speed, I could easily see Osiric's burst of mach 50.
'Let's see... What happened to me?' I then quickly tried to remember what had happened. 'Oh... I see...' It seems to be like I was knocked out, and when I had woken up, my mind wasn't in its right condition.
'So... I failed... Sigh, that's a bummer.' I didn't mind failing it, but still, I felt that I could've done it.
Well, I didn't dwell on the topic for a long time. I then focused towards the figures below me.
Seeing Osiric unconscious just showed us how "weak" he was. He had the lowest resistance stat in our party, well, to be fair, he had the lowest stats in our party. It didn't affect that much in combat, but in this kinds of things, it sure did - and it did a lot.
I then tried moving my body, since, I was lying down - somehow on the air - and I wanted to land faster.
But moving my body made me be aware of another fact; I had muscle cramps - a lot of them, at that. It was really hard to move my body. It was as if my body was subjected to a year of continuous physical labor without any breaks in between.
But, it wasn't that hard. With a little bit of flow and some stretching mid-air - which made some very audible cracks - I was back at peak condition. My magic had gotten much stronger due to the class up, and the specialized skills.
'Hearing cracks after this much time is truly surprising.' I hadn't heard a cracking sound come from my body after the first three days - broken bones were exceptions. Since, Emma had healed all of them, 'Well there is no use to be surprised with it, it was just due to Emma being a healer - a strong one at that.'
With some clever usage of my all of my magic - yes, I used fire, water, wind, and earth. I exploded towards the surface, or the floor I didn't quite understand it.
I reached Mach 40. It was due to my precision with the flow increasing - it was a testament to how much I had used it for the last few days in the gauntlet, and, mostly me having to survive inside a star's core.
I landed on the ground within a second - more accurately 0.02 seconds ; but, due to a sudden burst of speed, and me still getting not being fully aware, I suffered a concussion and felt nauseous. It wasn't the first time I had suffered it, it was pretty common, actually.
Osiric had said that it showed just how stupidly fast my growth rate was. Due to that I couldn't use my flow properly, I was still very precise with it - way more than an average person on the same level of raw power, but if I was distracted even a little I would lose most of that precision - and it was very hard to not get distracted in a battle.
"Ugh." I groaned. Emma then healed me, I was about to thank her for it, but before I could:
"Kid, you should already be aware of it, but you failed." Rind stated my failure.
I nodded, I was very aware of my failure. After all, if I hadn't failed, I wouldn't have been so high up in the sky the moment I became, "almost", aware.
"You can retry it again, but we should probably wait for that lad to wake up first." Rind said as he pointed towards Osiric - while his hands were folded together.
I and Emma looked towards Osiric. He was still unconscious.
Seeing him unconscious wasn't a surprising thing, we had seen him near death a lot of times at the first week – it was pretty disturbing, to say the least.
I didn't know about Rind, but I and Emma were looking at Osiric mostly for another reason, rather than just seeing him unconscious; we were looking forward to seeing him getting launched in the air.
It wasn't something good to think about a friend, but still, we really wanted to see him be launched 1 km above in the sky. It would be very comical, to say the least.
I then softly and in a bummed out tone said, "Well, that's a bummer." whilst I looked at Osiric with intent. I was pretty disappointed, I knew I could've done it, but I didn't - but still, I really wanted to see him just get launched to the air, while he isn't aware.
I then turned towards Rind and asked, "Why did I fail?" I felt that I could've done but didn't know why I failed, and the only one who could answer that was Rind – every day, I feel appraisal is the least useless skill in my arsenal - I never use it, since Osiric is a better judge of strength that appraisal, after all, if me and an average person having the same skills and stats were compared, I would be 2x stronger than the said average person.
Rind then answered, "Well, that's because your body isn't at its 100%. It hasn't fully adapted to the level of flow you can control. I know it's strange, but you are growing at an astronomically fast rate. Your skills are very high, your mana is also very high – so it will take your body even longer to adapt. Your body not adapting with the flow also has greatly slowed down your body's growth, so your stats don't truly match up with your body. Thankfully, the flow covers you on that, but without it, you are about 60% weaker."
"Really!!?" I was very surprised. I knew that I grew at a very fast rate, as Emma and Osiric did, as well. And because of that, I had some problems with controlling my mana and the flow. But, I didn't expect to find out that without flow constantly being pumped into my body, I would be 60% weaker.
"Do you know what will happen if I fully adapt?" I asked him. I really wanted to know what would happen if my body was fully adapted, "Well, you will get stronger. Though your raw power won't change; you will be able to use your power much more easily and efficiently. Your control over your body gets much more stronger. All in all, you become more efficient." Rind explained calmly, with an arrogant tone.
I nodded, "So this training is to get my adaptation to 100%?"
Rind smiled broadly and arrogantly as he heard that, "Correct!"