Training and Discovery

One day later.

Inside his new cabin in the 2nd Division District, Claude was once again sitting cross-legged on the floor of his house as he meditated.

However, the purpose of his meditation this time was slightly different from yesterday's.

To make sure that his Load ability could be employed instantly without any worries or problems, Claude always needed himself to be in the best possible condition during his 'Save'.

This process included not only his physical condition but also his state of mind at the time of the Save.

His body needed to be warmed-up and ready while his mind also needed to be in its clearest state possible such that when a Load actually happened during crucial times, he would be in prime enough condition to act right after.

This was also the main reason why Claude hadn't experienced any mental breakdown during his time being trapped inside that metal bunker for several hundred years.

It's because he was always in his peak state of mind after a Load.

.

Furthermore,

The Save this time around was even more important to him. Simply because this would be the first Save after his body had undergone some very massive changes.

Claude had been both giving his body and mind a very thorough inspection compared to the last time he'd done this.

'No anomalies, this should be enough...'

His body had been properly warmed-up, and his mind was as clear and sharp as can be. There was no better time for the current Claude to do this.

'Save.'

.

The ability was executed without any problem. And although there's no noticeable difference from an onlooker perspective, Claude could feel everything in his body locked in place for a fraction of a second before returning to normal

It was the sort of feedback that only he himself could perceive.

'Done.'

'As always it's weird...'

There was one thing that had always been a mystery regarding this ability of his.

If the combination of Save and Load could even revert him back to his past emotions and state of mind, how is it that his memories could keep on continuing without ever getting reverted back to its Saved spot?

Claude had tried to ponder about this matter many times in the past, but to no avail.

"..."

"...Anyway, time to try some stuff out." Claude stopped thinking about it and stood up excitedly as he wore an intrigued smile on his face.

His excitement stemmed from the fact that he once again had rooms for growth and stuff to experiment on himself.

To him, training and getting stronger was less of a goal and more of a means to an end.

It was just like a person playing an MMORPG.

Even if different players played for different reasons such as stories, exploration, or socializing. An increase in level cap would always be enough of a motivation to continue on, so long as the aspect they love about the game didn't change.

.

.

"WHAT!? HE STAYS??" A loud shout was heard from inside a certain cabin within the 4th Division District.

Rita had finally felt the despair when she'd heard the news brought on by Rex to her cabin.

"You know, even if you have a rather good relationship with the Commander, you shouldn't meddle in other people's problem too much."

"I just sent him the recordings! It's not like I did anything else... Dammit, now I really have to pay Dio!"

"It's bound to fail from the start. Do you even know what the Commander did for him?"

"What?"

"He offered him the [Prowler] Bio-Contact and was still rejected outright without a second thought."

"[Prowler]...? the Grade-5 Phantom Liger's??" Rita almost drooled at the mention of it.

Her combat style was always one of stealth and ambush which truly suited the [Prowler] Bio-Contact. But she had already integrated with [Heat] from the very start of her career in the 4th.

"...Why would the Commander offer him something so precious?"

"Apparently he has the same thought as you right? He believes that Claude would serve a better purpose as a 4th Division Ranger." Rex replied nonchalantly.

"Erg..." Rita felt somewhat guilty,

Although she also agreed that Claude's technique was exceptional, she had cared more about the credits from winning her bet with Dio rather than the actual outcome of the bet.

"By the way, how do you even know all this?" However, she was rather curious on how Rex could have gotten his hands on the details of the negotiation.

"You're not the only one with friends in high places." Rex answered her with a sly grin.

"...The Commander and I aren't friends."

"Oh, right. You're more like a puppy to him."

"..."

"...What an idiot, he actually rejected a Grade-5 beast's Bio-Contact? Uwaah..." Rita made a slight remark while trying to make herself feel better.

'...Is he though?' Rex only kept his own thought to himself.

.

.

A couple hours later.

Inside a forest close to the 2nd Division's activity area, Claude was moving around executing different moves on one of the tree barks while analyzing his condition.

He had been trying to familiarize himself with the process of coating his body with 'inner force' as fast as possible with a single thought.

*THUMP* *THWACK*

He kept on producing blunt hitting sounds on the beat-up tree bark in front of him with his continuous kicks and punches, and before long,

*BAM*

The tree shook a little bit harder.

He had caught on to the trick that would allow him to deploy the inner force coating quickly and with the least amount of effort.

The first step was to visualize and construct the image of his flowing energy in his mind as quickly as possible.

The faster the mental image in his mind synchronized with his actual energy flow, the quicker it would be to coat his body with the inner force energy.

One of the trick he'd found for this was to always maintain the constructed image after he had finished visualizing it.

With the image staying firmly in his mind even during combat. The time required to coat his body with energy would also decrease significantly.

But the drawbacks with this method was the large amount of concentration needed to maintain said image in parallel with the unpredictability of real live combat situation.

And that was something that only experience and repetition could help.

.

The second thing that Claude had noticed was that coating only the necessary parts of the body also took far less time than doing it to the whole body every single time.

This was also a more cost-efficient method since the energy in his body was not infinite by any means.

The inner force energy inside his body could slowly deplete as it was used, and recover just like normal human's energy in life: through rests and food consumptions.

Of course with the Load ability on him, this was not too big of an issue for Claude. But he would always prefer to not use his Immortal ability to recover stamina recklessly, especially when there're witnesses and he had deep visible wounds on him.

The instant recovery of a deep wound would cause anyone to question his secrets, which was not something he would want.

Claude continued this training for hours at a time inside the secluded forest area.

Whenever he felt that his inner force energy was fully depleted, he would use Load on himself and continue his training until he could utilize his new weapon almost on reflex.

.

Unlike its clear advantages in matters of survival, the Load ability didn't give Claude as much of an edge as one might have hoped in terms of training or learning new moves.

It couldn't be used to quickly build muscles as it would only revert him back to his previous state.

And it also couldn't help him much in getting familiar with new martial art moves as it couldn't retain the muscle memory gained through repetition if he Loaded.

However, Claude had found that the training for his inner force energy was different!

All the utilization of inner force energy in his body required visualization, which roughly translated to mental training and memories.

And memory was pretty much the only thing he could retain after every Load.

The more he remembered clearly how the energy in his body moved and how to visualize the image faster, the better he'd be in utilizing his energy!

Claude was so absorbed in his training to deploy the energy more effectively for the entire day, that by the time the sun started setting, he had already made just enough progress to feel confident in using them in battle.

There was only one thing which was not to his satisfaction.

'As I thought. This amount of so-called inner force was just barely enough for coating it on your body and not much else...'

The described 'extra layer of enhancement' was basically that.

Claude had long found out that the reason his Power Output increased when he wrapped the energy around his fist was because the energy produced a small blast of impact upon heavy contact that amplified the force of his punch.

But doing this also dissolved the wrapping of energy.

It meant that even though the resulting damage increased, every attack of his would destroy the coating and require him to reapply a new one.

'What an inefficient power... Oh, Wait!'

'What if I...?'

Just when he was about to accept the inconvenience that came with his inner force energy, Claude suddenly thought of an idea.

.

.

On the 2nd Division's activity area, a Ranger who had just finished his daily training routine was walking home in leisure as he snacked on some meat jerky.

He was walking past the periphery of the forest area on the way home when suddenly,

*BOOM*

"!!"

A deafening sound of an explosion resounded from inside the forest near the Ranger.

"What was that!?"

Immediately woken out of his relaxed state, the 2nd Division Ranger's face turned serious as he gripped the dagger on his waist and cautiously approached the source of the sound.

*step* *step*

His steps were light and barely made any sound.

He continued to trod forward, moving from cover to cover so as not to alert anyone in the vicinity.

And when the Ranger almost reached the clearing where the source of the sound had been,

*silence*

There was no longer any trace that anyone was around.

All he could hear was the sound of the evening wind blowing past the forest clearing, rustling some trees and bushes in the area.

However, there was one thing that caught his attention,

It was the existence of a medium sized tree standing crooked across the clearing with more than half of its lower trunk blown off, leaving a void in the shape of a sphere on it.

The whole tree was waving back and forth, threatening to fall had the wind been even just a tiny bit stronger.

"...The hell happened here?" The Ranger whispered to himself, becoming even more cautious at the scene.

.

Some distance away from the Ranger, hiding on top of a tree branch, Claude was sitting very still while calming his heart and holding his breath so he didn't get caught.

One second, two seconds...

Only after sensing that the passing Ranger was leaving the area did Claude began to let out another breath full of air.

*phew*

He sighed in relief.

'Getting caught for causing such commotion would've been really awkward... Not like I did anything wrong though.'

'Still, so that's what happened if I pour the energy like that. Very... Impactful.'

He also looked at the tree he blew up with his inner force from atop the tree branch.

"..."

If one looked closely at Claude, they would notice that his right arm was very bloodied and was dangling without any strength supporting it from the shoulder.

Much of his skin was shredded into pieces in many different places throughout his whole arm.

'Most of the bones in my right arm was shattered, and my right shoulder was dislocated...'

'So it's like sacrificing a limb to take down an enemy huh. Not a bad discovery.'

Without thinking too much about it, the damages suddenly started to heal itself, with the shattered bones getting mended and the shredded skin closing up. Even the dislocated shoulder simply attached itself back in its socket.

'Damn, the sleeve was torn to pieces...'