Two days after the start of the regimen, with the trio alternating each time, Marcus had constructed yet another brutal session. Their muscles still ached from the previous drills, but Marcud had devised a fresh regimen to push themselves even further.

Nova was locked in a high-stakes obstacle course duel with Marcus, while Elesch was tasked with a sensory deprivation meditation to amplify her void manipulation, and Adam faced a gauntlet of D-rank monsters with randomized attack patterns.

---

Nova stood at the edge of the obstacle course, his heart racing. The arena was a maze of shifting platforms, spinning blades, and electrified walls, rigged with traps that mimicked real combat zones.

Marcus stood opposite, his eyes betraying his mischievous intentions. Nova gripped his daggers, the itch of his Circle of Pillars sparking in his palm. He sprinted forward as the first platform tilted, forcing him to leap to a narrow beam.

A blade whirred toward his head, and he ducked, rolling across the beam to avoid a shock from an electrified panel. Marcus moved parallel, shadows lashing out like spears. One grazed Nova's shoulder, drawing blood. He gritted his teeth, the pain sharpening his focus.

He vaulted over a gap, landing on a spinning platform that wobbled under his weight. Marcus was already there, shadows slicing through the air. Nova parried with his daggers, the clash ringing out as he slid under a swinging pendulum.

He feinted left, then darted right, hurling a dagger at Marcus's chest. The shadow tendrils deflected it, but Nova used the distraction to leap to a higher platform, narrowly avoiding a collapsing floor.

"Stop planning," Marcus called, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Feel it."

Nova's chest rose, sweat stinging his eyes. He lunged off the platform, daggers aimed at Marcus's side. A trap triggered, spraying sparks, but Nova twisted mid-air, thinking he landed a shallow cut on Marcus's arm before a shadow slammed him into a padded wall.

He gasped, pain radiating through his ribs, but scrambled up, dodging a barrage of shadow spikes. The course shifted again, platforms rotating, forcing him to sprint across a crumbling bridge.

---

Elesch sat in a sealed chamber, the walls lined with runes that blocked all sound and light. Marcus had called this sensory deprivation meditation, a test to deepen her void manipulation by forcing her to rely solely on her inner senses.

The silence was suffocating, her heartbeat being the only sound. She closed her eyes, diving into her Ability Chamber, where her duplicate had waited for her.

The duplicate attacked without warning, its blade slicing through the void. Elesch sensed the energy shift and parried, her rapier sparking. Her task was to create and sustain three void rifts simultaneously, each manipulating a different aspect of space, distance, gravity, and momentum.

The mental strain was brutal, like juggling knives while blindfolded. She opened the first rift, warping the duplicate's strike to miss her. The second rift tugged at the duplicate's footing, slowing it. The third, the hardest, altered gravity, making the duplicate's movements sluggish.

The duplicate countered, creating its own rift that disrupted Elesch's balance. She stumbled in the void, her focus wavering. She sweated on her forehead as she forced the rifts to hold, her mind screaming under the pressure.

"You're fragile," the duplicate taunted, its voice echoing in her skull. "You won't be able to hold it."

Elesch gritted her teeth, stabilizing the rifts and thrusting her rapier. The blade grazed the duplicate. She pushed harder, merging the rifts into a single vortex that pinned the duplicate briefly. Her head ached, but knowing that Nova was pushing himself beyond his limits constantly, she held on, inspired by him.

---

On the other hand, Adam stood in the holographic bay, claws extended, surrounded by a swarm of D-rank beasts, digital wolves, goblins, and serpents with randomized attack patterns.

The guild's AI had cranked the difficulty, making each creature unpredictable. His heart raced, still jittery from the graveyard spirits, but he shook it off.

A wolf lunged, jaws snapping. Adam slashed, shredding its side into pixels. Two goblins attacked from behind, their spears thrusting erratically. He spun, claws raking through one while dodging the other.

A serpent struck from above, forcing him to roll. Its tail grazed his leg, the pain sharp enough to make him curse. The AI spawned more beasts, faster and smarter, their movements chaotic.

After ten minutes, Adam's stamina was fading, his arms already feeling heavy and exhausted. He slashed through a goblin, but a wolf tackled him, pinning him briefly before he kicked it off and sliced its throat.

The bay shifted, the floor tilting to mimic uneven terrain. Adam stumbled, barely dodging a serpent's fangs. "This is insane," he growled, but kept fighting.

A massive boar-like beast charged, its body emitting radiation. Adam roared, channeling his Claw Strike into a double slash that split the boar in half. More beasts spawned, relentless, testing his endurance and nerve.

From behind him, Nova and Elesch jumped in, slaying the monsters in their wake. More monsters were brought into existence as Adam stayed back, resting slightly, but then joined in, working together, as Marcus watched from a distance, to analyze them carefully, so that he could improve his regimen to push them further, where they needed some pushing.

Nova was deftly carving out all the goblin lookalikes like they were minced meat, with Elesch following him closely behind, using her rapier to slash and remove the creatures from the mortal realm.

Adam also joined them, lunging at creatures and clawing their flesh from the inside out. The trio worked together until the holographic machine ran out of juice to summon more monsters, so upon wave fifty, all the monsters glitched, despawning right away, as the holographic machine shut down.

The trio panted, falling to the ground, their backs against each other, as Marcus stepped towards them. "Well done," he said, his voice calm. "I'm impressed you lasted fifty waves; some of high C-ranks and low B-ranks can't last that much."

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