3rd POV
The Next Day -- 5 AM Morning
Hajin was sleeping on the bed in his dorm room. The bed was all messy, it seems that Hajin was a heavy sleeper.
*Beep Beep*
The alarm clock rung as it's timer had reached the final point. Hajin started to slowly crawl on the bed trying to find the alarm clock to turn it off.
"Shut up!" Hajin yelled, still half-asleep. But the alarm clock kept ringing. Hajin kept trying to reach out his hand but couldn't do so. The alarm clock was on the corner of the table, and to set it off, Hajin had to get up, which he didn't want.
Finally, after 5 minutes of continuously hearing the sleep-killing noise, he got up from his bed and turned off the alarm clock.
"Finally, it shut up." Hajin was clearly a heavy sleeper, and it seemed that he was also not fond of waking up this early in the morning. It was all because of that damn deity that kep pestering him to train daily so he can get better at controlling his powers.
He walked towards the bathroom, brushed his teeth and washed his face, then went in for a quick shower and got out a few minutes later. He then changed his clothes and went outside his room.
His destination was the training grounds, where he would train his affinity with the nothingness energy. His sponsor had told him that he could train with the ability to better control it, as for its destructive capacity, he could just use the output limiter like last time, but limit it to only 0.01 percent.
******After 5 minutes of walking, he finally reached the training ground. It was still early in the morning, so not many cadets were there. And since the final exam had finished, many cadets had went to meet their parents or other loved ones since cube had granted them a two week vacation. Others had went out to make some money in the meantime, so only a few cadets were still left in cube.
As he entered the training ground, he looked around to see a few cadets training as usual, although, the numbers were way less due to the above reasons.
Most of the cadets that he saw where well known in cube, the ones that were in the top 100 and training diligently to keep their rank from going down.
The main ones that he recognized were Suho, who was training with the sword as usual, Shin Jonghak, who was in the spear room, and Nayun, who surprisingly, was also training with the sword. It seemed that she had already started training as she lost her bet with Hajin. So, she had to start using the sword unless she wanted to go back on her words, which she didn't. She was just too pridefull.
After several steps of more walking, he also saw Rachel training with her rapier. Although, it seemed that she had increased the difficulty level of the training dummies. It was probably because she thought she wasn't strong enough from her fight with the butterfly monster and the assassins on the island.
'Poor girl... she went through a lot in the past and still had to keep her guard everywhere she went since she has a lot of enemies. She lost many of her loved ones in the Djjin attack and failed to keep the promise she made with herself, to protect her family. Yet there she is, still working hard to improve. Well, not that she has a choice, if she doesn't get stronger, the Djjins will hunt her down as soon as they get the chance.'
'Although, I have no right to say that since I was the one who wrote her background. Although it was indeed changed by the co-author and worsened, that still doesn't change the fact that I'm the one who wrote the base, the co-author just increased the length of the base.
While thinking that, he had unknowingly started staring at Rachel. Rachel, who was training, felt that someone was watching her. She stopped her training and looked around, only to see Hajin looking at her with a distant smile on his face and a loving gaze.
She got a little embarrassed at first but shook her head and started walking towards Hajin.
"Good morning, Hajin." She greeted Hajin while smiling and taking her hand out. It seemed that she was in a good mood, or maybe she was just happy to see him here.
"Ah, good morning to you as well, Rachel." Waking up from his inner thoughts, he returned the smile and shaked her hand.
"It's rare to see you here, did you also decide to start training for the upcoming year?" She asked with a curious face. Hajin rarely went to the training ground previously, and even when he did go, he went at night when the number of cadets there was at the minimum.
"Yeah, I wanted to increase my control over my gift, so I thought it's the best time to train. We have a vacation, and since most of the cadets are away, the training ground is free most of the times."
"Indeed. And I'm assuming it's the power you used to kill the monster on the island... ?"
"Yeah. The power output of that ability is too big, so I need to lessen it so I can also use it on other enemies, after all, I don't want to cause such damage as before, everywhere I go. It's too inconvenient."
"True, and it also attracts a lot of attention, so using it on missions where you're supposed to play hidden is not affective."
"Yeah."
"Oh, and also, Rachel, can we meet after the training somewhere."
"Mm, sure. But is there a specific reason?"
"Yes, If you remember the monster we defeated on the island, I collected all of its drops. But since you also helped me a great deal, I think you should take your share as well."
"No need, really. You were the one who killed it, I just helped from the sides, and besides, I don't think I need anything like monster drops right now. And the only thing that could be helpful would be the golden dust, but you probably also need it, so keep it to yourself."
"Ah no, I don't really need it. And even if I do, I already have enough. I divided it into three parts, and one is enough for me. Even that is for the future, I don't really need it at the time. So at least take one part of it. I'm sure it will help you, it also has special properties that helps one awaken their potential or gift, and from your earlier training, I'm sure you have already reached a wall in your power, so it will be really helpful."
"Besides, side help or not, we did it as a team. Its only fair to share it among ourselves." Hajin said with a smile.
"... Sure, if you put it that way, I can't deny it. Then, thank you as always."
"No need."
Hajin looked around in the training ground, but suddenly, his eyes landed on something interesting. Rachel, who noticed it as well, looked at the same direction. There was a new section in the training ground.
--Duo Training--
From the previous exam, cube had concluded that there were a lot of duos in the cadets that had good teamwork together. They reached this conclusion after watching the recordings on different teams on the island exam several times. So, they thought it would be a good idea to make a training ground specifically for this purpose as well. However, Hajin's thoughts were somewhere else.
'... this was not in the original plot, I'm sure of it. At least not in the early parts, and I don't think I remember writing something like this in the later parts either... did the co-author changed something again. But if he did, I would have received a change notification on my laptop, which I didn't.'
'The only way for that to happen would be if... if 'he' interfered with the plot. He's the only one that can bypass the system made by the co-author. Well, I'll ask him later.'
" Would you like to try it, Hajin?" Rachel asked while looking at the new section, and also glancing to Hajin from the corner of her eyes time from time.
"Hmm? Sure. If you're okay with it, why not?"
"I'm okay, and we already fought together as a team in the exams, so this would be like a quick revision. And I'm also curious to see how well we can do in a team"
"Yeah..."
'I think I'm starting to get his intention of why he made this...'
They started walking towards the new room, after reaching, Hajin first looked at the manual that was posted just above what looked like a character scanning device on the wall besides the enternace.
After looking at it for a while and reading it at a glance, he proceeded with the device and gave it his cadet information like checking his cadet ID and scanning his body.
"Your turn now." He said while looking at Rachel.
Rachel did the same, and a few ten seconds later, she finished giving it the information required. After which the door opened and they both went inside.
Apparently, there are AI sensors installed in the room that detect the cadets' movement and their fighting style, and using different types of data, it calculates and gives the cadets the result, which is the their affinity towards each other and rates their teamwork from 0 to 100%.
The highest recorded rating was apparently of a duo of two mid-ranking cadets, with the rating of 69%. The highest rating of a due of cadets in the top 100 was 34%. It was mostly because the top ranking cadets had their own fighting style unique to themselves or their families, and unlike the other cadets who fought while following the style of some famous hero or someone else, they honed their skills in their own style.
Because of this, the styles of all the top ranking cadets were so different from each other that the chances of them working good as a team were low. It was rare for someone's fighting style to be a good combination with someone else because of this reason as well.
This was also why, in most of the team exams and battles in cube, the administration limited the teaming of cadets to certain ranks, and so, two top ranking cadets of nearly the same digit rank were not allowed in the same team, as it would not only break the power balance but decrease their effeciency in teamwork as well, holding the cadets' full potential as a result.
Inside, there was another rest area with a few benches and food machines, it was like a circular hallway. There were four rooms in the centre, so, a total of eight cadets or four duos could practice at the same time.
Both of them further proceeded their way towards one of the rooms. Just besides the final enternace to one of the rooms, there was another check point installed. Upon getting closer, they found out that this was to select the difficulty level of their training.
After all, the team would be fighting against various types of dummies, some were flying ones, some were ground attackers or defenders. There were also archer dummies, battle field controller dummies that manipulated the environment to the opponent's disadvantage and more.
Thus, a cadet had to specify the difficulty level according to their ability so they won't over-do themselves or take some serious injuries. After all, even if it was training, since the cadets themsleves were responsible for selecting the difficulty, they were also responsible for any injuries that occured to them, they couldn't blame cube for it since they were the ones who chose it.
There were five difficulty levels:
-Low
-Intermediate
-Hard
-Master
-Grandmaster
The first three ones, as in their names, were for cadets. 'Low' was for first-time cadets who never worked with each other before, 'intermediate' for those that had some level of teamwork and knew each other at least on the level of a normal friend. Cadets would fight dummies like low level goblins or mini ground worms. There were also some other flying monsters as well.
'Hard' was for those that had already worked in a team a lot before coming here. They were the ones who understood each other very well. This level of trust and teamwork was mostly found among best friends or people who had known each other for at least a few years. Intermediate to high level goblins, low to mid level hobgoblins, salamanders, forest monsters like bears and boars, mutated octupus etc spawned here.
'Master', as it's name said, was for those duos whos teamwork was so great that they didn't even need to communicate using their mouth, they already knew what their patner would do, what attacks he would perform, his weeknesses, his advantages and disadvantages, everything. These were mostly for twins or best friends who had known each other since childhood.
Master levels could fight low-mid level goblin lords, boss level goblin warriors, mutated boars and bears, mutated flying monsters, adult salamanders and and much more.
However, some of these monsters were extremely dangerous, thus, they weren't something a cadet could really handle. However, the cadets had an advantage, the monsters here were virtual, so, they wouldn't deal any real damage. Of course, self-training dummies could do real damage, but they were not used that much due to this very reason.
It was also because the monsters here moved in a patern processed by AI, so, their moves were predictable by anyone with enough effeciency in RPG games etc. The duo with the highest rating, 69%, lasted only 5 miunte and 34 seconds in this level.
This was also the maximum rank one could acheive with just supported fighting styles. Beyond this, a deep understanding of your teammate on the level of a life patner or a child was required.
Then there was grand-master level, but this level was not really meant for cadets, It was actually there for the teachers and instructors to train in their free time so their bones don't get rusty. Even then, only a few instructors dared to come here. And the ones who came were those who were team patners in their times as heroes. Thus, they had worked with each other in real battles for at least 15 years.
The type of monsters that spawned here were adult sea-serpents, low-level dragons, max level goblin lords, Intermediate-high level boss sand worms and much more. Any more than these and it could only be cleared by a raid team of more than 5, at least if the team didn't have a ranker with them. On this level, the AI didn't give you a rating as you had already reached at least 95%, which was very high even for rankers.
The highest record for grand-master level by a duo was 13 minutes. Apparently the duo was a married couple, their hero ranks were in the 2000s.
There was also an auto option where, if you wanted to test your limits, the difficulty would start at set level but after a specific period of time, the difficulty would increase by one level. It was like those games where you would press Y or N to increase or decrease the difficulty level, but in this case, it was auto.
This was also the best option as it allowed one to test their limit with their patner with the current understanding of each other.
"Which level do you want to select?" Hajin asked while turning his face to look towards Rachel.
"How about trying the auto option? I'm also curious to know our current limit of teamwork."
"Sure, then the starting difficulty?"
"You can select whichever you want, but don't select above hard for the starting point."
"Mm, sure." He said with a smile.
Hajin then chose the normal difficulty and set the difficulty increase timer to every 3 rounds, which was also surprisingly an option in the place of a timer which counted in seconds or minutes, instead, this counted the amount of rounds one had finished.
After that, they went inside the room. The starting landscape was a forest, however, it changed every round.
"I'll go find a high place with a good angle, you go in the open with less trees and rocks." Hajin said while walking another way than Rachel. But before that, he got an idea.
"Oh wait, come here for a second, give me your hand."
Hajin grabbed Rachel's hand and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Suddenly, the hands started glowing with a blue-ish white light which died down in 2 seconds. After the light was gone, they could see purple coloured symbols on the back of their hand. They looked like some runes.
"Just in case we go far from each other, these allow us to commicate with each other and share our thoughts. Its like an evoled version of telepathy."
"..." Rachel kept staring at Hajin with an amused question. These type of things weren't so easy to make, it required years of experience, a lot of time and a high level of concentration even for rune masters. Although from Hajin's words, they looked simple, but in reality, they were very important in a raid or a battle and were very effecient.
But Hajin had made them like it was nothing and as if anyone could do it. Rachel really wanted to ask the question 'how', but she decided to keep quiet remembering that in front of her was the same cadet that caused a large island level destruction with just one attack.
In truth, it was actually quite easy for Hajin too. He just had to focus on his [Stigma] and think of anything he wanted, and [Stigma] would make it happen. However, there was also a limit, which was the amount of mana accumulated in [Stigma] and a big level of understanding of what one wanted as a result.
Fortunately for him however, the first problem was solved by using nothingness energy from [Nihiliy Collapse]. However, this was not possible at first, and wasn't supposed to be possible either. [Stigma] was supposed to be only usable with the mana stored inside it. However, by connecting [Imaginary Space] with [Stigma]'s fourth-dimensional storage, it was possible to confuse and fool the system into thinking that the nothingness energy was actually mana generated by the [Stimga] this way.
This was, obviously, absurd. As Hajin could actually do anything he wanted as long as he had a deep understanding of it. He could even create the highest level artifact as long as he understood its making process, its components. He could also use it to destroy/create anything as long as he understood the cause and effect behind it. It was literally manipulating and control over laws and causality.
He could even potentially change someone's fate, but for that, Hajin had to possess two things, a deep undetstanding of fate and its laws, and an extreme level of control over [Stigma] and [Imaginary Space], while he had neither of these, thus limiting the overpoweredness of these abilites to some extent.
"Well then, let's set a record!" Hajin said with determination.
Unknown to him, on this very day, he would set a world record which would go down in history, naming him the strongest 'cadet', and later in the future, naming themselves the best duo that were meant for each other, tied by destiny itself.
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Word Count : 3227