A Sadistic Nature

"A thousand swings of the swords you're holding," Alex ordered. "Now!"

Everyone frantically began swinging their sword rapidly, not paying mind to their horrendous form, which Alex had to correct countless times.

"Alex's training seems really difficult, doesn't it?" Sarah asked as she sat beside Eugene, Maxwell, and Eric. "He seems to be really pushing those guys to their breaking point. Won't that cause them to hate Alex?"

"You think this training is difficult?" Maxwell asked, dumbfoundedly. "He made me do ten thousand swings along with countless other exercises including weight. He made me run fifty kilometers, with no water or Stone of Soma."

Eugene and Eric clicked their tongue as they gazed at Maxwell pitifully. Even Sarah felt sympathetic to the young boy, who had been put through hell.

"It did make me stronger, though," announced Maxwell. "If they can get through it without trying to quit, they'll be much stronger than before. Alex's training has that effect on people."

"Thanks for the nice words, but get down and give me two hundred pushups," said Alex as he held Maxwell by the collar. The latter nodded solemnly and began doing pushups, while Alex then cast a glance at the others, who swallowed their saliva before succumbing.

'We managed to unify them all, but the fear of death will easily get them to go back on their words during the battle,' Alex clicked his tongue, scoffing at how quickly humans change their minds. Despite being together as a group, one would easily abandon the other for tiny benefits if offered.

That was how human psychology worked. If one received more, one would want even more than what he/she received.

Alex and the others needed to work with the fragile cooperation they had with the other survivors to somehow overcome this obstacle. 'It's going to be more difficult than I thought', Alex sighed as he watched many fail to complete their training, and either leave or take unwelcome breaks.

Even Sarah, Eugene, and Maxwell had exhausted themselves, despite the training regimen being the easiest one to do. 'Am I too hard on them?'

Alex wondered if his training was too difficult since even the most athletically-inclined individuals could not follow the regimen. Instead, he wondered if solely fighting monsters would be a better way to improve their physical abilities.

"All right, guys," Alex announced. "Stop! Scatter around the city and hunt monsters. It'll be better for improving than this."

He heard many sighs of relief, including that of Maxwell and the others. They immediately scattered, initiating their hunt. Alex watched emotionlessly as all the survivors left Bryxton Tower, thinking about his own abilities.

'What is this arm, and what does it do,' Alex wondered as he gazed at his left arm, which was still plagued with veins. It seemed to contain vitality of its own, separate from the vitality Alex possessed in his body.

If that was the case, the arm was a separate entity. Yet, Alex sensed no consciousness within the arm, perplexing him. He also wondered why many things such as the mutated arm did not appear during his first life. Time was fragile, yet such things should not be possible with such little influence.

Even his father's death had been different from his previous life.

'I'm definitely more powerful than before, yet my growth isn't to my standards,' Alex thought. 'It's as if I have an unusual hunger for power.

Negative thoughts plagued his mind as if telling him he was weak. It was true, however. 'I couldn't even defeat the Shadow Killer on my own, and that was one of his countless clones. How am I supposed to avenge my father in the near future?'

The Shadow Killer had been more powerful than he had imagined. Battling the Chimera Cat almost resulted in his untimely death. The Elf King was able to rival Alex to a level where a single mistake would have ended in his demise. And finally, the Primordial Darkness, which had defeated Alex.

'If I think about it, Carl's men could have killed me, too,' Alex admitted, albeit a bit embarrassed by the situation. The bottom line was that he had won several battles through sheer luck on his part and a few mistakes on the opponent's part.

Despite being able to face them, he wasn't powerful enough to "defeat" any of them fair and square except the elf king and chimera cat.

'How do I gain strength during the first tutorial?' Alex wondered. The first tutorial held practically nothing, as it was an initial test to determine the potential of the participants and survivors. The true battle would begin after the second tutorial began, and would continue during the third tutorial and the red area.

However, the only way to gain strength during the first tutorial was to hunt monsters. Eventually, however, that became too slow to offer any substantial gains.

*

In a vast zone filled with colors of the universe appeared a tiny djinn. It floated frivolously, nodding when spotting someone familiar as it headed towards a specific star in the distance.

The star he headed to was the central hub where administrators and caretakers of many planets and dimensions in the current apocalypse reported. It was their place of work, where they were to report information about their allotted area.

As the djinn, also known as Kyl, arrived at the star, he entered a specific office, only to find an enormous entity sitting on a chair as he typed something on a computer.

"How's it going, Kyl?" The entity asked, refusing to stray its eyes away from the screen. "Find something interesting?"

"I'm here to report abnormalities in my zone," Kyl stated flatly, to which the entity raised an eyebrow, finally straying its eyes away front the screen to gaze sternly at the djinn.

"Abnormalities, you say?" The entity asked, somewhat amused. "Have you told Beli about this?"

"Yes," Kyl replied instantly. "He altered the final trial for the first tutorial, yet those people figured out a way to unify the others into one, large team. Usually, humans would panic in such a situation as they've never experienced it, but those humans act like its an everyday occurrence."

"What do you want me to do, Kyl?" The entity asked. "Isn't that good?"

"Too many people will survive," Kyl responded. "Tell Beli to throw 'that' at the end of the trial."

The entity raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? If all of them die, you will instantly lose your life for showing incompetence."

"I'll gladly give up my life to see those humans suffer."