Stella got to her room a few minutes later. Since her arm wasn’t completely healed and the walk through the medical wing had made the stiffness on her body almost completely disappear she took a bath and got in bed.
‘Looks like I got myself a nice day off of training,’ she thought.
However, as she was starting to get comfortable she received a message.
“Gymnasium in 10 minutes,” Stella read out loud. ‘Well, never mind.’
After changing into a clean uniform she left her room and headed to the gymnasium. Naturally, by the time she arrived, Executioner Leywin was already waiting for her since the morning training with Chase and Isaac had probably just finished.
“How’s the arm going?” Executioner Leywin asked.
“The nurse said it should be completely healed by tomorrow.”
Executioner Leywin nodded.
“Do you feel any different?”
“What do you mean?”
“Try creating an energy barrier.”
Stella extended her left hand and did as instructed. This time, she was immediately able to grasp the feeling and almost instinctively concentrated the energy on the palm of her hand and projected it outwards.
Without much effort, she was able to create a stable energy barrier.
“Wow…” Stella looked speechless at the barrier in front of her hand.
It wasn’t nearly as strong and resistant as Executioner Leywin’s or Delta’s but for the first time, it truly looked like a barrier that wouldn’t break after being barely grazed. In fact, the only reason why Stella’s arm had been so damaged was that she had stripped her body of all dark energy to focus it on creating the energy barrier. By doing so she left her body as defenseless as a non-esper’s body since even non-awakened esper had innate dark energy in their bodies that granted them their superior physical capabilities, they just couldn’t control it unless they awakened.
“During your last training, you achieved the first understanding needed to learn the technique, now it should come naturally to you to create barriers of this level.”
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“Does that mean I successfully learned the Energy Manifestation technique?” Stella asked with sparkling eyes.
“Not so fast. As I said, this was only the first understanding you had to achieve, the second and true understanding is the one you’ll have to achieve on your own during a true battle, or a life-or-death situation. That being said, the fact that you were available to achieve the first breakthrough so fast is a good sign.”
“Yay!” Stella celebrated while making small jumps.
‘Not only that, the barrier she’s able to create is far stronger than I had anticipated it to be just after her first understanding. She has a talent for Energy Techniques,’ Executioner Leywin pondered.
“That’s right,” Stella stopped jumping around after remembering something. “The first phase already ended, right?”
“I checked after it officially ended this morning, all your friends passed the first phase.”
“That’s good to hear,” Stella said with a heartwarming smile.
With that, Executioner Leywin dismissed Stella.
The next day Stella joined the usual training sessions with Chase and Isaac once again, however, her training sessions with Executioner Leywin had ended.
----------------------------------------
The following day, the second phase took place, and as the last participant got disqualified, Jake was finally able to rest. His entire body was hurting, not just because of the liquid that had been injected directly into the participants’ bloodstreams but also because of how tensed up his body had been during the entirety of the phase.
Not only that, he was also tired due to the concentration that had required constantly channeling energy all over his body during the four hours the second phase had lasted, in order to reduce the pain caused by the green liquid to something at least somewhat bearable. He was entirely covered in sweat and feeling completely exhausted.
All participants remained connected to their seats for almost a minute after the phase ended as the antidote was injected into them. Once the antidote had effect, the persons dressed in white coats entered the hall once again and started disconnecting the participants from the chairs that had held them down during the second phase.
It wasn’t long before Jake also got disconnected from his chair.
“Holy cow! It’s finally over,” Jake said in relief as he stood up, rejoicing in the absence of pain.
He turned to the right and saw Viktor and Illya just being liberated from their chairs too.
“Freaking hell! I thought it was never gonna end,” Viktor exclaimed as he stood up.
“Viktor, did you make it?” Jake asked as he approached him.
“Barely, what about you?”
“Yeah, me too.”
“How did you guys do?” Illya asked as she got closer.
“We’re still in the game, and you?”
“I was about to hit the red button, I was really saved by the bell.”
“What? You were gonna give up so easily? I would have lasted another couple of hours,” Viktor said with a mocking grin.
Illya shot an irritated glance at him.
“You know what? I’m so tired I’m not even going to fight you. Not to mention that, out of all the people in this hall, you were the only one I was able to hear scream their lungs out, even though we had those things over our mouths,” Illya retorted with a smirk.
Viktor and Illya started going at each other and Jake couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange, apparently, they were never too tired to pick at each other.
As he was laughing, Jake noticed several gurneys moving through the hall carrying some participants out of the hall. He had already seen some of them moving through the hallway during the second phase, probably transporting the disqualified participants who couldn’t leave on their own. That meant that the gurneys that were currently being used, were carrying participants that were barely able to make it to the end of the second phase.
For a moment, he thought he saw one of the gurneys carrying a boy identical to Seth, but it quickly disappeared in the crowd before Jake could take a better look.
‘It must’ve been my imagination,’ he thought.