System's POV
chapter-460

"It's so hard… so hot…" Rianna's face was beet red, and beads of sweat were trickling down her forehead.

"Too rough, I can't…" Mildred, who was on the same boat, was reaching her limit said with a flushed face. "Zion, you're terrible…"

"If you want this to get over with, shake those hips," Thirteen replied in a teasing tone. "I find girls who are doing their best extremely attractive."

"I can't… it's so hot."

Thirteen sighed as he looked at the two girls, who were doing their best to swiftly walk across the hot coals while shooting arrows at the baseball balls being spewed by the Pitching Machine.

Derek, who came to find Zion to complain about his hellish training, immediately turned back after seeing the training ground the thirteen-year-old had prepared for the two Rangers.

This was the second stage of Rianna's and Mildred's training, which Thirteen had implemented when he deemed that both of them were ready to take their training to the next level.

Erica, who had just finished her own training, sat beside Thirteen and munched on potato chips.

"Why are you being so easy on them?" Erica asked. "Compared to what you made me go through, isn't their training too tame?"

"If you think that way, why don't you join them?" Thirteen replied.

"On second thought, I'll just sit here and eat my potato chips."

Rianna and Mildred's training continued for an entire hour. After it was over, they immediately jumped over on the coal-less ground, with their feet smoking.

The two didn't hesitate to run over to Shana, whom Thirteen had called fifteen minutes ago.

"Aren't you guys lucky that we have Shana to heal your injuries?" Thirteen asked with a smile.

"You brat—you call this training?" Mildred asked. "It looks like you just want to see us suffer."

"Um? Is an hour running over hot coals not enough?" Thirteen blinked. "We'll make it two hours tomorrow then."

"That was the best training I had in my life," Mildred replied hurriedly. "10/10 would try again!"

The Archer of the Hero Party immediately backed down because she had a feeling that the teenage boy would really extend their training hours to two hours if she didn't take back her words.

Rianna didn't complain and simply wiped the sweat off from her body using the hand towel that Thirteen had passed over to her.

"I've never been that nimble on my feet in my entire life," Rianna commented. "But, it's hard to be accurate shooting arrows when we have to move like that."

Since she was concentrating on pacing her movement to ensure that her feet wouldn't be burned by the coals, she had less concentration to shoot at the baseball balls that were traveling at the speed of 100 mph.

Even Mildred, who was confident in her ability to shoot fast-moving targets, could only hit the baseball ball one out of twenty shots.

Every time she paused to aim properly, her feet would get burned, so she had no choice but to do rapid firing.

"Um, did Derek come here a while ago?" Thirteen asked. "I thought I saw him walk over here earlier."

"He did, but he didn't stay long," Erica replied as she continued to eat her potato chips.

"I see." Thirteen nodded. "And here I was, hoping that I could talk to him about his training. It's time for him to also go to the next stage of his training."

Derek, who had left the scene a few minutes ago, suddenly felt chills running down his spine.

Just like everyone else, they were doing unreasonable training which no sane human would do normally.

Even Shana, who was only supposed to play a role of support, had to learn how to fight in the second stage of her training, and she had to fight a Rank 3 Sovereign alone.

Little did Derek know that Thirteen had decided to make him fight a Rank 4 Sovereign Blaze Skunk for the second part of his training.

The Swordsman was only fighting against a Rank 4 Chad Skunk right now, yet he already felt like dying every time he was hit by its stink spray.

The psychological and emotional damage he was getting from his opponent was enough to give him PTSD, but Thirteen was relentless and told him to just deal with it.

"Rianna, Mildred, both of you will only have two days to get used to the hot coals," Thirteen said. "After that, I will be using four Pitching Machines.

"The first two will throw balls that will serve as your targets, and the other two will be throwing balls to target the two of you."

Rianna, who was drinking water from a tumbler, spat everything she drank and coughed repeatedly.

Mildred, who was about to do the same, turned extremely pale, knowing that what they were going to experience was pure torture.

"C-Can we just focus on hitting our targets until the Winter Solstice?" Mildred stuttered. "I don't think we need to go that far…"

"Of course, we need to go that far," Thirteen replied. "In fact, there is still a Level 3 Training that I have prepared for the two of you, so if you think that what you're going to experience is already hard, then you ain't seen nothing yet."

Mildred's face, which was already pale, lost all of its remaining colors. She was half-regretting her decision to join this impromptu Training Camp and already had a strong urge to go home.

Rianna, who had finally regained her composure, only sighed before taking a sip from her tumbler.

"Just give up, Mildred," Rianna said after she was done drinking. "Zion does things for a reason. You might hate him now, but you will definitely thank him later once we're done with our training."

Mildred was still half in doubt whether Zion truly wanted to help them, or he only wanted to see them suffer.

However, after remembering the artifacts that Shana and Diana received from him, she gritted her teeth and nodded her head.

"The items you'll give us better be worth it," Mildred. "Otherwise, I will bite you."

Tiona glanced at the teenage girl and made sure to hiss at her, making Mildred jump back in fright.

"Tiona is the only one who can bite me, you know?" Thirteen said with a smile. "Be careful. She might think that you're trying to steal me away from her."

The Black Snake nudged the teenage boy's cheeks as if telling him that it wasn't true.

She would never want to bite her Master because she cared for him very much.