Cover Story(2)

Seeing the silence and Lance's bewildered look, the Castellan sighed, saying:"Humor is one of the hardest things to catch up on century after century! I was so sure that drawing parallels between the faces of famous animals and the expressions of people would work, have to go back to the drawing board." The last sentence ended more as a mutter to himself.

"Go ahead. Tell me what you were going to say.", continued the Castellan, giving Lance a chance to speak.

"Although I know the importance of strength, isn't time manipulation a more useful path to follow? Like in the case of what happened with the bullet?", asked Lance. Besides the "cool" factor, time manipulation seemed much more appealing to him. If he was going to go through a lot of pain to learn something, wouldn't learning something like this be worth it?

"I thought you would say that. My plan is to make time or barrier manipulation your secondary focus. There are many wishers who placed equal focus on multiple paths and ended up failing because they could not develop fast enough in them to get to the next stage. Thus, it had been decreed that all wishers must first learn a basic path. This would serve to both act as a safe cover story and also establish a solid foundation with lesser chances of failing. Depending on the improvement in the "Strength" part, we can consider adding training for the secondary focus. Even INs are classified into levels depending on the difficulty of learning them, and for you time or barrier manipulation ranks much much higher than strength. The only cases that wishers choose flashy cover INs is when their quirks are aligned with that path. In your case, even your quirk aligns with the IN that I have in mind for you. Do you agree now?", asked the Castellan.

The path of cultivation was truly one that required tremendous knowledge to tread in. Lance felt fortunate that he had a master who could give such detailed guidance.

"I agree, Master. What should my next goal be?", asked Lance.

"Attain control of your cover IN and breakthrough at least to Initiate Stage-3 before the next mission. Your high score will cause many many eyes to be focused on you. We need to ensure that everyone believes that your IN really is a variation of "Strength". Thus, as we will be telling the story that your peculiar IN "awakened" during the mission which caused the pod to malfunction and injure you, you need to be at least a little proficient in it by the next time you appear in the public eye.

Remember this Lance:enemies can be anywhere. However much we try, spies have always snuck in and assassinated initiates suspected to be wishers. They will be watching and waiting for you to prove your IN. You need to be ready."

Hearing the words "assassinated" made Lance shiver. Although he had been through the grueling training and incredibly hard mission, death was still not a concept that he had come face to face with. Now, there was a possibility that he could be killed.

The Castellan continued, either unaware of Lance's reaction or choosing not to react with it.

"We will be entering into a time manipulated chamber next where I will be teaching you personally. There will be a lot of pain, blood and suffering. Are you up for it, my disciple?", he asked, in a somewhat condescending voice.

This served to distract Lance enough from his idle brooding. "Yes!", he replied, burning with eagerness.

The Castellan chuckled to himself seeing this. The hot-headedness of youths was something the rivers of time could not extinguish no matter how far they flowed.