Following the end of the morning run, the trainees carried out sets of exercises which included stretches and pushups.
Time went by quickly and it was soon time for breakfast, they all headed to the cafeteria after changing their uniforms into clean ones and washing up. The cafeteria was less populated today compared to yesterday, a lot of unfortunate trainees who had woken up late were still suffering in the field and would be missing breakfast.
After eating, they headed for their various combat classrooms where they once again repeated yesterday's lesson. For another one hour thirty minutes, Ivan received another round of beating from Luke since they had once again paired up with Ivan taking the initiative to look for the red haired boy.
With a bruised face, black eyes, and aching body, Ivan headed for his theory class after the combat class had ended.
"Are you sure you're alright? You don't look fine to me" Ralph asked worriedly while looking at the almost limping Ivan.
"I'm fine," Ivan replied shortly.
"Why do you keep pairing with that bastard? He's hitting you so hard on purpose, do you like getting hit?" Glen questioned while running his chin in thought.
Ivan shot him a glare that shut him up and made the boy look away.
Inside the classroom, the instructor who was in charge of their teaching them about Nexus energy stood in front of the row of trainees.
It was a stout man in black uniform, his big belly appeared to want to burst out from his uniform.
"As I taught yesterday, I assume that some of you must have studied on your own after class so I'd like everyone to show me their profile and see how much progress you made during your self experiment" the man said as his eyes roamed the faces of the trainees before settling on Ivan's.
Of course, the news about Ivan had been a big one and almost everyone with a bit of influence had heard about him including this instructor. He could not help but see what the result of an SS level talent would be.
'Ah, the profile! I completely forgot to check it this morning!' Ivan exclaimed inwardly and focused his mind, the window soon appeared in front of him but he willed it to be invisible so only he could see it.
NAME: Ivan Von Charles
Talent group: Primal Talent type: Wisher Talent: Wish card
Talent lv: SS AP: 0.11% Rank: NULL
Ivan stared at the words displayed on the window with dead fish eyes.
'Noooo! Only 0.11? I didn't even get 1%? Why is it so slow? After my hard work all night, I only made so little progress? wouldn't it take me days to get just 1% at this rate?' Ivan lamented inwardly but managed to prevent it from showing on his face.
He looked around and saw a lot of trainees shifting nervously, they must have made slow progress too. Ivan became a little relieved upon this thought and waited for the instructor to start asking the trainees about their progress.
But before they could start, a person appeared at the door of the classroom. This person turned out to be Miss Elora.
"Excuse, Mr Barnes. The tower master would like to see you" she said to the instructor and immediately turned and left.
The instructor stared at the opened door with a strange expression on his face for a while before turning to look at the trainees.
"Excuse me, I'll be back soon" he said and walked out of the room.
Immediately after going out, the trainees became noisy as they began to talk about their progress.
Turned out that some people had been too tired to try increasing their AP yesterday while some nervously showed their progress. All in all, Ivan discovered that the highest AP among the trainees was 0.05%
And the person with this AP was Ralph!
The rest were lower than 0.05%! This discovery has shocked Ivan who had thought that his 0.11% was a failure, but it turned out that his result was more than twice the others!
'Is it supposed to be this slow?' he wondered.
"Hey, Ivan. What about you? What's your result?" Glen came to Ivan's side and asked excitedly, he had a result of 0.03% but wasn't nervous like the others.
Ivan stared at him for a while before answering, he decided to hide his true result since it might sound like he was bluffing or in case or these people were joking.
"6?" Ivan responded in a doubtful tone.
The entire room immediately became quiet, Ivan discovered that everyone was staring at him with wide eyes.
Crack!!
A loud crashing sound disrupted the silence in the room, they all looked and saw that Luke had destroyed a chair with his fist that was covered in Nexus energy. He slowly turned to Ivan and gazed at him with a menacing look.
"Did you just say you got 6% in one night? Are you asking for a beating?" He mumbled coldly, his voice filled with fighting intent.
Ivan stared at him with confused eyes, he wasn't the least scared even when Luke looked like he was about to punch him to death.
Ivan also saw that Sommy and the other repeaters were also staring at him with unbelievable expressions.
"6%? I don't remember saying so?" Ivan responded calmly.
His response seemed to have angered Luke even more as the Nexus energy around him exploded with force and sent strong gusts of wind blowing everywhere.
"Are you insulting my intelligence? We all heard you saying it loud and clear!" Luke bellowed in anger.
Ivan remained calm despite his outburst, he slowly said.
"What I meant was 0.06, which is a bit higher than Ralph's"
Luke was clearly more provoked upon hearing this and was about to explode in rage, Sommy suddenly appeared behind him and placed a palm on his shoulder.
"Calm down," she then turned to Ivan " and you, be more specific next time" she added with a playful smile on her face.
The other three repeaters also stopped paying attention to Ivan, the other trainees also burst out in laughter when they heard Ivan's explanation.
"Man, you almost gave us all a heart attack just now. Really thought that you were at 6% hahaha" Glen laughed hard while playfully slapping Ivan's shoulder.
Meanwhile, instructor Barnes arrived at the office of the tower master. The large office with a huge glass window that showed the view of the forest behind the field.
"Tower master wanted to see me?" Mr Barnes asked politely as he walked into the office.
James could be seen seated on his chair, he looked quite exhausted.
"Yes, I wanted to see you. It's about Ivan, I believe you are already aware of his situation?" James scanned Barnes with his green eyes to catch his every expression.
"Indeed, I know about him," Barnes responded after a brief pause.
"Good, then that saves time. I want you to avoid revealing his progress to the other trainees, unless he decides to show them on his own accord which I believe he won't do if he's sensible enough" James said.
Barnes stared at the tower master with a neutral expression on his face, he knew about Ivan's talent level and unrecorded ability and was aware of how much chaos it had caused among the many towers and the level of danger Ivan would be in if he went outside but was there a need to hide it inside the tower?
But it wasn't in his place to question the tower master.
"Understood," Barnes said with an affirmative nod.
"That's all, you can leave" James said and waved his hand as he rested his back on his chair.
Barnes turned around and walked toward the door but before he could go through.
"One more thing, the ranking for the trainees…inform the other instructors that I want the kid to be in first place," James said.
Barnes had been maintaining a calm expression since the beginning but he could not stop his eyes from widening in disbelief, he hastily turned around to look at James.
" But tower master, the repeaters will not accept this!" He said, almost shouting.
"I don't care, if they do not accept it, they can simply challenge him for the spot but I won't allow any challenges till the third month" James said calmly, a sly smirk could be seen on his face.
Barnes stared at him wordlessly for a while before sighing.
"If that's the case, I'll do as Tower master says" he added before leaving.
Left alone, James turned around on his chair and gazed down on the forest, his eyes piercing through the trees and landing on the dead tired trainees that were laying at the foot of the mountain.
"I'm definitely not giving special treatment, I'm just showing support" James muttered slyly.
"Show me the strength of an SS level talent kid, don't disappoint me"