To

Kane couldn't be good at everything.

He couldn't sing, was surprisingly awkward at dancing, and was usually pretty bad at understanding other people.

Outside of his friends and family, he didn't care what happened to others in the slightest, he only seemed bothered by things that affected his life in some way.

Kane could never tell if he felt genuinely bad for being so apathetic, if he was just feeling guilty at himself for not being normal, or if he was only putting up an act.

Kane didn't want to consider the possibility that being calculating and uncaring was his true nature. Kane knew he loved his dad, but outside of that. He was always worried the feelings he thought he had were only born from a sense of self-servingness.

Would he die to protect his dad? He didn't want to explore that, because Kane knew the answer might very well be no.

He wasn't even sure if the excuses he came up with like, 'my dad would want me to live,' were his true reasoning.

Kane felt he was just desperately hiding the fact he didn't want to die, coming to roundabout explanations when the real answer was his heart isn't strong enough.

Kane even considered the possibility that he very well could love those around him, and he was just trying to convince himself otherwise in a hollow attempt to feel different from normal people.

He could understand his body in all sorts of ways, but the mind wasn't easy, especially now that he's been forced into a corner by the government.

Kane was berating himself as he missed shot after shot, increasing his reaction time had only slightly improved his aim, but without his scanner, he continued to miss.

He kept calling himself useless, weak, scolding himself over character defects and past decisions.

He continued to miss, over, and over, and over.

It took everything he had to stop himself from just summoning a black hole and destroying the room in frustration.

Kane got fed up and the result was something new. Out of sheer anger, he'd accidentally forced the mana to spiral inward as he punched one of the targets, creating what seemed like a drill on his hand.

The colors and textures on his hand were warping and circling as the space itself spun around, ruining all sense of normality before eating the rest of his mana up in seconds and vanishing.

"... What the hell was that?"

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"Hey, Kane, was it?" An older gentleman approached him, clad in an expensive black suit with multiple jewel-adorned watches on his wrist.

"That would be me, that's a... lot of watches you've got on," Kane spoke without even turning around to face the man.

The old man let out a chuckle, "My wife kept getting me them, can't seem to take them off... that's beside the point though. I'm Barkley."

"W-wait, the Northern Governer?! I know I stand out, but this is a little soon."

The man suddenly snapped, loudly barked out in anger, "You will treat me with the same formality as all other soldiers, am I understood Kane!?"

Kane immediately bowed his head and desperately spoke, "Yes sir, greetings Northern Governer!"

Kane needed to stop assuming everyone would be as friendly as the district commander here. This was a government made up of narcissistic scum after all. He could NOT afford to offend this man.

The man let out a gentle smile, "Good, good. Much better, rise Kane, I have some special news for you!"

"Thank you, sir," Kane rose as quickly as the man asked him to, feeling that it wasn't just a friendly comment.

"I'll be having you shipped out to the front lines to get some experience, you'll be accompanied by Mark."

"May I ask a question, sir?"

The old man's eyes narrowed, "Make it quick, it's enough that I came to give you these instructions in person."

"What front lines?" Kane wracked his brain but could think of nothing, the world had been at peace for nearly 100 years after everyone grouped into 3 countries.

"Ah, you rose through the ranks so quickly I forgot you were a commoner, we've been at war with Treychla for the last 20 years."

"What?? 20 damn yea- I apologize for speaking informally, Northern Governer," Kane immediately scrambled to stop himself and bowed.

The old man sneered a little, "Fine, you will be forgiven just this once. Do not let your tongue slip around me again Kane, a Rank-3 like you could be killed with a phone call."

The man walked off, being met with the 30 soldiers who were hiding just in case Kane tried anything.

Kane wiped his brow and let out a sigh, feeling a massive weight hammer his shoulders.

'These assholes don't care how useful I am, if I piss someone like him off I'm dead,' Kane's sense of urgency increased as he fully realized what kind of people he was working for.

Kane made his way back over to the shooting range, now with an idea.

He'd only been shooting normal mana bolts so far, but after accidentally combining space and a normal mana move earlier, a few possibilities entered his mind.

He couldn't figure out why it took him so long to realize this, but space could manipulate mana just like everything else, and way better than how his body does it.

Kane began focusing the subspace on his mana, making reality itself twist and turn, he worked on his control.

Focusing, making it more precise, he eventually reached a point where only his mana was being affected by the subspace.

He could only do something this precise because of how detectable mana was to him compared to everything else. Normal particles don't give off strange signals in your mind telling you exactly where they are.

He began condensing and pushing his mana while letting it swirl faster and faster, just as he did when he got pissed off before. Only this time his hand still looked normal.

An invisible drill seemed to form, and was draining a ridiculous amount of mana, Kane needed to figure out what to do with the attack quickly.

He decided to try opening up another area of subspace right where he detected a target, and just like with using Anchor, create a small funnel through space connecting the two.

As soon as he did this, the drill was sucked through the subspace, appearing in front of the target instantly.

It didn't just tear it all up into oblivion as Black Hole would, it pierced the target's center, creating a small hole.

Kane felt slightly disappointed after how much mana the attack used, but then the target started rotating.

The very matter making up the target began twisting and breaking as it swirled into its own epicenter.

By the time its rotation ended, the target was still generally the same shape, but everything between the edge and the center was thinner, stretched out with striations spiraling around it.

The hole in the center had now been filled, but at the cost of half the target's mass.

Kane let his Manilium regenerate as he pondered.

Using something so new had majorly increased his control over mana, resulting in a moderate boost to his growth.

More importantly, he'd gotten insight into how to fix the problem of aiming.

Kane had been thinking too traditionally, aim, fire.

He was a space user, the entire concept of needing his attacks go from point A to B was irrelevant.

With Kane's ability, that distance wasn't actually distant, he could force the space together and make his bullets travel instantaneously.

Instead of A-->B, for Kane, it was simply AB.

Kane let his mana pulse, gathering it to his fingertip. He let his senses merge with the space around him and stretched out, sensing the targets as they darted and spun around.

He made the subspace merge directly with the targets, then connected several funnels directly to him.

Condensing more mana on his other fingers, he fired out several shots at once, all of them instantly appearing in front of their targets.

Just like that, Kane had flawlessly taken out 5 targets in a second.

'Why have space magic if I'm not going to manipulate space?' Kane laughed to himself enthusiastically. He'd just made a huge breakthrough.

This did exhaust nearly all of his energy though, he had to open several subspace rifts, several funnels, and then fire multiple bullets of mana at once.

Kane immediately rushed out to the ranking equipment, manalites were free to check their rank whenever they wanted, but it would need to be observed by an official if they wanted to rank up.

He didn't understand why they didn't have this automatically monitored... actually, Kane didn't know why he assumed they didn't.

Kane poured all of his mana into the gel cuff, the number coming out at 10,236!

His impact score came out at 10,318. If Kane was correct in assuming he currently had decent combat skills, he was Rank-4 now!

Though it didn't feel too impressive, since he decided to publicly show his full strength and get into Rank-3 when he was already at the higher end of it.

Kane went to take a break, finally getting bored after nearly 7 straight hours of training.

His early days of cycling mana may have had longer training sessions, but they were also far more passive.

He entered the dorm.

"Hey Rick, Layna not here?" Kane asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, first of all, how did you immediately know it was me?? And Layna's in the library learning more about manilium-theory or whatever they're calling that."

Kane's interest was piqued, "Manilium-theory? No wait, more importantly, there was a library here?"

Rick sighed, "It's a little disappointing that someone so powerful is so clueless."

"Clueless is the last thing you're allowed to call other people buddy," Kane smiled and let out a laugh.

Rick got surprisingly angry, "No, just shut up. You are clueless. You're strong and cocky, and you're probably smarter than me, but you act like a f*cking moron sometimes. You and Layna both keep making fun of me for dumb crap and then act like idiots."

"Woah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, you okay man?"

"No, I'm not okay. I finally get a chance at something big and you come in and f*ck everything up, then you can't even bother staying in the team, and then as if to mock me you ask to stay in the same f*cking dorm. And now you're teasing me, I know you don't mean it like that but I'm sick of it."

Kane's brows furrowed, "Way to go asshole, you ruined my good mood. I have my own goals, and I'm not going to slow down just because you want to feel special Rick."

"You don't understand, this is all I have now, I f*cked up my life and this is my last shot, and you just burst in all the sudden and f*cking completely overshadow me, you all act nice but I know you guys think I'm a joke," Rick muttered.

"I don't think you're a joke Rick, you're damn good with mana bullets and fighting, you're in the top squad for a reason, but if you want to keep going with all this shallow self-pity bullshit then I'm out."

"Screw you Kane, and screw your stupid f*cking goals."

Kane slammed the door and left, deciding to go check the library and calm down.