■ Six Months of Hell
Captain Arlen had designed a regimen that pushed Special Grade abilities to their absolute limits, while Yuri ensured their bodies could withstand the strain.
**Month One: Foundation**
Dawn broke at 0500 hours every day. Physical conditioning came first—ten-mile runs through Eldoria's industrial sectors, weighted down with fifty-pound packs. Stephen thrived, his natural strength allowing him to lead the group. Claire struggled initially, her smaller frame working against her, but her stubborn determination kept her moving. Noah maintained steady pace, never first, never last, conserving energy with calculated efficiency. Lyra approached each exercise methodically, turning physical training into a science of muscle memory and precision.
Combat drills followed breakfast. Hand-to-hand combat with SG-07 became daily ritual. Joseph and Stephen's rivalry intensified, each session ending with both warriors bloodied but grinning. Emma took Claire under her wing, teaching the chaotic fighter how to channel her energy into deadly precision. Leon found Lyra to be his intellectual equal, their sparring sessions resembling chess matches played with fists and feet. Oliver and Noah continued their measured exchanges, each learning to read the other's movements like text on a page.
**Month Two: Weapon Mastery**
The Slaughterers became extensions of their souls. Noah's lunar-inscribed sword sang through training dummies, each strike precise and purposeful. The blade seemed to anticipate his movements, glowing brighter when his focus sharpened. Stephen's massive hammer-axe hybrid pulverized reinforced targets, the weapon's weight becoming as natural to him as his own arms.
Lyra's twin blades moved in perfect harmony, one defending while the other struck. Her movements were surgical, each cut calculated for maximum efficiency. Claire's kusarigama proved the most unpredictable—she wrapped training partners in chains, struck from impossible angles, and somehow managed to avoid decapitating herself in the process.
"Your weapon reflects your soul," Yuri observed during one particularly brutal session. "Noah's blade seeks perfection. Stephen's hammer demands dominance. Lyra's twins require balance. And Claire's chain-scythe..." She paused, watching Claire accidentally tie herself up while attempting an advanced maneuver. "...Claire's weapon is as chaotic as she is."
**Month Three: Tactical Integration**
Unit cohesion became the focus. SG-04 learned to fight as one organism—Stephen as the unstoppable force, Lyra as the calculating mind, Claire as the unpredictable variable, and Noah as the steady foundation that held them together.
They ran scenarios against holographic Spirits, each simulation more challenging than the last. Common Grade swarms tested their teamwork. Epic Grade encounters pushed their individual limits. Elite Grade simulations forced them to think creatively, adapting to supernatural abilities that defied conventional combat logic.
"Stephen, left flank!" Lyra would call out during one simulation, her tactical mind processing multiple variables simultaneously. "Claire, disrupt their formation! Noah, center—they're trying to surround us!"
Noah moved like flowing water, his sword carving through holographic enemies while maintaining perfect positioning. Stephen charged like a berserker, his hammer creating openings for the others to exploit. Claire danced through the battlefield, her chain wrapping around enemies while her scythe found vital points. Lyra orchestrated their movements like a conductor leading a symphony of violence.
**Month Four: Endurance Trials**
The trials nearly broke them. Seventy-two-hour missions with no sleep. Combat scenarios while carrying wounded teammates. Survival exercises in simulated Postmortal World environments where every shadow could hide death.
Claire collapsed during one endurance run, her body finally succumbing to weeks of accumulated fatigue. Noah carried her the final five miles without complaint, his steady pace never faltering despite the added weight. Stephen and Lyra flanked them, creating a protective formation that ensured no training instructor could declare the exercise a failure.
"Why?" Claire asked weakly when she regained consciousness in the medical bay.
"Because we're a team," Noah replied simply. "No one gets left behind."
**Month Five: Advanced Combat Techniques**
Captain Arlen introduced combat techniques that bordered on the supernatural—not quite awakening their Special Grade abilities, but preparing their bodies and minds for that eventual transformation.
Noah learned to channel his focus into perfect striking accuracy. His sword work became almost meditative, each cut finding the exact point where maximum damage met minimum effort. During one session, his blade glowed so brightly that other trainees had to shield their eyes.
Stephen's training focused on channeling his rage constructively. His hammer strikes created shockwaves that cracked training room floors. Yuri began requiring special reinforcement whenever Stephen practiced at full intensity.
Lyra's precision reached inhuman levels. She could thread her twin blades through gaps barely wider than the steel itself, striking vital points with surgical accuracy. Her movements became so fluid they seemed like dance rather than combat.
Claire's chaos found method. Her kusarigama work transformed from wild flailing to controlled unpredictability. She learned to use her weapon's irregular nature as an advantage, creating attack patterns that were impossible to predict or counter.
**Month Six: The Final Test**
The culmination came in the form of a joint exercise between SG-04 and SG-07—a simulated mission to retrieve a Cosmic Ember from a nest of Master Grade Spirit projections.
The battle was brutal. Holographic entities with powers that rivaled natural disasters tested every skill they had learned. SG-07's experience showed as they maintained formation under pressure, their movements coordinated through months of working together. But SG-04 had something else—adaptability born from their diverse backgrounds and unorthodox training methods.
Noah's sword blazed with lunar energy as he parried attacks from a simulated telepathic Master Grade. Stephen's hammer shattered the ground, disrupting the spirit's footing and creating openings for his teammates. Lyra's tactical analysis kept them one step ahead of the entity's mind games, while Claire's unpredictable assault patterns prevented it from reading their strategy.
The exercise ended with both teams standing over the "defeated" projection, bloodied but victorious. Even Oliver showed the ghost of a smile as he clasped Noah's shoulder.
"Six months ago, you were promising rookies," Captain Arlen addressed both units. "Today, you are hunters. Tomorrow..." His scarred face grew serious. "Tomorrow, you face the real thing."
---
■ The Hidden Truth
*Twenty-two Years Ago - Sector 9 Research Facility*
Deep beneath Eldoria's heart, in a laboratory that existed on no official blueprints, two figures worked in feverish concentration. The chamber hummed with the energy of dozen monitoring devices, their screens displaying data that would revolutionize human understanding of their own potential.
The male scientist, his hair prematurely white from years of stress and discovery, leaned over a glowing crystalline object. It pulsed with inner light, similar to an Ember but somehow more refined, more purposeful. His hands shook slightly as he prepared a specialized syringe, its needle crafted from materials that didn't exist in any conventional laboratory.
"The final extraction," he murmured, his voice carrying the weight of decades of research. "After all these years of theory, of failed attempts, of watching humanity struggle against impossible odds..."
His female colleague stood beside him, her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun, her eyes bright with the fervor of scientific breakthrough. She monitored the extraction process through multiple instruments, each reading confirming what they had hoped for but hardly dared believe.
"The subject showed remarkable adaptation," she said, reviewing data on a nearby tablet. "Far beyond our initial projections. Her body not only accepted the enhancement but actively optimized it. She's already conquered challenges that should have been impossible for her age and training level."
The syringe filled with a luminescent liquid that seemed to contain starlight itself. The male scientist held it up to the laboratory's harsh lighting, watching the substance swirl with patterns that suggested consciousness, purpose, destiny.
"My dream is about to come true," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Humanity will no longer cower behind walls, no longer pray that our defenses hold against the darkness. We will have the power to fight back, to reclaim our world, to become what we were meant to be."
The female scientist's smile was sharp with triumph and anticipation. "This will bring a revolution. Humans will get supernatural abilities. Not through random chance or desperate consumption of Spirit Embers, but through controlled, scientific enhancement. We can create a new generation of defenders."
"Yes," the male scientist breathed, carefully storing the syringe in a containment unit designed for transport. "The age of humanity's weakness ends now."
The scene shifted with the mechanical hum of elevator systems and the echo of footsteps on polished floors. A conference hall materialized around them—sterile, official, filled with the kind of corporate authority that made life-and-death decisions from behind mahogany desks and legal documents.
A former General, his uniform bearing decorations from battles against the early Spirit incursions, leaned forward across the conference table. His weathered face carried the skepticism of a man who had seen too many miracle solutions fail when lives hung in the balance.
"Don't they need training to control these abilities?" he asked, his gruff voice cutting through the scientific enthusiasm. "Every Ember user we've documented requires months of practice to safely channel their powers. Some never achieve full control."
The female scientist shook her head with confident certainty. "No, they don't. The enhancement process includes neural pathway modification that provides instinctive understanding of their capabilities. It's not like consuming raw Ember energy and hoping to survive the integration."
Her male colleague stepped forward, his eyes blazing with the fervor of a man who had dedicated his life to this moment. "They don't need training to control their supernatural abilities—it's in their blood now. They themselves know what to do and when to do it. The enhancement creates perfect harmony between human consciousness and supernatural power. They know their abilities intuitively and can control them with precision that surpasses even veteran Ember users."
The former General's expression remained dubious, but there was growing interest in his eyes. "And you're certain of this? The last thing we need is enhanced individuals losing control in populated areas."
"Absolutely certain," the female scientist replied. "Our test subject has demonstrated complete mastery from the moment of awakening. No learning curve, no dangerous power surges, no loss of control. The enhancement doesn't just grant abilities—it grants perfect understanding of how to use them."
The male scientist's voice carried the weight of prophecy as he delivered his final statement: "We are going to call them Special Grades. They will be humanity's answer to the Spirit threat, our evolution beyond mere survival into true power. The age of hiding behind walls ends with them."
In the conference room's harsh fluorescent lighting, shadows played across faces that would never be recorded in official documents, planning a future that would reshape the very definition of human potential. The glowing substance in its containment unit pulsed gently, as if responding to their words with approval.
The revolution had begun, though the world would not understand its true nature for decades to come.
And in training facilities across Eldoria, young people with no knowledge of their true origins continued to push themselves beyond normal human limits, guided by instincts they couldn't explain and driven by purposes they didn't yet understand.
The pieces were in motion. The game was about to change forever.
*End of Chapter 4*