As the three red-eyed espers returned to their training room. It had become emptied of the clutter, and the wide space in the middle was covered in thick black mats that formed a large ring that was ten-meters in diameter, and in the center of it sat David.

“Welcome back.”

“Uh… yeah, we’re back.” Isabelle responded as she looked at her own palm. There was still a lingering pain, and there was a red mark, but her self-inflicted wound had started to close.

“Anastasia told me that you lot were all watching wrestling. Which gave me an idea.” David said to the red-eyed trio.

“Oh no…” Grant groaned as he quickly caught on.

“In a bid for survival, your own aura will kick in. Once it has, you’ll slowly learn how to draw it out on command.”

“In other words, combat training?” Nero asked.

“Correct. You were eventually going to have combat training anyway, but I thought it’d be best to start early. I want to see how far you’ve already come and how much farther you need to do.” David explained. “Isabelle, you’re up first.”

“M-me?”

David and Isabelle stood up on the platform made of black mats, while Nero and Grant sat at the side and watched intently.

“Isabelle seems to be the most adept at using her abilities, so let’s start with her, and maybe you both can learn something.”

“Go easy on me, sir.” Isabelle awkwardly laughed.

“You’ve had six months of training, haven’t you? You should be able to handle it.”

Isabelle frowned and squealed in a low pitch.

“Relax. I’m joking. Your task is simple, to get me out of bounds using your psychic power. I will block and parry, but I won’t hit you back.” He said as a coat of psychic fire formed around him.

“But… aura cancels out aura.” Isabelle gulped.

“That’s exactly why…” David stopped with wide eyes and asked, “Wait, how did you know that?”

“It was something me and Nero discovered when we first got our powers.”

“I see. Taking initiative to learn, very admirable. I don’t have a lot of energy to face all of you head on, so the time limit for each round is two minutes.” He pressed into his mechanical arm and a holographic screen projected in the air.

“Ready…”

Isabelle raised her arms and let out a deep exhale, her red eyes began to glow, and a red haze suddenly burst from her arm fists.

“Go…”

A raging fire suddenly burst Isabelle’s body, which flung away most of the mats on the floor, as well as everything else in the room that was not pinned down.

Both Nero and Grant shielded their heads from the blazing red hurricane standing in front of them.

“It’s just like that time!” Nero spoke out loud, recollecting the day he and Isabelle requested for the Felix and Maria to take over their mission, remembering Felix’s panic attack, and how his rampant psychic energy devastated the chief’s office.

“You can’t just say that and expect me to know what you’re talking about!” Grant responded.

As David watched her fierce crimson flames light up the room, he thought to himself.

Incredible. What a tremendous amount of psychic power. If this is what these other two are building up to, if this is what Felix is going to become… and surpass… then the Director’s dream wouldn’t be so far-fetched after all.

He was both wary and excited, but as a smile formed on his lips, she heard her pained voice.

“It’s… hot…” She muttered out as blood started streaming down her nose.

“Isabelle, wait!” David yelled.

“Huh, what?” She huffed, beads of sweat were sliding down from her face. With quick red gust, her aura vanished, and all of the floating floor mats caught in it fell back to the ground.

“The mats…” He pointed to the mats that were scattered by her sudden release of psychic energy.

“Oh… oh…” She blurted out as she wiped her nose.

David raised his mechanical arm, and with an amber glow the same color as his eyes, all of the mats started rearranging back into the pattern it was before.

“You were using your aura too quickly. If you kept at it, your body wouldn’t be able to handle the rush of psychic energy.”

“Oh, well then it’s a good thing I stopped.”

“Your bones would have snapped, your organs might have ruptured, and your muscles would have burned.”

Her mouth was left agape. He then crossed his arms and went quiet, pressing his metal fingers against his lips.

Isabelle’s eyes furrowed as she looked to the other two, but they responded with a shrug, and so did she.

“I got it… Isabelle, remember the dam. Now imagine yourself as a fire.”

“Now you’re just giving me conflicting instructions, sir.”

“Use whichever fits most for the situation. The human soul is more complex than one or two things. Think of yourself, not as a raging fire, but as a still candle in a silent room.”

“Alright.”

He reset the clock, and she took her stance.

The room was lit once again by her aura. Crystalline fires formed around her once more, spiraling from beneath her feet, to above her head.

David watched with arms crossed, waiting.

“The hell, again?” Grant blurted out as the red waves brushed against his skin like needles.

But as she took an inhale, the thundering red torrent of energy slowed down and gradually grew smaller.

In her head, it was a dam that leaked as little as possible, and a fire that’s burning on the smallest wick. All that remained was remained a soft, faint steam that calmly flowing out of her body.

Amazing.

That was the only word he could think of to describe her.

To think that she would be able to learn so quickly, with only a single suggestion.

“Are you ready?” He said as he raised up his arms.

“Yes sir.” She looked at him with determination.

“Let’s go!”

As soon as the clock began to tick, Isabelle leapt at him with an excited grin, but as she struck, both her and David immediately realized that her aura quickly dissipated.

The large man stood there with a startled look as he easily parried the confused girl’s attack.

“What– what happened?” She blurted out as she manifested more energy into her palms, “It’s working, but…”

She tried it once more, and a still fire wrapped around her body. She tried boxing against the air, but her aura remained left behind from her initial position and dissipated immediately.

Watching her, David immediately recognized the problem.

I see… Though she can imagine it, she doesn’t have the instincts to use her aura in real time, making it lag behind her initial mental images.

“Isabelle, you’re running out of time.”

Isabelle looked at her mentor and pleaded, “But sir, wait, I can’t get it to work with my body…”

“You don’t get time-outs in a real battle, Isabelle. Now continue, with or without your aura.”

“I… okay.” She resigned herself to fight.

The fight resumed, and Isabelle quickly circled around him, swift back and forth movements that made sure she wasn’t directly in front of him, quickly disappearing from his line of sight.

Even without her aura, she was still an enhanced human. With every pause, she struck. But she was always parried, caught, and pushed back each time.

David reflexively reached out his arm to stop her next strike, but found his arm trapped and suspended in a fiery red.

“Remember, the objective is to push me out of the ring, not to beat me.” He repeated as he chased her movements.

“I haven’t forgotten.” She smirked.

“What?” David blurted out before looking down. He was only a few steps away from the ring.

Suddenly, a red aura flared out of Isabelle. A brilliant, crystalline crimson leaked all over her body.

She took her stance and quickly rushed him. With a burst forward, she struck. Only for David to flare up his own energy in response.

The buzzard rang, and the match was settled.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“How cunning of you.” David remarked.

“I thought... you weren’t gonna fight back.” Isabelle mumbled out. Her arm pulled back, and her head pushed to the ground.

“I said I wasn’t going to hit you.” He answered, letting go of her arm. “Two minutes is up.”

David’s feet were still in the ring. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t too rough, was it?” He reached out his hand to help her up.

“It’s fine.” Isabelle answered as she stretched out her arm.

“How did she—?” Grant muttered out curiously.

“Look at the floor.” Nero pointed out.

“Huh? What… when did... she would’ve needed a distraction.” He spoke as he noticed how much smaller the fighting space had become.

“Her attacks were the distraction. Every time she struck him; she moved the floor mats away from him. You were too fixated on the fight to notice.” Nero explained.

The brown-haired man smirked, “She’s surprisingly crafty.”

“It’s only been a few days, but you’ve improved a lot. Well done.” David praised her.

“Thank you, sir.” Isabelle replied in an exhausted breath.

He took a long look at Isabelle’s hair, remembering the face of a woman with white hair and warm orange eyes with a four-leaf clover necklace dangling from her neck, smiling brightly at him.

She tilted her head as David’s gaze did not leave her, “Hm, what is it, sir?”

“Nothing, it’s just...” He patted her head with his metal arm.

She lowered her head while still looking at him with soft eyes.

To think she was able to come up with that plan on the fly. Not to mention, she’s already extending it outside of her reach without me teaching her. Impressive.

He lifted his hand from her head, “You still need to do control practices later.”

“…yes sir.” She replied with dismay before walking to the side of the wall, then taking a generous chug out of her bottle.

“Grant, you’re up. And don’t bother trying to move the ring.” David gestured for Grant to walk up to the makeshift ring.

“I can’t even if I wanted to. I can barely let out any energy yet.” Grant replied as he got up.

“Don’t worry, it took a year and a half for my psychic powers to fully develop, and another eight months to learn how to control it.” The timer on the holographic screen reset, and it began to countdown once again. “Now, generate your energy.”

“It’s… it’s difficult.”

“Think of the fire that drives you to keep moving and let it manifest through your body. Let the heat envelop you.” David instructed with arms crossed.

A faint red haze began to manifest from Grant’s body. He took his stance, his body tense all over.

He lunged forward, but then stopped a foot before David, dashing to the side to give him a surprise kick, though David saw this coming, what he failed to anticipate was how Grant’s aura would immediately disperse as it made contact.

David easily caught Grant’s leg using his human arm.

“I still can’t maintain it.” The brown-haired esper smiled nervously, balancing his body by his toes.

“You’re at war with yourself. It’s no surprise that your aura is acting so fickle.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m in full harmony with myseee—!”

David lifted him up by his leg then threw him across the floor mats.

Though he pulled back his punches, this attack proved too much for his student, causing him to roll on the floor.

“—GAHK!”

“Please, you wouldn’t be here if you were. Everyone’s here for an unfortunate reason.” David commented with a sigh.

Both Nero and Isabelle turned their eyes towards the ground in response to that statement.

Grant’s eyes watered, but quickly got up. As he wiped off his watery eyes, he glimpsed at the black mats on the floors and had a realization.

He grit his teeth, and with a psychic enhanced foot, he kicked the mat towards David.

“Really, a distraction?” David remarked and placed his metal hand in front of himself, ready to flick it away.

But instead of it being used as a projectile, the rubbery black mat contorted as it made contact with David’s metal finger, and quickly wrapped around his mechanical arm.

“Huh?!” He tried to unspool the mat from his arm, but he noticed that beneath him, trails of red radiated across the floor, shining from the separated surfaces of the black mats.

As he got one off, another wrapped around him from behind. And another, and a fourth, until his upper torso was covered in floor mat.

A boiling hot drop of blood fell down Grant’s nose, which he slowly wiped off. It was the limit of how much psychic energy he could use as he was now.

He pulled back his arm and ran towards David with a raised fist.

With a grin on his face, David’s orange energy began to flurry around him, protecting his head.

Ready for the blow, his orange eyes widened and his teeth unclenched. Rather than the fist to the face he expected, David instead suffered from a foot to his nether regions.

He let out a short-lived, high-pitched squeal. Before he had any time to recover, a burning red kick shot his entire body over to the side. He rolled dangerously close to the edge of the ring, less than two feet away.

But David focused his energy, and a blazing, amber torrent burst out of him and tore the mats apart.

Freed, he then grabbed Grant by the face with his metal arm and lifted him up. Grant’s aura quickly flared up to defend himself, but David slammed him to the mat-covered ground before he could do anything.

As his body made impact against the floor, his jaw broke open, the crimson aura enveloping him exploded into transient, crystal particles. The clock hanging above him ticked down to zero.

“Sorry…” David stood up straight. The torn-up mat that bound him became loose, and he walked toward Grant. He struggled to speak, “You certainly have... skills, that much I… give you. Where did you… learn to fight like that?”

“Bounty hunter’s gotta… have experience.” Grant huffed out; the air still knocked out of him.

“You were a bounty hunter? That explains a lot... Were you scouted out by the agency?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Then how did you find your way here?”

“... Heh… I found an angel with golden hair… chased her all the way here.” Grant responded as he shakily forced himself up.

“In this profession, she might probably be with the angels already.”

“I doubt she’d get killed that easily… She is the Golden Lion, after all.”

“Allison? I see. Anyway, congratulations. You were able to do in a week what took me a month to learn.”

“Kicking balls?”

“Hmph. Just go. Nero, you’re next.” Unamused, David called up for his last student.

Grant limped over to Isabelle and grabbed the bottle on the ground.

“Nice fight.” She gave him a thumbs up.

“Ahh… thanks. You too.” Grant replied as he lifted his bottle. Isabelle’s expression changed, then she realized what he meant and raised her own. “If I had access to my full power like you do, maybe I could’ve gotten him to flinch.”

“Ah… mhm…” She stopped to twirl her hair, feeling pressure being added on her shoulders.

Nero went ahead as both bottles let out a clack, spilling out the little droplets of water.

As the drop fell to the floor, Felix took a deep inhale as he wiped the beads of sweat from his face. The blue glow around his body fluctuated with small, random bursts.

“It’s normally best to use your aura as frugally as possible, in case of emergencies. But unlike David and I, you’re supposed to have a reservoir of psychic energy. You have no need to limit how much you release. That’s what your gun, Agony is for.” She explained as she picked up his white gun.

“Right… it was based on yours, wasn’t it?” Felix replied.

She nodded, “It takes as much psychic energy as you produce and releases it as a wave. Though aura on its own isn’t much, you can at least use it to shove things around or knock people out. After you learn how to push things, we’re gonna learn how to grip on to things.”

Felix recollected the moment he fired it against Moritz, and spoke, “When I first managed to use it, it was like I shot out a tornado, one that destroyed everything in its path…”

Anastasia’s eye widened slightly, surprised by this, “A tornado? That’s strange.”

The orange-eyed woman was quick to test it out herself. Her psychic energy flared up, a flame-colored energy radiating from her body, funneling into her white gun.

But as she pulled the trigger, it only shot out a ball of orange energy, one that dispersed as soon as it blasted against the wall.

She lowered her gun, quickly concluding, “My psychic energy almost never spirals. It might be something unique to your psychology.”

“I see...”

Nero walked to the ring of mats, facing David, “Are you sure you don’t want to take a break first? That last fight looked a little… critical.”

“I may be running on fumes, but I still have enough in me for one more fight.” David huffed out.

“Maybe we should get some more pie?”

“Tell you what, if you win. I’ll get you whatever flavor you like.” The countdown began.

The blond young man walked side to side, watching how his mentor would respond. He threw a feint kick, causing the large man to flinch. He let out the smallest of grins as he steadily lowered his foot.

David was no fool and immediately realized that his pupil was simply sizing him up.

Nero threw a second feint, which David attempted to grab. But Nero’s foot burst with a psychic red explosion, which allowed him to escape. He then circled around him for a few seconds, pretending to strike, while the other two watched.

The iron-armed esper could not deal with Nero as easily as he as he did with the other two red-eyed students, he had lost a sum of his aura, and was dealt significant damage by one of his students.

He was also very cautious of the blond young man, who began exuding a thick air of blood lust.

David jumped straight toward him and tussled, throwing a punch, then two punches. Then backing away.

Sizing up the young man as well. The two combatants portrayed swift, skillful motions.

The clock was ticking, less than thirty seconds left after Nero finished sizing him out. He let out a wide grin. His body quickly filled with a coat of aura, and a fiery shroud burst from beneath his feet as he lunged forward.

He evaded David’s metal arm, the one that held down Isabelle to the ground. Then he attacked with a fast, fluid motion, striking both his arms upwards with an explosion of red energy. Psychic energy exploded with every single motion, and then went straight for his throat.

But before Nero’s fist could reach his throat, David used his energy to speed up significantly.

Grant and Isabelle’s hairs stood up as they felt an intense bloodlust fill the atmosphere.

The Black Hound easily maneuvered over Nero’s attack, locking it under his left arm, as he reached for Nero’s face with his metal one. It moved in a speed that he could barely react to, and in such close quarters, impossible for him to avoid.

A warm drop of sweat slid down from Nero’s temples and glided across the cold metal fingers that was tightly wrapped around his face.

In the spaces between the metal fingers, the red-eyed esper looked at his opponent and immediately realized why the man in front of him was the first ranked. His mentor was the man at the top of the Elite Agents.

A man whose power was yet to be rivaled, whose burning orange eyes betrayed his cold, mechanical expression.

Before he could smash his head into the ground, however, the red-eyed student yelled, “Wait!”

“Huh?”

David noticed on the projection screen that the timer had run out, as he did, Nero cheekily smiled, “I would like… some blueberry pie this time.”

His orange eyes slowly glanced downwards. Half of his foot was out of bounds. His student had accomplished his task in the most straightforward manner.

The iron-armed fighter let go of Nero’s face, who dropped stiffly on the ground, his nerves still tense.

“Nero... That was the Dance of the Shadow Demon, wasn’t it?” David asked.

“What about it?” Nero got up slowly.

“...I’m just surprised to see something so ridiculous and impractical being put to use.” The iron-armed man crossed his arms.

“The what of the what now?” Isabelle blurted out.

“I’ve heard about it before. It’s a sword style designed to kill multiple opponents at once. It makes use of consecutive sequences of counter attacks. It’s impractical to use without an actual sword, though.” Grant explained.

“The specific technique he used was the Shadow Demon’s Spider Lily. An impractical move that only something a master could do. To think he attempted it without a sword... and almost succeeded.” David added.

“What… do you mean?” Isabelle asked.

“Luckily, I knew about the move. I was able to avoid it with my left arm, as for my right arm… Well, let’s just be glad it’s made of metal.” He showed them his mechanical arm, which had a crack on it. “That move coupled with psychic power. Terrifying combination.”

“Do you need that repaired?” Grant asked.

“It’s made of nanomachines. It’ll repair itself in a few minutes. For now, continue working on your last set, then call it a day.”

“Yes sir.” All of them nodded, and David went to the corner and sat down, looking at his broken metal arm.

“The way you used your explosive aura to your advantage was excellent. It reminds of how Anastasia fights. It just needs some refinement.”

“Hmph, is that so?” Nero shrugged. “Well, don’t forget your promise.”

David placed his left hand on his hip and answered, “Don’t worry. I know some of the best bakeries in the world. I’ll get you all the best blueberry pie you’ve ever tasted.”

Nero grinned and answered, “I look forward to it.”

The brown-haired man smiled softly, while the silver-haired woman smiled excitedly.

Grant’s progressing at an average pace, the pace I expected. But these two… Nero is one thing, but how is it that this girl already ascended? If these two keep progressing at such a rate, Felix might get left behind.

In the other training room, Anastasia huffed heavily. Pieces of her clothes torn, her skin was riddled with scratches. Helix-shaped patterns marred the room, as if a hurricane shredded through it.

“A finely tuned fighting sense... You’re no stranger to combat. But when push comes to shove, your fighting style becomes wilder, and more frantic… like some sort of animal.” She paused to wipe the red smear off her face, “Reminds me of that lion woman.”

Felix’s back was flat against the cold, hard ground, staring at the ceiling with dead eyes. His chest rising and falling with each labored breath.

“I can see why they expect so much out of you. But you have no control over that monstrous power of yours…” The red-haired woman blew out the blood in her nose. Streams of orange electricity sprang out from each of her wounds, sewing them back together, “If you don’t learn how to use it, it will kill you... so you need to figure it out soon.”

Unable to respond, he continued to take in air through his swollen neck and red nose. Bright blue streams radiated from his wounds, stitching them shut.

She glanced toward the window, the colors of the setting sun seeping into the training room. With a heavy sigh, her shoulders dropped, “Let’s call it a day.”

With a husky voice, he responded, “… right...”

~