[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 73 - Skill Training (+Art [For Mid-Chapter] in Attachments)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!

Volume 2 - Chapter 68: Heir Apparant has just released on RR with no changes

For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.

And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.

------

Quick headsup, that next week is ADMIN WEEK!

That means no chapters until the 16th Feb for ND and 17th Feb for TAS.

That's all I got to say today, really.

But if you really want more Luna-content, and haven't checked out the free Reading Samples for potential novel #3 (TS), then you can do so here:

There's only 1 chapter left to write and release for this series of Reading Samples (intended to give you a glimpse into the world, the MC, the general setup, the "magic" system, etc. to give you a good overview of whether this would be something you'd want to see and to gather feedback on it all).

There's currently around 37k Words in this Reading Samples available (just a small glimpse, really, y'know)

Here's the links to the currently released chapters (FREE to read over on the patreon, just follow the links!):

Chapter 0 - Alpha - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148049880
Chapter 1 - Power - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148786437
Chapter 2 - The Emerald Tablet - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148963508
Chapter 3 - Vigilante - https://www.patreon.com/posts/149192704
(Final) Chapter 4 - ??? - To Be Released (Soon)

=========

=========

=========

Welcome to the first Skill Class!

We're going in-depth on this one, to provide a foundational understanding of how these things work. In the future, most Skill Classes will only be side-notes or quick mentions, unless important character-building moments as part of them.

There is also art available for this chapter!

I would love to put it into a spoiler tag (as it's kinda spoiler-y for something in this chapter), but Patreon is dogshit, so it's available as a downloadable file instead until the RoyalRoad version of this chapter releases.

Go check it out below in the attachments!

------

I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/

I hope you will enjoy it!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the link to the chapter:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hAiN2-Mb2T2tV3M-lWI9P5YDGVMn8g_gMTqbmgbgjrM/edit?usp=sharing

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Volume 2 - Chapter 73 - Skill Training

“The first Integration wave is never meant to be complete. 

It’s simply the spark, not the whole fire.

When a Drive begins, only around one to five thousand Recruits make it aboard immediately. These are the cream of the crop. The ones already flagged, already screened, already thoroughly trained for what is to come as part of their Integration preparations.

They get time. Flexibility. Space to explore their Builds, their Abilities, and themselves. 

They are given every room to grow into the Marines they are meant to be.

That luxury does not last forever.

Over the course of the first year, the Drive expands to its intended strength—somewhere between eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand Marines. 

The later Recruits are folded in aggressively. 

Their training is denser, more structured, and far less forgiving. 

More mandatory classes. More forced drills. Less freedom. Less self-direction. 

They aren’t being shaped from raw material like the first group is; they’re being accelerated to catch up. And until that is achieved, their schedules are packed.

By the six-month mark, the last Recruits are finally aboard. 

Their four Assessments are compressed into the same window as the final two Assessments of the initial wave. 

The timeline is utterly brutal, but equally as necessary. 

The Galactic War does not wait for ideal pacing, as much as we wished that it does.

There are always concerns about culture shock, of course. Early Recruits with months of autonomy mixing with those who have known nothing but schedules and orders. 

In practice however, it rarely matters. 

Public rankings, Assessments and the Challenge System reshuffles squads and rebuild them constantly. 

This is by design, of course.

By the end of the first year, it becomes nearly impossible to tell who joined first and who joined last, based on the squad makeups or their rankings on the public leaderboards. 

Builds have long since converged. Habits have aligned after a few weeks in the barracks. 

Only the finer details give it away—early Recruits tend to have cleaner foundations, more polished synergies in their Builds… But there are far, far less of them.

They are the ones that the UHF hopes to become Aces one day, so their foundation matters more—Merit above all, as is always the motto. And yes, that means, if you didn’t make the first wave, odds are you weren’t top-tier Ace material to begin with.

But odds are not always guarantees. Exceptions exist.

Especially in the outer stretches of the Inner-Worlds and beyond, where distance alone decides who arrives ‘first.’ In those regions, there are often multiple “first” integration-groups, ordered not by sheer merit, but also by routing efficiency.

Those are usually picked up about a month—maybe a month and a half—into the Drive. Another detachment of potential Ace material, still afforded the luxury of full self-determination.

But beyond that? Ever-increasing pressure, tighter schedules, and fewer chances to experiment the later you arrive.

Make no mistake, however: the UHF does not care when you arrive, or whether you were ever flagged as an Ace candidate. The UHF only cares whether you endure—and whether you have what it takes to be a Marine regardless.

Everything else you earn through the Merit of your actions, as has always been the case.”

—

[Excerpt from “On the Nature of the Drive,” Internal UHF Training Circular, Strategic Personnel Command, PFC893]

======

======

The non-descript, gray room that Thea had rushed into to escape the embarrassing situation with Karania just moments ago began to morph and change the instant the door fully shut behind her.

The space around her reshaped itself smoothly, stone and light flowing together until the gray nothingness resolved into a sprawling university compound that looked both ancient and advanced at the same time.

Tall, weathered stone buildings rose ahead of her, their architecture leaning heavily into old academic styles—arched windows, ornate buttresses, carved facades that looked like they belonged in some ancient Gothic academy. 

But threaded through all of it were subtle lines of glowing lightstrips, hovering projections marking lecture halls and departments, translucent signs floating in the air to guide students across the grounds. 

Soft blue light traced pathways through the stone, and faint holographic banners drifted lazily above walkways, denoting courses, schedules, and campus notices.

At the center stood the imposing main building with two broad side wings stretching outward like open arms. A wide, park-like campus spread out in front of it, filled with trimmed grass, winding paths, and clusters of old trees whose branches provided deep, welcoming shade. 

Students were scattered absolutely everywhere—dozens of them lounging beneath the trees, sitting on benches and stone tables, or gathered around a large fountain near the heart of the grounds.

The fountain itself drew her eyes immediately. 

At its center stood a towering statue of the Emperor, carved in pale stone and accented with faintly glowing lines, water cascading down around it in slow, elegant streams. People leaned against the fountain’s edge, chatting idly, reading, or simply enjoying the calm.

Except for two guys, who had apparently decided that sitting inside the water was even more relaxing than simply having their feet dangle in it like a good number of the other students had.

They were completely drenched and just sitting there, leaned against the base of the statue and seemingly chatting about who-knows-what.

Thea realized then that she was standing just outside the entrance gate, a tall barrier of stone and metal bars framing the view inside. 

It wasn’t closed off in a hostile way—more like a clear boundary between the outside world and this place of learning. From where she stood, she could see everything clearly, the steady foot traffic flowing in and out through the gate, the relaxed pace of life within.

She stared, taking it all in.

‘…Whoa.’

On instinct, she turned around to see what actually was “the outside world” in this place, only to be greeted by a lush forest in every direction. Not lush enough to dim the light, as the trees only started to really cluster together around a hundred meters out, but definitely dense enough to prevent any kind of view beyond maybe a hundred and fifty meters.

Turning back around, she couldn’t help but feel that this all looked almost exactly like the kind of university she had seen a hundred times before in old series, films, and games. 

Like a more well taken care of version of Lumiosia’s Grand University, that the Old Man had once taken her to.

‘Compared to this, the one on Lumiosia looks like a damn trash heap…’

Her chest tightened with something dangerously close to excitement.

‘Wait…! I’m—I’m actually… gonna go to school,’ she thought. ‘Like, an actual university. For real.’

The idea sent a small thrill through her. 

Not just learning facts or grinding Skills, like she had initially expected these Skill Trainings to go, but actually walking these grounds, sitting in lecture halls, being a student in a place like this—even if it was all still simulated. 

‘This isn’t just going to be like another boot camp, but an actual, real visit to university, huh…? I never thought I’d ever get to have an experience like this…’

The thought lingered, settling deeper the longer she stood there.

She didn’t move right away.

Thea just… stayed there, staring through the gate as a million different thoughts piled up at once. Excitement, disbelief, a strange tightness in her chest she couldn’t quite name. 

A faint sense of loss for something she’d never had, mixed with the quiet wonder that she was getting it now—here, of all places, as part of the Marines, wrapped in a System interface and time dilation.

‘Guess life really is weird like that… To get the kind of education I’ve always wanted, I had to become a Marine. Who would’ve ever guessed that was a possible route, huh?’

She exhaled slowly, forcing her shoulders to relax. 

Letting herself get stuck here wouldn’t change anything, no matter how big the moment felt. 

Eventually, she squared herself and took a step forward.

As she approached the main gate, a translucent holographic screen flickered to life in front of her, hovering comfortably at eye level.

“Welcome, Recruit Thea McKay,” it chimed in a calm, neutral tone.

Then, it displayed the words: “Physics Skill Training Campus – UHF Marine Corps.”

A small, floating box materialized beneath the text, accompanied by a simple prompt to open it. She did as instructed, and the container split apart with a soft hum.

Inside were two slim datapads, a simple electronic card, and a datawatch.

“Huh,” she murmured, lifting the watch first.

The moment she slipped it onto her wrist, as she was being instructed to do so by the holographic display, the device lit up, its display snapping to life. A clean, detailed map of the entire campus unfolded across the screen, a pulsing dot marking her current position. 

Several markers were already in place—lecture halls, common areas, maintenance access points—but two stood out immediately.

Dormitory: Assigned
Initial Gathering Area: 00:32:47

‘Around thirty minutes left… That’s plenty.’

With a small nod to herself, she tucked the datapads and card away, stepped fully through the gate, and entered the campus proper to make her way to the dorms. 

The path beneath her feet was smooth stone, worn in places from heavy use, while thin strips of soft blue light traced its edges, guiding her forward.

She followed the route, letting herself soak it all in as she walked. 

Old stone walls and towering arches passed by, broken up by subtle holographic overlays and floating signage. Students moved around her at an easy pace, some chatting, others lost in their own thoughts, all of it blending into a calm, almost peaceful hum.

It felt so unlike everything else she had experienced so far as part of the UHF Marine Corps that she couldn’t quite shake the tension in her body—like this was some kind of elaborate trick meant to make her lower her guard.

But by the time she reached the dorms, nothing terrible had happened.

She checked her room—which was a private one, just for her—and found it neatly furnished. A bed, two desks to work at, and a wardrobe already stocked with student outfits greeted her.

“Hmm…” she hummed as she looked through the clothing inside. The uniforms were clearly designed to be able to be mixed and matched, probably to let students customize things at least a little bit.

Inside the wardrobe were two clear options.

One was a more practical uniform with fitted pants, clean lines, and reinforced seams. 

The other swapped the pants for a pleated skirt, paired with the same structured jacket. 

Both followed UHF colors—muted gray fabric with dim crimson accents along the cuffs, collar, and trim—but she had to admit they looked pretty damn cool for military-issued student wear.

Her hand moved almost on instinct toward the pants—

But then she stopped.

She hesitated, staring at the skirt option longer than she meant to. 

She had never worn dresses or skirts before. 

But this place was so far removed from anything she knew. Fully simulated, locked behind the DDS, and then wrapped in another layer of separation thanks to the Skill Training itself. 

‘There really isn’t any danger in here, is there…?’

There was no one she knew. No real consequences that mattered outside this particular space that would last beyond the three months she would be staying here.

She mulled it over far longer than she would ever admit to anyone.

The soft chime from her datawatch snapped her out of it.

[Initial Gathering – 00:05:00]

“…Shit!”

Decision made in a rush, she grabbed the skirt version and threw it on. 

She fumbled with it for a few seconds, feeling immediately foolish as the fabric settled around her legs. The chill against her skin was impossible to ignore as she hurried out of the dorm, half-jogging toward the gathering area.

Her hands kept drifting down on instinct, and she had to consciously stop herself from fiddling with the pleated skirt after checking—multiple times—that it was not, in fact, riding up enough to flash anyone as she moved past them in hurried steps.

It definitely hadn’t taken her most of the walk to calm down about that. Definitely not.

The welcoming turned out to be exactly that—welcoming in the loosest sense of the word.

A very old man—reminding her quite a lot of her own Old Man—stood at the front of the gathering area, spine straight despite his age, hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the assembled Marines in their student uniforms. 

His hair was white, his face lined and stern, and when he spoke, his voice carried without effort. 

He talked about the next three months, including pointed reminders about things such as the UHF’s expectations for them all, everyone’s individual discipline and effort playing a big part, as well as mentioning that if you do not manage to unlock the Skill by the end of the three month period, you are likely going to have to buy another whole three-month Training.

That had quite a few people bristle, of course, as the Credits cost for these Trainings was quite hefty, even Thea wouldn’t deny that after Karania’s pointed example at the store.

Nothing he said was particularly surprising, however—until he laid out the daily schedule.

Two hours of classroom instruction, followed by a one hour break period. Then two more hours, followed by another break.

This would repeat until they had logged ten hours of study time for the day.

Fourteen hours total, counting breaks.

Thea felt her eyebrows creep upward at that. 

Fourteen hours of “class” sounded brutal at first, but the moment she actually thought about it, it made quite some sense. They weren’t here to just skim topics and get a rough overview of things. They were supposed to learn basically all of Physics in three months—or at least the basics of it, whatever that really meant.

There wasn’t really a gentler way to do that.

Once the speech wrapped up, their datawatches chimed almost in unison, assigning classrooms and routes, and everyone disbanded pretty much right away. 

No lingering. No ceremony beyond that. Just marching orders, that everyone present knew how to follow like practically nothing else in the world.

Thea also followed the map to her assigned lecture hall and took a seat somewhere in the middle rows—not too far back, not right at the front either. 

Within about five minutes, the room filled in around her.

Then another old person walked up to the podium.

That, more than anything else so far, caught her entirely off guard.

This one was a woman, her hair pulled back neatly, posture sharp, eyes alert in a way that made her age feel almost irrelevant. 

She set a datapad down, looked out over the room, and spoke.

“I am Professor Halevi,” she said. “I will be your instructor for the next three months.”

She went on to outline the curriculum—[Basic Physics] covered the full foundation of the field: Motion and forces, energy and momentum, rotation and gravity, waves and fluids, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, light, matter, and the basics, as well as a conceptual overview of more advanced aspects like relativity and quantum theory without truly diving too far into them. 

In general, it focused less on the exact math behind it all—although there was going to be quite a lot of that as well—and more on physical understanding, teaching how these laws interacted with systems in the real world, technology, and the Allbright System itself, while preparing students for every advanced Physics-related Skill down the line.

She explained that the students had already been pre-filtered to roughly equal education levels, as best as the UHF could manage.

There would still be differences, of course. Gaps here and there. 

But no one should be wildly out of place.

“And if you find yourself moving significantly faster than the rest,” Professor Halevi added calmly, “you will be reassigned to a class further along in the curriculum. Speak up if that happens. Do not coast, you are here to obtain a Skill, not take a vacation.”

Thea nodded along, absorbing it all—but a small part of her mind was still stuck on something else.

She had now seen two visibly old people in less than an hour.

That felt like a strange thing to be shocked by, but she realized then that she hadn’t seen anyone who looked older than maybe forty in years. Not since leaving Lumiosia. The System, the Marines, the DDS—it all smoothed age away, having warped her expectations.

‘The System really screws with your sense of normal, huh?’ She thought, before forcing herself to refocus.

The lessons that followed came fast. 

They were extremely dense, structured, and utterly relentless, hammering information into everyone’s heads until the hour-long breaks felt like a blessing the moment they stepped out of the classrooms.

Those breaks were very clearly designed to be exactly an hour long, Thea didn’t doubt, because by the time they ended, she had just barely recovered enough energy and mental focus to function—only to be thrown straight into another two-hour block of dense instruction.

That exhausting ebb and flow continued for the entire day.

By the time the first day finally ended, Thea barely remembered walking back to her dorm.

She collapsed onto the bed fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling as mental and physical exhaustion crashed over her all at once.

“…Holy shit,” she muttered softly.

Day one was officially done.

—

The next three months continued in much the same rhythm.

Thea woke to her alarm, grabbed a quick breakfast from the university cafeteria—which was thankfully very well stocked—then headed to class for most of the day, squeezing in lunch during one of the hour-long breaks.

By the time evening rolled around, she was usually so exhausted that she’d wolf down dinner, then work through the basic problems the Professor had provided as optional practice—which, of course, she did every day because she wanted to learn all of it—before finally collapsing into a dreamless sleep, only to do it all again the next day.

The only real break in the monotony were the Sundays, which were thankfully set aside as self-study days to give everyone some much-needed breathing room.

For Thea, that mostly meant spending time in the extremely well-endowed university library, reading up on whatever topics they were currently covering in class.

That part of the Skill Training was easily her favorite.

‘Having access to this much knowledge whenever I want… This is pure bliss!’

About a month into the training, Thea had slowly but steadily pulled ahead of the class she’d originally been placed in and was moved to a more advanced one. Her exhaustion spiked immediately, as she had to catch up on a pile of new topics—but somehow, she managed.

Not that she had much else to do. 

She didn’t really have friends here, or anyone to talk to.

That, however, seemed to be more of a “me”-specific problem for her.

Most of the other Marines had formed cliques or temporary friendships, which Thea didn’t quite understand. After days this exhausting, she barely had the energy to function, let alone handle a bunch of high-stakes social interactions like “making friends”.

‘These people are freaking monsters… How do they have this much energy all the time?!’ she found herself thinking more than once as she watched them over the months.

The answer came slowly, as things began to settle into a more sustainable rhythm around the one-and-a-half to two month mark.

Her brain and body finally adapted to the constant input, and following the Professor’s explanations became almost second nature instead of something she had to actively struggle through.

That shift left her with a bit of extra energy by the end of the day—energy she poured into even more optional work, though she realized it could just as easily have gone into social interactions, too.

‘I’ll have to try that in the next Skill Training,’ she thought. ‘If I can stack some social practice on top of each Skill Class, I might actually catch up to the rest of Alpha Squad… Or at least stop being so damn incompetent at this stuff…’

Class-wise, her absolute favorite—bar none—were the practical classes.

Experiments, hands-on work with parts of physics that had been nothing but theory before, and all the different things they got to “play” with helped everything click far faster than lectures ever could. It felt like she learned those topics five times quicker that way.

So she poured a lot of her effort and focus into them.

By the end of the three months, though, she had even started to feel a bit of unease about the Skill Training coming to a close.

She had long since passed the final exams that tested whether she knew enough to obtain the Skill back on the Sovereign, but the relaxed rhythm, the routine, and the sheer joy of learning so many interesting and useful things at once made it hard to accept that it would all end soon.

‘Haa… Maybe I should go for an advanced course next time… Six months instead of three? That would be really, really fun,’ she’d thought more than a few times.

But there was always something else pulling at her, too.

‘But I really want to talk to Kara… and Lucas. And Isabella. And Corvus. Watch Isabella mess with Desmond, even. It’s been a while…’

Alpha Squad had been the one constant in her life before the training, but they’d been completely absent for the entire three months she spent here. 

‘I miss them,’ she finally admitted to herself near the end, and that feeling was what let her accept the Skill Training coming to a close. ‘I think I get now why Major Quinn was so worried about Kara and me coping with all this. It’s a really nice place, away from the constant pressure of being a Marine… But in the end, it’s just a means to an end. I’m here for the Skill and the knowledge. Nothing more.’

The end came quietly and without much fanfare.

No grand send-off, no ceremony—just a simple notification on her datawatch that hey time had come to an end, and a final glance back at the campus before Thea turned and walked through the same gate she had entered three months ago. 

Holographic arrows bloomed into existence ahead of her, pointing away from the university and toward the tree-lined path beyond. 

She followed them, steps slow at first, then steadier.

After only a few dozen steps, the warmth of the place behind her began to fade. 

The soft chatter of students, the distant lectures, the calm hum of the campus all thinned out and dissolved, replaced by that familiar, non-descript gray that always marked the edge of a DDS instance. 

The ground flattened out, the grass disappeared, the air returned to its more sterile norm.

Then a door formed in front of her.

She stopped for a brief moment, hand hovering just short of the handle, then let out a quiet breath and pushed it open. On the other side waited an almost entirely empty room—plain walls, flat lighting, a few chairs, nothing remarkable about it at all. 

She stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind her with a soft click.

A chime rang out the instant it sealed.

[System]: The Participant has acquired the Skill: [Physics – Basic].

A small smile spread on her face at the sight as she thought, ‘Alright. One down, like three hundred more to go.’

The only door in the room—the one she had stepped through just moments ago had disappeared—slid open just a few moments later. 

A clerk stood on the other side, offering a polite nod. 

“If you’d please follow me, Miss.”

She did, slipping past them and into a narrow hallway that felt almost too small after three months of open spaces and lecture halls. A few turns later, the hallway opened up—and she stepped right back into the System Store.

And behind the counter, her eyes immediately spotted the exact same clerk as three months ago.

Same face. Same posture. Same uniform. 

The only difference was that they looked a bit more tired now, a faint sheen of sweat at their brow, like they’d just been dealing with a long rush of customers.

Thea froze for half a second.

‘R…Right. Twelve hours,’ she reminded herself. ‘Not three months. Twelve hours for everyone else.’

This was probably even the same shift for the clerk. 

While she had been gone for three months, learning everything there was to learn about the basics of physics, the clerk hadn’t even finished their shift of work for the day.

She shook her head slightly, trying to push away the strange sense of wrongness crawling up her spine, and stepped fully back into the store proper.

“Hey there, Thea! Welcome back.”

Her heart fluttered a bit at the sound of that voice. She turned, smiling without really thinking about it, and found Karania already walking toward her.

“Same to you, Kara!” Thea replied, the words coming easily. “How did it go?”

They exchanged the basics as they moved off to the side—Karania had passed without issue and picked up [System Medicine – Basic], no surprises there. Thea congratulated her, Kara returned the favor, and for a few moments it all felt wonderfully normal again.

Then Thea added, absent-mindedly, “Man… it feels really good to be wearing pants again for the first time in months.”

Karania stopped dead.

Slowly, she turned to stare at Thea, eyes wide, face pale. “W—What?”

Thea blinked, then immediately realized how that must have sounded. “No—no, not like that! I just—uh—I tried the skirt uniform in the Training. You know. As a thing. Figured, why not? I was definitely not running around in just panties for three months, Kara! I’m pretty sure the UHF wouldn’t even allow that…”

That, for some reason, did not seem to help.

Karania’s expression crumpled in a way Thea had never seen before. Her shoulders sagged, her eyes unfocused, and a small, broken whimper slipped out of her mouth.

Thea stiffened. “K—Kara?! What’s wrong?”

She almost reached out, the instinct to hug her flaring up hard—but the memory of last time stopped her short, and she awkwardly kept her hands to herself instead.

Karania took a few deep, shaky breaths. Then, in a quiet, hollow voice, she said, “I am going to personally kill the Sovereign one day for keeping this from me…”

Thea stared at her, utterly lost.

“Keeping wha—Huh?!,” she replied. “Kill the Sovereign?! What?! Why?!”

But Karania didn’t seem inclined to explain her strange outburst. 

She merely shot the ceiling the nastiest, most murderous look Thea had ever seen on a human being’s face before, then turned on her heel and stormed out of the System Store—prompting Thea to hurry after her…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------