Chương 47: Cadets and Superpower

After the exhausting S-Armor piloting session finally ended, my inner ear was still buzzing from the strain and constant shaking. The only thing I truly wanted was to ditch the uniform and disappear into silence for half an hour. I headed straight for the barracks, where a thick folder was waiting for me. Inside was a report with recommendations regarding my own abilities, compiled by Selina. I collapsed onto the bed before I had even fully unlaced my boots.

The moment I opened the folder, that unmistakable scent of fresh printer's ink hit my nose, slightly sharp and bitter. I had barely managed to skim the first line when the barracks door slammed open with a crash loud enough to sound like someone had rammed it with their shoulder. Ted appeared in the doorway. Energy was practically bursting out of him. He could not stand still for even a second, constantly shifting from one foot to the other.

"Guys, on your feet!" he shouted, sweeping the room with a crazed look.

"Sam's waiting for us at the dojo. Everybody up, move it!" Nick, who had been lazily staring at the ceiling until then, did not even flinch. He simply lifted his head a little, adjusted his glasses, and gave Ted the most skeptical look imaginable.

"What's all the hype for?" Nick muttered.

"Isn't this supposed to be your private training time?"

"That's exactly what I told him!" Ted threw his hands up, nearly bouncing in place.

"And he goes, 'Get everybody.' Anyway, the girls already left. Hurry up!" With a heavy sigh, I closed the folder. My fingers lingered on the thick cover for another moment. That report tempted me far more than another training session, but there was no choice.

"I'll get back to you later," I quietly promised myself as I got off the bed. By the time we reached the training complex, Master Smith was already waiting outside. Against the blazing sun, his figure looked almost monumental. His spotless white gi practically glowed, while his clean-shaven bald head shined as if someone had polished it for the occasion.

He stood with his hands behind his back, radiating that calm, confident superiority possessed only by people who knew they could break you in half with a flick of their finger.

"Greetings, cadets!" Sam's voice, as always, was lively and overflowing with endless positivity.

"Yes, sir!" Ted barked before Sam could even finish speaking. Master Smith merely raised an eyebrow slightly and shot him a brief sideways glance, but he did not interrupt himself.

"Professor Langstrom's already informed you of the situation," he continued, studying us carefully.

"Starting today, I'll be dedicating one hour a week to each of you for personal ability testing. Why'd I gather all of you here right now?" He paused, and I felt the tension building in the air.

"For the duration of these tests, I'm restoring your authorization to use S-Power throughout the entire camp. I'll personally supervise whoever's scheduled for testing. As for the rest of you, this's a rare opportunity to practice what we covered in previous sessions on your own."

"Air walking!" Louise practically bounced with excitement. Her eyes lit up instantly. Apparently, the ability to fly was her ultimate dream, and she seemed ready to practice it until she collapsed.

"Exactly." Sam smiled warmly at her.

"But don't forget that alongside that, you can and should work on another critically important aspect."

"Like what?" Ted leaned forward, barely able to contain himself.

"Your S-Power reserve," Sam said sharply.

"The rule's simple: every time you completely drain your limit dry, your energy capacity expands a little. Same principle as muscles in the gym. You've got to push yourself to failure if you want to grow stronger."

"Seriously?! Wait, it's really that simple?" Ted breathed out, looking around at us in amazement. I listened silently without reacting. Of course I already knew. I had been practicing that method for over a month, pushing myself to exhaustion several times a day because Danny had told me about the trick back when I was still home. Apparently, the other cadets' supervisors had either forgotten to mention it or decided the others were not ready to know yet.

I had a three-month head start to adapt to this new reality, while someone like Ted, according to him, had arrived at camp only five days after his powers awakened.

"Listen carefully." Sam's voice became harder, and his gaze sharpened.

"Right now it's Ted's turn. I'll be working exclusively with him. You're permitted to use S-Power only for passive training. No sparring, no flying over the barracks, and absolutely no explosions. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" we answered in a messy chorus.

"As an extra precaution, the sergeants'll keep an eye on you," he added with a nod to the side. Two familiar figures in uniform stepped out from the building's shadow and took positions behind us.

"They aren't your escorts, guys. They're here for your safety. Remember that." I turned and met the gaze of one of the sergeants. His eyes carried a mixture of boredom and readiness to shut down any stupidity the second it started. I understood them completely. A group of teenagers with superpowers was basically a collection of walking powder kegs without safety pins. Leaving us unsupervised would have been pure insanity.

Sam lightly struck his fist against his palm, and in the very same instant I felt that familiar current surge through my veins. The camp's suppressors dropped. S-Power flooded into my body, filling every cell, prickling at my fingertips, sharpening my senses. It felt like taking a deep breath after being underwater for far too long.

"Try not to miss me too much, losers!" Ted shouted at us with a huge grin before sprinting toward the dojo ahead of the sergeants yelling at him. They did not go inside the building. Sam and Ted moved to the open training area farther away from us. Even from my position, I could clearly see the faint shimmer of an energy field surrounding the master's body. Sam crooked his fingers at the boy with a cocky gesture, practically saying, "Come on, show me what you've got." Ted needed no second invitation.

He grinned eagerly and immediately began hurling glowing white spheres at the master. The projectiles burst from his palms with a dry crackle resembling static electricity. Sam moved with feline grace, dodging every shot. He was not blocking them. He was slipping completely out of their line of fire. When one of the spheres missed and struck the ground, there was no explosion.

Instead, an angry hiss filled the air as the earth instantly began to melt, turning into smoking sludge and leaving behind a deep black crater. Ted called it plasma, but considering his grades in physics, I seriously doubted he actually understood what the word meant. Most likely, he had simply picked the coolest-sounding label he could think of. Watching their deadly game of dodgeball quickly became boring.

We were supposed to practice air walking and drain our reserves, but with my current energy pool, that process would have taken maybe a few seconds at most. Too insignificant. So I decided to spend my limited energy on something more useful: scanning. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I activated [Enemy Analysis] and focused on Ted. I was not expecting anything extraordinary.

Over the past month of using this skill, I had scanned hundreds of people and concluded that even top-tier athletes rarely pushed their stats above nine. Most hovered somewhere around eight. Ten was my personal ceiling, and the only place I had ever seen it was in the mirror. I skimmed through his physical parameters. Nothing special. A solidly built guy, but nothing more. S-Power: 1760/2500 For a fifteen-year-old kid who had only recently started training, that reserve was absolutely phenomenal.

Then again, judging by how recklessly he threw those projectiles around, nearly a thousand units wasted in just a couple of minutes, the numbers started to make sense. Danny once mentioned that the more power-hungry your ability was, the more S-Power the system granted you from the start. Otherwise, you would burn yourself out in the very first second of a fight. Now it was time for the heavy artillery. I narrowed my eyes and focused on Sam.

If Ted was a miniature natural disaster, then Smith ought to have been a walking power plant. I activated the skill. S-Power: 18000/19800 Hm. Impressive, sure, but... I had expected more. Honestly, I had been expecting numbers too large to fit on one line. Sam was a master, a veteran, a man who taught us the fundamentals of controlling raw energy. Yet even Danny, who was at least ten years younger than him, had a larger reserve.

Apparently, Smith was the kind of fighter who relied not on brute force, but on flawless technique. Or maybe his ability simply was not designed for prolonged bombardment like Ted's. I shifted my attention to Nick. He looked fairly ridiculous. He had climbed onto an empty wooden crate and was trying to balance on one leg with his arms spread wide. But the strangest thing was happening at his feet. Under the midday sun, his shadow behaved completely unnaturally. It stretched and shrank like living mercury.

"Nick, maybe knock it off?" Mary said irritably. She stood nearby, trying to focus on her own training, but her eyes kept drifting toward the crawling black shape.

"You're distracting me."

"Sorry, Mary, can't do that," Nick replied, adjusting the glasses that constantly slid down his nose. At that exact moment, his shadow suddenly rose up and took the distinct shape of a golden retriever sitting obediently beside him.

"You heard the master. We've got an hour while he's busy with Ted, and we're supposed to drain ourselves dry before then. If I just stand around walking on air, I won't burn through even half my reserve by tonight. I've gotta use my main ability."

"Fine, fine, just don't start lecturing me," Mary snorted dramatically and turned away, continuing her exercises.

"Nick, is that all your power does?" Louise asked. She watched the shadow dog wag its tail and circle around her with obvious delight.

"Like, giving it commands like some circus act?"

"Oh, it does a lot more than that." Nick shot a quick glance toward the sergeants. They stood a few yards away from us, motionless as stone statues in camouflage.

"Sir, permission to demonstrate the shelter?"

"Make it quick," one of the sergeants answered without changing posture.

"And no tricks involving other people. Only you go inside."

"Understood." The shadow beneath Nick's feet suddenly began expanding at an alarming speed. It crawled up the crate, gaining volume, and within seconds the silhouette of a small house appeared before us, complete with a chimney, a tiny window, and a door. It looked as though a five-year-old had drawn it with a black marker directly onto the fabric of reality. Louise's mouth dropped open in shock, and even Mary, despite all her forced skepticism, turned to look.

Nick inhaled deeply, puffing out his cheeks so much that he resembled an oversized hamster. The door of the shadow house swung open, revealing absolute darkness beyond it. Nick did not hesitate. He jumped inside. He did not simply walk through the doorway. He vanished into it as though falling into a bottomless pit. The door slammed shut, and silence settled over the group. Ten seconds passed. The tension among us began to rise. Louise had already stepped toward the shadow when everything suddenly moved again.

The house collapsed inward, turning into a swirling black vortex, and Nick shot out of it like a champagne cork. He landed awkwardly on the grass and nearly lost his glasses.

"What... what even was that?" Louise breathed out. Judging by the silence around us, she had spoken for everyone.

"Shadow storage," Nick explained while dusting off his pants. His voice trembled slightly from exertion.

"My shadow's basically a pocket dimension or some kind of storage space. I can hide things in there... or hide myself if I need to."

"Then why were you puffing out your cheeks?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"Oh, that..." He looked away awkwardly and turned red in a strangely amusing way.

"There's no air inside. None at all. I've gotta hold my breath."

"Take some friendly advice from somebody with a diving certification." I could not help smiling slightly.

"You don't need to puff up your face to hold your breath. It just throws off your rhythm. Just take a calm deep breath." Louise snorted into her fist, Mary smiled faintly, and Nick muttered something that sounded suspiciously like thanks while clearly feeling embarrassed. Meanwhile, an unsettling thought formed in the back of my mind. This ability was the perfect assassination tool. Slide the shadow beneath someone's feet, drag them into an airless void, wait a couple of minutes, and it was over. No evidence.

No noise. No witnesses. I scanned Nick. S-Power: 690/750 I understood immediately. Interesting ability, but judging by the numbers, it was not particularly energy-intensive.

"So what's your ability?" Nick asked, shifting the topic toward Louise.

"Oh, mine's really stupid!" she blurted out, suddenly stomping her foot against the grass. A burst of unexpected aggression crept into her voice, clearly masking deep insecurity.

"Seriously, you guys don't wanna see it. Just forget it."

"Well, suit yourself." Nick shrugged, though the curiosity burning in his eyes was impossible to miss.

"There's no such thing as a stupid ability, Louise," I said while staring off somewhere beyond the cadets.

"There's only potential we haven't learned to use yet. Doesn't Professor Langstrom repeat that in every lecture?" The girl hesitated. Apparently my mentor-like tone had a calming effect on her.

"Maybe..." she mumbled.

"But my power's seriously weird. It's not cool at all."

"You're telling that to me?" I let out a bitter laugh.

"I can't even demonstrate my own ability no matter how hard I try. Compared to that, any trick looks like top-tier magic."

"Okay," she finally gave in.

"Sir, can I?" The sergeant gave a barely noticeable nod. Louise clapped her hands sharply. The air above her head rippled for a split second, and something materialized out of nowhere. It was a gigantic human eye the size of a cow. The sight was less frightening than surreal. A wet cornea, a perfectly detailed iris, thin capillaries spread across the sclera. The enormous eye drifted lazily above the field, paused for a moment as though surveying the surroundings, then silently dissolved into thin air.

"And... what does it do?" Nick asked cautiously.

"That's the problem. I've got absolutely no idea!" Louise threw up her hands.

"It just flies around. Looks at stuff and that's it. No lasers, no explosions, no hypnosis. Just. A. Giant. Eye." I smiled inwardly. I was certain Selina was already constructing theories about it. I had seen the thick folder full of notes she had handed Louise earlier that morning. To confirm my suspicions, I scanned the girl. S-Power: 2280/2300 Wow. So much for "just an eye." Her energy reserves were only slightly lower than Ted's. That floating organ clearly concealed enormous power.

Louise simply had not found the right switch yet. I decided to keep my conclusions to myself. Selina probably saw the exact same thing and had already figured everything out.

"What about you, squirt?" Louise asked, turning toward the youngest among us.

"What's the point of wasting energy on a performance right now?" the twelve-year-old girl answered coldly. She continued calmly floating a couple of feet above the ground.

"My training session with Master Smith's coming up soon anyway. You'll see it then. For now, I'd rather spend this hour improving my control." The logic was perfectly solid, exactly what one would expect from a tiny pragmatist. There was no point arguing with her, so I simply activated my analysis skill one last time that day. S-Power: 8340/14200 I froze, feeling an icy chill spread through me. I checked again, convinced the heat had started giving me hallucinations. Fourteen thousand?! From a twelve-year-old girl?

She was almost on Sam's level. Thinking about it rationally, numbers like that could only mean one thing: her ability devoured energy at a monstrous rate. I desperately wanted to know what she was capable of, but I had to strangle my own curiosity and let it go. I would have to wait for her official training session. Before long, our free time came to an end. Ted was completely exhausted and could barely move his legs, while I had also managed to drain my pitiful reserve of S-Power.

The moment Sam struck his fist against his palm, that familiar emptiness returned.

"Damn it, I didn't even finish burning through my reserve," Louise groaned. Well, time to get back to business. I could not wait to find out what kind of training advice Selina had prepared for me.