Training Facility C looked more like a big warehouse than a classroom.
Gray walls with high ceilings, equipment scattered everywhere. Weapon racks lined one side. Training dummies stood in rows at one side. Mats covered most of the middle floor.
Soren arrived at 06:55. Early.
After few minutes other students also started to trickled in. Maybe fifty total. The untrained majority. Jake showed up yawning, still half-asleep. A few others Soren recognized from yesterday's assessment.
Mira walked in at 06:58. She nodded at him. He nodded back.
At exactly 07:00, Instructor Torren stepped forward.
"Group A. Welcome to your first day of not embarrassing yourselves." His voice carried across the space without effort. Wolf DNA users had that advantage.
"From now on we're work on building foundation. Footwork. Stance. Distance management. Basic defensive positions." Torren walked between the students. "This will feel boring. You'll want to skip ahead to flashy techniques. Don't. Foundation is everything."
"You watched the top ten yesterday. Shadowmane, Steelheart, Webb. You know what they had that you don't?" Torren stopped walking. "Years of this boring foundation work. That's the difference."
Torren clapped once. "Pair up. Find someone roughly your size. We're starting with basic stance correction."
The room dissolved into movement. Students finding partners. Soren looked around.
"Cross."
Mira stood a few feet away. "We're similar height. Wanna pair up."
"Yeah, sure."
They found an open spot on the mats. Around them, other pairs did the same. Jake paired with another reactor heart user across the room.
Torren demonstrated first. "Fighting stance. Feet shoulder-width. Dominant foot back. Weight distributed sixty-forty forward. Hands up." He moved into position. Perfect form. "Looks simple. Yes but It's not. Most of you are doing it wrong without knowing."
He walked through the room, correcting people. Adjusting foot and hand positions, fixing weight distribution.
When he got to Soren, he stopped.
"Let me guess. Never trained before?"
"No, sir."
"Thought so. Your stance is—" Torren nudged Soren's back foot with his boot. "—completely wrong. Weight's all forward. You're ready to fall over."
Soren shifted.
"Too far. Back." Torren adjusted him manually. "There. Feel the difference?"
"Yeah."
" Hold it. Muscle memory takes time. You'll default to your bad habits constantly." Torren moved to the next pair. "That's why we drill it."
For the next hour, they held stances.
Just stood there. In same position as Instructors walked around making corrections.
Soren's legs started burning after ten minutes.
"Don't lock your knees," Torren called out. "Stay loose. Tensing muscles cause fatigue faster."
Fifteen minutes. The burning sensation intensified.
Twenty minutes. Soren's thighs were screaming.
[This is pathetic. You're just standing still.]
*It hurts.*
[Your legs are enhanced. Ten percent tiger beetle DNA and you can't hold a basic stance?]
*There's no muscle memory. My body doesn't know what it's doing.*
[Then teach it. That's what training is.]
Around him, other students were struggling too. Some were doing better than others. Mira looked uncomfortable but stable and Jake was wobbling every few seconds.
Thirty minutes.
"Position check!" Torren shouted.
Everyone froze. they all were struggling holding same position for this long is much harder than you think,the instructors walked through again, correcting posture. When Torren reached Soren, he sighed.
He fixed everything again. "See? Muscle memory doesn't exist yet. Your body forgets in minutes."
"How long until it sticks?"
"Weeks. Maybe months depending on how much you practice." Torren moved on. "That's why combat family students dominate. They started learning this from age five."
Forty-five minutes.
Soren's entire lower body was on fire. Not the good burn from exercise. The bad burn from holding an unnatural position for way too long. His enhanced healing helped but couldn't eliminate the fatigue.
"Break!" Torren finally called. "Five minutes. Hydrate."
Everyone collapsed. Some literally just dropped to the mats like a rug while making a thud sound.
Soren sat heavily. His legs felt like they'd been replaced with jelly, vibrating from the burning sensation.
"That was just standing," Jake said from nearby, He looked miserable. "We didn't even move."
"Foundation," Mira said. She was stretching.
"My instructor back home made me hold stances for an hour when I first started. This is normal."
"You had an instructor?"
"Three years before integration. My parents hired someone to teach basics." She looked at Soren. "You?"
"Nothing. I got enhanced two weeks ago and immediately started assessment prep."
"That explains a lot."
"Thanks."
"That wasn't an insult. You made this far with zero training. That's impressive." Mira stood. "But you're going to suffer here more than most."
[She's right.]
*I know.*
Break ended too fast.
"Back up. Footwork drills next."
The next hour was stepping. Forward. Back. Side to side. Each step had to maintain the stance. Weight distribution controlled. Hands up. No wasted movement.
Soren screwed it up constantly.
He'd step forward and his back foot would drag. Or his weight would shift wrong. Or his hands would drop. Every single repetition had something incorrect.
Torren corrected him probably fifteen times.
"You're thinking too much," the instructor finally said. "Your enhanced perception is working against you. You see every micro-adjustment but your body can't execute that fast. Slow down. Let muscle memory develop naturally."
"But I don't have muscle memory."
"Exactly. So stop trying to use perception to compensate. Do the movement wrong. Get corrected. Do it again. Thousands of repetitions until your body remembers without thinking."
Easier said than done.
By the time 09:00 Soren was exhausted. They'd only done two hours of basic stance and footwork. Just basic of basic and still he was destroyed.
"Dismissed," Torren said. "You've got enhancement integration drills next. Get used to being tired."
Students dispersed.
[Two hours of basics and you're already exhausted. This is going to be a long journey.]
*I'm aware. You don't have to remind me again and again*
Soren checked his schedule. Enhancement integration drills with Instructor Mako in fifteen minutes in different facility.
He grabbed water and headed out.
The integration training facility was much smaller than before. Maybe thirty students inside, these were people who'd made top hundred but needed work on using their abilities efficiently or those who can't use their abilities properly.
Instructor Mako stood at the front. After waiting some moments to let students settle in a position. "You've all got enhancements. DNA merge or reactor heart. You barely know how to use them."
He gestured to the equipment around the room. "We're teaching efficiency. How to activate abilities without wasting energy. How to maintain enhanced states longer. How to combine enhancement with actual technique instead of flailing around."
That last part felt directed at Soren specifically.
Mako split them into groups based on enhancement type.
Soren grouped up with other DNA merge students. And Mira was there too.
"Your enhancements give physical advantages. Speed, strength, senses, whatever your animal DNA provides. But most of you activate everything at once and burn through your stamina in minutes." Mako demonstrated with his own shark DNA. His eyes changed, teeth sharpened, muscles tensed. "Full activation is useful in short bursts. But terrible for sustained combat."
He relaxed. "Partial activation is useful for conserves stamina." His teeth sharpened but nothing else changed in his body . "It is harder to control. But you will fight in state most of the time. It requires regular practice to properly utilise and maintain this for in combat."
Professor Mako told them to try it themselves for the next hour, they practiced partial activation.
Soren tried to activate just his enhanced perception without the full tiger beetle burst speed. It was harder than he thought it would be. The abilities wanted to trigger together. He was having a hard time to achieve this.
Professor Mako noticed and walked toward him.
"Separate them mentally," he instructed. "Your perception is analytical and speed is physical. They're different even if it feels like one but both are different. "
Soren concentrated. It took him very long time and focus but his eyes shifted. Green glow. The world slowed slightly.
But his muscles tensed automatically ready to move in burst speed anytime.
"Almost. Release the physical tension slowly. Focus on your perception and relax your body slowly."
It took twelve attempts before Soren managed to achieve perception ability alone.
[Progress.]
*You call it progress?*
[It's something. More than you had an hour ago.]
By the time integration drills ended, Soren had a sharp headache caused by mental fatigue from controlling abilities consciously instead of letting instinct handle everything.
Lunch was quick. He grabbed food without looking properly what he was picking and ate without tasting it, checked his schedule.
13:00: Weapons Training with Instructor Hayes.
15:30: Tactical Sparring with Instructor Wei.
Then advanced training for top ten at 19:00.
[Long day.]
*Yeah.*
After finishing his lunch as quickly as he can he moved to weapon facility. The weapons facility was different. Organized but still full of chaos. Students practicing at different stations with different weapons. Some learning energy rifles. Others swinging plasma blades and some trying to handle traditional weapons properly in another section.
Instructor Hayes stood in the center. Reactor heart visible through her chest plate. Cybernetic arms gleaming.
She split students by path. Reactor heart users toward ranged weapons and small light weapons. DNA users toward melee and some heavy weapons.
Soren ended up at a station with training batons. Same weapon he'd used in assessment.
Hayes walked over checking all students and giving pointers how to use their weapons. "Batons. Good choice for beginners. Hard to kill yourself or lose a limb accidentally."
"Is that a common problem?"Soren asked with a surprised look in his face.
"You'd be surprised. What do you expect from someone who has gained abilities and losses control over it while swinging sharp objects." She demonstrated basic grip. "Fingers here. Wrist alignment matters. Swing from the shoulder, not the elbow. Use your shoulder muscles to strike."
She handed him a baton. "Show me."
Soren gripped it the way she'd shown. Swung at a training dummy.
Hayes stopped him halfway through. "You are using your wrist. Hand alignment is wrong."
She adjusted his grip. "Again."
He swung.
"Better. Still need improvement. Again."
This pattern repeated probably thirty times. Each swing Hayes always found something to correct. Grip, wrist, shoulder, follow-through, recovery position.
By the end of the hour, Soren's arm felt dead and his swings looked marginally less terrible.
"Acceptable," Hayes said. "Come back tomorrow. We'll do another thousand repetitions."
Tactical sparring was last. Class was now under Instructor Wei. Tiger DNA like Soren but way higher percentage and different race.
"You'll spar with each other. I'll stop you when you do something stupid."
She paired students Soren got matched with someone with bear DNA, basic training only.
"Begin."
They circled each other. Soren tried to remember and use the footwork from this morning.
The bear DNA user rushed in. No technique with just raw aggression.
Soren sidestepped. Tried for a counter strike.
Wei's voice cut through. "Stop. Cross, you dropped your guard completely. That counter gets you killed. Reset."
They reset. Went again.
Three seconds in, Wei stopped them. "Both of you. Terrible footwork. Cross, your back foot dragged. Mikhail, you're standing straight up."
She corrected their positions. "Again."
This happened probably twenty times in five minutes. Every exchange ended in corrections.
[You're terrible at this.]
*Learning.*
[Sometimes i wonder did they use snail DNA instead of Beetles. You are too slow at everything.]
*That's how learning works.*
By 17:30, when sparring ended, Soren had maybe landed two clean hits in dozens of attempts.
Wei dismissed them. "Classes end here tomorrow same time."
Soren collapsed on a bench outside. Every muscle hurt. Mental exhaustion competed with physical fatigue. He'd learned more in six hours than the previous two weeks combined.
And now he felt he is worse at fighting than he thought.
[Six hours. All you learned was how much you don't know. That's actually useful information.]
*Is it.*
[Knowing what you suck at means you know what to practice more.]
He checked his AR. 18:00. One hour before advanced training for top ten.
He sighed and took a long breath.
Time to grab food and pretend this body is still working properly.