Anck remained in that position for more than an hour before he felt the effects of the blood flowing to his brain. 'I have to concentrate' he thought. He tried to remember what he had learned during the theoretical training, certainly there could be information that he could use, but suddenly he remembered that he had never really paid attention to his classes. The theoretical training for him was just a formality, he had never felt concerned about it.

Time passed and his arms began to shake, his face became more and more red, the veins around his neck began to swell. Anck looked more and more like a red ballon that had been placed on top of a flame. He lasted another ten minutes before his arms gave way.

"Subject Anck failed to finish his assignment, Nola will begin to inflict punishment now"

At the same time, on the card Tom had, appeared a message.

"The subject failed to fulfill assignment, should I inflicted punishment?"

Two options were presented yes or no. Tom clicked on Yes and then a new option appeared.

"Choose punishment environment A. Tropic B. Arctic C. Ocean D. Volcano"

Tom then remembered that Anck had only his underwear on him, a slight smile appeared on the corner of his lips before he choose Option B.

Anck was trying to catch his breath when he heard Nola's sentence on the screen. At the same time he saw the rooms transform again, the desert like decor was replaced by a vast expanse of ice and snow. And there he stood in the middle of a freezing blizzard almost entirely naked.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He felt his hands and feet start to freeze, the skin on his hands and feet turned blue and his lips began to tingle, they cracked every time he tried to moisten them with his tongue.

"Nola, Nola" he shouted, he tried to get to Tom through the training center's system but his calls were answered with silence. He tried to find the door by searching on each walls of the room but without success, no lever, no button, nothing.

After several minutes battling between reaching his father and finding the exit, The was met with failure, he resigned himself, and accepted his punishment.

The punishment lasted the same amount of minutes than what he had managed to maintain during his handstand, which was 123 minutes, 2 hours and 3 minutes, during which he was locked in a gigantic frizzer at -25 degrees Celsius. When his father reappeared, he was curled up in one of the corners of the room, he looked like a huge snowball, his skin was covered with blisters, several frostbites were visible on his hands, feet and back.

Back From the practice center Anck had to spend the rest of the afternoon reviewing everything he had learned at the theoretical camp starting from the base how to regulate source. He knew that the next training session would be even more intense. He knew that his father had increase the difficulty of the training intentionally, but he also knew that he was several years behind other evolved and that he had to compensate for it in one way or another.

On their way home his father had told him that he had to learn to regulate the flow of source, if he wanted to survive because this one had to be maintained constantly.

While he was rereading his books, he understood what his dad said to him at the time. Source was always fluctuating and the slightest physical or emotional change could lead to a catastrophe, to the point were it could cause the rupture of vital organs, all of a sudden he was no longer too eager to be an evolved tank after reading this.

The book recommended meditation, breathing technics and other daily physical exercises. Now that he thought about it, superhuman tank in general have an excellent physique. He had always thought that it was mostly due to their powers but his views on that were now different.

He was already very happy to have inherited the physical traits of his father, brown hair with green eyes but a little more muscle would not hurt anyone he thought.