Lily POV

She dropped to her knees and vomited all over the ground. Thankfully, she had the foresight to eat light beforehand, but she still hated the astringent taste of bile as it dripped from her lips.

"Get up," Marcus ordered her strictly and used his domain to remove all of the vomit from the floor.

As much as she wanted to yell at Marcus to shut up and leave her alone, she listened and dragged her tired body up to her feet. After all, she was the one who had asked Marcus to help her and her friends.

After the recent attack in the Endless Forest, it hadn't taken much to convince her family or her friend's families that they needed some extra training. They had gotten very close to death, much closer than any of them had experienced before. Derek had gotten especially close.

If not for Julius, the Zenith Scion might have been killed. Something that Derek didn't let the others know bothered him, but they could all see it for themselves. Derek was talented. Arguably the most talented amongst them, but he had a bad habit of relying on this talent.

While nobody would say that Derek didn't work hard, he didn't work as hard as Aubrey or Edgar. His natural talents allowed him to understand skills and lightning magic to such an absurd degree that he barely had to put any effort in. It was why he was one of the strongest people of their age.

However, in the weeks after the attack, Derek had pushed himself harder than ever before. He would spend his nights training even after their daily training regimen. There was a fire lit underneath her friend, one that she had never seen before.

Truth be told, Lily didn't think she would meet anyone who could surpass Derek in terms of combat. In her mind, Derek was the pinnacle of Tier 3. Excellent combat instincts, prodigious ability to use lightning magic, multiple epic skills, and Concepts. She would put herself on that level, but she wasn't a combatant. Her path was slightly different, but she was confident that she had also reached this peak for Tier 3.

That was until she met Julius. Their younger friend was the anomaly that changed her entire perception of life.

Unlike the others, he didn't have perfect affinities or dedicated tutors. Hell, Aubrey had her own mother, one of the strongest people on the continent, personally train her when she was younger.

Yet, Julius had a few traits that helped him get to where he was. He was stubborn, stupid, and seemingly unkillable. An incredibly dangerous combination that transformed her friend into a total monster.

No, she wasn't at the pinnacle of Tier 3. Not even close. Her eyes were open, and she knew that she needed to get stronger herself.

She didn't believe him for a second when he pretended that he didn't clear the rift trials. She didn't even need to sense his emotions to know that. She already had high expectations for him, and she was using him as motivation for herself.

It was why she was pushing herself this hard. Her inadequacies were made clear during that rift. Her physical abilities were lacking, and she needed to fix that.

She and Derek weren't the only ones who found things to work on. Aubrey wanted to work on the power of her prismatic beam. At the same time, Edgar wanted to work on his overall mobility.

In her case, Marcus had developed a training plan that would help her gain some of the physical prowess that Marcus himself had. A part of this was utilizing her exceptional telekinesis to aid her body movements.

The problem was that her body couldn't handle this newfound application. It wasn't tough enough, and it wasn't flexible enough. If she wanted to use her telekinesis to aid her movements, it had to be strong enough to withstand the strength of her psychic abilities without falling apart.

That was what they had focused much of their time on improving during these past several weeks. Marcus had used the body enhancement treasure she had gained from the rift to help speed up the progress.

He had procured a large number of other expensive body enhancement treasures, but the man had been impressed by the quality of the treasure she had been rewarded with. It was as if the treasure was specifically for Lily, and she was told it was one of the best resources she could hope to get at Tier 3 with her body.

With a plan in place, she pushed herself. She pushed herself harder than she could have ever thought possible.

Sweat and vomit dripped from her chin as she collected her breath.

"Do you need a break?" Marcus asked her daringly.

A part of her desperately wanted to take the man's offer. It sounded so tempting to her ears, and she felt herself subconsciously about to accept when Marcus continued to speak.

"Just so you know, Julius would have been able to handle this much with ease. I bet he trained night after night to train his body to be both flexible and powerful enough to withstand his own stupid power," Marcus was taunting her. He knew as much as she just how ridiculous Julius was and was using it against her.

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She didn't need Marcus to remind her. She knew how many countless nights Julius spent training without any sleep. She still didn't know how the boy managed to keep that up for so long.

She took some inspiration from her insane black haired friend and shook her head stubbornly.

"Not yet," she gritted out.

"Good, now get up and let's go again. You still have an hour before you have to meet with Cygnus and Stella," Marcus said with a proud smile before activating the gravity chamber's enchantments.

The sudden change almost had Lily faceplant into the mat, but by sheer will, she managed to keep herself on her feet.

Another thing she had failed to mention was that they didn't just have Marcus to help them either. Derek convinced his family to send Stella over, and even Aubrey's mother had sent over one of her people. His name was Cygnus, and the man was a brutal teacher.

Unlike Marcus and Stella, the man was borderline cruel, and she didn't want to think about their next crazy exercise the man had in store for them.

Funnily enoug,h the dread of the upcoming session gave her enough fuel to get her through the next five minutes.

When the gravity returned to normal, she dropped to her knees and dry heaved. There was nothing left to vomit, and Marcus threw her a towel to wipe herself down.

"You will be happy to hear that we have resolved the situation with the Adventurers Guild," Marcus explained to her while she caught her breath.

"What happened?" She barely managed to gasp out.

"It took some negotiations, but along with House Zenith and Lady Crysalia, they had no choice but to give in to our demands," Marcus said cheerily.

"So we got everything?"

"Yes."

Lily was honestly kind of surprised that the Adventurers Guild had chosen to make such a plan. Putting so many important children at risk was moronic and she had no doubt the guild was paying for it. Whoever had planned this little excursion was likely going to face some consequences, of that, she was certain.

***

A few hours later the four of them were all sprawled in the living room, completely exhausted.

"I think hate your mother," Lily muttered to Aubrey who was face down and motionless except for the small twitches her body displayed.

She heard the others all murmur their agreement with her sentiment. Cygnus had really gone all out today. The man had them go through a little exercise he had developed specially for them.

It was called "Survive the Tier 5 Trying to Kill You". If that wasn't bad enough, the man had forced them to do it while taking away most of their senses. They had to rely almost entirely on mana and aura senses to predict where the man would attack from.

To make things harder, Lily wasn't able to use her psychic abilities. She was forced to restrict them during this exercise.

This just meant she was smashed into the ground over and over without remorse. Apparently, the exercise was to help train their mana and aura sense, as well as their general reaction times to danger.

The cruel man wanted them to learn how to react instinctively when their senses picked up something. This wasn't a bad idea per se, the only problem was that the man was a Tier 5, and nobody was able to sense the man before he attacked.

What's the point of training their reaction time when they couldn't react in the first place? It was basically just a beatdown. She had always prided herself on her senses, but she wasn't able to catch a whiff of the man.

She was really beginning to envy Julius's healing skill at the moment. All of them had taken small healing tonics, but other than that, they had been told to let their bodies handle the fatigue naturally. Especially for her, since it would allow her tendons and ligaments to become more flexible once they recovered. At least that was what Marcus told her.

She didn't know how much of her pain came from her tendons and ligaments or how much came from just being beaten down.

"Have any of you guys heard from Julius yet?" Edgar asked as he struggled to sit up.

They all shook their heads. Despite their family's best efforts, they weren't able to hear from Julius. This would normally worry her, but she was surprisingly not that worried. She knew that he had come back from worse and believed in him to stay safe. Still, she couldn't help but be curious.

"Not a word, but I think my father knows who that Doren person was." Derek flipped over as well and spoke to them.

"Did you ask him?" Edgar asked curiously.

"Yeah, but he deflected my question. He muttered something about it depending on the man's mood, but I don't know what he meant by that," Derek told them.

That was news to Lily. She had asked her family if they had heard about this Doren person, but they either hid what they knew or they didn't know who the man was. However, if Derek's father knew who the man was, then it was safe to say that the man was someone important.

"I don't know if I like the sound of that," Aubrey interjected with her face still in the ground.

"Ah, she lives," Edgar said when he saw Aubrey move around.

Aubrey flipped over and stared at the ceiling. "What do you think he is doing right now?" She groaned out.

They all let out sighs of amusement as they thought about what their friend could be up to.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he is fighting a horde of monsters by himself again," Derek chuckled.

"He is probably smashing his face against a Tier 5," Edgar said, sounding eerily confident.

"Don't be silly. He's a little dumb, but he's not a complete moron," Lily spoke up in defense of Julius.

The others didn't even say anything, whether it was because of a lack of energy or something else. They all just turned to look at her and gently shook their heads like she was being naive.

However, she knew in her heart that there was a method to Julius's madness.

I know that he doesn't want to die, it was just that sometimes things happened, and that sometimes led to him being forced to fight, such as that time when he— she stopped herself as she came to a realization.

Okay, perhaps the others make a good point, she admitted with a shake of her head.

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