Leo Skyfang finally switched to 'Brawler' mode as an intense heat pocket slipped into the cracks between the two walls. It was self-generating as huge volumes of pressure fought back against the invisible force. The wall was being pushed back little by little and despite the intensity of the counter-force, cracks would eventually appear.
Crack(s) within pressure. It kind of sounded like a metaphor yet he saw the fissures. The round man was struggling the more prominent the cracks became.
Sea of fire!
The head instructor instantly recognized that Leo was trying to imitate what his brother did earlier. But, what kind of freak was this?! His brother took decades to master that quasi-technique since it was his only hope in becoming one of the true Elites. This recruit literally mastered it after going through the ordeal once.
Two tiny walls were unable to contain an entire sea as a blazing flame crushed this invisible force. He finally stretched his arms as he looked pensively at the round man. He had underestimated the pressure. It was only when he realized that exponential gain was more powerful compared to linear gain did he think about the sea of fire he had deal with earlier. It had the ability to grow at a ludicrous rate. He was trying to replicate what he thought was the main concept.
The round man was undisturbed by the shocking event.
"The rest gave up seconds after they were suffocated. You actually pushed back and succeeded"
The rest looked at the round man with displeasure on their faces. This person had such a weird ability! Most of their feats, spells, and methods were all short bursts. This pressure ability was a continuous pressure.
"I don't want to challenge fellow WMR Skyfang but this gentleman with the pressure skill. If he can break out of it, I'm not sure why I can't"
It was Jack Bearhug.
It ended up not being Leo who would take challenges but the opponent he had beat who had beaten countless other recruits. The round young man looked at the head instructor who nodded his head in approval.
"Instructor. I wasn't looking at you for approval but to ask if you're really going to let this slide?"
"Huh?"
"I was beaten by WMR Skyfang and now this fellow thinks I'm easy to bully? I refuse"
"Don't misunderstand. I was fully prepared to accept that you were unbeatable but then WMR Skyfang beat you so I don't believe only one person can hold out"
"You just repeated what you said earlier, when I said no. I haven't changed my answer"
"You…"
Bearhug continued to insist but the round man continued to refuse. Eventually, Bearhug confronted Skyfang who was looking forward to further testing. The two looked at each other before Bearhug walked towards him with his hands crossed against his chest.
"You can call me a Walking Fortress"
Leo punched out with intense heat and pressure as a fireball of pure friction roared at Bearhug. It raced through the air and slammed towards the Warrior. It landed and stopped Bearhug, but didn't fully stop the tank. The Warrior finally jabbed out, destroying the fireball.
"Not bad. The Nano-Suit emphasizes the durability of my feat, which is not only a tank but imagine if there were spikes on the tank"
The fireball should've normally exploded upon contact yet it seemed like it was held by something. It was in a state of suspended animation causing its internal structure to not immediately break down.
Upon landing, he remembered seeing some kind of static field. In response, the Nano-Suit seemed to dim a little. It seemed like the Nano-Suit improved the Warrior's underlying feat. So he switched to Sharpshooter mode which caused some discussion in the background.
"Is he an idiot? Sharpshooters are totally useless against Brawlers"
"Did the water cause damage to his brain?"
"I can't ponder what kind of benefit Sharpshooters provide that give them an advantage over Brawlers"
He ignored the conversation and focused on the golden text in front of him. By transforming the bullets with the ice sub-affinity, he could do something similar to suspended animation.
He fired a shot which supposedly did nothing but when the trigger was pressed consecutively, he watched as the shoulder was pulled back.
"What??"
"Did anyone else see that?"
"Jack must have shrugged his shoulders"
"If he did that, why would he stop suddenly?"
"You… you also have access to the ice trait sub-affinity?"
The crowd became silent.
They looked at him like he was a monster, but he wasn't. There were other recruits who had shown off multiple elemental sub-affinities but this was layered on top of everything else. Then people realized the most important question. How did a Brawler use a sub-affinity?
"Instructor, can I also jump into the Yin-Yang Lake?"
"You must be fair and partial"
"Instructor, need to have a clear mind and let the younger generation grow"
During this ruckus, Jonathan was speechless. The Yin-Yang Lake was just to clear your mind. He had only said what he said earlier to temper their spirits, but now everything had spiraled out of his control. Furthermore, the Yin-Yang Lake was incapable of providing such benefits. He didn't even know how Sir Leo did it.
"Enough! This was a raffle and now its over. The Yin-Yang Lake isn't something people can use just because they wish to. Train hard and you'll become very powerful yourself!"
With that, Jonathan left to avoid any more questions. The crowd had no choice but to focus on Leo instead. They began advancing towards him and caught him off guard. To his surprise, the three recruits that caught his eye earlier, as well as the round man, took offense to this and stopped the crowd. The pressure ability could not stop everyone but Bearhug simply walked into the crowd and pushed them away by sheer force. Blueclaw waved her hands and everyone became sluggish. Swiftcrow had an unknown method for disarming everything.
The crowd finally realized how helpless they were and jumped into a discussion.
"These four are absolute powerhouses and that Skyfang fellow could take on two of them"
"It's better to be friends with them"
"We should invite the 5 of them on missions"
"Right. They'll be dangerous and we'll work together as a group. It shouldn't be a problem for them to take on the most dangerous tasks. They can even be rewarded proportionately!"
"You're right. My family told me about the rewards after encouraging me to apply. There are medicines and potions that let you increase the amount of traits you have"
"Really??"
"Yes. Our talent is not fixed but can rise. It's rather expensive though"
"Something to work forwards to!!"
Missions. He had heard of them. The academy was a powerful organization expected to help with defending the country. It's leadership was always monitoring and receiving intelligence about threats to the U.S.A. In order to promote the younger generation, they would accept a variety of tasks from the general populace in exchange for some reward that would go directly to the person who resolved the problem.
The academy wasn't a charity though, and any problems that involved finding a lost item were ignored. Missing persons was a law enforcement issue, but if the person was a high value target, then the academy could step in. Most of the requests that got approved were related to defense missions. Subduing assassins, chasing expensive thieves, etc. Anything that involved assaulting a compound was left to the government.
Finally, there were exotic missions. The poster agreed to pay an astronomical sum to the academy in exchange for help with odd problems. These were usually billionaires or trillionaires hired by the academy to truly test their recruits. This was merely a rumor though and no one would step up and confirm it.
There was one in particular that caught his attention yesterday.
A woman named Julie was having issues with strange creatures commanding bandits to assault their home. They would slash the walls, uproot their garden, toxify their pool, and disrupt all work in the neighborhood.
The creatures would fly in at night, drop the bandits off, then return before dawn and retrieve them. Since law enforcement didn't work at night, they had never been dealt with. They had posted about it on the board for months but no one had responded.
The name Julie was written in a way that he recognized it as his friend since elementary school. They went to different colleges but kept in contact. She probably didn't mention anything to him because he couldn't deal with it then but he could now.
He would head to her home first thing in the morning and find out more about the situation. He could head out now to deal with it since they came at night, but he had to be home before midnight. With that, he bade the group farewell. Unfortunately, he didn't pay good attention to where he was headed and eventually found himself surrounded by a group of gangsters.