Chapitre 23: Meeting
The next day started with the normal routine of getting breakfast, but afterward, Bruno showed up. He gathered all the trainees and proceeded to give an announcement.
"Alright everyone, just as promised I will now be meeting with all of you individually to go over your performance in the practical training. Everybody will go about their normal training routines until I call you for. This time let's start out with the heroes."
He motioned to Alex and both of them went back into the cafeteria. He did say to go about our normal training, but it wasn't like I really had a routine at this point. In the past I was either too weak to really train and just spent my time walking around or I was getting beaten as a form of punishment. Therefore, I decided to just wait around since I was going to get called by Bruno soon anyway.
I looked over and saw that Greg had similar thoughts and was also just waiting around. I didn't really want to talk with him, but decided I would test the waters anyways.
"What do you think he will talk about?"
"I don't know. It's a performance review of some kind so probably our performances."
"You know I've been curious for a while now, you guys said before that your talent was for senses, correct? How does one even go about training that?"
He looked pretty annoyed that I was continually bringing up conversations.
"It's not like I'm in the initial stage or anything so I don't know the intricacies. They just tell me to do stuff and I do. Simple as that."
"What do they have you do then? Wouldn't it be helpful to understand the idea behind it so you can train better?"
He sighed while looking even more annoyed.
"If I tell you, will you shut up and leave me alone?"
"Pretty grumpy this morning huh? Alright it's a deal."
I could see his eyebrows twitch after being called grumpy, but he soon explained anyway.
"Every day or two they take me to a place with a bunch of mind mages. They then produce hallucinations in my mind that are tailor made to single out different senses. I don't really get what the point of all that is, but I just try to focus on these hallucinations and get this mana stuff to go towards it. They said that it would take quite a while before I could make any real progress."
Well, I guess that was a happy coincidence. After all, it would be most ideal for me if he didn't really show obvious signs of improvement in the next month. That way, it would be much easier to believe that he was training his blood.
At the same time though, I couldn't help but marvel at their approach. Apparently, it was possible to produce something like a drug induced high and then use that as a means of training mana. Just how out there could you get with mana training?
The spies from before mentioned that later stages could move on to focusing on concepts alone which would be near infinite, but I was also starting to feel like even the initial stage had an incredible amount of possibilities. It seems like the only real requirement was creating a situation where you could single out one sensation. Yet, it was also a bit weird that they were able to clump the idea of senses together as one thing.
Maybe it took so long to get results because there were technically multiple different parts involved when creating the mana center? It was a bit strange since before I always got the impression that it was a horrible idea to train multiple different areas of the body with mana. I guess it could have been because having one center made you as strong as possible. Something like a scout would only be required to do his job of finding enemies not fight anyone.
I was lost in my thoughts for a while, but eventually Alex came back out looking a bit bitter. Before I could ask if he was alright, he quickly walked away from the area. I guess he wanted to be alone for a while. I shrugged my shoulders while Bruno also came back out.
"Why aren't you guys training?"
"Well, you haven't really given me a training routine and you said that the heroes would be first. I figured I would just wait here to take care of both of those things."
I gave my explanation, but Greg just looked to the side. I wasn't sure if he didn't actually have an excuse or if he just didn't want to give a similar response as me.
"You don't even know the basics of training? What did you even do your entire life? Actually, don't answer that. I don't even want to try and guess what your useless ass did back in your home world."
Well, he wasn't entirely wrong, I guess. I did always just go home and relax after work. Something like working out was a very distant idea in my mind. I guess that was partially why my heart was in such a state when I came to this world.
"Alright, let's get you out of the way then old man. Greg, go ahead and just watch the swordsmen train until I call you. Always focus on observing what's around you in as most detail as possible."
Greg nodded and then Bruno and I made our way into the cafeteria.
We just found a random table and sat opposite of each other. Soon Bruno began.
"You are quite an anomaly old man."
Following his words, he just looked at me as if appraising some goods. A sort of awkward atmosphere followed until I spoke up.
"Uh, care to elaborate on that?"
"Ever since the start, I had you pegged as an untrustworthy and completely useless individual that would eventually just get yourself killed. I still believe that you will find some way to fuck up and get yourself killed, but there is also another side to you. After this training, I can start to see a strange tenacity and a certain degree of ingenuity that is quite rare to find."
He took a moment to think before continuing again.
"I'll be honest with you. I was pretty pissed about your backtalk and choose your group to fight the windripper because I assumed you would get badly injured or killed. After all, that bird will always go for either the weakest or most distracted person so I was sure it would attack you. However, not only did you roughly figure out the bird's thought process, but you also came up with a plan to use that information to strike a decisive blow. Just this alone would already be impressive, but you even succeeded in carrying out that plan. Not just anybody would be willing to put their life on the line as you did."
It was interesting hearing his perspective on the whole situation. It was also ironically quite comforting to hear that he intentionally wanted to get me killed or hurt badly. His pettiness was one thing, but at least he wasn't scheming as well.
"Well anyway, that's my assessment over your performance this time. With all that said, you are quite willing to deceive others, aren't you?"
For a moment I got incredibly nervous, but he soon explained why he said that.
"Before the training, I remember asking if you had a breakthrough to which you said no. However, I couldn't help but notice that you were relatively fine after I used my artifact back there. I won't tell you to change your ways, just know that the more you deceive others the more people think you are still hiding something. I doubt you will make it far, but those unique traits of your personality are your strength. Continue to develop and refine those and you might just have a chance."
Hearing up to this point, I figured we were done so I stood up to leave. I definitely wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, yet he spoke once more.
"One more thing. I spoke with the higher ups when we came back and they decided that they would assign mind mages to accompany you and the rest of the heroes most of the time."
I figured something like this was bound to happen. No doubt they wanted to get to know us better so they would be able to read our minds or whatever it was they did. Good thing my method of training would be different at this point. It would be much too hard to cover up blood loss with even more eyes on me.
"Man, this place is starting to feel like a prison. With a strict schedule, training all the time, and now constant supervision how is this hospitable at all? Didn't Rorick say just a bit ago that you would start treating me better as a potential hero?"
"Watch your mouth old man. It's one thing to raise a complaint and another entirely to question your superiors. Though in this case, I suppose you will be happy to know that this won't be a problem for you. Anytime a person scores in the top half of trainees on the practical mission, they will get the privilege of taking the weekends off for the next month. I think it is foolish to let one of the heroes free in the city, but those are the rules and you out of all people managed to do something worthwhile and scored high."
I was quite surprised at this new situation. Previously I had thought that it didn't matter at all if I was seen as useless, but this could change everything.
"And will my glorified babysitter accompany me on these days off?"
"I already said to watch your fucking mouth. Maybe a day of discipline training will finally teach you to talk respectfully to your superiors."
Fuck me. Maybe I did take my bitterness a little too far.
"There was a lot of talk about the Red Eyes watching you on your days off, but those days are set up as a reward to encourage improvement. Therefore, it kind of goes against their purpose if we have you under constant supervision the whole time. However, you are a unique case since you also represent a potential risk as a summoned hero. After discussions, it was decided that they would accompany you one of the days and the other you would have completely free. This is the best you will get."
Hearing this, I had a wide smile on my face.
"Thank you, sir."
My complete change in attitude seemed to disgust him.
"Get the fuck out of here."
And with that, I left to begin a day of discipline training.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone