"Breathe in. Breathe out. Stretch the Ether. Be gentle. Gently." Sean focused on his Ether. He was slightly pulling it so it would be longer and thinner.
'Good, it didn't snap this time.' He continued to stretch the Ether until it was as long as he were. Pulling the Ether fast would cause it to Snap, which what Sean had a problem with before. During the mission, he started to make elongated Ether, but it was not consistent. They often snapped. Which led Sean to believe he was either pulling too fast or that his lump of Ether was not big enough yet. So he let it be since then except a few tries here and there. Now he felt that it was enough. Even if it wasn't, it had to be enough.
When he was contemplating on how he could beat these Abominations faster, he knew that he had to form his first string. Not only the strings were necessary for emgraving, they were also important for physical reinforcement. Sean could sense that he was nearing the limit of his Red Aptitude body.
One shouldn't mix the two enhancements that the engraving and strings provide. Former gives a sudden increase in prowess while the latter increases the upper limit of what the body is capable of. Without training periodically, that limit is almost never reached.
Sean continued his meditation, only now he was twisting the thread of Ether to make it stronger and turn it into a string. The thread shortened as it twisted, got thicker and more Ether flowed inside. Sean was real close to form his first string! Finally, he had taken the first step to avenge his parents and protect the world. He kept twisting the thread until he had reached the end of it, then he pressured the end of the newly formed string so it wouldn't come loose like it had happened to him before.
"Finally!" Sean shouted without realising the time. It was well into the night and his teammates had already come back from their training to sleep. His shout woke them up.
"Which pig is shouting, people are trying to sleep here!" Jayden too shouted while he was still half asleep.
Sean's face shattered like a porcelain. He may have shouted due to his excitement but was calling him a pig appropriate? He didn't think so, so he cracked his knuckles to properly wake that little twat up.
"Sean? Did you form your first string" Tyson had just saved Jayden from impending doom."That's great, but let's not shout like that. I don't want it to turn into a tradition. First was Latoya and now you too... Snooore" he went back to sleep while spilling the beans.
"Eep!"
The newly awakened Latoya hid under her blanket to hide.
---
Sean stood before the weight cuffs that were at the enterance of the training grounds. Trainees were using these cuffs to train more efficiently. As they got stronger and reach the limits of their aptitudes, the harder it got for them to see improvement. They could always increase the sets they were doing, but for it to be effective it would need much more sets added than two or three. That wasted time, so they used weights instead. Sean too was using weights since he felt that his improvement had slowed down, but it didn't help him much. Now that he had formed his first string, he would see more improvements soon. Sean put on 3kg weights on his arms and legs first, then the vest that weighed 18 kilograms. With a total of 30 kilograms of extra weight, the training today was sure to be hard.
---
Captain Henry was watching the trainees in the control room as always. They were slowly getting used to what Abominations were capable of. Most were done with half of the Abominations already, and the top talents started doing reruns to get better results. Some even tried to beat the Abominations they had just survived for thirty minutes, but not many could beat them. Among the top achievers there was one group that was ahead of others, Group A-2. They had greatly surprised him with their performance in the mission already, and he was looking forward to what they would become.
Half of them had already started doing reruns, and the rest would follow early tomorrow. One could say Tyson was expected to be the first, since he had three of his strings already formed. They were also quite robust. Same with Latoya and Sean; they had the advantage of having formed strings over the most of their peers, so they too naturally would be in the first hundred to finish. Real surprise was the other half of the team. Despite not forming a string, they had closely followed their teammates and were likely to finish in the first hundred. Klein and and Jayden had sharp aim, so they could bypass the ridiculous defenses of the Abominations by aiming weak points and gradually weakening them through blood loss. Samantha on the other hand, had showed the most improvement. She was using the mace and shield together seamlessly, and was becoming a formidable fighter. She no longer hesitated with her attacks, and got better at taking blows with her shield.
"They really just lack some experience and engravings..." Captain Henry sighed. "If they had just higher aptitudes, people like them could've ended things for good."
Talent and aptitude was different things. Having a high aptitude didn't necessarily mean one was talented, but they had a jump start. Even just a Yellow aptitude would reach their body limits faster than a three weeks, form all their six strings in four months, and the cores would cave in again in just a month. Unlike the most of the trainees here, they wouldn't have to wait before they could work on their second evolution too. Only when they had reached third rank, they would have to slow down to increase their aptitude.
Captain Henry knew how long it would take one to raise their aptitude best, as he had done so himself. Starting just a Red aptitude, it took him over 20 years to get where he was now. A 4th Rank Evolutionary. He had taken over from the previous Captain that oversaw the Camp five years ago when he had become a 4th rank Evolutionary, but he still didn't know when his aptitude would improve to Cyan. Maybe he could find something useful in the Reforming Gate. Thinking about it, he was to welcome the support team today.
KNOCK KNOCK
The door to control room knocked, and Captain Henry permitted them inside.
"Sir, members of the support team have arrived."
"Speak of the devil..." Then Captain Henry noticed the troubled expression of the officer. "Is something wrong?"
"That... Only the two of them arrived."
"Is that so? Alright, you can return to your post, I will be dealing with them." Captain Henry ordered. From what he knew, these supporting team were all high profile people, so they were bound to have some mental problems. At least that was Captain Henry's observation throughout of his 46 years of life. After dismissing the trainees, he went to receive them properly. He was sighing along the way, already tired.
---
Today went great for Sean. He had completed rest of the list today, with each taking no longer than six minutes! Some of them was even shorter, just four to five minutes. He was equally mentally tired, though. Fighting over twenty Abominations, with each having distinct powers was draining. His few reruns were not much effective because of this. He slumped down on his bed and stayed like that for a while.
"I will definitely drop below four minutes tomorrow!" His best timing was 4 minutes and 21 seconds, and was against the Precipitous Lynx. He wanted to bring it to 3 minutes 50 seconds. The Lynx didn't have good defenses; the only thing it had was its speed and dexterity. Although Sean couldn't dodge its attacks, he could still block them. He got up after lying down for a while, and went to the training grounds. He would push his body to limits tonight. He would slow down once he got the capsule, and work on his second string. He had some ideas as to how to make it faster, but he didn't have the time to try.
Arriving at the training grounds, he picked the weights again. Unlike last time, he put on 5 kilograms to his arms and legs, while donning a whopping 25 kilograms vest this time. An increase of 15 kilograms in total compared to earlier this morning. He immediately felt how heavy he was. He, a fit and 1,83 meters tall young man, had weighed no more than 81 kilograms normally, but now he weighed 50% more than that.
As always, he started with stretching. Not warming up before an exercise was still a bad habit to have despite the existence of Ether and heightened regeneration. After fifteen minutes of stretching with the weights on, he continued with jogging. Thirty minutes of moderate paced jog was enough to make him drenched already, but he wouldn't settle with just that. He increased his pace for the next fifteen minutes, changing from a jog to a sprint. He stopped after fifteen minutes to rest for five minutes, and then continued with climbing. There were still push-ups, pull-ups, ten-minute plank sets and more...