Chapter 24: Undercurrents (1)

***Third-person P.O.V.

Freshman dormitories house at least 600 people if you count students and the staff together.

For convenience sake, the gym was situated on underground floors of buildings. All the dormitories share a single underground floor that covered the whole area.

There were 3 levels in the underground solely dedicated for students to train.

Steve changed his clothes before entering the elevator and pressing the underground floor.

The first level housed gym equipment while the 2nd and 3rd levels were filled with private gravitational rooms for personal training.

Since most students train in the morning, It would be inconvenient if they couldn't use the gravitational room because they were full, that was why the Academy solely dedicated 2 levels for just it.

Steve didn't expect anyone to be present right now since everyone would be busy with the preparation for the party or mingling with each other but unexpectedly there were a few students present.

Since the area was so big and everyone entered from their buildings, there was nobody near him but their silhouette could be seen.

Steve didn't come here to train right now. He was here to check out the gravitational room since he never experienced it before.

It would be awkward if he made some mistake tomorrow morning when most people would be present so he decided to test it out today.

Since it was advised to warm up first before entering the chamber, he did some warm-up exercises first and stretched his body.

After around 10 minutes of doing it all, he walked to the stairs since the elevator doesn't go to the second level.

He found rows of glass rooms lining both left and right sides with space in the middle to walk.

This floor was empty except for a single room which was occupied by a male student. He was likely from a different class since this was the first time steve saw him.

Steve couldn't pinpoint what made him so special but somehow he felt that this person must be kept on his radar.

He had short-cut black hair and blue eyes and a well-developed body. He seemed so focused on perfecting his sword art that he didn't seem to realize that he was being watched right now.

He carried a calm and gentle expression on his face but his eyes contained fire inside them.

Steve hesitated once before walking before the room he was training in and the student finally noticed him.

He gave a confused look to Steve as he stopped his training before exiting the room.

" Yes?"

" I'm sorry to disturb your training but you could please tell me how to use these rooms?" Steve gave an apologetic look while signaling toward the other rooms.

" Sure, I'm silver. " Silver smiled as he nodded before raising his hand for a handshake that Steve returned.

" I'm Steve. I wouldn't have disturbed you but you were the only one present except me right now. "

** Ahh, so that's why.** Steve was unaware that as soon as he shook his hand with silver, his system reacted to something.

" It's fine. Shall we?" Silver shook his head before walking toward the opposite room once Steve nodded.

" Give me your student ID." Silver said once they reached the room.

" So what you have to do is to present your ID to this scanner here and once it verifies it, you are allowed to enter the room."

" The room could be operated by voice. You could raise the room's gravitational force to 5 levels but I would recommend that you start by 2 and let your body used to it first. "

" There is a risk of your joints not able to take the pressure if you skip levels without getting used to them. Ahh, also you could make the glass opaque if you prefer that. "

" Thanks a lot. "

Silver smiled while nodding, " Mention not. Now if you excuse me. "

Steve nodded to him as he returned to his room after returning the student ID.

" Set gravity at level 2. " He spoke aloud and instantly felt the changes.

" I wonder how it works." He slowly walked around the room to get used to it before trying to jump a little.

' Better to follow his advice and to keep it normal for today. ' Steve decided.

He first did 50 pushups and took a break of 10 minutes to catch his breath. He then did 100 or so crunches and a few other simple exercises before he felt that it was enough for today.

By the end of it, he was sweating buckets while taking long breaths.

" Return the gravity to normal " Steve spoke with much difficulty while sitting on the floor.

He observed the room opposite to him where silver was still continuing his training without breaking a shred of exhaustion on his face.

" He didn't tell me that you could start an air conditioner in the room too. " Steve joked to himself as he gave up on standing for now.

***Steve P.O.V.

'It would take some days to get used to this.' I finally couldn't take it and give up on even sitting and retired on the floor itself.

I decided that it would be good to use the opaque feature of the glass from tomorrow until I get used to this environment unless I want to make a fool of myself.

After a few minutes of rest, I gradually sat down in a lotus position and closed my eyes.

I wanted to figure out if the gravitational room helps with mana training too or not.

After closing my eyes, I slowly started to clear my mind of irrelevant thoughts while my body relaxed.

Once I archived that, I began expanding my supernatural sense outside of my body.

Suddenly I came to face with lots of sensory information from my surroundings. Since my objective was to learn to control mana rather than expand my reach, I stopped further expanding my senses.

There were at least 9 types of wavelengths around me with 2 being in the superiority.

One of them was originating from the floor itself while the other was present in the air.

I tried to not affect them and instead focused on others. My objective was to get precise control over frequencies while avoiding affecting the rest.

I kept getting failed for half an hour before I achieved minor success. My patience was completely spent by them so I stopped myself from going any further.

'It was essential to know when to stop too.' I got up from meditation to see that silver was still going on with his training.

He seemed to have as much stamina as I could mana at my disposal. While I did feel some envy while looking at him, I am well aware that it's natural.

He most likely trained like that for years so it's no surprise if he could go on like this without stopping once.

Unlike him, my condition was a little different. Even if my body was capable of following him, my mind was still not used to training for so long.

I waved goodbye to him which he returned with a smile before I left for my room.

'I need to take a shower as soon as possible.' I thought to myself as I smelled sweat from my body.

"Ugh, I hope the water isn't too cold." I entered my room and dumped my clothes for washing while I entered the bathroom.

****†*****†*****†*****†*****†*****†*****

A review would be very much appreciated.