Kyle kept hitting.
The successes were accumulating.
By now, every third strike was a success, but it had taken a long while to get there.
He only had a century left.
Kyle knew exactly how he had to move his Energy to achieve the effect, and he could even practice the actual swing.
Sometimes, he took out a weaker hammer, and after some tries, he realized something.
The reason why his hammers had been breaking wasn't that they were too weak.
His Energy had just been too chaotic.
It had been attacking the hammer instead of working with it to attack the target.
Kyle had managed to increase the control over his Energy significantly, and by now, his weaker hammer no longer broke.
At most, it lost a couple of pieces, but Kyle could quickly collect them and repair his hammer.
It wasn't like back then, when the Energy had essentially scrambled the hammer's Energy, making it irreparable.
Whenever his hammer broke nowadays, it was simply because it just wasn't hard enough to resist the strike.
There was also something else Kyle noticed, but surprisingly, it wasn't related to his hammer or Energy.
It was about focus and about "getting into the zone".
In the past, Kyle always needed a long time to properly get into the zone, which was why he hadn't swung his hammer when he only had a couple of years or decades.
As the frequency of successes had increased, Kyle had noticed something.
Technically, when it happened, he was always taking small breaks by thinking about things and looking at the calendar.
Something like that would have been a major distraction, and he would have needed several years to get back into the swing of things.
Yet, ever since he started swinging his hammer after unlocking his twelfth Cluster, these breaks were no longer an issue.
He could immediately get back into it, despite being interrupted by something.
Where did that come from?
It was actually rather simple.
'The Law of Mind,' Kyle thought as he stopped swinging for a moment to check the time. 'It's like I can store my training mindset and return to it almost immediately.'
'Instead of taking years to get back into the zone, I only need minutes now, at most. Sometimes, I can immediately return to my old mindset.'
'That's actually insanely useful. This means I don't need centuries of uninterrupted free time to find success in training or Law Comprehension. I can actually stop in the middle, deal with some stuff, and return without any negative impact.'
'Even working as a Rarity Hunter wouldn't even hinder my training considerably. The only time I would lose would be the couple of hours I spent on the new Planet.'
'In fact, interrupting my training for a moment to get a new perspective might even help.'
'That will probably become relevant when I'm a Crusher and take on a new job with the team.'
'Speaking of!'
Kyle looked at his Communicator.
'Long Transformation, Manny, and Swamp Dragon are online, which means they are still alive. Wait, Manny has the icon of a Crusher beside his name. Guess he already advanced, and by the looks of things, he managed to remain inside the Array of Stars.'
As Kyle looked at Long Transformation's name, he wasn't certain about some things.
She was still a Primal, according to the icon beside her name.
Had she managed to recover her Momentum?
Was she a 12/13 Primal already?
'What am I even thinking about? She was assigned to Swamp Dragon, and that guy is crazy… in a good way. It would be insane if she didn't fight for her life like five to ten times by now.'
'Seems like the entire team-mission thing is going to be a thing. Wonder what our task will be?'
Kyle shook his head. 'Thoughts for future Kyle! For now, I need to get this entire thing with my hammer working!'
Once more, Kyle continued striking.
After some years of swinging, Kyle managed to reach a major milestone.
Every single strike of his worked.
Whenever he struck, about 50% of the Energy in his Center would be pulled into his hammer, which increased its speed and Energy Weight significantly.
Every strike was perfect.
And yet…
'Something's missing,' he thought. 'I'm just missing the last little bit. In fact, I don't even need to move my body all weirdly anymore. My Energy control is good enough that I can just manipulate it however I want.'
'My speed and power increased drastically. Most likely, I could even confidently win against a 12/13 Primal who knows a Complex Level Four Law.'
'But that's not entirely it. It's like eating something and feeling like something is missing. Sure, when it comes to cooking, it's always salt that you're missing, but this isn't cooking.'
'I don't have a go-to solution for when I can't progress in my…'
Kyle's eyes glazed over.
'Fuck…' he thought in annoyance and acceptance.
'I'm gonna have to try to kill myself again, right?'
Kyle took out his Communicator.
'Fuck this! This is stupid! Maybe, there's another way!'
Then, he sent a message to the Chief Overseer about his problems.
Some seconds later, the Chief Overseer appeared in Kyle's room.
"Hi, can you just show me the problem?" he asked.
Kyle nodded and activated the mannequin again.
In an instant, he reached the mannequin, and half of his Energy shot into his hammer.
BOOOM!
The mannequin crashed against the wall, covered in cracks.
Naturally, Kyle's hammer also broke in a couple of places, but he quickly repaired it.
"There!" Kyle said, gesturing at the recovering mannequin. "I can do that with every single strike. I have a 100% success rate. 50% of my Energy gets absorbed, and I do that attack."
"But it's missing SOMETHING, and I don't know what."
The Chief Overseer raised an eyebrow. "50%?" he asked.
Kyle nodded.
"That's quite a lot," the Chief Overseer said. "Your- sorry, almost said the word."
"What word?" Kyle asked. "Is it really so important to keep this thing secret? I can basically already see what it does."
"It is important," the Chief Overseer said. "The name of this thing will essentially tell you what you need to do, but knowing what you need to do will make it harder to do it. It has to come naturally. There have been many experiments in the past, and the failure rate after being told what this thing is called is three times higher than without being told."
Kyle groaned. "Fine! Anyway, do you know what I can do, except for having another attempted suicide?"
"Attempted suicide?" the Chief Overseer asked with raised brows.
"True Battle," Kyle answered.
"Funny way of putting it," the Chief Overseer said. "Although not inaccurate."
For a moment, the Chief Overseer looked at Kyle.
"I'm willing to invest in you," he said. "I'm going to give you something that will increase the chances of you comprehending your thing, but I want something in return."
Kyle's brows rose. "I don't have to kill myself?"
"Probably not," the Chief Overseer said. "Although it might be dangerous in a different way."
"Alright," Kyle said. "What do you want?"
"You will be in a team with four members as soon as you become a Crusher. Long Transformation, Psychosis Manifestation, Swamp Dragon, and you."
"When you have all advanced, you will be put in front of a choice regarding your duties as Crusher Inner Disciples. Most likely, you will put it to a vote."
"I want your vote to be on the job of my choosing. If the others do not go with it, that's okay. I simply want your vote to be for this job."
"Do you agree?"
Kyle scratched the back of his head. "To be honest, I expected something worse."
Then, he shrugged. "Sure, I'll accept."
The Chief Overseer nodded. "Then, it's a deal."
The next moment, an emblem appeared in his hand, and he gave it to Kyle.
When Kyle realized what this was, he took a shocked breath.
'Bro!'
'I can't even fucking hope to afford this!'
'And he's just giving this to me?!'
What was it?
An entry token to a Natural Trial.
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