"Let's see if you are impervious to your own spit!"
Sean charged at the Abomination, and punched it on the head. The Abomination's head swung to the side, but it still stood strong. It tried to bite Sean, but Sean was already far away. Just as it was going to bite again, its head fell down this time, making it bite its own tongue.
WOONG!
'What kind of wailing is that, are you sure you are still a camel?'
Sean had stepped on the Abomination's head, and did a backflip to get away. He couldn't directly come close to the Abomination because of the puddle of acid, so he could only do his strikes by jumping. This decreased a good amount of force from them, so he could only keep hiting it continuously. Although a drop kick could make the Abomination stumble and fall, Sean too would fall to the ground at the same location, meeting the acidic puddle below.
The timer was at 22 minutes, if he could bring it down in the next two to three minutes, he could make it to top 5. So Sean did not spare any moment to catch his breath, and dashed at the Abomination again, again and again.
"Fall down already!"
Sean felt like he became a punch and kick merchant, while fighting this Abomination. It was unavoidable as his weapon was a gauntlet, so he thought he could have one that has its fingers clawed.
He punched the Abomination again, but this time, the Abomination had caught on and matched his punch with a swing of its head. Sean had the less strength in this confrontation, causing him to lose his momentum. His arm was sent backwards and it caused him to flip to his right, with no momentum forward he would either fall directly below, right into the puddle of acid. Sean thought fast, if he didn't do something, his over twenty minutes of efforts would be wasted. With that in mind, Sean followed the motion of his arm. It had both flipped him to the right and swung his upper body backwards, raising his legs to the level of the Abomination's head. He turned, and the moment his feet touched its head, he shot himself forward. He barely landed outside of the puddle, and rolled away.
The Abominaton, however, did not expect a push from the right side of its head when it had clearly hit the human with swinging its head leftward. Push from the Sean caused it to lose its balance, and it fell to its left side.
{SIZZLE!}
WOOONG!
"Huh?"
Sean got up to see the Abomination lie on its side, trying to get up. It was a lost cause. The acid had already started melting the flesh of the Abomination, filling the area with a pungent smell. While trying to stand up, the Abomination also splashed a lot of acid around. A few drops had hit Sean.
"Shit!"
His arm hurt and the place where the acid fell started to melt.
"Shit shit shit!" Sean glanced back at the Camel with hatred. "You #%$&é^! When I get my own capsule I will #&½+! Just you wait! I will wash my face your blood when I woke up!"
"So it took 23 minutes and 34 seconds in the end."
His arm had regenerated as the battle simulation ended, and any signs of tiredness was gone. He was in peak condition physically. He had a little over two hours to grind whatever Abomination he could, to cut his time even shorter.
---
"That last move was nice." Zane, the long, red haired Savant said. "He has good combat aptitude. What do you say, Billy?"
The bald, stout Savant sent a glance to Zane, who he had teased before. Before he could respond, another man spoke first.
"He fights like a mad dog. Good thing that these are bottom of the barrel Abominations, so it works out."
"Come on, Dylan darling~. Don't be so stingy with your compliments~."
"I'm not your darling, Lilith. Go play with someone else."
"Tch, you're such a bore."
The one named Dylan was the leader of the Savant Team, and he was the first person to be added in this team. The rest have been instated after he worked solo for a while.
"Anyway, will they be ready when the Reformation happens?" Dylan asked Captain Henry.
"They will be. As much as possible. We will start with Ether Manipulation right after this, and will end the training after the Reformation with a 'Capture the Flag'."
"There seems to be a significant gap between the average and the top performers in this batch, won't it affect it?" Asked the blue-haired Savant, Amaya. "There are three groups that are ready for fronts already, they would dominate the opponent with both sides having nothing to learn."
Captain Henry grinned at that. They too had thought of this before. "We will change the format. Everyone will participate in a single 'Capture The Flag'"
"And how will you arrange the flags? There are simply too many trainees for a single flag." Billy questioned.
"As you know, we have Barracks arranged from A to Z. Every Barrack has a capacity of 900 trainees and thus, a hundred and fifty groups. The closer they are to A and lower their number, the better their first assessment went. We will include this with how they performed during this training and their first mission, and come up with an almost 5 Barrack's big defence team for the flag."
"I assume they are the top performers." Dylan chimed in.
"Yes. We decided that further polishing these top performers will be more beneficial for this batch, even at the cost of other trainees." Captain Henry explained. "There are more and more Gates forming every year, and Incursions are common events now. Even Reformations are a relatively normal thing to happen now, you should know the best."
"That I agree, they keep sending us everywhere as if we are the only ones. A woman should have time for herself, no?"
"Didn't you literally come from a vacation, Lilith?" Zane called her out.
"That and that is different!"
"Sure sure."
They kept on watching the trainees fight Abominations until it was time to swap.
Sean had fought with other Abominations that he chose to survive for 30 minutes, but to his dismay, he couldn't beat any of them. Before the allocated time was over, he switched to doing reruns of the Abominations he was sure he could improve. In the end, he haf shortened his total time by almost 11 minutes, making him a strong contender for top 5. He wouldn't be the only one who fought those Abominations that were chosen to last for 30 minutes, and definitely not the only one who improved their time. Despite that, he was optimistic. He had saved eight minutes from the Camel, and managed to put the Lynx under four minutes mark. Even if he didn't make it, he would have no regrets as he achieved every goal he had set for himself.
The trainees, after leaving the building where the EVRST capsules were being hold, went to do their physical exercises. Although they had their body on the training, their mind were at somewhere else. They were all waiting for the other half's time to end and for Captain Henry to announce the first 100.
They eagerly and absent mindedly completed their exercises and gathered at the call of Captain Henry. Every eyes was on him at this moment, even the six Savants were ignored.
"I know everyone is eager for the results but before that, I would appreciate if everyone congratulated Tyson Nite for his outstanding performance."
{CLAP CLAP CLAP!}
Everyone clapped Tyson, who had defeated every Abomination in record time. At this sudden attention, he bashfully scratched the back of his head and smiled.
"Now, onto the placements that everyone has been waiting for. I will start to call out names from the hundredth person, the rest can check the placements from their watches, with their times next to the placements. Those who I call out their names, come forward and receive your keys to the capsules." Captain Henry waited for a moment before he announced the first name. He liked a dramatic athmosphere.
"Helen Lipott."
"Lloyd Dungst."
.
.
.
"Yvonne Kwon."
"Larry Fellington."
"Sean McGrath."
"Sherryl Anderson."
"Ren Sandlers."
"Latoya Dobtson."
"And the undisputed first place, Tyson Nite!"
"Both Group A-1 and Group A-2 has all of their members in the first 100, thus they will be given an extra set of Abomination data, up to the Rank 1 Orange Abominations. Before that however, there is something that needs to be adressed; those in top 12 have already formed their strings, be it just yesterday or previous week, so we will be pulling forward Ether Manipulation lessons. You will start next week, you can check the renewed schedule from your watches in your free time. For now, continue with whatever you had next. Those who I have called their names, follow me."