Stanley realized the hard way that Gray wasn’t joking when he said that they would be training until he couldn’t continue. The worse part about that was, he meant it quite literally.

Gray’s focus on the training was mostly to help Stanley hone his own powers as well as control them to his peak efficiency. Not only that, he also checked Stanley’s hand-to-hand combat strength as well as his weapons mastery.

He was surprised to find that Stanley was quite good at using most weapons that existed over a hundred years ago. He had no proficiency on lesser used weapons and whips, or balls and chains, but most weapons like swords, spears, maces, staffs, and even bows, he was used to.

Stanley was surprised to see that there were many more types of weapons out there than just the few he was used to. Guns, grenades, and all other sorts of weapons that one could use in a fight were there for him to practice within the training hall.

Except, Gray didn’t let him. He would get to train with them at a later day when he learned more about them.

For now, they trained normally.

Stanley fought with Gray, even training in close combat. He tried his best to get a hit in or two, and while it wasn’t hard since it seemed like Gray wasn’t as rained at him or fast as him, Stanley still could never get a hit in.

Or more accurately, he did get a hit in, but it never hit Gray.

There was always some sort of invisible barrier around Gray that Stanley could neither see nor sense. Most of the time, he wasn’t even sure how far away the barrier extended to or how thick it was.

He thought of methods that he could use to fight this man, but that seemed impossible. The man he was training with was, as far as Stanley could tell, invincible.

The training continued for a few hours when Stanley got his first wound. He wasn’t even sure he could call it just a wound and not a fatal injury.

Something strong and hard hit his right hand even when he saw the future and tried to dodge it. His arm snapped cleanly, bending in the wrong direction, sending wave after wave of pain into Stanley.

"Stand up!" Gray said, ignoring that he was in pain. "Your enemy won’t wait for you to cry before attacking again."

Stanley saw the future and couldn’t stop it again. Something slammed onto his chest, sending him skidding across the floor until he struck the wall on the other side.

His arm hurt more and even started bleeding, which left a trail of blood along the white floor. Stanley tried to ignore the pain, to look at Gray as anger built up inside of him, but before he could do anything, something else came toward him, something invisible.

He saw the future. His left arm was going to get cut clean off. He needed to dodge. He needed to focus.

He tried to stop time, but the pain made it impossible to do anything of that sort. He still moved, and while his arm wasn’t cut off at the shoulders, it was still cut off at the wrist.

He cried once again as pain shot through him.

His mind wandered because of the pain and panic. What was happening? Was the training all a ruse? Was he trying to kill him from the start?

Was he trying to steal his soul to improve himself as a Nova?

Stanley wondered, but wondering alone couldn’t get him anywhere. He needed to fight. He needed to fight back and survive.

He got back up and looked toward Gray when he saw a future of him getting slammed on the wall on the opposite side. He could tell something was going to attack him from his leg, but what?

He couldn’t see anything at all. He limped away, but whatever he had seen in the vision was coming true. Something had grabbed his leg and then he was flung to the other side of the room.

Stanley slammed the wall, leaving a massive wave of light wave across the wall, making the shield visible. He fell to the floor, blood sprayed all around him.

His vision blurred, but he tried to remain in focus.

He heard something clearly. Gray was speaking. He tried to focus on the words.

"Hey! Can you see? Can you speak?" he asked. Stanley could hear fingers snapping, but he couldn’t see it.

The entirety of Gray was nothing but a hazy black blur to his vision with the only other color being the warm tone of his human skin.

"Well, I guess that concludes our training," Gray said. "You can no longer fight, so I’ll let you rest. We’ll fight tomorrow."

Gray turned and Stanley heard a bunch of footsteps coming in his direction. However, Gray’s silhouette didn’t get any larger at all. Instead, he saw someone else come in. He couldn’t see anything in detail about this new person, but he could tell that they wore yellow clothing with a dash of red toward the top.

Then he heard the voice.

"Gray!"

The high pitched tone of the voice revealed that it was a girl. She seemed to be as tall as Gray when she stood by him.

"What are you doing?" she shouted. "Are you trying to kill him?"

"Of course not," Gray said. "If I was trying, he would be dead already. I was just nearly killing him."

"Why did you have to hurt him so badly?" she asked in an angry tone as she moved toward Stanley. She looked at him all over and turned back around. "Did you hurt him knowing that I was watching?"

"Obviously," Gray said, turning to leave. "Take care of him for me."

"I’m not your personal healer that you can just make me heal everyone you hurt," the girl said in an angry tone.

"Are you saying you will leave them all to die then?" Gray asked.

"Urgh!" the girl groaned. "The next time you do something like this..."

"What?" Gray asked with a hidden chuckle to his voice. "What will you do, old woman?"

"You!!" the girl was angry, but she could do nothing.

Gray simply laughed. "Just give up, old woman. You can’t bring yourself to harm others, and neither can you stop yourself from helping others," he said. "You’re too kind for that."

His roaring laughter filled the room all the the way until he entered the elevator and left. Finally, the red haired lady focused back on Stanley.

"Can you hear me?" she asked. Her voice had turned gentle, soothing even, almost making Stanley forget about all the pain he was feeling. "Blink if you can hear and understand me."

Stanley did as he was told. He blinked and let the girl know that he could hear her.

"Good," she said. "You’re conscious and you can understand me. That’s a good sign. I’m going to now heal you. You will feel weird, try not to move around while I do it, okay?"

Stanley wanted to answer, but he found it hard to move his mouth. So, he just blinked again.

"Let me start."

The girl placed her hand on his head, and Stanley felt a warm energy flow into him. He couldn’t tell what was going on, except that he could think a lot more clearly, and every bit of pain he felt was gone.

His eyes went back to focusing again and he could see the girl that was in front of him more clearly than ever.

It was an older girl, seemingly in her 20s with bright red, almost orange hair. It was tied loosely into two parts that fell around her shoulders.

Her face was... simply perfect. Stanley couldn’t tell what other words he could use to describe her if not that.

Shiela was beautiful, Ulia was hot, and Reena was pretty. But this girl, she was simply perfect.

Her arm move from the back of his head to his neck and then to his back. All along the way, warm energy flowed into Stanley, healing him.

She moved onto his left arm and poured some more healing energy onto his wrist. Stanley was surprised when he itchy weird feeling he felt in his arm turned out to be his wrist muscles and bones wriggling to create new muscles and bone, that grew out to fill what he had lost.

She moved to his other arm and he felt it itch once again. His arm that was bent the wrong way suddenly flipped around, moving into the right position as the bones stuck back together and his arm healed.

The other parts of his bodies weren’t very injured, so they took no more than a minute to heal all of it.

"Phew!" the girl wiped her brows, even though there was no sweat on it.

"Are you feeling well now?" she asked. "Any pain?"

Stanley looked all over himself and shook his head. "I... feel fine," he said.

"Good," the girl gave a genuine smile. She got up and lend him a hand to bring him up.

Stanley took her hand and stood up. When he did, he realized that this lady was actually a full head taller than him. He had to slightly look up to gaze her in the eye.

"Thank you, sister," he said quickly. "For healing me."

"Call me Amy," she said. "And you don’t have to thank me. I’m just doing my job."