Inside the training room, Ivan could be seen sitting in a corner of the virtual space. Signs of battles could be seen around him, the walls were littered with cracks and holes and so was the ground.
Blood painted a side of the wall and reached the ground, pieces of rocks could be seen scattered all over the place. On one side was the corpse of the monster that was the boss of this level, one of its three eyes had been damaged and one of its rocky wings was missing.
A red sword could be seen stabbing from the side of its neck which had been the reason for its death. Ivan sat opposite the corpse of the monster and wasn't in that much of a better shape than the monster, the only difference was that he was alive and the monster was dead.
Countless claw marks could be seen all over Ivan's body and the most glaring ones were the three long gashes on his chest through which blood flowed out from, the wounds were so deep that Ivan's lungs and rib bones could be seen.
Cough! Spit!
Ivan coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood, his breathing was getting difficult and he knew that he wouldn't last much longer.
"Damn realistic feeling of the training room, feels like I'm in the real world" Ivan cursed, the amount of pain he was in was truly unimaginable and he felt like crying, the feedback of the training room was just too realistic!
Raising his head to look at the corpse of the monster that had always defeated him for an entire month, Ivan temporarily forgot about the pain as he felt a sense of achievement. He had finally won, he had defeated the monster; although it had been a close one, it was still a win regardless.
[Trainee has cleared level 25 of the training room, proceed to the next level or end here?] A prompt appeared as a systematic voice said to Ivan.
"End here" Ivan replied without hesitation. He was in no condition to fight right now because even a monster from level one might threaten him due to his injuries so it was best to not push himself and suffer unnecessarily pain, he wasn't a masochist!
[Command received, exiting the training now] the prompt changed after Ivan gave his response.
He watched as the corpse of the monster turned into a holographic image and then disappeared. Ivan saw his body doing the same and closed his eyes with a sigh.
When Ivan opened his eyes again, he was back inside the pod in the training room. The pain he felt previously was gone and he wasn't injured.
Of course, everything that happened in the virtual space of the training room ended there and would never cross to the real world.
Ivan calmly came down from the pod and headed for the door, he did not try to go a second time since he had other things to do and because he could not afford entering again with an empty Nexus chamber.
Opening the door of the training room, Ivan met a large crowd of trainees outside; this wasn't a new sight so he simply ignored them and proceeded to leave but he suddenly felt a burning gaze on his back.
Ivan turned and his eyes crossed with Miko's, the girl was glaring at him like he had stolen her boyfriend.
Ivan understood this gaze from Miko, she was reminding him to prepare himself. After all, today was the last day of the third month; his period of grace ended today.
Beside Miko was Sommy who gave Ivan a helpless smile, they had kind of gotten friendlier with each other during the past months and could be regarded as friends to some extent.
Not changing his expression, Ivan turned away and walked out. Ralph and Glen caught up with him before he could reach the lobby, Ivan's face immediately turned into a less colder one when he saw his friends and they began to chat.
It was already getting late and there were no more classes or training for the day, so they headed to the cafeteria to eat. Ignoring the stares of trainees and even officials since they were now used to it, they returned back to the lobby after eating.
"Seriously man, I would have sworn that you were an official Nexulyte of the tower who was here to mess with us if I didn't know you. Just how strong are you?" Glen exclaimed suddenly, causing Ivan to pause briefly before releasing a small smile.
"Stop it, you idiot! Ivan has an SS level talent, it's only natural for him to be so strong after training" Ralph said to Glen who snorted in response.
They chatted for a while more, talking about what had happened during the previous months. Ralph had managed to enter the 8th position but had been stuck there since, the people in the top 10 were the best of all the trainees. Not a single one of them had been defeated despite the many challenges issued by other trainees, they only kept switching positions between themselves.
Glen had managed to enter the top 50 after two months and was currently ranked 45, one had to acknowledge Glen's strength too because holding even the top 100 position wasn't easy when one looked at the list of 800 plus trainees.
Regarding the training room, Ralph had only been able to reach level 5 while Glen was at level 3; this was the normal level for most trainees and only a few had reached level 7 and 8.
Ivan's and Sommy's interaction had also improved and they had become training buddies during morning runs as they would race each other to the finish line, beating everyone except three people.
These three were Miko, Malcolm, and Damian. Not even Sommy who was ranked second and was probably the strongest of the repeaters could compete with these three during the morning runs.
Another interesting thing that had happened during the previous months was Ivan's talent training with Tower Master James; he was now able to proficiently use his talent after what had happened that time in James' office. Ivan discovered that he could wish for any weapon or form of attack as long as he could visualize it, he did not also need to control them to attack! That wasn't all, Ivan had also discovered that he could wish for other things aside from attacks and weapons. Examples were shields or protective barriers, containers, and restriction materials.
Of course, Ivan would not show all his abilities to anyone as he still found it difficult to trust others and made this aspect of his talent hidden. James, being the only one who had seen Ivan's talent in action only knew that Ivan could create attacks; he wasn't aware of the other things that Ivan could do like creating protective objects or blinding equipment.
James had concluded that Ivan's talent was an attacking talent type and Ivan wanted to keep it that way. Ivan was aware that this wasn't all there was to his talent after his dream back when he had fainted but this was all he could do for now.
Another interesting thing that Ivan had learnt was that others would not be able to force him to use his talent, he has to do it willingly.
If someone asks Ivan to create a sword but Ivan did not want to make a sword, he could take out a card and use the card but it won't work no matter how many times Ivan said the words to make a sword (he could still think of a wish but he still kept this a secret)
"But seriously man, why don't you share with us? The people in the top five are all monsters, I doubt I'll be able to reach the 10% AP needed to pass the training. It's already three months and I've barely managed to get 5.65% AP! Now I know why the repeaters are so pissed about you being in first place" Glen lamented suddenly.
Ralph immediately smacked the back of his head.
"What do you mean to share with us? Do you think it's possible to share a Nexus chamber?" Ralph berated.
Glen rubbed the back of his head with a wronged expression but wasn't willing to give up.
"Ivan will be able to start accepting challenges from tomorrow, we can both send challenge invitations to him and he'll lose to us on purpose. Since there's a two days cooldown to every challenge, we can take turns challenging each other" Glen explained.
Ralph looked at him with a look of disbelief, he remembered telling this idiot not to bring up this matter in front of Ivan but the big mouth just won't shut up. Ralph was about to scold Glen when Ivan said.
" That's really doable, let's do that. Your progress will be faster if you use the best Nexus chamber" Ivan said seriously. He didn't feel good with the thought of his two friends becoming repeaters and staying here while he was away.
Ralph looked at him in shock, he thought Ivan would be annoyed and not actually agree to it.
"But what about you? That will affect your progress" Ralph protested. He didn't want to get stronger at the cost of pulling down others.
Ivan only smiled slightly at this.
" You don't have to worry about that, someone will bring me their Nexus chamber tomorrow "
' Besides, I have enough AP to pass the training already' Ivan thought to himself as he made the window of his profile appear in his mind.
NAME: Ivan Von Charles
Talent group: Primal Talent type: Wisher Talent: Wish card
Talent lv: SS AP: 29.05% Rank: TRUE KING.