Following behind the teacher, Gary had no clue what this was about, and it didn’t look like Eddie was going to say anything to him either. Without turning around, he was walking along routes, passing by areas of the academy the teenager had never seen before while whistling along with a giant grin on his face.
Eventually, after they had past some fields, the duo headed for a large rectangle building. Once the teacher was the inside, Gary started to have an idea of what this place was. There was high tech training equipment inside, similar to what they used in the academy, but for it to be tucked away, as well as all the equipment being the latest models inside, he had an inkling as to what this was.
Besides the fact that there was one person in the room still, pretty much gave it away.
“Shingi, how many times have we been over this?” Eddie asked in an annoyed tone. “Resting is an equally important part of your training period!”
The adult could only let out a frustrated sigh, since Shingi had been like this even before he had come to the real academy. He was the type if student who would train himself given the slightest opportunity, no matter where he was, or what state he was in, even ignoring the advice of his trainers.
Right now, Shingi was training with the automatic punch bag. Where one would hit it as fast as they could, and then the bag would come back to the person on a pulley system for them to hit it again. It was one of Shinji's favorite training equipment because he could easily see if he was doing better or not.
For one, he could measure if his punches were stronger than before by how far they went. After that, he could see how long he could keep the punches strong before he hit the bag less than his original punch.
“Shingi, stop that now!” Eddie shouted to get his student’s attention. “Somewhere in that thick head of yours, you should know that this training is pointless with how tired you were after the earlier training session!”
Even though Eddie said that, it did look like Shinji was able to hit the bag just as strong as before and as hard as well. It made the teacher wonder, what had lit a fire under his belly, even more so than usual.
“Ahem!” Gary cleared his throat, unwilling to just stand by the side. “Could you please tell me what we’re doing here? I already told you that I didn’t want to become a debut student until I took the assessment.” Gary asked.
“Don't worry, I haven’t forgotten, and that’s not why we’re here. We are a bit early but you will see in a moment.” Eddie replied without looking away from Shinji who continued hitting the bag. Only this time, he noticed that it fell a bit short compared to his last hit, making him stop.
Shingi had managed to last around 16 minutes all punches with equal power. As he wiped the sweat away, he turned around only to notice that Gary was here as well. He was so focused that he had barely registered Eddie’s voice, much less that of someone he hadn’t recognised immediately.
“Oh, this is great.” Shingi smiled. “Gary did you see what I was doing with the bag training? This is something us debut students do quite a lot.”
It was then that Shingi went on to explain the rules, stating you weren't allowed to transform and what all the equipment meant.
“So what do you think, do you want to give it a try? It's quite fun.” Shingi suggested.
Ever since doing this type of training, Shingi had wanted to witness Gary on the machine, because he wanted to get an idea of how far apart he was compared to the other.
Gary looked at it for a few seconds as he wondered whether he should take him up on it. After his lunch meal his energy was full at 300.
‘I mean, this doesn't really help too much. Because my energy goes down when I transform, or when I get hurt to heal my body, as well as using my skills… but I do want to try it.’
Standing on the platform, Gary was set up and so was the punching bag.
“We are short on time, so just hit the bag a few times to get a feel for what it will be like. If you like it, we can talk about you coming here later.” Eddie advised.
As the bag came towards Gary, he readied his right hand and threw an overhead right straight. It was the same punch he had seen Shingi do, so he thought he should do the same. The impact was strong, the speed from his hit was fast, and as it went along it had gone 85 percent along the length of the room.
‘That’s a good hit, especially for someone who is doing this for the first time. Usually it takes a few hits to familiarise yourself to it, but Gary beat my score and his strength is higher then Xin’s, though not as high as Ryan’s.’
Although Gary was strong, this wasn’t his peak strength, which he would only reach in his transformed states. However, since this was just a type of training, he saw no need to use his Controlled Transformation, especially since Shinji hadn’t transformed either.
As the bag came back, Gary was ready to hit it again. All in all it took 30 seconds for the bag to be hit, stop and come back before one could hit it again. This was regardless of how far one would hit it, and it was so while training they could measure their time easier.
Once again, Gary punched it making great contact with the bag. It was satisfying to say the least, and on bad days the Werewolf could picture himself coming here to get his Energy out.
The bag went back as much as it had done on the first hit, showing that Gary knew how to control himself well. After that Gary hit the bag three more times before finally stopping. He didn't seem out of breath or tired at all.
‘Most people would be exhausted just doing five punches at full strength, but with each one Gary had hit it to the same distance.’ Eddie thought to himself.
“So…what do you think, how long do you think you could last on the machine?” Shingi asked in excitement.
There was a reason why Gary had stopped after four hits, though it had nothing to do with him being exhausted. No, he had stopped since a sudden revelation had shocked him, and it was that after the last hit his Energy had dropped to 299. So far, as long as he didn't transform, and would fight in his normal state, without the usage of skills, he could literally go for hours.
“I’m sorry, give me a second, I need to do some quick maths.” Gary replied.
Shigni and Eddie looked at each other in confusion. Why would Gary have to do maths? The teenager should know his own body well enough to just give a general answer.
“I’m not sure but if it's just doing this, then it should be… around 10 hours, give or take? Although I would probably get tired just standing around during the day and would need to eat something if I did that.” Gary replied after trying quite hard to crunch the numbers in his head.
“10 HOURS?!” Eddie couldn’t help but repeat and laugh. “Gary, I know you feel fine now, but trust me the strain and tiredness builds up after a while. You would be lucky to even last 1 hour.”
Hearing the adult’s opinion, made Gary feel embarassed. Afterall, maybe his maths was wrong. 10 hours sounded ridiculously long to him as well. However, Shingi didn’t feel quite the same way. The person in front of him, it felt like he hadn’t said it to be funny.
Just then, the sound of the doors opening into the room was heard, and all of them turned to look.
“Alright, Eddie, why did you call me this time? It's our rest period and you’re the one who keeps repeating how important it is for us to not skip out on that.” A female voice sounded it, but the voice slowly drifted off as her eyes fell on Gary.
‘XIN!!’ Gary screamed in his head and his heart rate started to thump louder. Then thought of what had occured the last time had appeared in both of their heads. She had attacked Gary because it had been the only thing she could have done to calm him down, while he felt extremely embarrassed as he remembered how he must have acted like a crazy person in front of her.
“Well, look at you two, all shy like that.” Eddie smiled. “Anyway, you should have dressed up rather than coming in your academy uniform, but this will have to do. I’m sorry Xin but you see I promised our green-haired friend here that as long as he agreed to a request of mine, that I would give him a date with our local star.”
“A date?!” Xin shouted back. “How could you do that without even asking me?!”
“Calm down, call it whatever you will, it’s just spending time together, and you two obviously have some shared history. It's not like you can go off academy grounds at this time anyway. So it will just be like spending time with another student, whether it will be a traditional date or not, I’ll leave that up to you.”
Xin looked at Gary, and then shook her head. “No…its fine. I’ll go on this date. I want to go on this date.” Xin answered. “But, Eddie, you owe me for not asking or warning me beforehand!”
Gary’s heart felt like it was going to come out of his chest, but Xin had always been this type of person straightforward and honest with her feelings.
“I-I do as well.” Gary stammered.
*****
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