8. Beginning training

"Hahahaha, I love you too man and Alice isn't that mean." Jack laughed, still hurt from what he saw, but with much less pain than before Kate.

"Nope she is a meanie, so not ni-"

Before he could finish, the phone was ripped from his hand before Alice's voice came through.

"Jack, where are you?"

"Upstairs, why do you care?" Jack somewhat angrily. Despite how much he sweated out, the alcohol still hadn't completely left his system, and neither had his feelings for Alice.

"Woah no need for the hostilities" Alice somewhat defensibly said.

"Yeah, my bad. What do you need?" 

"Well everyone has pretty much left so get your butt down here and help me carry Leo to the toilet so he can throw up"

"Sure thing, give me a minute." Jack said after a little hesitation.

Turning to face Kate, Jack gave her an apologetic smile as he gave her a quick look up and down, admiring her figure now that she was out from under the duvet.

"Don't worry, I know you have stuff you need to do. Just call me sometime. Gonna get in early before you become Mr Big Shot with your Rare class" Kate said as she unfortunately got dressed. Her black dress accentuated all of her curves not letting Jack any moment of respite from his desires.

"Haha fuck off, but yeah I'll call you." Jack replied as he watched Kate slowly draw closer.

"Seriously, call me, that was the most fun I have had since... well ever" Kate said before she gave him a deep kiss on the lips. A hint of their primordial passion still lingering as they kissed and it made it so much harder to let go. Something between them simply clicked as their bodies remained locked together. But they could not stay together, Kate had to go. She turned from him, Jack's gaze still lingering on her beautiful form 

"You're better than you look Inseum, and you're wasting it on that Alice girl" She called as she left the room, only looking back to give him a grin and a wink.

"Fuck, she is hot" Jack whispered under his breath as he quickly put his forest green shirt back on.

Within a minute, he was down, so he was ready to help Leo.

Quickly rushing down the stairs after leaving the bedroom in a mess, Jack saw his friends, both James and Alice stood over Leo's unconscious form. Leo's body looked mangled and decrepit with his arms and legs loosely hanging around as if he had no joints. 

"JAAAAAAACCKKKKKK YOU'RE HEERRREEE" A loud shouted erupted from Leo's awakening body.

"Shite"

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The next morning, Jack woke up in his own bed, in the apartment he lived in with his uncle, to an array of notifications from his system. 

{Your summon has levelled up!}

{Your summon has levelled up!}

{Your summon has levelled up!}

{Your summon...}

There were over 50 messages all the same. With the XP shared between Jack and his summons, he had levelled up 3 times and was 60% of the way towards level 5, and considering they were merely ants then this was insane.

Whilst the early levels were extremely easy to breeze through, typically most people would only reach about level 30 over the summer between their System Manifestation and the start of their year at the Academies, with this type of levelling speed however, Jack had no idea how high he could reach.

"Jack. Get up and have some breakfast." Mike knocked on Jack's door.

His room was a complete mess, all over were clothes strung about as if a tornado entered his room only threw about his clothes and left. At some point he would have to clean it up but at the moment he couldn't be bothered. Instead, he opened his status and decided to allocate his attribute points.

[Status]

Name: Jack

Species: Human

Age: 18

Class: Combat/Support

Rarity: Divine

Level: 4

Strength: 3

Agility: 4

Durability: 2

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Mana: 100/100

Insects: Lasius Platythorax - 1 Queen, 337 workers + 1/hour

Skills: 2

Free attribute points: 15

Due to each level granting him an extra 5 attribute points, he had a fair amount to spend. Not wasting any time though, he put all of them into intelligence in order to boost how many ants he could summon at once. Now that he had 25 Intelligence, he had 250 mana and could summon an extra 15 ants, and he instantly did so. Unlike during his state of anger, the ants merely pushed through his skin as if it was a permeable membrane, rather than ripping through as if they were trying to devour his hand.

"Go hunt"

At once, each of them crawled away and out of his window, down the side of the high rise building that their apartment was situated in. Jack could feel a connection to each one which let him know they were still alive, though the connections were significantly weaker than those to the 10 that he sent out yesterday. Jack decided that he would let them hunt and level up throughout the day and recall them the next morning. 

"Come on ya rat. It's time to start the day." A loud banging slammed against Jack's door as he groggily got out of bed.

Standing in his red plaid pajama bottoms, Jack got up and opened another of the windows as his room felt stuffy. A cool summer breeze wafted into the room and caressed his topless chest as he stretched.

Pure euphoria pulsed through his body as each one of his muscles let out all the pain from sleeping as haphazardly as he did. He grinned remembering last night.

It had been pretty easy getting Leo to bed after all the throwing up, the shouting, the "I LOVE YOU"s every few seconds and the massive Mallet he could summon flying at your head. But at the end of it, he slept peacefully like a little child, he even slept sucking on his thumb. They took a lot of photos.

"HURRY UP THE FOOD IS GETTING COLD" Mike shouted from the other room.

"Alright alright I'm coming" Jack yawned back as he scratched his stomach whilst walking out.

Opening his door, the smell of bacon, eggs and sausages graced his nose with their presence. On the table in the middle of the kitchen was a massive pile of just meat. Bacon, sausages, black pudding, it was all there. 

"Woah Mike, this is a lot of food. What's the occasion?" Jack asked as he sat down with a knife and fork in hand.

"Your training starts today, step one is food. That is all yours" Mike said as he continued to fry more eggs and bacon.

"But this is about 10 kilos of food!" Jack protested.

"Then start now before it gets cold and you don't enjoy it"

"Fuck you Mike" Jack said as he began to eat. 

For the first 20 minutes he enjoyed the taste of all the food, but after that it was pure hell. Every bite made him feel like he was going to die but he kept on going, mainly because Mike would probably hit him if he did, and he didn't want that again. That being said, after eating so much his stomach had grown so much he looked like he was pregnant with octuplets. 

"Jack, what system did you get before we start the training? Last night you mumbled something about combat but that's all I got out of you before you passed out"

"I got a system called the Sovereign of Insects" Jack said, finishing the last bite of his laborious meal.

"Oh yeah, and its mythic"

"WHAT THE FUCK! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME SOONER?!" Mike exclaimed with surprise and glee as he shot up from the table and his portion of the massive meal. A smile erupted onto his face, but a tint of evil marred its kindness.

"Come on Mike, I didn't get home till like 3 this morning and have just woken up. When would I have told you?"

"Ahh you bellend, could've braced me for it at least. Said that so non-chalantly."

"Meh"

"What type of skills did you manifest?" Mike asked as he settled back down.

"Well initially, I just had one skill which gave me a world in my stomach where I could hold insects, and then when I activated it it brought some ants to me. Then after that I got a skill that lets me summon the ants that I have"

"Shit. Those are good skills if cultivated enough and you have enough insects, but the issue is that a. insects are typically weak so it would be difficult to actually kill anything unless you have a massive swarm of them, and b. I'm more of a physical trainer than anything else." Mike said as he pondered what to do.

"Oh no, what a shame, I can't do the training. Looks like I should relax" Jack said as he began to stand.

"Sit down. Just because you don't get any purely combat skills doesn't mean I can't train you. Today, we will focus on running and fighting. Then tomorrow, weights and fighting and it will continue like that all summer. It's going to be great" Mike said with an evil grin on his face.

"ahhh shit."

"Ok, now that you've finished the first part of training, time for the hard stuff."

"Eating that much wasn't the hard part?!"