"You like him?" Derek asked incredulously, staring at Beth in disbelief. Chris and Beth had been together for a few days now, and they decided it was finally time for her to meet his friends. She'd already met Thad and Penny earlier, so it was just Derek who needed to be introduced.

"Yeah? Is there something wrong with that?" Beth glanced at him, looking a little confused and a little peeved he was questioning her on this.

"Dude, what is up with you? You're the one who told me to ask her out! You helped me plan our first date!" Chris raised an eyebrow at Derek, giving him a weird look.

"That's when I thought she was normal, maybe a little ugly! I didn't realize she was freaking gorgeous!" Derek retorted, before turning back to Beth. "You know you can do better, right?"

Beth looked over at Chris, unable to hold back a smile. "I really don't think I can."

"Whoa, hey, I know I'm great, but I'm actually with Derek on this one. You could probably do better." Chris interjected. "I'm not certain such a person exists, but I'd imagine if there was a version of me that was better at expressing their emotions, had better social awareness, and stuff like that, they'd probably be a better match for you."

"But the fact that you don't have that stuff is why I'm valuable to you. If someone like that existed, I'd just be… arm candy. I don't want to be someone's accessory, I want to be someone's partner." Beth countered.

Chris paused, thinking about it. "Okay, fair. Maybe you couldn't do better."

"Exactly." Beth nodded in satisfaction.

Derek looked between them with a frown. "Fuck it, I give up. You two are weird."

"I think it's cute! It's like Chris finally found his heart!" Penny cooed.

"Nope, I'm with Derek. This is weird." Thad shook his head. "A Chris that has emotions isn't the Chris I know."

"To be fair, the emotions are still fairly muted, and just for Beth. You three get crap." Chris pointed out.

Thad paused. "That actually does make me feel better."

"Okay, okay, enough about us!" Beth rolled her eyes. "I want to know about you guys! How did you and Chris become friends?"

"Well, it was pretty simple for me. I've been Chris's roommate since… well, forever." Thad explained.

"As for me, Chris was the first one who talked to me after my parents died." Penny smiled nostalgically. "I didn't want to talk to anyone, so I went and found the most isolated place I could find to hide out, a little crawl space down in the basement. I was curled up, feeling sad for myself, when all of the sudden this boy crawled in with a big book and a blanket. Of course, since it was Chris, he completely ignored any sign that I didn't want to talk to anyone, said hi, asked what my name was, and when I didn't answer, he just shrugged and went back to what he was doing, curling up with the blanket and the book. I kept making annoyed noises, trying to get him to take the hint, which in Chris's mind, apparently meant he needed to read out loud. Ironically, it worked. I got so distracted by the book and the ridiculousness of this boy, I forgot to be sad. From then on, whenever I got sad, I'd go find Chris and make him read to me, and we've been close ever since."

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Beth cooed.

"She was in my reading spot… I thought she wanted to read." Chris shrugged.

"Yes, well, for me, Chris and I have always attended the same school. Same classes and everything." Derek interjected. "Chris, being Chris, had his usual complete lack of social awareness, and since my Aunt runs the orphanage, we were vaguely familiar with each other, so of course, he decided we were friends. No matter what I did, how I picked on him, hurt him, ditched him, he'd always run up with that stupid grin and say hello whenever he saw me. One day, me and this other kid got into a fight over… Well, it's not important. What is important is that I lost. Badly. All my other friends ditched me, but Chris… he dragged me to the nurse and made sure I was okay. After that, I couldn't push him away anymore. Of course, I did have to teach him that bullying is not how friends interact afterwards, but it was my fault he thought that in the first place, so I can't really complain."

"Wait, you were his bully?!?" Beth asked skeptically.

"I… was a dumb kid. I thought that if I hung around this dorky, awkward orphan, it'd ruin my social life." Derek sighed. "It took things going bad to realize that people who care about things like that aren't worth hanging out with in the first place."

"Plus, he never actually hurt me. He'd just push me and crap, which… didn't really mean much to me." Chris pointed out. "And he's been a great friend since, so no harm done, right?"

Beth looked at him with a frown. "You have a weird way of making friends."

Chris shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a weird guy."

Since they didn't have anything to do in between the end of the Trial and the beginning of boot camp, Beth and Chris spent most of their time together, hanging out, going on dates, and simply enjoying each other's company. Penny, Thad, and Derek would join them every now and then, since Derek was in the same boat and the other two were on break until the next semester began. In particular, Penny and Beth got closer, particularly since Beth had never had another girl she could really connect with. With the upper class culture being so high pressure, along with her training taking all her time, she'd never been able to just relax and make friends with someone. Penny was excited to make a new friend as well, dragging Beth along to join her and her other friends for some of their girls' nights, which allowed Beth to make even more friends. Unfortunately, the inevitable march of time continued on, and their break ended. It was time for the three of them to go to boot camp.

"Where are your bags?" Derek asked as they waited for the lift that would take them to the first level, where the facilities for the three military branches were based.

"All my stuff is in my world, so I don't need bags." Chris replied.

"That is crazy convenient." Derek shook his head.

"Yeah, except the place has no internet, or electricity. Kind of a bummer." Chris sighed. "Still, books, so not that bad."

"Couldn't you just drag an extension cord or something through the portal? Maybe an ethernet cable? That should fix it, right?" Derek offered.

Chris paused. "Huh… Well, now I need to figure out who I'm stealing electricity from."

"Or maybe just wait until you have your own." Derek rolled his eyes.

They took the lift to the first level, finding Beth waiting for them as they arrived. "Hey~" Beth greeted Chris as they arrived, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

"Whoa, hey, keep the PDA at a minimum, please? We don't need you two attracting the ire of every bachelor in sight." Derek grumbled bitterly.

"What's wrong Derek? Are you jealous~?" Beth teased him with a smirk, resting her head on Chris's shoulder.

"I am one of the irate bachelor's, yes." Derek replied, rolling his eyes.

Beth giggled, pushing away from Chris and taking his hand. "Come on, we have to get to the training camp before seven!" She announced, dragging him towards the rail station.

They had to wait again for the railcar to arrive, and Derek noticed Beth didn't have any bags either. "Where are your bags?"

"Oh, I gave them to Chris ages ago." Beth replied.

Derek turned to Chris. "And you couldn't offer to take my bags?"

"To be fair, you aren't my girlfriend. Also, I didn't think about it." Chris shrugged.

"Nyeh~" Beth stuck her tongue out at Derek triumphantly.

"Ugh, you two make me sick." Derek grumbled.

Finally they arrived at the camp, grouping up with the other new recruits as they waited for the induction to begin. After a short wait, a large man stepped forward, clearing his throat. "Listen up!" He yelled, silencing the crowd. "As I call your name, you will enter through the door on my right! You will follow the green line, stopping at each station, before lining up on the red footprints at the end! Fill the front line before moving to the next!" The man explained, before calling out names.

As their names were called, they all entered the camp. The first station was to get their hair cut, everyone, including the girls, getting their hair buzzed short. The next station they had their blood drawn, and a few shots, including a particularly painful one in the back of their neck. The next station took their fingerprints, before they were finally handed their gear and sent to line up. Chris and Beth were called one after the other, so they ended up next to each other in line, but Derek was called separately, placing him in a different group.

Once everyone was done and in line, sergeants approached, taking each line in order to their assigned barracks. Chris and Beth's sergeant was a stern looking woman, only giving them a few brisk words before taking them away. As they entered the barracks, they found themselves in a common room, with two doors on the other wall. "Alright! Women on the left, Men on the right! Find your bunk, stash your shit, and change into your regular uniform! I want you back here in ten minutes!" The sergeant yelled.

Chris headed through the right door with the other guys, finding his bunk, before ignoring the chest at the base, opening a portal, and stashing his gear in the Immortal World, changing into the functional uniform he'd been given. The uniform consisted of a pair of dark brown pants, a black t-shirt, and matching boots, belt, underwear and socks. All the material was sturdy, yet flexible, and surprisingly comfortable. Chris changed quickly, exiting the Immortal World, ignoring the reactions of the other guys and returning to the common room to wait.

Chris was the first to arrive, and the sergeant gave him an appreciative look as he walked in. Chris took a seat at a nearby table to wait, though it didn't take long for the others to begin trickling in, including Beth, who immediately took a seat next to him. Once ten minutes had passed, the sergeant cleared her throat. "Alright, everyone line up! Two rows! Women on my left, men on my right!" The recruits lined up as commanded, forming two lines. A few stragglers entered late, and the sergeant gave them an icy glare. "All of you, twenty pushups!" She ordered the latecomers.

"What? Why?" One of the guys who came in late asked with a frown.

The sergeant's glare became even colder. "You were given ten minutes to put your bunks in order. The rest of the squad managed to accomplish this, yet you failed. Your punishment is to do twenty push-ups. In addition, for questioning your orders, you will do an additional twenty. Understood?" She explained in a clear, sharp tone that sent shivers down the recruits spines.

The recruit who'd argued gulped, before nodding, and all the latecomers started doing their assigned push-ups. The sergeant then began to examine the recruits, finding any flaw in how they wore their uniform or how they were standing and using it as an excuse to give them push-ups. Soon almost every recruit was on the floor, steadily pushing themselves up and down. The only exceptions were Beth and Chris, who had been coached by Beth's father earlier on the Scouts regulations.

The sergeant stopped in front of Chris, looking him up and down with narrowed eyes, before nodding. "Well done, soldier." She moved on to Beth, giving her the same nod of approval. She then stood at the head of the line, waiting for the recruits to finish, occasionally assigning more push-ups to recruits whose push-ups she felt were less than satisfactory. Finally, the recruits were lined up, standing at ease, and the sergeant nodded in satisfaction. "For the next two months, you all will be under my care! During this period, I will break you down and remold you into soldiers who will brave the dangers of the Maze for the betterment of the City! Any weakness, any cowardice, any insubordination will be completely expunged by the end of this training! Am I clear!"

"Yes, ma'am!" The recruits replied loudly.

"Good! Now, let's start with introductions! My name is Alicia Callista, and my ability is ice manipulation! You will call me Sergeant Callista or Ma'am!" Sergeant Callista announced, before turning to Chris. "We'll start with you. State your name and ability!"

"My name is Christopher Vincent and…" Chris paused.

Sergeant Callista frowned. "Is there a problem, soldier?"

"No, just… trying to figure out how to describe my ability. I have a world I can connect to, which allows me to do several things. If I die, I appear in that world, completely healed, anyone else who dies in my world will revive in perfect health, it's crazy large so you can store a lot of things inside… there's more but I don't think it's important at the moment." Chris explained.

Sergeant Callista frowned, looking him over for a moment, before nodding. "I will require a more detailed explanation from you later, but for now that is sufficient. Next!"

The recruits slowly introduced themselves, moving down the line until everyone had given their name and ability. Thankfully, the majority of the recruits' abilities were simple to explain, so the process went quickly. Once they were done, Sergeant Callista led the squad to the field to exercise. The began with a jog around the track, before moving on to jumping jacks, sit ups, push-ups, and other simple exercises. At each point, Sergeant Callista would keep them going until they could perform the exercises perfectly. When they jogged, they were required to jog together, at a set pace. If someone went too fast, or too slow, it'd throw off the formation. Similarly, their other exercises had to be performed in sync as well, in addition to being performed perfectly, adding another level of difficulty.

Once they were finally done, they moved to lunch, where they were given half an hour to eat. After lunch, they moved on to combat training, starting with hand to hand combat, then weapons training. Hand to hand combat was taught by Sergeant Callista, but weapons training needed to be separated by weapon preference. Beth had already chosen to focus on knife wielding, but Chris wasn't sure what he should choose. Since he was support focused, he figured he should choose a long range weapon he could use from the back of the group. This meant he could choose either a bow, a sling, or a gun. A sling required too much personal power, so he quickly rejected that, but he wasn't as certain between the bow and the gun. The gun was more powerful, and easier to use, but it was loud. It wasn't a popular weapon in the Maze due to the fact that it'd attract any creature nearby the moment it was used. The bow was the opposite.

Chris couldn't decide, until he remembered he was support. He didn't need to kill the enemy. What if he focused on supportive arrows? Arrows that could poison the enemy, or paralyze them, or any other function? With his Immortal World, he could store as many as he needed. He could even flex his brain designing his own arrows, which would be pretty fun. He nodded, deciding to train using the bow.

After weapon training, the squad got back together for ability training. Since abilities were unique to each individual, there wasn't any standard way to train them. The recruits needed to find their own way, and the sergeants could only give them advice, guiding them in the right direction. Many of the recruits already had at least a vague idea of how to train their ability, so Chris became Sergeant Callista's main focus.

"Alright, show me what you can do." Sergeant Callista ordered as they began.

"Yes, ma'am." Chris nodded, opening a small portal and pulling out his knife.

"Easy access to stored tools, good sta- wait!" Sergeant Callista's eyes widened as Chris quickly stabbed himself in the head before she could stop him, her eyes widening in shock as he fell to the ground and disappeared. She stared at the pile of clothing, stunned, until a minute later, another portal opened and Chris reemerged, wearing another uniform.

"That's the immortality part." Chris explained casually, picking up his other uniform and knife, tossing them into the Immortal World. "The only other thing I can do out here is open these portals, but I can only have about two meters of portal open at a time." Chris continued, demonstrating for her as he opened two portals, showing one decrease as the other increased. "I can also connect the portals, and leave them open for as long as I like, theoretically. I haven't done it since I haven't seen the need to have a permanent portal as of yet."

Sergeant Callista stared at him blankly for a moment, seemingly trying to process the fact that she just watched someone die and come back to life, before shaking her head. "You- okay, let's start with these portals. What do you mean when you say you can only have two meters at a time?"

"Well… that. The total diameter of my portal can only be two meters. I can have as many as I want as long as their diameters don't add up to more than that." Chris explained.

"I see. And how small can you make your portals?" Sergeant Callista asked.

Chris cocked his head. "I'm not sure, I've never tried." He replied with a shrug, before pointing at a spot, making as small a portal as he could, which… "Huh." Chris frowned as he stared at the spot. He knew he had a portal there, he could sense it, but… he waved his hand through the area. "Well, that is tiny." He muttered. He then had another thought, making another portal that was about the size of a ping pong ball, and waved his hand through that. "Well, that's fun." His hand waved through the portal like it wasn't even there!

"Private Vincent?" Sergeant Callista asked, looking at him weirdly.

"Oh, sorry. Uh, so I can make the portals really, really small… like, I'm not entirely sure it's actually there, except that I know it's there. Also, if something can't actually fit through a portal, it just ignores it, which is kinda neat." Chris explained.

"I see. Now, let me ask, can you control the size of a portal remotely?" Sergeant Callista asked.

Chris frowned. "Yes? But- oh, I get it! I could leave these… place markers around, and just expand them when needed. That's a good idea."

"Yes, but that still doesn't give you something to practice." Sergeant Callista frowned, falling back into thought. "You said this was all you could do out here, right? What about in that world of yours?"

"Right, follow me." Chris waved for her to follow him as he opened a portal. "So, in here, I can control this… substance to make structures, like this little house, entire mountains, swords, anything really. They can't go outside the world though, so it isn't particularly useful. Also, if anyone dies in here, they revive completely healthy, and a little bit stronger, based on how they died. The only other-"

"Wait, hold on. People come back stronger?" Sergeant Callista asked incredulously.

"Yes. I've done some tests with Beth, and it takes some work. The more you… work? No, the more effort- no, that isn't it either. Ah, the more experience you get before you die, the better. A long, exhausting fight will make you stronger than just getting stabbed. It depends on what you do, but as far as I can tell, it's around five times faster than physical training." Chris explained. "I'm pretty sure it collects my experience, even when I'm outside the world, since I'm connected to it, but for others it's just when they're in here."

Sergeant Callista blinked at him a few times, opening and closing her mouth, speechless. "Okay, from now on, all the squad's training happens in here." She finally announced in a firm tone. "But that still doesn't give you anything to do. What else can you do?"

Chris shrugged. "I can attach others to the world, making them immortal as well, but if I do, they have to obey me. I accidentally did it to this goblin, and I've done some tests, and he literally can't disobey me. Not much we can do with that either, though."

Sergeant Callista frowned at him. "Is that all?"

Chris shrugged. "So far. I'm not exactly sure how to figure any of this out, and sometimes things just happen."

Sergeant Callista glared at him for a good moment, before shaking her head. "Alright then, for now… since you can only use your portals out in the real world, focus on those. Test how far away you can be and still open a portal, work on opening them faster, things like that."

Chris nodded in understanding and they exited the Immortal World. Sergeant Callista moved on to work with the other recruits, while Chris did as she said and messed with his portals. He quickly learned that his range was one meter, and his speed was one meter per second. No matter how he worked at it, these measurements remained constant. He frowned as he realized something: all the factors were a meter. Meter radius, meter range, meter speed. It was so regular it was strange. It made him think that there had to be some basis for the measurement, but he could think of what it was. He couldn't imagine it'd have anything to do with him, like his willpower, or it wouldn't be so exact. If that was the case, then it should have something to do with the Immortal World, but what? All it had was space and that weird material.

Pretty soon the time allotted for ability training was over, and Chris still hadn't figured anything out. The squad returned to the cafeteria for dinner, which they were given another half an hour for, before returning to the barracks. They were given a few hours of rest time, which Chris mostly spent talking with Beth, before they were sent to bed for the night, ready to do it all again tomorrow.