On the morning after the placement test, the elite training camp truly began.
There were no classroom lessons like he had imagined.
"Before you learn how to kill, you must first learn how to survive on a complex and changing battlefield!"
"My name is Shuzo! I was Chief Instructor Zephyr's former adjutant. From now on, I am your fitness instructor!"
An instructor stood at the front of the ranks. His voice was loud and powerful.
"Today, your only task is to drain every last bit of your physical strength!"
The first training task was a 30-kilometer cross-country run around the island while carrying a 30-kilogram load.
Shuzo personally led the run at the head of the group.
The other fitness instructors acted like aggressive sheepdogs.
They constantly moved back and forth along the sides of the formation, looking for "lambs" who were falling behind.
Without warning, they would suddenly rush up to a recruit.
Their rough, giant hands would grab the recruit's wrist like iron pincers.
They would press two fingers hard against the pulse.
After feeling it for a few seconds, they would let out a deafening roar:
"Your heart rate is dropping! Are you taking a stroll here?! Start running!"
Accompanied by the roars were leather whips that could leave a bloody streak on a person's back!
The crisp sound of the whips and the pained groans of the recruits became the background music for this island run.
For Aiden, this was a massive test of his acting skills.
With his "Advanced" physique, this kind of weighted run was no different from a stroll.
It was difficult for his heart rate to even go above one hundred beats per minute.
He had to run while precisely controlling his blood flow and heart rate from the inside.
He forced his body into a high-load state to simulate the appearance of exhaustion.
He perfectly blended into a position in the upper-middle of the Elite Class.
He wore a look of intense pain on his face.
He was neither standing out at the front nor falling behind at the back.
Next came the second task—Deep Sea Pressure Training.
The recruits were taken to a jagged, rocky shore near Marineford.
Cold seawater crashed against slippery moss.
It was extremely difficult just to stand still.
Their task was to use a special rope thicker than an arm to pull up massive rocks.
These rocks were submerged in the deep sea hundreds of meters below.
This wasn't just strength training. It was a brutal test for every muscle in the body.
"One, two! Pull! One, two! Pull!"
Instructor Shuzo's shouting echoed along the coast like a war drum.
The recruits all had distorted faces.
Veins bulged on their foreheads, and every muscle was tightened to the limit.
Every pull was accompanied by a suppressed low growl.
Aiden was among them, just "pretending" to work hard.
This amount of weight and tension wasn't even a warm-up for him.
Most of his energy was spent mimicking the distorted expressions and heavy breathing of the people around him.
Just then, a short cry of surprise rang out.
Rosinante, who already had poor coordination, found the moss beneath his feet exceptionally slippery.
He stumbled, and the rope in his hands suddenly slipped!
He lost his balance.
Carried by the massive weight of the rock, he screamed as he began to slide toward the pitch-black sea trench!
Two recruits standing not far from him didn't help.
Instead, they exchanged a malicious look.
They were ready to enjoy the show of this clumsy recruit falling in.
Aiden, who was close by, saw everything.
The name he had heard during the roll call yesterday morning rang in his head again.
It came with a lingering sense of familiarity.
His gaze instinctively locked onto the messy, bright blonde hair that stood out in the sunlight.
"I remember now. It's Corazon. That clumsy man who was as kind as a fool."
Scenes flashed through Aiden's mind of that man in the snow.
To save a child, he had taken multiple gunshots but died with a smile on his face.
"Really... when I read the manga in my previous life, I felt like this golden retriever of a guy shouldn't have been treated so badly by fate."
The current situation wasn't deadly.
However, hitting the jagged rocks would definitely break a few bones.
In a split second, Aiden also acted as if he were overwhelmed by the weight.
He suddenly "slid" to the side!
He faked being pulled off-balance by his own rock.
His body lunged a large step toward Rosinante.
In that seemingly unbalanced step, his military boot "accidentally" stepped hard on Rosinante's rope.
The rope had been pulled tight like a bowstring.
Aiden pinned the rope firmly against the edge of the slippery rock!
CREAK—!
A piercing sound of friction rang out between the rope and the rock.
The massive friction caused the rope sliding toward the sea to stop for a fraction of a second.
That tiny moment of stillness gave Rosinante, who was about to be dragged into the water, a chance to breathe!
He felt the tension in his hands loosen.
His survival instinct kicked in, and he immediately corrected his posture.
He grabbed the remaining rope and used all his strength to steady himself.
At the same time, Aiden let out an "Ah!"
He acted as if he had lost his balance again because he stepped on someone else's rope.
He rolled on the ground and then "clumsily" grabbed his own rope again.
The whole process was chaotic but logical.
It looked like an accident caused by physical exhaustion.
Instructor Shuzo's roar followed immediately:
"You useless trash! You can't even hold a rope steady! Get up and keep going!"
During a short break, the recruits collapsed on the ground like dead dogs, gasping for air.
Rosinante, looking like a large golden retriever covered in mud, limped over to Aiden.
His face was full of relief from surviving and a hint of uncertain gratitude.
"Um... Aiden?" he spoke hesitantly. "Just now... was it you who..."
Aiden was leaning against a rock, looking like he was half-dead from tiredness.
Hearing this, he lazily opened one eye and looked at him with a blank expression.
"Huh? What?"
"It's just... my rope. Just now, it seemed like..."
"Oh, you mean that."
Aiden put on a face of realization mixed with lingering fear.
He spoke while acting out of breath:
"Don't mention it... I slipped just now too. I almost got dragged down."
"I stepped all over the place... Luckily, I didn't trip you."
Looking at Aiden's sincere and frightened expression, all of Rosinante's doubts vanished.
They were replaced by even stronger gratitude.
He was convinced that Aiden had intentionally fallen and risked being scolded by the instructor just to save him!
"No... no! You helped me a lot!" Rosinante waved his hands quickly, looking at Aiden with total sincerity.
"Anyway, thank you! Aiden! Really!"
...
When the day's training ended, Aiden couldn't wait to head to the cafeteria.
This was the first meal after the official placement.
He still held onto one last bit of hope.
"The mass-produced food yesterday might have just been temporary."
"Now that we've been sorted and given a social rank, the food for people in the middle should look at least a little better, right?"
However, when he reached the serving window, he saw the lady scoop out that same unidentifiable grey mush.
His last hope was shattered.
He didn't give up. Holding his tray, he looked past the crowd toward the separated dining area for the top group.
The food there was indeed different—everyone's tray had one more piece of meat than theirs.
He saw Smoker poking a piece of meat with a look of disgust.
The meat looked like it had been grilled into charcoal.
Smoker's expression looked like he was poking a rock.
Aiden looked away.
With a blank expression, he shoveled the "protein slop" into his mouth.
Even though the food tasted terrible, Aiden could clearly feel something.
This scientific training, combined with the "protein slop," was actually giving his physique a tiny, almost invisible boost.
"At this intensity... if I could increase the training volume ten times and keep it up for ten years..."
"Maybe I could grind my physique to the 'Top-tier' threshold all on my own."
"A 26-year-old monster who reached the level of a Headquarters Vice-Admiral through pure physical training... anywhere else, that would be considered a true genius."
But as soon as that thought appeared, Aiden crushed it without hesitation.
"But... ten years?"
"Living like a farm animal every single day for ten years? Eating this pig food every day? Are you kidding me!"
"I don't have that kind of patience."
Aiden swallowed the last bit of "slop," feeling the heat and fullness in his stomach.
"The path of a genius is too tiring. I'll just find a way to take my shortcuts."
----------------
My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/LIZBETH1242
50 early chapters are available here.