Shorter chapters, because they pertain to training. This is only the first half of it, the remaining will probably be finished in the next chapter. Thank you for reading and please enjoy.

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Nighttime Torin Village

“Sir, no sign of life within a kilometer of this village.”

“I see. It seems a huge battle was fought here.” The leader of the small band concluded.

“Sir!” A subordinate called from around the corner of a burnt down house, “I’ve found something odd!”

“What is it?” He said, walking up to the subordinate.

“A faint outline of a foot.”

Arriving by the subordinate’s side, the leader kneeled down and studied the track.

‘Minotaur tracks? If I remember correctly they only live underground and within ruins, rarely seen this far away from the Gorge of Helza…’ The leader began to worry.

“CeeCee, What can you tell me about this track?” He tested the girl beside him.

“Sir, Judging from the size and the depth of the track, it’s either an oversized horse, weighing half a ton or it belongs to the demi-human race.”

“Specifically which one?”

“That of half-ox and half-man, the Minotaur.”

“Good. Is there anything else you can tell just from this track?”

The woman thought for a bit longer before replying.

“Yes, this village is far away from anything that can possibly house a Minotaur. Unless there was a hidden ruin laying within Du Weldenalfa, I suspect this wasn’t the doing of a wandering Minotaur.” Instead of using the local name for Forest of Mist, she had used the official terminology, showing that the band of people weren’t from the Kingdom of Adet.

“Is that all?” The leader asked with a frown.

She struggle for a bit before reluctantly nodding.

“Hmph. For a newbie I guess that’ll do. If it was our great mistress Morrigan, she would’ve been able to discern the age and strength of the demi-human just from this track.” He said haughtily before continuing, “Anyways, are you not intrigued as to how out of place this footprint is?”

Confused, the woman named CeeCee asked, “What do you mean?”

“Why is it that we’ve been here for a good hour and no other footprints of a Minotaur are found aside from this one?” He asked.

She brought her hand up and started nibbling on her nail before a reason popped into her head.

“Ah! The Minotaur wasn’t alone! Someone or some group had tried to obliterate their tracks after destroying this village.”

“Correct!” The leader beamed, “We also know that Minotaur’s are highly hostile towards anyone else but other demi-humans. Judging from the amount of corpse in the area, from both the Eldar and Batin Kingdom, there must be a third party that was in this conflict. Both the kingdoms troops were left here, if either were to win the battle, they would’ve retrieved their dead. So here’s a question, who can possibly control a swath of demi-humans that work well enough together to massacre trained soldiers of two kingdoms?” He tested CeeCee once more, this time showing a curious grin.

“Sir, using all the evidence deducted from the observations, there are no other suspects aside from our empire, the Drakken Empire.” She answered, while showing a face of puzzlement.

“Indeed. Now how is it that we, the Empire’s Shadow Corps. Known as one of the fastest and secretive group within Arcadia, arrived late to the village? If I remember correctly, we were ordered by Mistress Morrigan to travel here as soon as we can and it still took us nearly a month to arrive. Yet, signs of other demi-humans from our same empire has already arrived, just a few days before us?”

“I-I can’t explain.” She drooped her head.

“Simple. Aside from our Emperor, only the four kings have the ability to send a small amount of troops through a portal. Since it takes a large amount of magical energy, possible only a few troops, most likely the royal guards were sent. Now the real question was: Why didn’t the Emperor inform us that he was going to eliminate the village that we were heading to?”

CeeCee was shocked. It’s been half a year since she was recruited into the Shadow Corps and this was her first time ever working within the fields. The man that was constantly deducing everything was the leader of Unit 2, a unit entrusted to Morrigan. Aside from Unit 1, which answers directly to the Emperor, they could be considered as one of the best, if not the best information gatherers within the Empire.

“Something is not right CeeCee. I request emergency contact with the mistress, tell the other’s to immediately set up a transmission spell.”

“Y-y-yes Sir!” She saluted and immediately ran off.

‘I hope it’s not what I think it is…’

---

Meanwhile in Adetia

“Agghh!! Why can’t I, the best of the best find one stupid little boy?!” Morrigan complained while throwing a tantrum silently on top of a bed.

She had spent over a month constantly looking for a black-haired youth within the AA building. In that time, she was constantly harassed and annoyed by the overly-friendly men and women within the great hall. She had tried many times to hide her presence and looks, but was always found out in the end. Now, her stress had built up and she had given up searching for the kid, half thinking if she should return back to the capital.

*Bzzt!*

“Hyaa!” She jumped at the sudden electrical jolt that shot through her body.

‘An emergency transmission?’ She thought after she regained her composure. She muttered an incantation to accept.

“What is it?” She asked coldly, after a blurry figure appeared in front of her.

The man saluted and bowed, “Mistress, we’ve just recently arrived at Torin Village like how you specified.”

“Is that all?” She coldly replied.

“No. The whole village was destroyed. After careful observations, we’ve deduced that it was the doings of the Drakken Empire. Was there something that we weren’t informed about?” The man asked worryingly.

‘How can this be? Why would Kianis send me here only to destroy the village?’ The news didn’t bode well for Morrigan, not only was she not informed of the attack, she had lost track of the man she suspected as the ‘Chosen One’.

“Good work. Please standby for further orders.”

“Thank you Mistress.” The man bowed with an ecstatic face, “We will stay near Torin Village and await further orders.” He saluted and the 3d figure dissipated.

“I have to ask Kianis what this is all about…” She suddenly drew a circle inlaid with strange runes and muttered an incantation, the same one the leader of Unit 2 just used.

Soon a tired image of Emperor Kianis popped up.

“Hah~ What is it Morrigan?” He asked tiredly. He hated dealing with her, because she would always try to tease him.

“Your Highness.” She bowed. All her teasing and jokes were stowed away, revealing only seriousness. “I’ve just received news that Torin Village, the village closest to the phenomenon was attacked by troops of the Empire. Was this your doing?”

“What?!” A look of shock and puzzlement flashed through Kianis’ face before being covered up once more. “No. I have not ordered the attack… This isn’t good… Morrigan.” He looked up at her.

“Yes, your Highness.” She answered, waiting for a command.

“Have Unit 2 and yourself return back to Zhard. I have a feeling something disastrous will happen soon.” Kianis ordered. His mind flashed back to his conversation with Byakko.

Stunned, Morrigan asked, “What about the ‘Chosen One’?”

“Forget about him. If you haven’t found him by now, then he’s either dead or he knows someone is looking for him and went into hiding.”

“Y-yes, your Highness! My unit and I will return to the capital with haste!” She bowed and cut the transmission.

‘This isn’t good!’ She thought as she once more contacted her unit.

---

Within the special room

“Soo…” Hiro began to wonder as he continually ran in a circle, “How do I know when Step 1 is complete?”

He had been running like that for a good couple hours already. Every hour he decided to switch it up and run the other way. Although skeptical about what Step 1 was trying to accomplish, Hiro stuck to it. Since, after all, this was an instruction manual from the head of the AA here within Adetia, it can’t be all that bad.

“Enough!” Hiro shouted after he had gotten bored. He stopped running around in a circle and looking like a fool and sat right down. Opening up to the first step, he beamed down at the stupid instruction.

‘If this is it, I might as well skip the first step!’

He turned the page to look at the backside. On it was the same cartoon Siberus saying, [Haha! Fool! I bet you kept running around in a circle for a good few hours didn’t you?! HAHAHAHA]

Hiro turned bright red from anger and wanted to rip the manual into shreds. However, something kept him from doing that and he looked at Step 2.

[Now the real training begins. If you are reading this, then that means you haven’t ripped the manual, Hooray!]

“Hmph!” Hiro sniffed.

[Step 2 requires you to be able to step on all the dots littered across the floor.]

‘Eh?’ Hiro wondered and looked at the floor. He finally found a reason for the different colored dots that were strewn across the floorboards.

[In order to enter through the door, this step must be completed. First, you have to press the big red button that looks like a doorbell, right next to the door.]

Hiro looked up and saw the button.

[Once pressed, the spots on the floor with light up. Proceed to jump and land on those spots with only one foot, if both feet makes contact with the floor, you have to start over.]

‘Eh? Isn’t that quite simple?’ Hiro thought. The spots were littered all over the floor and the diameter was about the same size as his foot.

Hiro confidently strolled on over to the button and stood on the spot right in front of it. He then nonchalantly pressed the button and waited for a spot to light up.

*Ding!*

*Level 1. Initiated.* A monotonous voice droned out.

“…” Hiro looked around the room for the source, but couldn’t find it. Suddenly, a flash of yellow and a spot right next to him shone.

“!!!” He quickly jumped onto it, however, in his surprise, he actually overshot and stepped outside of the dot.

*Failure. Try Again.*

‘This isn’t going to be easy…’ Hiro gulped.

The training required complete control of his leg power. He had to be able to control the strength and speed to leap large distance and stopped him from moving the instant he landed. At first he thought it was as simple as playing hopscotch, like the time he played with Lena in the past, however it was not. Even if it was just a small tap, if any part of Hiro’s foot touched outside the small colored circle, he would fail.

He kept this up until he noticed that the window on one side of the wall and darkened and night had come. However, Hiro wasn’t tired. There was muscle fatigue, but he didn’t feel sleepy or sluggish.

‘Must be the effects of the special room.’ He concluded and kept up his training.

It wasn’t until late at night that he had finally heard the pleasant monotonous voice.

*Level 1. Complete. Commencing. Level 2. Level 2. Initiated.*

“What?! No breaks?!” Hiro yelled through his heavy breathing. He had tried non-stop in order to finish the first level, which consisted of jumping from one colored spot to an adjacent one. This time, the flash of red light indicated the next spot was much farther away. Instead of being an adjacent circle, there was a skip.

“Grrr!” Hiro gritted his teeth and continued the training.

By the time the great big ball of fire in the sky had come around and left once more, Hiro finally heard the majestic words:

*Level 5. Complete. Step 2. Complete.*

*Click!*

Hiro smiled as he heard the door to the next room unlock.

‘I can’t believe it…’ He breathed hard as he laid sprawled out on the floor covered in sweat.

‘Level 5 was torture. On top of having a shorter interval to jump from circle to circle, he also had to make giant leaps practically across the room. At first he had failed many times on those jumps, but with some practice, he learned how to shift his weight in mid-air and learned how increase the distance of his jumps. Of course this required some previous training to be able to figure it out, which Hiro had while he leapt from tree to tree during his forest training.

The distance wasn’t the only problem. Aside from the large jumps, he had to constantly survey his surroundings, because sometimes the light would appear from behind him. Usually, there weren’t enough time to pivot on his foot and leap so he had to do it backwards, which also required many tries to successfully perform. Overall, Hiro had lost count, how many times he had to restart the training from Level 1.

Hiro had laid there breathlessly has he began to regain his strength.

‘This is great!’ He looked at his legs, ‘On top of no hunger, even my strength returns quickly.’

Smirking confidently, Hiro tried to turn the page of the manual.

“Eh? It’s stuck?” For some reason, as if by magic, the page refused to turn. Hiro wanted to see what the next step is before he went to the next room. Suddenly he noticed a small print at the bottom.

[The next step will only be available when you’ve completed the previous step.]

“I see…” He got up and opened the door to the next room.

‘Huh?’ Instead of a wide room, Hiro entered a very long and narrow hallway. Just wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

Suddenly a flash of light emitted from the book and he quickly turned the page.

[Step 3: Press the red button and get to the other side.]

Remembering how difficult the last step was, Hiro wasn’t looking forward to the simple looking hallway. Though it looks simple, the hallway seemed unnaturally long. If he were to guess it would be about 200 meters. The walls also seems to glow, shedding light into the otherwise windowless hall.

Barely seeing the door at the end of the hall, Hiro gulped and prepared himself for the strange training that was about to come up. He pressed the button and waited for the same voice to sound out.

*Shuttle Training. Initiated.*

*Bzzt!*

The buzz signaled the start of the training.

As soon as he heard the buzz, Hiro quickly sprinted to the other end.

‘This would be much easier if Tenga removed the gravity spell.’ Hiro complained. After who knows how many tries during the second step, he had tried to contact Tenga and had the spell removed. However, it seemed Tenga had finally entered deep meditation and refused to respond.

Look ahead, he could see a green light at the end of the long hallway. It was slowly changing to yellow. Hiro was a bit over halfway at that point and starting to become out of breath. Once he was nearly upon the button next to the door, the yellow light dangerously turned red.

‘I guess that’s the timer. However…’ Hiro quickly slammed down on the button next to the door.

*Bzzt!*

“Yes!!! I did it!” Hiro exclaimed, while celebrating, “I even did it while shackled under this spell!”

Hiro quickly tried to open the door.

“Eh?” No matter how much he tried turning the knob, the door refused to open. It was still locked. Confused, Hiro looked around the door and tried pressing the button again, but nothing happens.

“What?” He looked back to the start of the training and his heart dropped.

On the other side was the same light, except it had already changed from green to yellow and was at the peak of the yellow light.

“Shit!” Hiro screamed and furiously ran back down the corridor.

‘How can I be so stupid?! Of course it would still be locked!’ Hiro began to panic as he saw the yellow light dim and changed into a red light. He still had half the distance to sprint, with less than half the time to do it.

Seeing the red light flashing dangerously, Hiro’s legs gave out and he stopped running. Soon he heard the voice say:

*Failure. Try Again.*

Hiro wordlessly walked back to the start and rested there to regain his stamina.

‘I should’ve known it wasn’t that easy.’ He berated himself.

Soon, after he feels like he’s back to full energy Hiro prepared to challenge the training once more.

*Shuttle Training. Initiated.*

Taking off like the wind, Hiro was determined to complete the training for Step 3. This time he took care to pace himself, he didn’t know how long and how many times he would have to run back and forth within the long hallway. Controlling his breathing, like how he did when he first started training with the gravity spell, Hiro made his steady way to the end of the hall. He arrived just when the light was at the peak of the red color.

*BAM!*

He slammed on the button and quickly jumped off the door and ran back towards the start, not even waiting for the buzzer to sound.

“Hm?!” He choked back.

While on his way back, he noticed that although subtle, the light had changed from green to yellow quicker than before. Noticing this, he quickly increased his pace by a margin.

*BAM!*

Arriving just as the red light began to dim, Hiro banged on the button once more and ran back down the hallway. Remembering what happened just now, Hiro once again increased his pace, but slightly out of breath.

“Hah Hah Hah!”

‘At this rate, I won’t make it!’ He thought as he pressed the button for the fourth time.

He was desperately trying to persevere until he heard the sweet sweet drone of the monotonous voice saying that he had finished the training. However, that wasn’t the case.

On his way to press the button for the fifth time, Hiro was gasping for a breath while his legs burned profusely. His legs were beginning to lock up and he could feel them refuse to respond to what he’s forcing them to do. While running, they had actually froze, causing him to trip midway and fall helplessly to the ground. Laying there, right in the middle of the hallway, Hiro stared at the fading red light while desperately breathing in air.

*Failure. Try Again.*

‘…’ He couldn’t think of anything, the lack of oxygen had actually caused him to almost faint.

After replenishing all his energy and feeling the soreness melt away from his legs, he slowly got up and walked back to the start. In his eyes were the flames of determination.

After that failed attempt, many more attempts were made, only to end up the same. However, Hiro persevered, because he could feel himself becoming stronger and stronger. What changed each time was the distance he was able to go before collapsing in an embarrassing heap. He went from five intervals to seven to ten to fifteen. He could visibly see himself becoming stronger, this was what kept him going.

With no indication of time, Hiro could only trust in what Siberus say and train until the door leading out the of special room opens. With one less thing to worry about, he focused solely on the task at hand: to complete Step 3!

Much later. Much much later. Hiro finally heard the loud—

*Click!*

As the door in from of him finally unlocked. Hiro grinned, it had taken him 50 intervals to unlock the door and a huge amount of time to get to where he was. Looking down, he could see that his legs had gotten toned, all unnecessary fat had been trimmed away from the excessive stamina training.

‘This room really does work wonders!’ He smiled and thought to himself as he opened the door to the next room. If he wasn’t in this room, he would’ve have to suffer the pain of waiting for his muscles to heal. Who knows how long it would’ve taken if he had to wait that long, by utilizing the room, most of his muscle fatigue was gone in an instant.

*Clack!*

He shut the door behind him and entered a huge open room. Unlike the first training room, which was surrounded by four sides, this room had no sides, it was a circular room. Also unlike the first room, which was roughly only 15 cubic meters, this room had an overwhelming 100 meter diameter or 50 meter radius.

Strewn across the room were strangely floating spheres, just like the circles that were in the first training room, they were all different colored. Below the floating spheres was a five meter drop into a pool of water.

Just by seeing the familiar colors, Hiro gulped.

He slowly took out the manual from his spatial storage and turned the page.

[Step 4: Same as Step 2. Step on only the colored ones when they light up.]

“You have got to be kidding me…” Hiro commented as he saw how large the room was.