The second half of the elemental ability training session went by a lot quicker in comparison to the first. Anastasia pulled out some dummies from a supply closet and had the recruits line up to take turns firing their wind slices at the dummies. She told them to keep just keep firing until they couldn’t anymore. Pretty much the same as the last test they all had to do the day before.

Most of the recruits had the same sort of EP capacity, which was why they were grouped together in class 4. Wren knew that he was able to use ten wind slices in quick succession and figured that the rest of his classmates would be able to do something similar.

Thanks to the meditation in the first half of the class, the recruits were more in tune with their internal energy and didn’t spend too much time channelling it to produce the wind slice.

The first recruit up, fired eight shots into the dummy. There were no visible marks left on the piece equipment after the recruit was done, it was probably heavily reinforced for this sort of activity, either that or the recruits wind slices were just incredibly weak. Anastasia wouldn’t let them practice on each other, she said that they didn’t have a good enough grasp on their abilities yet to control how much power they put into their wind slices. It was probably for the best, Wren didn’t want to end up as swiss cheese just because some dumbass put too much power into a practice exercise.

The other recruits all took their turns, firing shot after shot after shot. Still the dummy took no damage. Most of the recruits averaged around nine or ten shots each. They were all sensible enough to not over exhaust themselves and get into a state of elemental depletion like Wren had the previous day so the class went smoothly.

When it was Wren’s turn he calmly searched for the small air currents in the room and felt the green energy inside him react to it. He guided the energy as he had done during the meditation, up his core, down his arm and into his palm. However, instead of limiting himself, this time he allowed the energy to burst out of his palm and sail through the air in the form of the wind slice. He released wind slice after wind slice, eight in total, he wanted to be on the safe side, having no desire to have a repeat experience of elemental depletion.

Once the eighth wind slice left his palm and contacted the dummy, a system message appeared before him. The blue screen covering most of his field of vision.

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[Congratulations, you’ve levelled up Wind Slice]

[You have gained 20 XP]

Instead of standing there stunned like he usually would, he quickly dismissed the system screen and went to the back of the line. Having people interrupt him when he was thinking was getting tiring and he figured that at this point he just looked like a giant weirdo.

At the back of the line he was free to ponder the system as much as he wanted. His go was over and he couldn’t use his abilities until his EP recharged so he was pretty much content to do what he wanted for the rest of the session.

He took a quick look around to see if anyone was watching him, noting a few recruits stood around talking to each other, and Anastasia at the front of the queue giving pointers to the current recruit using their abilities. Satisfied that no one was watching him he opened the system screen.

[Status]

[Name: Wren Spectre]

[Race: Human Level 1]

[XP 50/100]

[HP 20/20]

[EP 4/20]

[Strength: 5]

[Speed: 14]

[Stamina: 7/7]

He’d just gained 20 XP which meant that his total XP was now at 50, half of what he needed till he levelled up. What happened when he levelled up, Wren had no idea, he assumed his stats would just improve but he’d never heard of anyone ever having a system screen like his so he couldn’t be sure. If he suddenly changed race and turned into a weird monster hybrid or a vampire or something he would be worried, but for now he was okay.

He clicked on the skills page and studied the effects of levelling up his wind slice skill.

[Skills]

[Wind]

[Wind Slice: Level 2]

[???]

[???]

[???]

[???]

[Wind Slice (Common): Level 2]

[A horizontal blade of air shoots out from the users palm and continues for a set distance. Power and distance of slice varies on skill level]

[Skill cost: 2 EP]

Levelling up the skill didn’t provide any new information but he supposed the information was there from the start. It clearly told him that the power and distance of the slice depended on its skill level, so surely by levelling it up that meant that it was now stronger and could go a further distance.

He was tempted to pull Anastasia to the side and ask her if he could have another go at the tests they did the day before. It would be the perfect way of testing how the skill improved. He wondered if he could get a higher score on the big target or even hit the twenty metre target this time around, but he dismissed it as a bad idea. Firstly he barely had any EP left and he would look like a total lemon if he suddenly collapsed to the ground from two uses of the wind slice, and secondly if he did improve so suddenly it would draw a lot of attention his way that he definitely did not. No, he would keep the level up to himself and try and get through the rest of his lessons as normally as possible.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. As soon as class finished, he had to find Chadwick, or Chadwick would find him.