Stanley took a deep breath. "I’ll do it now," he said.

With a thought, the world came to a crawl as his powers came into effect. He had slowed down time, and to his surprise, he had done it by about 30 times.

It wasn’t how slow he had made it that surprised him, but rather that he could tell how slow it was. That was the benefit of his other power that always let him know how fast time was flowing no matter how much it changed.

Stanley hadn’t slowed down time to the maximum he could. He knew he could do it even more. But he found this to be the best speed without completely pushing himself to the limit.

Then he looked toward Gray and decided to move past behind him to show what he could do. With that thought, he stepped forward.

Gray stood where he was, waiting for Stanley to move. One second he was there, then the other second he had turned into a blur.

He heard a large crash all of a sudden, not understanding what had happened. Both he and the director looked in that direction and saw Stanley on the ground, near the wall to their left.

"Oh shit," Gray shouted when he realized what had happened. "That’s my bad," he said.

He quickly went up to Stanely, but Stanley was already standing up, surprising him. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"No," Stanley said and caught his head. It hurt so very much. "What happened?"

He himself didn’t know. He ran toward Gray to go behind him to show how he could slow down time and be fast, but to his surprise when he got too close to him, he couldn’t get any more closer.

Instead, the further he tried to move, the most force he had to put into it, and at some point, he couldn’t move further at all.

He was warned by his powers as to what was going to happen next, but Stanley had no way of doing anything to not have that happen.

At that point, he was instead forced back by whatever it was that stopped him.

Not only was he forced back, he was sent flying at an angle and had struck the wall of the training hall, hitting his head on it very hard.

"It was my fault. I had upped the elasticity in defense," Gray said. "Speaking of which, why did you try to attack me? You shouldn’t have."

"I wasn’t," Stanley said, rubbing the back of his head. "I was trying to go behind you."

"Oh," Gray said. "Piece of advice, don’t try to get close to me. You never know what will happen to you."

Stanley stared at the older man with a bit of curiosity, wondering what powers he had used just now. Elasticity? What did he mean by that?

Gray lend him an arm and pulled him up. "Still, I must say. You were quite fast. Amazingly so even," he said. He brought Stanley back to the center of the room and brought up a video that was recorded of him.

The video was slowed by 20 times, and even then Stanley was moving fast enough to blur at moments.

"Wow," Gray said. "See, that’s why your body is so strong. A normal human body wouldn’t be capable of handling such speed, so your body had to adapt to what was going to happen."

"Oh," Stanley looked at the video. "So my body got strong because I was going to awaken the power to slow down time."

"Yes," Gray said. "Maybe there are other powers that you might awaken in the future that might require it, but for now this is why it got strong."

"I see," Stanley said, surprised to learn that his strong body was truly not another power, but just a side effect of him being a Nova. "Do I use souls to improve my body or not?"

"You most likely do," Gray said. "It’s hard to imagine you would not."

Stanley nodded.

Gray and the director looked at the video of him blitzing up to Gray, where he slowed down and was flung back.

They saw the speed at which he hit the wall and were more than surprised to see him still alive. Any regular person would have had their heads smashed into the walls, their innards spilling at the moment.

"Amazing," Gray spoke softly once more as he looked at the video.

The director walked up close and spoke. "I want to check something," he said. "Run from that wall to that wall as fast as you can while using your power."

Stanley looked at the walls and nodded.

"Shoot the footage for the next 20 seconds with a high-speed camera," he said to the room, which complied easily.

Stanley stood by the wall and took a deep breath before time slowed down for him once more. Only this time, it was far slower than the last time.

From what his power told him, it was over 50 times slower. He pushed against the wall, sending a ripple through the shield that lay over it.

He moved at a normal speed as air itself was thick enough to be harder than water to walk through in. Even breathing became nearly impossible with how much force he needed to pull air into his body.

Thankfully, he didn’t need to breathe for this tiny bit of journey. He ran, making his way through the dense air, going all the way to the other wall in what felt like 10 seconds to him.

During this moment, he saw layers of air compress in itself, creating a white glow around him that he did not understand. He only wondered what it was when he realized he was still in momentum and the wall had already arrived in front of him.

He slammed onto the other wall to stop himself, his hand passing through the shield when it flickered off. It only replaced the location after he pushed back against the wall and turned around, leaving cracks in the stone wall behind him.

He then ran all the way back to the other wall, but this time he stopped far earlier so that the air could slow him down enough that he didn’t slam into the wall.

Once he arrived back on the wall, he let the time flow normally.

He looked toward the two men, who flinched all of a sudden because of a single sound that rang through the room.

The director was about to cover his ear, but thanks to Gray he didn’t have to.

They looked toward Stanley at the wall and then on the other side where he had left cracks on the wall. To them, it looked like Stanley had shot a gun or something that damaged the other wall.

They were so curious as to what exactly had happened that they wasted no time to check.

They saw the rippling shield when Stanley first started running. Then, they saw the sonic boom as Stanley crossed the speed of sound inside the room.

The two had thought that had been the bang they heard when Stanley arrived on the other side of the room and slammed onto the wall.

He had somehow not damaged the wall that time, but when he pushed against it, the force had left cracks on the wall, that had created the second noise.

Then, on the way back he had made another sonic boom, which surprised the two men.

It hadn’t been 1 sound that they had heard, but rather 3 that happened practically at the same time. They were simply unable to differentiate.

"Wow," Gray said, looking at the video.

The director was solemn for a second. He couldn’t believe that Stanley was so fast that he had gone past the shield, even if that was by mistake. That was something that their guns were barely able to do after fitting an entire computer into it.

"He’s good," the director finally said. "So long as he can also be good at heart, he can do a lot."

"That’s obvious," Gray said.

The director then walked up to Stanley and placed his mechanical arm on him. "I’m choosing to trust you will not betray us and become like the other Novas," he said with a serious look on his face.

"I won’t," Stanley said seriously. "I promise."

"I’ll trust you for now," the director said, patting him on the shoulder twice. "Don’t think you are safe just because Gray choose to stand up for you. If you betray our trust at any moment, Gray will be the first one to kill you out of us all."

Gray nodded in the distance.

"Have fun training." The director left the room, having seen everything he needed to. He could tell that Stanley had only just awakened his powers and needed a lot longer to hone it all.

He had to give him time to learn all the quirks in his awakened powers before he could be sent to the field.

One thing was for certain, however. Stanley was definitely going to have to be a fighter.

Once the director left the room, Stanley was left alone with Gray, who smiled at him.

"We’re done testing," Gray said, making Stanley feel a little confused.

"We’re done here?" he asked.

"Oh no, we’re just done with the testing," Gray said. "Now we’ll begin your actual training."

His grin was visible even through the metal mask he wore. "Get ready. This training won’t end until you can no longer continue."