Keynes had no words to describe the madness that was explained to him. He’d had a bad feeling about it the moment Kaito Ren had told him that only the three of them would enter the rifts from now on to increase the intake of the essence.

Somehow, the researchers figured out that having between one and four people inside the rift at the same time yielded 100% essence, while larger groups had a sharp decline in the efficiency ratio. With only three of them, Keynes should be able to gain essence twice as fast.

It also meant twice as much pain.

He was not happy about this to the point where he challenged Kaito Ren. Surprisingly, it was the captain who replied.

“Pain is an excellent teacher.”

“I disagree.”

“It is good then that you have no say in this,” the captain said.

Keynes jerked as if a whip had smacked his body. He ground his teeth, the bile of anger rising in his throat.

Switch…

It was expected and annoying. To hell with them!

A blast from the captain came the next instant. Keynes dropped on his bottom, disoriented. The captain’s spiritual aura was freaking strong. Lord Earl didn’t have half his strength.

Before Keynes could gather himself from the ground, the captain spoke up.

“That’s gonna be the first lesson. You must start fighting your emotional shifts.” How? They are growing in strength. “By doing so, you will train your Will attribute.”

“What? How do you know it will work?” Kaito Ren asked, interested but also distrustful.

The captain glanced at him smugly.

“Didn’t I tell you I am going to train you?”

No?

“No. You haven’t said that. I don’t understand…”

Memories trickled in… “I will train you both. I will show you how you can sense Spirit and more.” The captain had said it to them but Keynes and Kaito Ren remembered it only now. Why?

“What did you do?” Kaito Ren asked. He barely contained his cool. “How did you do it?”

“Talent,” Keynes said from the ground, more to himself than others but their senses were heightened so it didn’t escape them.

The captain shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal, which it was!

“You erased our memories?” Kaito Ren asked.

“And I can do it again if you keep mentioning it. We aren’t here to discuss my Talent but to level up the Kid and train you both.”

Why would the captain want to train them? Keynes didn’t understand it. He wasn’t alone in this. Despite his quiet, composed attitude, Kaito Ren wasn’t a man to back down.

“You need to explain yourself, captain. I won’t subject myself to your training without a clear reason or an order from Lord Earl.”

Keynes had a bit different opinion on that. He needed to get stronger. It didn’t matter who would deliver the training. Besides, having Level 5 train him sounded enticing.

I hope it won’t be so exhausting though.

“It’s very simple. Most people in the world see training like something beneath them. They don’t need to train because they have levels. You two aren’t like them. I have the expertise and you have drive. Simple.”

“What makes you think you’re more qualified than me?” Kaito Ren asked. “Being two levels higher doesn’t make you an expert.”

The captain sat down and leaned his back against a tree. Wargs were suspiciously absent and they had a moment of respite.

“You aren’t wrong, Kaito. The Oriental League teaches well. But they teach only a sliver of what we are.”

“You said you can show me how to train Spirit attribute and said Keynes can train his Will attribute,” Kaito Ren confirmed. “I don’t understand how you know any of that. Or how can you think you can compete with the Oriental League.”

The captain once more shrugged.

“I don’t plan to compete with them. They focus purely on the physical aspect where I know we must train all five main attributes plus the Spirit.”

Keynes groaned internally. Training with Kaito Ren left him perpetually exhausted and that only included ONE attribute. Grinding the rest attributes would make him crawl instead of walking. Unless they had an ace up their sleeve that could take away tiredness.

Kaito Ren wasn’t satisfied with the captain’s reply but the discussion was over. The captain must have heard approaching wargs because he slowly stood up and gestured to Kaito Ren to be quiet.

“The first part of the training is to kill wargs.”

“With what?” Kaito Ren whispered. He was allowed to bring only a single gun.

“Hands.”

Keynes blinked. The captain was actually mad. MAD.

“How can I fight with my hands?”

To that, the captain pulled out his sabre from a sheath and handed it to him.

“Use this.”

“What?” Keynes said a bit too loud, growls replied.

While Kaito Ren had a bewildered look on his face, Captain Ventura seemed unbothered by the situation. In a split second, Keynes made a decision and grabbed the sabre and lifted it in front of him. He didn’t know how to use the sword!

Two wargs appeared between threes and immediately charged Keynes and Kaito Ren ignoring the captain. Damned wargs!

Keynes’s swordsmanship could be described as non-existent. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that he reacted on instinct. The sabre travelled down in an arc, cutting into a warg’s head. Or it would cut if he was stronger. For Level 1 his strength lacked. Even murderous training with Kaito Ren was slow to change that state.

The warg howled in pain and howls from afar responded.

“You must one-shot them,” the captain said from nearby. “If you let them call each other, you will have an entire pack after you. Can you handle a pack all at once?”

What?!

Keynes had no time to digest the captain’s words as the enraged warg came at him again. Adrenaline was so high in him that he barely registered an inflow of essence. He only managed to raise it and drop before he was in the range of the warg’s claws.

Miraculously, the blade hit the same spot on the head, going deeper.

Deep enough to make the warg go still.

The essence hit Keynes then and while he was still in shock, he reacted to it quickly, guiding the essence into channels.

“Focus,” the captain said. “At least five are coming.”

“You can’t be serious,” Keynes muttered. He raised his head, finding more wargs. Once again, no wargs approached the captain. Two went after Keynes and three after the specialist. The only comforting thing about it was that essence from one or two wargs, handled quickly, didn’t hurt.

Fighting two wargs at the same time with a sabre was a bad idea. No doubt about it. He didn’t have time to glance and check on the specialist but could hear the man already engage the monsters. And he fights only with his bare hands.

“I can’t fight them!” Keynes called out to the captain. “If I attack one of them, then the second one will attack me.”

“You either have to be creative or be faster. It’s your choice.”

Like hell it was! If it were his choice he’d stand here with an army in front of him. What was the point of risking life when going slower could get you there anyway?

He asked the captain while he circled the wargs. The blade between him and the monsters.

“I agree.”

“Then why?!”

“Because we ran out of time and must act fast.”

It was the moment the wargs decided to attack. They stood 90 degrees apart in front of Keynes. For basic dwellers of the rift, they weren’t totally dumb.

Driven purely by instinct and fear, Keynes slashed the sabre horizontally, catching one of the wargs in the face but the other one came at him, claws cutting his skin like nothing.

Keynes didn’t register pain right away as adrenaline kept him going but he knew something was terribly wrong and he let panic dictate his moves. He battered the sabre without aiming.

The wounded warg was slower but more enraged. It came at Keynes without hesitation, but luckily for Keynes, he was too slow and the blade was too fast. The slash didn’t kill the monster because it was like using a spoon to chop cooked vegetables. It could be done but it wasn’t the most effective way. Keynes skill was abysmal.

The second warg pounced on him and there wasn’t anything Keynes could do. He reacted on impulse, bringing the sword horizontally, in a poorly executed attempt to stave off the monster.

The warg made the mistake of dismissing the danger as it plummeted toward Keynes. It was a matter of luck that the sabre had the right angle and the warg simply impaled itself.

Keynes sighed as the essence entered his body. He was so tired he didn’t try to direct it.

“You haven’t killed the other one,” the captain reminded him. What?

Forgetting about the sabre, Keynes turned to the wounded warg. Without the sword in Keynes’s grip, the beast didn’t fear him anymore. It pounced on him immediately, although its wobbly legs didn’t do a good job, giving Keynes a second chance at finishing this.

He didn’t try to pull the sword from the dead warg, either by sheer chance or genius, and instead grabbed an inch-thick branch. Then it all came down to savage beating. To be honest, after the first two or three hits, the essence rushed into Keynes but he just didn’t care.

Captain Ventura didn’t bother stopping him. Soon Keynes collapsed as his stamina ran out. His body was hit by the pain as his wounds reminded him about themselves.

“We have approximately ten minutes before more wargs will find their way here,” Captain Ventura said. “Rest.”

“Rest?” Kaito Ren asked. “He needs medical attention.”

Keynes needed a bed and a long sleep. He was beyond exhausted. If more wargs appeared right now he would gladly accept his demise. He filtered their conversation out and let nature do the talking. There was a light wind in the rift, its cool touch soothed Keynes’s sore body. And then Keynes’s mind drifted away.

He was yanked out of delightful blackness into the world of pain.

“Whaaat?” he groaned.

“Did you just fall asleep inside a rift?”

“He needs more rest,” Kaito Ren defended him.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He has no stamina left.”

“Then he must run on Will.”

This made Kaito Ren pause, and even Keynes cracked his eye open. What did he mean by that?

“Explain,” Kaito Ren said.

“What is there to explain? If you’re out of gas, you move your body by your Will and when you have a decent Spirit attribute, it will also help.”

Keynes already hated this avenue of training his Will but to hell with this, he wished, no, he had to get stronger. If he started to cut corners he’d not catch up with the likes of Captain Ventura, not to mention President Freeman. Besides, wasn’t Keynes’s Will already pushed hard by Lord Earl?

Even so, dragging his sorry ass from the ground was like running against a river’s current. Using his will felt physical.

Very physical.

But he did what he had to and when he finally got to his feet, he knew he could do it.

“Now take the sabre and keep it off the ground. Every touch means one hour less of sleep.”

WHAT?!

“I won’t be able to fight,” Keynes said slowly, focusing on staying on his feet. His tank was empty, his body screamed in agony and his consciousness tethered on the verge. A simple act of speaking became very difficult and the insane captain wanted what, for Keynes to still fight?

“You don’t need to fight. Kaito will take care of wargs. But remember the sword. It must not touch the ground.”

Keynes didn’t reply or even nod. He just knew it wouldn’t end well.

“You want me to handle all the wargs alone? Are you insane?”

If they continued moving quietly, Kaito Ren had a chance to eliminate wargs as they’d done so far. The only problem was the stinking heavy sabre. How was he supposed to carry it? By using my Will, he reminded himself. Force yourself to do it just like you are doing it now.

And so he did. With slow steps, Keynes approached the sword, then started a gut-wrenching process of pulling it. It took more time than Keynes expected and even Kaito Ren began growing restless. There was nothing Keynes could do about this. He was already pushing himself beyond his limits. Each motion was like a string pulled by his Will.

Eventually, they started moving and from there, things went downhill. Wargs came in larger groups and the specialist was forced into defence. He wasn’t killing the monsters quick enough and it was a matter of time before he would be overwhelmed. As for Keynes, well, he failed to keep the sabre off the ground twice and it earned him two hours less of sleep.

It got him so frustrated that his Will winked out and he dropped to his knees, completely drained. No matter how hard he pushed and pulled his body, either by Will or something else, it didn’t budge.

In the end, the captain was forced to step in and assist Kaito Ren in the extermination of the monsters.

They both failed. This was not good enough…

But first was sleep. He couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.

***

“Wake up you slacker.”

Disoriented, Keynes woke up, finding the same cloudy sky above his head. It was kind of nice to be outside. Even if it was a rift. It looked so real that to his brain it didn’t matter what it was.

“How long did I sleep?”

Captain Ventura scratched his chin then he did what he did best, he shrugged.

“I guess, an hour or two.”

“An hour? Inside a rift?”

“Yeah, our time here doesn’t affect the recharge time so we should spend more time here. I hate underground bases.”

“Where is Specialist Ren?”

“Chopping down trees.”

“With what… oh.” The sabre was gone. This was cruel.

“Why?”

“Training, of course. Now that you rested enough, take this.” The captain threw a claw to Keynes. “And try to sense its spiritual energy. Once you do, even the thinnest thread, keep following it until your grip on this energy becomes stronger.”

They spent another few hours in the rift. When they emerged, the medical staff was already waiting for them but Captain Ventura told them to not bother. He didn’t want their stamina replenished. That was the secret as he explained only to Kaito Ren and Keynes. Keeping the body in a state of complete exhaustion would help to pull at other resources normally untouched. Like Will attribute.

Keynes didn’t think he liked this method even if it worked. A person couldn’t function like this for long and he didn’t mean physical, but a mental state.

And this was where the captain’s information was the scarcest. Mind attribute was a tricky one according to him. The issue was more complex than Keynes initially expected. He asked if brain and IQ games wouldn’t be enough but the captain shook his head. To train Mind attribute one needed to go beyond simple intelligence training.

The next day didn’t start with a morning visit of Kaito Ren. Both of them were meant to train their Perception attribute, which was well-understood but crazy hard to train.

Two things could be said about it. It was bizarre and boring. Keynes needed to pay attention to changes in his surrounding, which included temperature, smell, motion and so on. Boring.

When the time for another rift excursion neared, Keynes felt more rested than he should and he wondered why the captain allowed him to recover so much stamina. To prepare him for the worst day of his life of course.

***

“What do you mean I can’t defend myself?” Keynes asked when they were halfway through the rift. He managed to kill several wargs with a single hit. Quite an achievement, until another crazy idea popped up in the captain’s head. He wanted Keynes to run between wargs while the specialist was killing them.

“I understand the idea behind this,” Kaito Ren muttered to himself. “But it is so reckless and dangerous that drawbacks heavily outweigh potential benefits.”

“You will thank me later,” the captain replied in a jovial tone. “But now you two should focus, the day has only started.”

An hour later Kaito Ren looked rough. His body took quite a lot of damage and the insane captain refused to call in the medics.

“Nothing boosts natural regeneration better than practice.”

Keynes lifted a finger as he couldn’t move any other part of his body. Running between wargs… to come up with such an idea one needed to be special and not in a good way.

“I don’t think this is working, captain.”

Captain Ventura only smiled.

That day they emerged from the rift barely twenty minutes before the recharge time was complete. Lord Earl and Willow Croft waited for them.

“Why do you spend so much time inside?”

“It’s an autumn forest, it’s a pleasant place to stay.”

Keynes stifled an urge to laugh. Both, him and Kaito Ren, looked like shit. Their clothes were torn, their bodies battered and exhausted. Even the specialist had found his limits. When the captain had told him to chop the trees, he quickly learned that Level 1 wood was much harder than ordinary wood. He only managed to chop ten trees before his stamina ran out and he had to use his Will.

“Judging by your appearance,” Lord Earl began then realized that the captain looked pristine. Of course, he rarely lifted a finger. “Do you make Specialist Ren fight alone?”

“No.”

“Specialist?” Lord Earl didn’t trust the captain.

Kaito Ren took a second and in that short time, Keynes thought he would actually go against the captain. The specialist didn’t like the captain’s training method, which he voiced often.

“I do not fight alone, my Lord.”

Lord Earl gave him a stern look. The man was stiff but knew how to project his power better than the captain who, Keynes believed, was far stronger.

“Good. From today onward, I will have one extra person joining you into the rift. The limit is four so this will not make a difference in the essence distribution.”