Chapter 69 – Training

The next couple of days went past in a blur for Sal. He had gotten reports from Barry and Divinity that their groups had managed to weather the storms, and they each had shared pictures of their campsites.

Divinity’s left a lot to be desired but managed to somewhat harness the nature around them. Tree branches had been used to give them cover, with Hannah’s gauntlets providing a barrier for them throughout the rain. It was a blue prism filled with fauna for bedding and although simplistic, it had been effective against Prestige’s storm.

Barry’s group had elected to create a manmade cave, with Neb Ursa from his team taking on a bear form and carving out a den for them in the center of a hill. They managed to completely evade the test by Barry concealing their entire camp with his illusions.

If it was just Prestige in charge of raining down hell on Barry’s team, his essence signature would have been visible. Sal was starting to think that they enlisted other Hunters from the bureau to test the students, as Prestige had clearly stayed around their camp to listen to their conversations. She wouldn’t have had time to be in all those other locations at once.

Sal had spent each night practicing his illusions by referencing the weave stored on his visor. He was getting better at it, and Barry dutifully sent him instructions on how to increase the training difficulty. With less than a week of practice, Sal wasn’t delusional about his progress. It was going to take a lot longer to get a grasp of the ability, but he was happy with how far he’d come. He was able to create illusions of the blueprints that he visualized in his mind. It wasn’t that beneficial to display them, but it was good practice to increase his mastery of the ability.

With illusion practice happening at night, his mornings took on a regular routine of exercises with Brophy. After watching them curiously, Ioseph joined on their fourth morning in the camp. Rochelle was diligently trying to meditate, but Sal’s visor could detect that she was making slow progress. He wondered whether Prestige’s ability to control all essence types could help brute force Rochelle’s gates like Vanessa had done for him.

Sal glanced toward the copse of trees that Erika had disappeared to. Each morning she was gone first, and each night she was the last to return. It wasn’t the only consistency to her behavior: every time she returned, she looked like she had been through hell. Without a word to anyone, she would march straight into their shelter and not say a word until it was time for food. Prestige had regularly joined their camp to check on their individual progress, offering advice to Rochelle in particular.

Ioseph had become more familiar with the etcher and had reinforced the barriers around the camp. He had started to add runes to random places outside their camp too, with a number of the trees surrounding them adorned with fresh carvings. They didn’t create any new barriers, so Sal guessed that they were just practice for him.

Which left Brophy.

Sal turned to look at him and saw that he was deep in concentration during their workout. Whatever doubts Sal had about Brophy’s capability as a shooting instructor disappeared the moment they stepped onto the makeshift range. He hadn’t even fired the weapon and Brophy had corrected nearly a dozen small inefficiencies in his stance and movements. Their whole first day had been about moving around with the gun in hand, and into a proper stance whenever Brophy issued a command.

Sal had expected their second day to finally involve shooting, but instead it had been about faster movements and taking cover in the available surroundings. The visor had come in handy for picking out all the places that were suitable, but Brophy pushed Sal to the point that he could do it instinctively. In just two days, holding the gun felt natural, which blew Sal’s mind.

“Are we going to fire it today?” Sal asked as he pushed himself up off the ground and dusted his hands.

Brophy kicked his feet off the ground and turned his push-up into a handstand. His smile was wide as he swung his legs around and completed a perfect cartwheel. “That depends on how much you’ve learned so far. We need to get your combat awareness up before we worry about your aim. You said yourself that a lot of those cartridges have destructive capabilities, so rather than working on precision in the time we have, it’s better to give you positioning.” He offered his hand to Sal, who took it gratefully.

Sal winced at a twinge in his left leg, which didn’t escape Brophy’s notice.

“Let’s get Rochelle to fix you up before we head out.” He gestured at Sal’s leg before leading the way toward Rochelle’s perch near their stove.

Sal tried to get his attention. “Honestly, it’s fine. We should let her meditate. You know how rare it is for her to actually get in the zone.”

Brophy shook his head. “Small injuries stack up. It’s better to be proactive instead of reactive. We’ll get it sorted now and then head out to the range.”

He led the way without another word, and Sal had no choice but to follow him across to Rochelle. When they approached, Rochelle’s eyes flittered open and a relieved smile crossed her face.

“What did he sprain this time?” She looked past Brophy to where Sal was muttering darkly.

Their first day with maneuvers had resulted in a few falls and scrapes, which seemed to entertain Rochelle greatly. It wasn’t that she reveled in Sal’s pain; it was more that she felt useful to the camp when there was someone to heal. Sal was the only one in the camp who seemed reliant on her healing, and it reinforced the fact that he had a long way to go to catch up to his peers.

“No sprain, just a quick check-up. I think he might have a circulation issue in his leg.” Brophy stepped aside to give Rochelle a clear view.

To Sal’s surprise, Rochelle frowned as she looked at Sal.

“He had an issue with his leg the last time I checked him, too. Have you been getting leg cramps, Sal?”

Sal blinked. “I have. They’ve been happening for the last few weeks, but a lot less severe than before.”

He couldn’t understand how she was able to tell that. From his own understanding of her ability, she could transfer Healing essence, so how did that give her an insight into specific injuries?

Instead of responding, Rochelle turned to their rations storage and pulled out a packet of green leaves. She tossed them in his direction, and he caught them in confusion. Rochelle smiled and gestured at the packet.

“Vegetables. Your diet is likely one of the big factors. If you’ve been training every morning, your body needs more nutrients for sustainable muscle growth.” Rochelle glanced over at Brophy. “Make sure he eats them all, or I won’t cook him food later.”

Brophy raised an eyebrow as he gestured at Sal’s leg. “Don’t you think it needs a look, though?”

Rochelle shook her head. “If it becomes a problem, I’ll treat it. For now, it’s easily preventable with a small change in diet.”

When it was clear that Rochelle had no intention of treating Sal, Brophy shrugged and gestured for them to leave the enclosure of the camp. Before they left, Sal glanced back to see Rochelle back in her meditative state, and he was relieved to see that she was taking it seriously. Brophy, on the other hand, was a little ticked off by the exchange as he looked at Sal’s leg warily.

“I don’t want us taking unnecessary risks today. It’s not my place to tell her what to do, but I think she made the wrong call.” Brophy placed his hands on his hips and looked around the area. “We’ll adapt our plans for today. Let’s work on hitting targets, and if you’re feeling better later, we can throw in some light movement work.”

Sal laughed and shook his head. “Honestly, Brophy, I think you’re overreacting. It’s fine. Just a little bit of tightness, but it’ll ease throughout the day.” He really did think that Brophy was overreacting, but he couldn’t understand why.

Brophy sighed as he gestured around them. “You’re a fast learner, Sal. You’ve got good instincts, and I’m building a clear picture in my head of your capabilities. Your leg is a variable that will skew my judgment, and I don’t want to accidentally push you too far. Resilience and self-belief are important, so we need to build on those in incremental steps. I want to give you a challenging environment that builds on those successes, so that when we do go into a tower, your body will act purely on the right instincts.”

Sal exhaled slowly as he gestured toward the camp. “Should we just go back and get Rochelle to fix it up?”

He was a little concerned at how intense Brophy was becoming. In Sal’s mind, he was going to learn how to shoot his revolver, but Brophy sounded like he was getting prepared for war. Would he be able to rely on instinct in a dungeon or tower? It seemed like a laughable goal, but Brophy didn’t look amused in the slightest.

“No,” Brophy answered as he turned and started to walk into the trees. “We’ll continue your training and work on your aim for today. Any movement will be light, so please don’t push yourself.”

Brophy carved chunks of bark off the dead trees around them. They were all at head height and it didn’t really make sense to Sal, until he had four chunks carved out.

Brophy gestured at his handiwork. “Each of these trees will represent your teammates. You’re going to move around them and shoot at targets between them. If you hit the trees, then you’ve hit a teammate. Understood?”

Sal frowned as he held his gun at the ready. “Are you sure about this? Shouldn’t we start without obstacles? Like, in a straight line?”

There was a lot of explosive power in the cartridges, and Sal wasn’t confident that he’d be able to successfully shoot between the tightly packed group of trees. From his current vantage point, there was a few feet separating the closest trees, with him needing to shoot perfectly between them.

Brophy laughed as he picked up a rock from the ground. With surprising deftness, he ran vertically up a tree and placed the rock in between a branch and the trunk, nestling it in comfortably. As if to add some unnecessary flair to the action, he used his momentum to backflip to the ground, where he landed with a flourish.

“Your targets will be the rocks. I’m placing them at an elevation to represent a floating leecher, as it would have you aiming over the heads of our party.”

Sal watched in grim fascination as Brophy added five more large rocks to the list of targets. He was almost too nervous to ask the next question that came to mind, but Brophy preempted it.

“You’ve got six rounds per cartridge. We’re going to practice this until you’re able to successfully hit all six rocks in succession. Hitting any of the trees restarts your progress.” Brophy stood beside Sal and admired his handiwork. “And when your leg is better, we’re going to have you weaving through these trees and shooting while on the move.”

Sal shook his head as he looked at the rocks ahead. “This is actually impossible.”

Brophy held out his hand to take the revolver, and Sal hesitated. Was he actually saying he could do it? The visor on Sal’s face told him that Brophy wasn’t nervous in the slightest.

“Sal, you can either live your life telling yourself that you can’t do certain things. Or, you can try them and know for certain. With practice and guidance, this will be laughably simple to you in time.”

Brophy’s tone was gentle as he grabbed the revolver in Sal’s hands. Rather than taking it away and showing Sal how it was done, he adjusted Sal’s grip on it. “Just try your best and we’ll work from there.”

Sal put his back against the tree beside him, causing Brophy’s smile to grow wide.

“Excellent, Sal! Utilize your cover and show me what you’ve got.”

When Sal moved around, just like Brophy had shown him, he registered each target on his visor and kept track of them. He didn’t equip any of his area-of-effect bullets for this exercise and instead focused on single-shot projectiles. He raised his hands and aimed the revolver at the nearest target. He looked through the sights and steadied his breath.

The first few breaths didn’t feel right, and his hands got clammy as he gently placed his finger on the trigger. No matter how much he tried to line up the target with his sights, his left eye kept interfering with his perspective. Just when he was about to take the risk of firing his first shot, Brophy’s hand covered his left eye, plunging every distraction into darkness.

“Steady yourself, Sal. Make each shot count.”

Brophy’s words came from directly behind Sal, and he responded by pulling the trigger. A stream of red light punched through the air from his muzzle and obliterated the rock as well as the branch it rested on. Sal’s eye widened as he took in the damage but Brophy’s calm voice brought him right back to reality.

“One down, five to go.”