Seed of Titan-Chapter 201: Aiming for Precision

In a room filled with various equipment, Drai sat barefoot in only his boxers, wiping his sweaty body with a small towel. Just behind him, a fully-stocked pantry and mini fridge stood by the wall.

Sitting across from him, Frost asked, "Satisfied?"

"Yeah, this will do. Thanks a lot, Frost," Drai replied with a pleased look.

Frost gave a silent nod, though he couldn’t help thinking that if Drai weren’t such a promising recruit, he probably wouldn’t have bothered with this at all.

Earlier this morning, what was supposed to be a squad training session ended up turning into Drai’s personal assessment. Frost and the training field’s operator had worked together to set up various drills that measured many aspects related to Drai’s viability on missions, including aerial tests and tasks that required significantly more thought to complete.

Although the other squad members were occasionally told to participate in the sessions, most of their time had been spent idling, with Cubes and Mandy chatting to no end, Danny and Beachball goofing around, and Gramps completely engrossed in his small device. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Meanwhile, Ghost was presumably so bored that he actually tried to sneak out of the training area, but he eventually got caught in the act by Frost and was forced to jog around the field while carrying a big ice block on his back for the rest of the training as a punishment.

At the end of the assessment, Frost could summarize Drai with one phrase: a flying bull. In Frost’s eyes, Drai was a huge asset in the strength, toughness, and flying department but was quite lacking in other areas, especially when it came to anything that required more than brute force or flight. And this concerned Frost quite a bit, since their missions usually necessitated a lot more versatility from their squad.

After lunchtime, they continued with the squad training that should’ve been done in the morning, skipping their scheduled mission-simulation training in the process. For these sessions that mainly involved accomplishing various tasks as a team, Drai had to sit out a lot as Frost had instructed him to observe and familiarize himself with his squadmates’ roles, abilities, and tendencies.

From this, Drai discovered that Danny dual-wielded various weapons that were always supplied by Cubes, who was practically a walking arsenal. And apparently her tools weren’t limited to wall blasters and speed boosters, as she had also donned a large blade attachment at one point, a power tool sporting multiple circular saws at another, and even a powered exoskeleton.

Upon seeing Mandy and Beachball’s abilities, however, Drai was left baffled.

Mandy was able to concoct mid-battle by taking out colorful vials from her pockets, belt, or satchel and pouring their contents into her mouth, which she then gargled before spitting the resulting concoction out, either as a ball of liquid that she often grabbed before throwing, or as a short water jet that sped toward her targets.

On the other hand, Beachball had released countless tiny balls from his palms that scattered across the training area before hovering in place. Initially, Drai didn’t think much of the skill—that was until he got a closer look at a few of these balls and saw that they seemed to be made of flesh, with a pair of miniscule eyes and ears on each of them. From this scene, Drai came to realize what Beachball meant earlier by "marbles" and how such an unagile-looking person was their main scout.

In Ghost’s case, Drai only noticed his presence whenever an object moved or shattered on its own. Meanwhile, Gramps didn’t take part in the entire training session, fiddling with his device the whole time. What intrigued Drai was that Frost didn’t say a word about this and left the eccentric man alone.

In the afternoon, when the squad was walking back home, Drai decided to pester Frost about his night training and a much-needed training spot and equipment. And after Drai mentioned that he’d probably look around on his own later that night if Frost couldn’t help him, the sergeant finally took the matter more seriously and contacted Ailem, which led to Drai’s current arrangement.

"Remember to consult the manual if you have difficulties with operating the equipment," Frost reminded Drai as he rose from his seat.

"It’s on the panel next to the door, right? Got it," Drai replied, still wiping off his sweat.

"And that’s the shower, in case you want to wash up before returning," Frost mentioned, pointing at another door nearby. "Make sure you return before midnight and enter the house as quietly as possible—our ladies really hate it when they’re needlessly disturbed during their sleep."

Frost then left the room, leaving Drai to his own devices.

Moments later, after gulping down his drink, Drai finally stood up, ready to resume his training.

Gazing at the sophisticated-looking equipment, he mused, ’Frost said this kind of facility is usually reserved for lieutenants and above, and I’m sharing this one with two or three lieutenants. Where are they though? Do they not train here at night?’

Drai then walked to an interesting-looking machine, which turned out to be a hand-to-hand combat trainer. Reading the instruction panel on its side, Drai found out that the machine could project a hologram to demonstrate a myriad of hand-to-hand combat techniques available in the military’s database.

After he scanned himself on the machine’s wide platform, a virtual panel popped up before his eyes, and a monotonous voice told him to choose which technique he wanted to practice.

As he scrolled through the seemingly endless list of combat techniques, Drai recalled a piece of Frost’s post-assessment advice, so he eventually picked a technique that focused on precision strikes.

Shortly after, a hologram of himself appeared on the platform, and the voice spoke again.

"This nameless finger technique is meant to converge most of the body’s force into a single point, suitable for piercing through tiny gaps in otherwise formidable defenses as well as disabling opponents with swift and targeted movements.

"The two main points of the technique are pinpoint accuracy and delivering maximum impact on vulnerable pressure points. Its strike’s effects vary, ranging from inflicting concentrated pain to disrupting vital organs. With enough force, it may even drill a hole in the opponent."

Listening to the voice, Drai thought, ’Honestly, the effects don’t really matter—I just want to give myself an option to be way more precise with my attacks when needed.’

Just then, the voice turned stern as it said, "Warning. Robust fingers and flexible arm muscles are the minimum requirements for this technique. If you experience pain in practicing it, consult our physicians or abandon the technique."

Upon hearing the warning, Drai couldn’t help but flex his arms and smacked his fingers together hard with a confident smirk.

The machine sensed that Drai hadn’t changed the technique option or left the platform, so the voice spoke again, "First move, basic finger strike."

Immediately, a smaller interface with playback options appeared next to him, and at the same time, his hologram moved.

Drai watched closely as the hologram delivered a strike that was so fast that his eyes could barely follow it.

"A basic strike has this much speed? Was it actually enhanced by Aspiring Grabber?" Drai perplexedly questioned as he stared at his mirror image’s fully extended arm that was slightly rotated. At its end was a clenched fist with an extended index finger that pointed straight ahead.

Drai tried asking the machine about this, but it remained silent, as it wasn’t supported by an AI.

Drai then tried fiddling with the playback options. First, he made the hologram repeat the movement a few more times. Then, he repeatedly moved the horizontal scroll bar left to right, which made the hologram strike back and forth cartoonishly, causing him to chuckle.

Moments later, Drai finally managed to figure out the speed settings. And after setting it to 0.1x, he replayed the move.

This time, Drai was able to see clearly how the hologram fist clenched around halfway through the motion. He then raised the speed to 0.5x and observed the move several more times.

"Well, damn," Drai eventually exclaimed with an astonished look. "There’s no sudden acceleration after the clenching, so this must not be a grab-strike. Then how come it’s so fast? Is the hologram’s agility set really high or something?"

Since Drai couldn’t figure this out, he decided to try out the move.

"Let’s see... Right arm tucked in 45 degrees, facing straight up, hand touching the waist—check. Left arm at chest height, elbow facing outside—check. Body twisting right, left foot forward, weight on the right foot, stance slightly lowered, what else..."

Drai looked at the hologram and felt that he had followed everything to the tee, so he promptly punched forward without any grabbing intent and shifted his rotating hand into a poking shape mid-motion.

The result was a significantly slower finger strike that felt lackluster. Drai even doubted that he managed to channel much force at all into his pointing finger.

"Well, that’s a letdown... Hmm, what did I even do wrong?" he asked himself as he stared at his index finger in puzzlement.

Just then, the monotonous voice spoke again.

"Completion: Five percent."