His 2 Elders, shortly after leaving the car, also looked deeply impressed by it, their gazes sweeping over the soldiers with quiet seriousness, apparently sharing the sa thoughts as their ruler and silently comparing this Human force to their own.
Thankfully, Marielle and Niva were not with them, because they had chosen to stay behind to spend more ti with Vesha.
Otherwise, the shock and surprise they would have felt upon seeing how Adyr was greeted with such a high level of ceremony might have shaken their image as Ladies and disrupted the calm composure they worked so hard to maintain. Adyr only laughed in response to Zephan's remark as he walked to the entrance, leading the group inside. Rhys and Henry followed at the very back, their shoes tapping softly against the hard floor as they crossed the threshold. When they entered inside, the sa greeting t them there as well. All the STF soldiers and personnel working inside first kneeled, turning from their duties in one smooth motion, and then, with the command from Adyr, rose like robots, as if all operating with the sa mind, the whole entrance briefly turning into a living formation before settling back into motion.
The entrance floor of the training building was designed very differently from the main Headquarters, which was made to make any guest coming through feel amazed and small.
This one was just plain, with no extra exaggerated design or decoration, just a long reception desk to record the information of those who arrived and help them. On one side, there was an ordinary yet wide waiting area, rows of simple chairs, and a bare wall-not even with a small television to pass the ti- looking quite bare and ordinary, built purely for efficiency.
This simplicity was not a mistake. It was normal, as Henry and the 12 City Managers would never think they would ever expect a guest in this building, so they did not spend extra money for them just for the entrance, choosing
instead to pour resources into equipnt and training rather than
appearances.
"Henry, please show the way!" Adyr said without turning back, letting the
middle-aged man in the suit take the lead to the elevators waiting ready across the hall.
After all 6 n boarded the elevator, the first step for them was the second floor, where the first level of the training building was located.
The confined space filled for a brief mont with the faint hum of the machinery lifting them upward.
The doors of the elevator then opened to a very wide, massive room, entering Zephan's and the others' vision and making their faces turn amazed by the scene inside, their eyes pulled imdiately to the rows of machines and moving bodies that filled the space.
This level wasn't for the VR; it was just a gym filled with equipnt-treadmills, bench presses, rowing machines, and other machines soone could use to build muscle and improve their overall conditioning.
All of it was arranged in clean lines on polished flooring, with cables, tal fras, and digital panels forming a forest of Human-made training tools. To any Human, the floor would simply look like a very expensive gym. However, to Zephan and his Elders, everything looked like it had been designed to train God's legion, a hall where ordinary n were forged into sothing divine.
From the low but motivational music ringing inside, setting a steady rhythm for every movent, to the carefully ventilated and sterile yet relaxing scent that suppressed the sll of sweat and carried a faint hint of sothing fresh and clean, the environnt felt purposefully crafted.
All the strange machines they had never seen in their lives added to that impression, everything looking as if it had co from the hands of the finest craftsman, the physical embodint of power laid out before their eyes in steel and reinforced materials.
It wasn't only the equipnt and design of the gym, though. The people currently training inside were another shock for them.
There were approximately 50 or so people currently using these machines, with serious faces and sweaty bodies, working their muscles with focus.
The most interesting thing, however, was that...
"They are not Practitioners?" Zephan asked curiously, observing every figure inside and realizing they were all mortals; their auras were quiet, but their bodies appeared anything but weak.
"They are mortals indeed." Henry answered the question this ti, looking like he had found so of his dignity and bearing after seeing the amazed look in Zephan's eyes twice since they arrived at the building, a small, quiet pride slipping into his tone.
"How?" Zephan couldn't believe what he heard, his eyes still locked on the people, tracking the motion of their limbs, the stability of their stances, and the raw force behind each movent as if he were studying a battlefield.
His confusion and shock were on point, because even though they were not Practitioners, every one of the people inside were 3rd-generation mutants with enhanced bodies, their muscles, bones, and reactions strengthened by Human thods rather than divine paths.
A man in a corner was running on a treadmill at a speed no mortal Lunari could ever reach, his feet striking so fast that his legs blurred slightly.
In another area, a woman on a mat laid on the floor was doing movents as if her body were made of rubber, bending and twisting into positions that would
snap a normal spine.
In another place, another woman was punching a sandbag, and with every strike one could feel the force behind it from the way the heavy bag jolted and
the chains rattled above.
Many more were showing, with every controlled repetition, that none of these people should have been any less than Rank 1 Practitioners in terms of raw power, even stronger than Aether Path ones when it ca to pure physical
performance.
"Can I try so of them?" Zephan finally asked, unable to hold back his
curiosity any longer.
The spirit of training in the room was getting to him; the music ringing in his
ears like the words of a spell only deepened the feeling, his gaze already
drifting toward the nearest machine.
"Sure!" Adyr was genuinely interested to see this white-robed, long silver-haired, cultivator-looking man try so of the modern Human gym
equipnt.
As they started walking forward together, they finally drew the attention of the
people training, making them all stop whatever they were doing and fall down to their knees, sweat still sliding down their faces as they pressed one knee to
the ground.
"Please rise." Adyr did not let them stay too long on their knees as he started to address all the people. "These are my friends from the Lunari Kingdom, Silverlight Zephan and his respected Elders. They ca here to see how we
train our people."
The people who were listening to Adyr with respect and deep shock at seeing him here seed to be hit by another wave of surprise as he kept speaking.
"If you don't mind, we want to try a few pieces of equipnt here."
It wasn't only that Adyr was speaking to them very politely, asking for permission to join them and raising their impression of him to new heights. The fact that he was asking them to use these machines was sothing that made
them excited beyond words, a spark of almost childlike excitent flickering beneath their disciplined exteriors.
Just the thought that a newly rising God on Earth was about to lift weights in front of them was enough to make any gym rat there light up with excitent. Their hearts beat a little faster at the idea of watching a living legend test the
sa iron they used every day.
***
A/N: Thanks to all your phenonal support we are currently keeping our 10th
place in the Golden Ticket rankings. We just need to stay there 3 more days and we can get our first honor badge for being in the top 10 of the Golden Ticket rankings. Thank you so much for the kind attention you have shown to my
work so far.
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