Several hours of training later they stopped for lunch. A small fifteen minute break where Liz and Tanya ate gourmet take out from a high class restaurant nearby and Nathan stared at his ‘meal’ in agony. ‘Is this even food, It says its got a thousand calories and super dense nutrients but…’ Nathan contemplated the value of not starving to death from training, over the value of not drinking his ‘shake’. ‘It can’t be that bad if my own mother got it for me.’. A cautious sip later, followed by a chugging of the strange fluid and Nathan felt brand new. His almost depleted body began healing in a different way than how it was healed by the Steel Body technique. He could literally feel the difference, the body strengthening technique healed in a way that felt like he was being stuffed full of energy, while this was comparable to a soothing relaxation as his reserves were refilled. He chalked the difference to something that was meant to improve and something meant to… rest? Meh his descriptions were all right. He gave himself a nod before continuing the hellish training. Liz and Tanya both ate with a calm air while Nathan desperately tried to fly. Logically he could lift more than his body weight with his aura so he should be able to lift himself. But it just wouldn't work.

“Yo, trainers, why can’t I fly?”

“You have to able to push down on the air around you enough to fly which requires a way stronger aura than you currently have.” Liz explained while lifting herself, and her amazing looking burger into the air. Nathan felt a gentle breeze wafting from her. “You can’t push down on your aura, using your aura, to fly. You could hold yourself with your aura so long as you're forming it into a solid and it’s touching another stable object, but you wouldn't be able to fly like that because it would drop you the moment you left the anchor behind.”

He grumbled a bit about the unfairness of physics before they finished up and started the evening training. Which consisted of him forming various aura shields and them attacking him. The goal was for him to form them and alter them in response to the various types of attacks they used but the results were him bleeding and screaming as they threw everything from knives to lighting bolts at him. Tanya even used a bowling ball, which she claimed was a medicine ball, to break his knee cap while he was distracted by Liz emitting a stream of flames from her hand. Then they practiced some smaller, less lethal aura uses. Once they were finished, after a long day of training they presented him with a cookie.

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“Here's your reward for a hard day of work” They smiled. Nathan looked dubiously at the cookie. It had huge gooey chocolate chunks and smelled like a little disk of heaven. It was a trap. It literally couldn't not be a trap. Nathan shrugged and took a bite while waiting for the punishment. After a bit of waiting he decided to move things along.

“What’s the catch.”

“Cookie was poisoned.” Was all he got before he realized exactly what the poison was. Oh god. Nathan sprinted looking a tap or a hose or something. He hacked up a cough, and fell on his butt seeing literal flames coming from his mouth.

“You get the antidote after running a hundred laps. The butler will give it to you. Goodnight, tomorrow it's just you and Tanya. Said a brutally uncaring Liz. He could feel fire in his veins and the heat in his mouth had grown to an unbearable extreme.

“Ya, see you tomorrow Nathan. By the way, the poison only gets worse the longer its in your system. One man died after sneezing and catching his clothes on fire, but it can’t kill you from the inside.” Went Tanya, also abandoning him to his fate. Not seeing an alternative he got running. A lean man came by and offered him a tonic after he finished his laps. After that horror he finally started home and got some sleep.

The rest of the week was more or less the same with Liz and Tanya swapping days to torment him. But finally the weekend came and he got his day of rest. Today was a study day. He got up from his comfortable bed and looked at the list of books he had to read before his mother got home to quiz him like he was still being homeschooled. Aura Theory, Basic Ather Compositions, Complex Ather Entanglement, Aura String Manipulation Techniques and a few short excerpts of other titles. It was druggery but he got through almost all of it. He answered the questions his mother asked before it was finally his turn.

“So what is loose energy used for, how do I get the most out of the fact that I can make new aura strings, can auras think or is the intelligence theory wrong, and what does moon man eat.” He asked rapid fire.

“Loose energy is either regarded as impurities or unrefined ather, but that's not completely right. It's basically anything your soul can’t or doesn't know how to use. ‘Moon man’ lives on the moon specifically to avoid such contaminants, not in his soul but in his experiments. There are a few uses for it, but not that you need to worry about. Your new aura strings can be used to build complicated aura designs and learn new ‘skills’. But sweetie I cant just say that a theory is right or wrong, but personally I put quite a bit of stock in the aura intelligence theory. You might even be able to use that to your advantage given your going to have more aura than most people. Finally moon man doesn't eat. He is an Eternal, he literally doesn't need food. He gets most of his energy from the sun though. I guess that makes him a plant huh.” She finished with a giggle.