"That's enough!" a voice suddenly stopped Nero in his tracks. Well, the voice as well as the massive wall of stone that suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his attack - not that it was needed. Perfect control over himself and his abilities was the foundation upon which Nero operated, which is why Nero's flames stopped well before they touched the wall.
Nero allowed himself a moment to remain as he was, his spear held in both hands, ready to strike. But then he placed the spear upright beside him, and stood up straight as he looked around the room.
The tough, tiled floor was undamaged, unsurprisingly, though it could not escape the fate of being marred by countless scorch marks. A few recruits lay on the ground, unwilling or unable to get up, their weapons littering the floor. One particular sword had even shattered, its many pieces reflecting the shine of the floodlights aimed at the stage.
Around the stage were countless seats, though at this time of night most of the seats were empty. Of the few that were occupied one belonged to Nero's personal artisan, who was watching and taking notes of how he used his cards, one belonged to his combat trainer, who had been teaching Nero about the dangers of combat against card masters, and two belonged to people Nero had never seen before.
He did not know who they were or why they were here, but he was not really in a position to ask questions. The past six weeks had been the toughest and most intense weeks of his life. He could say without hesitation that no training he had ever done, on his own or even with Footer, came close to what he experienced in these few days.
It was excruciatingly difficult, and though Nero did not waver, he found it incredibly difficult to believe that this was the kind of training so many people experienced. It humbled him a little, for he had long come to believe that his will power was well beyond others.
It was absolutely inhumane training, and its results spoke for themselves. The six other recruits who had just suffered defeat at his hands were proof of that.
Nero turned to his trainer, who had erected the defensive wall in front of the last recruit, and waited for his instruction. There was always something he could have done better, and his trainer never hesitated to point it out.
He was absolutely merciless, and if Nero didn't learn something after being instructed just once, he would train with Nero personally to ensure that the lesson was driven home.
Fortunately it was not an issue he had to face many times. But to his surprise, for once, his trainer did not speak. Instead, he turned to the two unknown men and discussed something in a hushed tone. Once the conversation was concluded, they departed, allowing the trainer and artisan to approach Nero.
"Congratulations recruit, your training is over," his combat trainer said. "Although you're not nearly at the level I would like, circumstances do not afford us more time. Go get some rest. Tomorrow you undergo medical evaluation to determine your fitness level and check for any remaining damage from overexertion.
After that, you have four days to get familiar with your new team and go over your mission objectives. Then you ship out."
For a moment, Nero's breath caught. He was finally being deployed. It was inevitable, but now he finally had a date for it. There was a tinge of nervousness in front of the unknown, even Nero could not deny that, but for the most part, Nero treated this with the utmost caution. His life was going to be on the line, so he couldn't afford to take it lightly.
Seeing that Nero did not have any strong reaction to the news, his trainer nodded.
"You're going to be returning to the rest of the recruits, and the situation there has changed a little while you were busy. Keep your nose clean, but most importantly, don't disappoint me."
Without explaining further, his trainer turned around and walked away, leaving him to guess for himself what that meant. His training had not left him any time to contact Gabriel or anyone else for that matter, so he didn't know what was happening, but he would find out soon.
Nero was escorted away, and he finally had an opportunity to sleep without being woken up at an unreasonably early time. He actually slept for ten hours straight, even bypassing his body's habit of waking up early, that's how exhausted he was.
But upon waking up fresh, he did not have the luxury to dwell on the feeling of being fully rested. Instead, he hurried to take a shower and then reported for his checkups. He did not need to be guided because over the past few weeks he had spent more nights in the hospital than his own bed.
For all the hardships that he had to endure, he still remained in perfect health which caused more than a few doctors to brag about how skilled they were to him. Naturally, since he saw them so frequently, he had become friends with most of them.
The examination was much more extensive than he would have expected, to the point where the doctors even detected that his tattoo wasn't normal, though no one could ascertain its purpose. As long as it was not a curse, they did not mind.
It was late at night when he finally got free. Something told him that the examination was for a lot more than just checking if he had any latent injuries. They were probably testing to see if he was fit for the special circumstances he might face in his mission. Or at least, that was Nero's guess.
The next day Nero no longer had the luxury of sleeping till he woke up naturally, and was woken even before first light. Due to the frequent need to face wild curses during his training, he had moved out of the base where the other recruits were, and now he had to return.
He was driven back, and as soon as they entered the base Nero understood what his trainer meant when he said that the situation had changed.
There were a lot more recruits now than when he had left, and Nero did not recognise most of them. Thousands of teenagers and young adults filled the base, and the sight of countless recruits running laps around the base, all with hair of various colours, formed quite a sight.
Green, yellow, pink, blue and red hair could be seen everywhere, with the more natural colours of blonde, brown and black actually being in the minority. That meant that most of these recruits had special elemental abilities.
Nero tried to look for faces that he knew as he was driven through the base, but it was just too difficult to find them. No doubt if he used Arithmetic Perception, he would have had a much easier time, but the card was no longer available to him. He had used it till its durability finished, and the spell model collapsed.
That was because card crafting was also a part of his training, and he had finally become competent enough to craft his own innate cards. Unfortunately, though he knew he could probably succeed now, he hadn't had an opportunity to craft Radix Augmentation.
A personal artisan was great for everything, but Nero wasn't sure he could keep that a secret if he made such a card in front of such a person, and so he was forced to wait. He planned on making it the first chance he got, though.
Fortunately, despite lacking the card, his progress in absorbing the card had kept up, and he had managed to absorb about 8% of his innate card! He was almost at 10%, the first great threshold in the Neophyte realm and it only took a few months. Considering the fact that this amount of progress took others years, he really did turn out to have great talent in this regard.
The car stopped, and Nero got off. It was ironic that this base was supposed to be where he spent most of his time during training, but it was the place he visited least. It was for that reason he wasn't familiar with the complete layout.
Fortunately, there was a soldier waiting to escort him to where he needed to go. They entered a large, square building and walked past what seemed like countless classes. In each room recruits could be seen sitting in chairs paying close attention to the speaker. Unbelievably, army training even turned teenagers into good students!
Or maybe the ones collected here were already the best students in the country.
Nero was brought to one such room, and as soon as he entered the entire class turned to look at him. A disruption during class might be unusual, so Nero didn't think it was strange to be stared at, but the odd level of recognition he detected from so many people he didn't know was not normal at all.
Once more he was reminded about the words of his combat trainer. He was told to keep his 'nose clean'. Did that mean his trainer thought that Nero had a reason to get into a fight? Was there something behind why so many people knew who he was?