“How can there be no contact from them? Don’t all standard missions have a 21 day contact timer? That has been reached and we still haven’t heard a thing, not even their mission?” Sam is yelling into an old phone on a counter.

A couple people stand around watching him, they aren’t shy about their listening in as if this is their only entertainment. Sam is in the administration building right now, he has received a response from someone he has tried to get in touch with.

“Even you can’t get information? I thought you were able to get access to that sort of stuff? Different branches? Fine, I get it. I’ve an idea of what you have to deal with…,” Sam eyes the people around the room and turns around, “what about the house?”

“Fine thanks. I’ll make sure to stop by when I’m done at training. Thanks Uncle.”

Sam places the phone down, a vein protruding on his forehead as he cradles his nose. He takes a deep sigh and then turns to look at the people in the room.

“How long is a standard deployment here?”

“If they don’t decide to keep you for longer, 4 months.”

“Are we unrestricted after that?”

“Well it depends… but if you’re here then probably, no. They’ll tie you down somewhere with 8 months frontline. It’s what happens usually, you could stay here but they extend it to 5 years.”

“Did you do that?”

The soldier shakes their head, “I’m here as part of the overflow due to the coming of age ceremony. There’s another couple of squads due soon too, so you’ll find lots of people from the regional commands here.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, they’re also preparing all the transports so they might be re-activating the ancient arrays. It should assist with everyone that has a still unhatched egg to finally hatch.”

“Thanks for telling me, are you sure you can be telling me this?” Sam asks looking at the administrative staff person at the counter. The two people from before aren’t there right now.

“It’ll all be announced sooner or later, it’s in the guidebook too. I have also seen you around the place, you helped settle the disagreement with The Instructor and Wellis. You did a good job.”

Sam smiles and nods, “Thanks, I’ll be going now.”

“Take care.”

Sam leaves the building and ponders what this means, he decides to look it up in the guidebook as he walks back to the dorm room. The people are making a louder commotion than usual but they leave him alone as he pulls out the book to see some things.

‘I wonder if there’s a glossary… I wonder if there’s something about the ancient array… Ah there it is.’

Sam flips through the book and reads it, 'An ancient array that is only beneficial to people who wish to undertake the process quicker. It was discovered with a large defensive base established shortly after, eventually becoming a major regional defensive outpost. Abandoned...’

Sam doesn’t know what to think about this, there’s nothing about where it’s located or what it actually does. It’s just information about its discovery and some vague descriptions about how it works.

There’s nothing else to go on so he flips back to the glossary for another word, ‘ranker… there it is.’

He flips to that page, ‘Someone who wishes to challenge the rankings list, the hero candidate list as it was once called. The ranking’s list is a list of people from the regions who wish to stand out as humanities frontier defenders.’

Sam continues to read as it gets noisy around him, ‘They will be rewarded for participation in the ranking list and on the frontier. They can even more if they go on to become heroes or adventurers….’

Sam looks away from the guidebook and spots several people surrounding his bed, there’s a few people that he cannot recognise wearing a large gold stripe over their uniform. They all look the same with short cut hair and small noses.

“Are you people lost?” Sam asks the newcomers.

“I invited them in.” the fat person causing Sam issues speaks up, he walks forward larger than before yet he still leans against one of the newcomers in a friendly manner.

“That’s against regulations, but I’m sure you know and don’t care. So… to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Well, my new friends here were talking, and they were saying how they needed some weapons. You see their base camp only had 1 weapon spare to give them. Now my friend here…,” the fat man pats one of the people with a gold stripe, “he was going to spend his precious gold.”

“I see.”

“Now I said that we could give him a weapon from our base. I was certain we had many of them as when I went there I saw so many weapons, just mountains and mountains of weapons…”

“Piles of them, so many weapons”

Some people in the crowd echo those words.

Sam almost cannot help from rolling his eyes. The fat man approaches him closer on the bed.

“Now I went to find out if we had any of my friends' weapons, I was told something that made me look like an idiot. They said, ‘There’s no more of that weapon type”,“ his eyes go bloodshot as they stare down at Sam, ”they said that someone in this dorm took it out. Then I remembered about you having that giant sword in that case.“

“Ah, why didn’t you say that’s what this is about?”

“That means you’ll hand it over, I mean my friend here is a pre-lit 11. He is also a ranker potential. He has a future while you’re stuck here… Hand it over now.”

“Why?”

Sam closes the guidebook and climbs out of climb, the fat man pushes him down on the bed again.

Sam glares at the fat man, “What are you doing?”

“Something that should have happened sometime ago.”

The fat man approaches Sam, his eyes glowing red with, each moment his presence growing larger.

Sam can feel a cold sweat on the back of his neck develop as he stands there.

*BZZZZZZZZZT*

Everyone is distracted for a moment, the fat man snaps out of it and looks around giving Sam a moment to climb out the other side of the bed. He has a clear escape path but he opts to stand there.

Other people move about the dorm as they avoid what’s going on as the tense situation continues.

“The weapon will not leave the storage until it is approved to be taken out during exercises. You can try to break in or take the storage case but that’s a large crime.”

The group of people look on in anger at Sam, he stands there wondering if he should leave the dorm now or taunt them when someone says something that catches everyone’s ear.

“Isn’t the afternoon weapons training?”

“Yeah, I think so. I heard we’re in the large field too.”

“Shit, I’m so tired after last time.”

The group of people smile while Sam frowns, today was meant to be a day to practise mental energies. The fat man is the first one to speak out,

“I cannot wait until later this afternoon, that sword will be ours.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Sam looks at the weapons locker, he actually feels somewhat nervous about this as there are plenty of rules that he isn’t aware about. There’s the possibility that the newcomers might have some extra pull…

He pushes that all out of his mind and makes his way past all the people, they’ll deliver the weapons locker later on while he already has the storage pouch on him with the light sword and two random other weapons.

The people of the dorm mostly leave Sam alone as they make their way to the first field.

An instructor stands out on the field watching everyone.

Nothing of note happens here as they work through the basic exercises, some people have chosen their books and have a different set yet as the basis is all the same, the instructor is able to see through the whole group at once and correct them.

The student soldiers’ do this every day almost, each and every single one of them have developed strength in some way. Some people have even hatched their monster eggs, no one is certain about who it is but they’ll be the first to hit Stage 1.

Sam takes a deep breath as he does his exercises, a much more elaborate manner than most others. His movements are strange yet elegant, it was met with mocking initially but Sam never stopped with it and is continually improving it.

Countless muscle groupings activating themselves with each movement, he isn’t sure which ones are being activated but he’s certain that no one else in the class will be able to do this.

Each person will focus on the muscle groupings that their manual states, there are the general groupings and elemental groupings yet outside those sets, as complicated as they may be.

They are nothing compared to the web that is being woven as Sam’s muscles operate on a minute level, undetectable to anyone except people who have strength.

The instructor in the background looks on at Sam with unblinking eyes, he stands there for several minutes and quietly mumbles to himself before walking away. His assistant comes running up to him.

“Sir? Why are you leaving?”

“I’m not leaving, I’m pacing. I need to think.”

“Sir? Why?”

“In all your teachings, how many muscle groupings do top out at?”

“Sir, that would be 244 groupings, most of them on the arms and upper body. Why sir?”

“One of the students on the field is activating 299 groupings at this very moment, he maxed out at over 800 for a brief moment.”

“What sir? That’s impossible… even the best pre-lit would never reach more than 200 maximum, 300 burst… Even I cannot reach 800, what manual is he learning?”

“I cannot tell, the muscle groups are strange… it’s like they’re not even ml-gates. I recognise some parts from the first stage of some manuals I have browsed.”

“What sort of monster does he have?”

“It hasn’t hatched yet. I do not think he knows what sort of creature it is. Maybe he’s misunderstood something…”

“Aren’t they all input to the database upon admission, sir?”

“Yes unless they have special admission… so I’ll just give some gentle guidance.”

“Sir, good idea. What about weapon’s training? Shall we postpone that?”

“No, we’re being pushed to get everyone proficient asap. Something big is going down.”

“Sir.”

The assistant walks away to do something, while the Instructor walks before everyone and yells out.

“TONAK!”

Sam stops what he’s doing and looks towards the Instructor, the instructor make a gesture for Sam to approach him.

Sam does under the gaze of the class, the fat man is watching especially close as he slows down his exercises.

Sam arrives by the Instructor, they have walked several steps away as to not be within earshot of the others.

“I was watching your moves and noticed that you move rather differently to everyone. Is there a reason for that?”

Sam ponders for a moment, “Nope, I just noticed that all of the basic exercises were about the same so I studied what I could and I’m just going with the flow as I do them all. It’s hard to explain.”

“I see, do you know what sort of manual you’ll end up following then? It’s important that you’re focusing on those first.”

“I haven’t decided, I’m waiting for my monster to hatch. It’s taking its time. I cannot even get an official elemental response from it.”

“Is it dead?”

“No, it’s still taking energy.”

“Weird… Would you like me to recommend you a manual? I have permission to release a second stage manual to you.”

Sam immediately raises an eye brow, he wants to deny this but hears someone walking towards them.

“Sir, I don’t believe that’s fair.”

Sam turns his head and spots the fat man, he’s flanked by the gold wearing gold. The instructor looks at them all with an inquisitive gaze.

“Oh?”

“Yes sir, I believe that you giving that manual to someone like that would breach regulations.”

Sam is about to say that he was going to reject it when the instructor speaks first, “You’re right so what do you propose?”

“I propose a simple contest. Whoever can strike the hardest with the others weapon 3 times wins. It will show who deserves the manual.”

“I like the idea, what do you say Tonak?”

Sam shrugs his shoulders, “If Sir would like to do it…”

“My friends would also like to join in on the contest, obviously not to win the manual.”

The instructor frowns, he looks at the 3 people up and down. Sam looks at them too trying to memorise their uniform, they remain emotionless while their uniforms almost sparkle from all the polished metallic items over it.

“I’m not prepared to replace the target multiple times. You’ll share one between the three of you.”

One of them wants to speak but another elbows him, “Ok” the final one speaks for the three of them.

The assistant comes back from somewhere, they’re holding several pieces of paper, the instructor takes them before speaking.

“You take the class for another round of exercise, I’ll take these gents to the field early. If anyone complains send them to the strength tester, if they’re able to hit pre-lit 8 then they’re welcome to join us.”

The assistant notes everything down before giving a salute and walking away.

“Alright, let’s go.”