And so, the year went by.
Gio spent most of his ti at ho. He trained with his father like it was his job, working on himself from morning to evening every single day.
The training was balanced, so it wasn’t a miserable experience.
What was trained at what ti of what day rotated every week to add variance. On top of that, Kyrian was constantly challenging him in new ways so the training never beca repetitive.
There were three main aspects they focused on. Every morning, they started by warming up their bodies for two hours with physical exercises and then focused on these three aspects.
The first was simply energy control.
The ability to control the tiniest amount of energy perfectly enough for it to beco a weapon, and the ability to control the greatest amounts of energy without being overwheld. Both were incredibly important, especially for new Sequencers who didn’t understand how their Sequences worked.
[Virtual Manifestation] was unique in that it derived its power from two different sources. The first was stamina like any other Sequence, and the second, surprisingly enough, was Aether.
He had more endurance with the Sequence because of that, but it also ant the energy he used had a higher likelihood of turning volatile.
Training energy control was the simplest way to make these issues as minimal as possible.
The second was versatility.
When Sequencers first appeared, the world had to find a way to rationalize power and quantify it. The only examples they had, however, were from works of fiction.
Early Sequencers used to call out their attacks and do fancy movents to try and manifest more power. They adopted a lot of traits that fantasy characters had, only to realize how embarrassing they looked much later.
Humanity evolved and adapted, learning what to keep and what to discard. Things like calling out attack nas were thrown out long ago, but the creation of "special moves" themselves remained.
Sequencers fought in places where one’s life was only worth a single second. Creativity could not thrive during battle.
As such, Sequencers tended to use their abilities simply in the ways they knew best without trying to expand at all.
Their fighting styles were fine. However, when they truly did need to cause large amounts of damage, they had to rush to think of the best way possible in the midst of combat.
Rather than sothing as inefficient as that, Sequencers would create their moves outside of battle and train those specific techniques into the ground.
At the critical mont, they wouldn’t have to think about anything. The instinct to perform those techniques was ingrained into their bodies and turned into muscle mory. They would gain a "versatility" that they couldn’t otherwise achieve.
Gio, naturally, had to create his own. Kyrian helped as best as he could, displaying his own Sequence and the techniques he first created when he started Sequencing.
Gio didn’t necessarily need the help, but he appreciated it. After all, Kyrian viewed the entire act of Sequencing in a different way. There weren’t two Sequencers in the entire Gehenna Complex who thought of Sequences the sa way.
Kyrian’s perspective was one Gio had never considered before. By observing it, he was able to expand into territories he wouldn’t have reached imdiately on his own. The techniques he created couldn’t be considered complete, but they were certainly battle-ready.
Their third main focus was practical experience, so he had more than enough ti to test them.
As Kyrian said, fighting humans was different from fighting monsters or beasts.
Fighting humans was one thing Gio did not have experience in.
There was no such thing as a human in the tower. He was the first.
Fighting Kyrian was a good way to learn considering his past. He wasn’t anywhere near his pri, but that didn’t make him a bad fighter. Gio never once managed to get the advantage over him.
However, Kyrian wasn’t the only one teaching Gio how to fight humans.
The weekends were his personal ti. It beca routine for him to live in the mansion from Monday to Thursday and then move to the city from Friday to Sunday.
Kyrian didn’t question his reasoning much. Gio only said that he was going out to explore and train, and Kyrian allowed it, saying that as long as he stayed in the vicinity of Helix, it was fine.
Of course, he spent that ti with Lunos.
The people of that place were fun to be around. More importantly, now that he’d been vetted, Moon Rabbit started giving him more than just assassination missions.
He started working around Helix and the surrounding areas. Most of the ti, he was sent to target djinn groups or rings of corruption, so he felt like he was cosplaying a superhero.
Nevertheless, he tried his best to ignore it and treated it all as combat experience.
He got closer to Moon Rabbit and Lunos’ people. He checked up with Klyde here and there and trained. For half a year or so, life went by uneventfully.
But it was not ant to be an uneventful year.
As Gio expanded his activities, the "jobs" he was doing for Lunos turned into rcenary work. Moon Rabbit started sending him outside of Helix to aid other forces, allowing him to build up sothing of a reputation.
People started expressing a desire to hire him personally, so he went and bought another holowatch to use as Lynx for jobs only.
That was when his mildly eventful life started.
His commissions didn’t change. He was picky, so he didn’t take any job just because it paid a little and brought him so acclaim. He made sure that every job he did had either a net positive or a neutral effect on humanity as a whole.
The number of commissions he could take lessened significantly as a consequence of his standards, but he was never doing it for money.
His goal was experience and reputation, both of which he earned in greater quantities by doing things his way.
He traveled all across Arcadia over the next half a year. It would have been a wonderful vacation if it happened in any other way.
But for the sake of convenience and efficiency, Gio traveled through Nightreign and never left the scope of his mission areas. He was all across Arcadia, but he felt like he never left Helix or its outskirts even once.
Regardless, he never planned to have fun or enjoy himself.
In a single year, he packed in as much possible training as he could and worked hard on himself.
The seasons changed four tis until it returned to Spring.
Gio turned fifteen.
And his entrance into the First Institute was now only a few days away.
He stood behind the mansion with Kyrian as he had for the majority of the past year.
They faced each other, preparing for their final spar before they officially concluded training.
"You’ve improved imnsely. It makes embarrassed for doubting your qualifications earlier," Kyrian said, cracking his knuckles.
"And since you’ve improved imnsely, I won’t go easy on you this ti. For our final spar, I’m going to treat this as a real life-or-death battle. I won’t stop until you really can’t get up again. Are you ready for it?"
Gio finished his stretches and looked at his father with confident eyes.
He knew he would lose.
The day when he’d win wouldn’t co any ti soon.
However, when he started, he could only take ten moves from Kyrian.
During their last spar, he was able to take over a hundred.
And this ti...
This ti, he wanted to land a hit on his father for the first ti ever.
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