Every day the two Cadets returned to their First Year dorms, but every day they felt a little more out of place. They were still the only ones to have reached the fifty point mark two months after the Fall break when their training with General Tennant began, and they had physically matured well beyond the level of their supposed peers.
Not only that, but their speed, stamina and physical skills were well beyond almost anyone they met in the Dorms, even when they went to the main floor mess hall for dinner.
No longer did they feel threatened by the seniors, though they were still a little bigger than Cadet Max, the progression slowed down so much that very few would reach 150 bonus points before leaving the academy for the University.
Feeling that the difference was getting too small to be normal, Max decided to check his System bonuses for the first time in a while. It had been over two months since the thought even occurred to him after all, being so busy with General Tennant's training, and not expecting much.
The notifications still came in now and then, but always when he was at his busiest, so they were easily forgotten and rendered irrelevant compared to mastering the next technique that the General had set for them.
Shooting while on the move was now a standard part of their training, and the targets only got more and more tricky as the simulations went on. The combination of dodging incoming fire and ground obstacles while trying to hit those targets required every bit of mental fortitude he possessed.
Stuffing lunch into his mouth, Max opened the System interface to see how his stats had come along.
[Compatibility Determined] Rank A
[Primary Attribute] STR 2.5x modifier
[STR] 2+60%
[DEX] 2+16%
[SPD] 2+16%
[Innate Talent] Mind Reading
[Additional Functions Locked]
That partially explained the phenomenon to Max, his bonuses had put his strength over 3 points modified, well beyond what the Beta rank and lower senior students could boast of, starting with a base of only one point to modify.
Even if they too had Strength as their Primary Attribute, they couldn't compare to him physically. Max decided that must be what was causing his sense of disorientation around others, the System had pushed him too far from the human norm.
He briefly wondered if Nico felt the same way, or if her modifiers were too low to have caused that level of difference yet. She had just as much of a total modifier as he did, but it was split between Dexterity and Speed, giving her a good balance, but no truly outstanding stat.
The next break was coming up, which for every Academy Cadet meant crunch time, preparing for their end of Semester exams. General Tennant's class was no different, just smaller than usual.
He gave them a deadline of the next break to learn suitable aim for first years and integrate that knowledge with their handling skills. According to the General, the difficulty level that he had just increased was the bare minimum for Special Forces training standards, and if they couldn't keep up with that they'd be falling behind on their accelerated education schedule.
Making that standard was not going to be an easy task for any Cadet. What the Cadets Max and Nico didn't know was that piloting students in the other elite classes first worked on mastering the point firing technique. The method they were taught was to stop and brace their Mecha for accurate fire, then move on to the next target. The regular classes would start learning that in year 4 instead of 3.
Both Max and Nico had major advantages in this area though. Max had mentally scanned and memorized everything he could about shooting theory, targeting and firing on the move from every teacher he met, including the General. Nico, on the other hand, could use the Innate Talent from her System to directly interface with the targeting system and use it more like an extension of her own body.
General Tennant had been quietly astounded by the skill the students showed from the very first day, but locked away those thoughts using one of his system abilities while teaching so that the mind reading Cadet Max wouldn't pick up on it.
That was also why he kept them exclusively with him, one open minded teacher could give away the entire project and let them know just how unusually advanced they were.
Some civilian experience in simulators was nothing new for elite piloting course Cadets, but these two were not normal. They didn't have the mentality of the usual twelve year old Freshmen Cadets even before the System accelerated their maturation, but now they began their training runs showing matched emotionless faces suitable to seasoned combat veterans or hardcore VR gaming professionals.
Inside the simulation their shots are methodical, well planned, but lacking a bit of muscle memory and intuition only constant combat or physical practice could provide. Much better than any of the other Cadets could boast.
Within the week after he added shooting to their training, they had mastered point shooting to graduating Cadet standards and beyond, like they both had decades of experience and just needed to shake off the rust.
Their rapid progression somewhat reminded both the General and the observing instructors of wounded veterans returning to duty. Their actions gave off the impression that the Cadets knew the skills, they just needed to remind their bodies.
That left General Tennant an entire week to plan their final exams for the semester, and he had a particularly good one in mind. So far the Cadets had only shot at training targets, and faced the fire of mounted turrets. But for the exam, General Tennant intended to use a simulated battle with actual Line Mecha for them to fight.
Not only would it give him more insight into their skills, but also their teamwork and ability to function under pressure. In his mind, it was the perfect plan. To the other instructors who had to approve all final exams to prevent students from flunking out due to faulty examinations, it was a tragedy in the making.
How should they even score that? The Instructor who taught a student was not allowed to grade their final exams, to prevent bias from influencing the results, but the General's proposal was so outlandish they weren't even sure how they should grade his students.
These were students in their first year of Mecha Piloting training, but even if they treated them as Year Three students, who would be in their first year on the simulator this was too much. Should they grade it like an exit exam, where the senior students earned their qualifications on the Line Mecha in preparation to move on from the Academy? That's the difficulty level that the General had proposed.
Even worse, if they could pass that level of an exam, wouldn't it mean that the Academy had been too soft and using inefficient methods all this time, turning out Pilots who were far inferior to their true potential?