A New Power

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A couple hours prior.

Within the Trainee District's activity area, Odette was stretching her limbs diligently before welcoming another day of morning exercise.

Just like yesterday and the day before. She would do her daily training regimen during both the early morning and the late evening when people were scarcely seen in the area.

Although she had somehow found her resolve to get into the 5th Division, she's still very nervous whenever there was a chance she could be seen by the other trainees she knew.

For example,

"Hey, Odie!"

"Augh..."

Odette was just about to start her run when two of Rudy's friend came to aproach her.

"Can you time our runs and compare it to the past records?"

"Eh, b-but I was just about to, um, s-start my exercise..."

"Come on, the two of us barely got enough points to apply for the 5th Division's exam. And the exam time is closing in, we need to prepare or else I'd be slotted into the 2nd Procurement Division for life."

The two of them were also part of this year's batch of 16-year-old coming of age trainees.

From the three available combat Divisions, the 2nd Division had always had the largest amount of members by far.

And this was mostly because trainees with just an average combat skill and no other redeeming quality were more than likely to be slotted into it.

Unlike the 4th and the 5th, as long as one can hunt and gather non-dangerous ingredients and materials regularly, they would be able to live comfortably in 2nd Division as an unranked or 1-star rank officers.

Of course, a trainee who was defaultly slotted into a Division not of their choice would not be a full-fledged Ranger directly.

Unlike Claude, they would have to go through their respective Division's training program as 'Cadets'.

And Cadets who, in the end still didn't qualify to become a Ranger even after the training program, would then be nurtured as the Division's administrative staff members. Doing odd jobs in service of the Division's Rangers.

Needless to say, these types of personnel were not given the chance to undergo any Bio-Contact procedures.

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Odette was visibly troubled.

"C, can I finish my exercise first--"

"Speaking of 2nd Division, did you hear about yesterday? A new citizen passed their exam in record-breaking time right before this year's batch started theirs."

One of the friends suddenly interrupted her to talk to the other one.

"..."

"I know, crazy! And he's doing it alone to boot, heard he was older though..."

"Makes you wonder though right?"

"Wonder what?"

"With that kind of ability, who in their right mind would choose to enter the 2nd?"

"...Rudy also applied for the 2nd."

"Rudy's different. He's going to transfer to the 4th Conquest Division sooner or later, right Odie?"

"..."

Odette was stunned with her mouth wide open.

From what she knew, there's only one new citizen entering Sector-07 within the last 6 months.

And she had been the guide for that person!

"Odie?" Noticing the lack of response, one of the friends finally turned his head to look at her.

Odette suddenly remembered her conversations with Claude that day.

(...I don't mind teaching you something that will make you stand above the others.)

(Is-is Mister Claude strong...? Ah! I-I-I'm sorry....)

(Well, not quite. But I know a thing or two.)

'Mister Claude broke the exam record??'

"..."

"Hey, Odette--" Rudy's friend tried to call her one more time however,

"I, I-I'm sorry but I need to continue training s-so!" Before she could even finish talking, Odette had already started to sprint along the tracks of the activity area.

"...What's wrong with that one?"

"Training? I thought she said she's doing this to stay fit and not be a burden to us?"

That had been the official reason Odette had given to get the other trainees off her back.

"Who cares, not like anything will change. Did you see her running yesterday? She's probably tripped and fallen more times than I've ever done in my life just in that one 'exercise' of hers."

"Yeah... She'll stop sooner or later. But in the meantime, who's going to time us?"

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Inside the basement of the Main Tower.

Claude rotated his arm, waist, and legs at high speed, throwing a proper right straight towards a thin layer of vertically floating liquid.

The layer of liquid was held in place by a ring-shaped contraption around it. Making it looked like a giant water net.

*BAM* *SPLASH*

Claude's punch connected beautifully, causing that thin layer of water to burst forward and splashed everywhere on the floor behind it.

As if reacting to the force applied to it, the display screen underneath the ring showed the quantified result of his punch.

[Power Output: 1369]

'A Sci-Fi punching machine...' Claude thought amusedly in his mind as he felt his fist connected.

The Commander had introduced him to this standing ring-shaped device in front of him.

The device gave a general calculation to the amount of damage it took after receiving them through the thin film of liquid floating in the center of it.

"Not bad...A strong uninitiated adult fighter would have a punch with Power Output around 500 or so."

"It usually doubled after the procedure, but. Your strength is above average even for a newly initiated." He commented.

"Thank you."

"...You know, you can probably collect a huge amount of credits if you charge people for using this thing." Claude had suddenly remembered the arcade's punching machine in the past while he was inspecting the device.

"..." The Commander stayed silent at his comment without any expression, Claude didn't know if he was actually entertaining the idea in his mind.

"By the way Commander, with the way you talked about the newly initiated..."

"Do you mean that there's a proper indicator that the Alliance use to measure the recipients of Bio-Contact's growth?" He asked.

The Commander nodded,

"There is. As I've said before, the potential limit usually depended on which Bio-Contact you've received, but there is a way to objectively measure the recipient's growth relative to that limit."

"We call it the 'Integration Rate'. Try standing inside that scanning tube." He gestured for Claude to enter a certain floor-to-ceiling cylindrical transparent tube to the side of the punching machine.

'Hoo...' Claude obediently entered the tube with curiosity in his eyes as he looked up and down the surrounding of it.

"Stand still." The Commander proceeded to operate another futuristic-looking control panel before a peculiar sound echoed inside the tube.

*BEEP*

[Scanning Start]

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[Scanning End]

[Updating Information...]

*BEEP*

'Wow...'

After it ended, rows of data regarding Claude's physical statistics quickly showed themselves letter-by-letter in the adjacent monitor.

At the very top, what was displayed was his information inside Sector-07, including the thing that the Commander had talked about previously,

[

Claude, 2nd Division Ranger, unranked officer

Bio-Contact: Vigor

Integration Rate: 10.0%

Merits:

-Record Breaker...

...

]

'Oh, I broke a record in the exam?' Claude hadn't even realized it until now.

"Integration Rate is the quantified percentage of how much you have merged the DNAs and power of your Bio-Contact into your body." the Commander started his explanation once again,

"As you know, Bio-Contact is the power of a beast. A powerful beast of at least Grade-4 no less."

"An optimized utilization of such power within you should have at least made one as strong as the original beast of his/her Bio-Contact right?" He asked rhetorically.

"But because of the huge difference between us and them, it takes a considerable amount of effort for us to be able to utilize their power to their maximum potentials. The Integration Rate measures exactly that."

'I see.'

"Take you for example, even after your power increase, do you think you can harm even a single hair on a Combat Ursa as you are now? You wouldn't even know how you died if you meet one."

"Every Bio-Contact is the same, a successful procedure allows the recipient to reach a 10% Integration Rate with their Bio-Contact."

"That's because 10% is the bare minimum required for the beast's part of the DNA to stabilize inside a person's body. Get it?"

"Kind of, yes." Claude responded with a nod.

"Although the Alliance's officers rankings are purely based on merit, usually the higher your rank is, the stronger you are and the higher your Integration Rates are. That's just how it is."

"And how hard is it to reach 100%?" He asked curiously.

"Hah!"

"I'm currently at 67%, what do you think?" The Commander smiled wryly,

"Don't misunderstand, Bio-Contact is the merging and evolution of 2 different species. At 50% integration, you'd most likely be able to kill your original beast with ease. But how many people do you think has reached that milestone?"

"Even in Sector-07, there's only a handful of them."

'I see...'

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"Right, I'm done here, I'll be going back to my office. Try to get used to your new body and the vitality power of Combat Ursa."

After a couple hours of assisting and explaining stuff since this morning, the Commander felt that he had wasted too much time on Claude and started to walk away from him.

Normally, people wouldn't get assisted by the Sector Commander himself when they went through a Bio-Contact procedure. But because of how things turned out, Claude had been given this special opportunity.

"Right, thank you very much. I appreciate all the help today, Commander."

"Hm."

Claude didn't mind his reaction as he waited for the elevator door to open and close carrying the Commander with it.

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Inside the elevator, the Commander closed his eyes in contemplation.

Truthfully speaking, the meeting with Claude hadn't gone exactly as he had hoped it would.

Claude had cleanly rejected his offer of receiving a stronger and more specialized Bio-Contact the first chance he'd heard it.

And, the guy was also not intimidated or pressured by his presence even after standing so close to him the entire time.

Normal people couldn't even handle his normal state for too long, not to mention that the Commander had deliberately let out his dominating aura on various occasions during his persuasion talk with him.

It was as if Claude had blocked off and disregard every attempts made to pressure him and keep on conversing like usual.

'That guy is not normal for sure...'

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Inside the basement facility of the Main Tower,

the main subject of the Commander's thought, Claude, was still tinkering with the changes in his physics excitedly.

He had been trying to feel more clearly a very peculiar warm flow of wave that had been coursing through his body ever since he'd come out of that treadmill.

'Is this what they described as inner force?'

[Vigor]'s description had mentioned the ability to use one's vitality, otherwise known as inner force, to give one's body another layer of enhancement that could be used for both protection and attack.

'Now, how do I...'

Claude tried to control the flow of the wave-like 'energy' inside his body, but his effort had felt more like trying to redirect the flow of an entire river by himself without any tools.

It was like trying to move a part of your body you never knew you had before. He didn't know how to grasp them much less direct them.

'Hmm...'

'Will it work with visualization?'

The next moment, Claude tried to visualize the stream of flowing energy within his body in his mind.

He tried to build an image of the flow moving just like how he felt it in his body concurrently.

And just when the moving image in his mind started to synchronize with the real movement in his body, he felt something clicked in his brain.

'!'

'So it's not like a limb but more like a brain wave activity...'

Claude remembered a toy in the past that allowed the user to float a ball by detecting the brain's activity and connecting the input to the speed of the fan under the ball to make it looked like you were an esper with telekinetic power.

Much like said toy, the trick to controlling the flow of energy seemed to be by creating a mental image that triggered the brain into giving a certain signal that allowed the energy to react.

Claude decided to continue maintaining the image to be in sync with the energy's movement in his body for just a while longer.

After he felt ready, he started to slowly allow the one in his image to gradually move away and spread outwardly in a sort of continuous release towards the outer parts of his body.

And then,

*whoosh*

As if following the visualized image in his mind, the wave of warm, invisible, aura from within began to spread outwardly as well, enveloping his outer body like a very thin layer of plastic wrap.

'Interesting...!'

'Let's try this.'

*step*

Claude slowly walked towards the ring-shaped punching machine in the back, and carefully got into his fighting pose while still maintaining his whole body with the layer of invisible energy.

Without a second of hesitation, he threw another straight punch forward to burst the floating layer of liquid in the middle in one fell swoop.

*BAM* *SPLASH*

The liquid film in the center burst in a similar manner as the previous time, but Claude looked on with eyes of satisfaction and interest as he watched the layer of water slowly recovered to its original shape.

"Maybe I really can try to replicate some of the stuff those Daoists have shown me."

[Power Output: 1613]