Welcome to the squad

By ten o'clock the next morning, Magnus had transformed himself. He had cut his hair short and changed into new clothes and shoes . It was not his style but it would do for now until he gets stable enough to make his own fashion choices.

That morning the representative led him to a training room and there he met his new squad leader Johnathan, a leader of five men who needed a replacement for one member.

" This ends my duty, you will report to your squad leader from now on , all your needs and complaints would be communicated to him directly." The representative said leaving Magnus .

Johnathan just looked Magnus up and down like fresh meat , he felt disappointed.

" Don't even bother sucking up to me , I already hate you and until you prove your self to me , you will be nothing other than a rat is that clear ?" Johnathan barked at Magnus who replied immediately.

" Yes sir. "

Then the training began, like clockwork ten hours a day with five minute breaks in between, Magnus sprinted on command , he did push ups , sit ups , lifted weights, every and any bit of exercise or punishment was carried out promptly without any complaints.

It was excruciating but he endured it doing the mundane tasks without questions.

Aside from these daily exercises, he was in charge of cleaning the equipment of the other squad mates but he took it as a right of passage .

After a month , he had become used to these exercises. He had even started increasing the intensity of the workout and soon members of the squad started to accept him as their own .

During this time period, he had never for once been asked to use his abilities , he had even almost forgotten that he had special abilities until the day he was called uo for a spar with Johnathan.

" Come up and show me what you've got, let me see if you learnt anything from your time in the slums." Johnathan said as he motioned for Magnus to come up to the sparring mat .

" I'm ready when you are." Johnathan said and Magnus taking this for an open invitation didn't rush forward, instead he crept steadily forward. His squad mates sat around smiling, he was from the slums , few of them were . They knew how their first official soar was .

They had come in feeling high , their powers had just come in and they felt unstoppable. They had also felt that it was a great time to exact revenge on the squad captain for the extreme punishment/workout that they were subjected to .

But eventually they were all humbled. They had no combat experience or battle prowess just pride and bruised egos.

This was not the case with Magnus , he was careful gauging Johnathan movement. Then he got into an MMA stance , a position that would allow him to trade kicks and punches effectively.

He then started throwing punches that were continuously dodged by Johnathan. Then suddenly he unleashed a round house kick with full force aimed at Johnathans head but Johnathan blocked it moving back a little.

To the untrained eye , this would look insignificant but Magnus had just unlocked his magic just a month before, unleashing an attack that would make a veteran like Johnathan step back even a little was very impressive.

Now the squad mates were paying attention to the match as Magnus sent punch after punch , kick after kick but they kept on being dodged or blocked.

Magnus was no stranger to fighting, he had from a very young age enrolled in MMA , boxing and karate gyms so he could hold his own . But here , the captain was taunting him . The skill was there but the difference in strength and speed was too obvious.

" Okay now try using your abilities, make sure you go all out so I can know the full extent of your abilities." Johnathan said to Magnus and then immediately just as the thought entered his mind, he ran straight going for a drop kick . For a split second Johnathan was thinking about that Magnus perhaps was having problems accessing his powers but then few inches from his face, Magnus' leg became engulfed in flames.

Johnathan had no other option than to activate his earth elemental ability, coating his hands and face with a layer of rock to mitigate the effects of the flame .

Seing that the captain was distracted for a while Magnus conjured up a bolt of lightning and flung it towards Johnathan causing him to raise an earth wall to block him .

They had been going at it for at least thirty minutes and Johnathan had gotten all the nessesary details that he needed from the session so the spar was halted.

Magnus has finally proven himself as a member of the team. And for that they went out to celebrate at a pub.

It was there that Magnus would make the first decision that would be the starting point of his journey.

When they entered a private booth , Anas, one of his teammates ordered that jars of ale be brought for them.

Magnus was not the drinking type but he knew that no one would drink ale if there was something else available.

" Hey Anas , is there something else other than ale that we can drink?"

" Yeah man, you could drink wine or milk." Amis replied laughing.

Then it dawned on him, this world was so immersed in magic that they couldn't even advance a simple beverage like alcohol, it was like he was living in the prohibition period .

" So guys , how much would you be willing to pay for great alcohol ? " Magnus asked .

The squad mates were already in a good mood so they answered gleefully.

" If you can find me anything better than Ronnie's ale I would pay anything." Jakob one of his teammates replied.

" Same here man , but till that day comes we would continue drinking Ronnie's ale ." Anas said and they all burst into laughter.

The drinking and the eating then continued till late at night. But as all this was going on, Magnus had his mind working overtime on how he was going to capitalize on this flaw and achieve financial freedom.