In the Time Garden, the pond’s images were flickering in front of Lilis.

The day Arimane’s squad was supposed to leave for their first official mission, Moria called every member and gathered them in front of a certain structure in the vicinity of the orphanage.

He walked toward an old-looking building and opened a hidden panel on the door and uncovered a numeric pad. He composed a code and pressed the confirmation button. But a red led lit up and the panel buzzed.

Moria stiffened and blinked. His squad looked at him with blank eyes. He faked a cough, rubbed his temples then re-tried to enter the code. When the light turned green and the gate started opening in a mechanical way, he sighed in relief and entered the building when the doors were opened.

The whole squad followed him with a wry smile on their face. Behind the door, there was a dark room in which they could barely see anything. Arimane looked behind and saw that the walls were actually made of reinforced steel that was covered by some odd light blue lines. It looked like very thin wires.

"That's Eion energy. Have you heard of it?" Before he could ask about it, Tiria said.

"Yeah, I know about it," Arimane nodded. Eion energy was the latest human discovery. Twenty years before, in an underground expedition, a group of miners found a strange mineral.

In fact, they found two different minerals at the same time. That ‘mineral’ was actually formed in pairs. It was a white and a dark blue stone stuck to each other that released a cyan light from the gap between them.

When those stones were analyzed afterward, scientists first separated the two stones and then realized that, as a magnet would act, they were attracted to each other and, at the same time, produced a strange light blue energy.

When they tried to interact with that energy or store a bit of it, they would fail every time. It didn't work with chemical products, like batteries and accumulators.

They, of course, studied that energy as much as they could while also decomposing the elements in the two stones. It was only a year later that they finally found out how to collect that energy.

They had tried many methods but the only one that was effective was to put the two stones, and therefore the energy, inside a vacuum before trapping a part of it with an artificial electromagnetic field.

They would then electrify a container and redirect the energy inside. After that point, everything became easier for them. They became able to interact with the energy and do more tests with it. They tried many things but the most notable characteristic they found was the quantity of energy the Eion produced. Scientists concluded that this strange energy was the most useful in making explosions and detonations, but also things like thermal changes.

But that was already revolutionary, not only for the future wars and conflicts but also for the actual production of energy for the world. Especially electricity. They worked hard and managed to duplicate the original stones. Then, they created a small-scale device that could produce Eion energy overtime before finally creating a system converting Eion into electricity.

In the end, the result they got was a battery capable of charging itself back without any external input since the stones could produce Eion indefinitely as long as the two stones were close enough to each other.

Of course, all of the electricity could be expended if you used it faster than it would charge, but ultimately, this small system became a sufficient source of energy capable of alimenting, for example, a car for twenty-four hours without falling short.

Of course, that energy was brought to the military and they created every kind of weapon with it. Bombs, guns, drones, and many others.

When Arimane looked more closely at the blue lines on the walls, he finally remembered one of the other uses of the Eion energy. If a conducting material is mixed with Eion stones and then injected with Eion energy, the whole material will become at least two times tougher.

"As expected of you, I can't teach you anything," Tiria uttered.

Arimane just shrugged. "I just like reading books and it's Eion energy is something everyone should know about. Rather, why don't you tell me why this place is protected by such material?"

"You should look here to get the answer for that," Moria heard his question and spoke up.

Arimane looked at him as he pressed on a small red button on the wall. When he pressed it, the lighting was activated and the room illuminated.

Arimane first noticed that this strange room was surprisingly very huge. But when he saw what was stored in it, his eyes widened in shock. There were many rows of shelves in this room, not with books, but with many different types of firearms. With just a wild guess, he estimated that the number of guns in this place was around a thousand, and it was just a minimum.

"It's not our section, though," Moria smiled at him and added. Arimane scowled and looked at his instructor. The latter casually walked toward a trapdoor in the center of the room and once again composed a code on a pad before opening it.

When he did that, this time, a light instantly illuminated the row of stairs below. Moria went down the steps and so did the entire squad. Most of them had already been here so they were not perturbed. It was just Arimane who was really lost and went down last.

When he took the last step of the staircase, he was already gaping at the scene in front of him.

Shelves, closets, cases, boxes, briefcases, there were a lot of containers here, all filled with military equipment. Going from hundreds of weapons to thousands of gadgets.

Also, most of the guns here seemed to be all accompanied by a single magazine filled with cyan light. Arimane, of course, figured that those weapons were Eion based. He now understood the importance to have this place reinforced with Eion steel walls.

All the squad smiled at him and then spread out around the room. They each went to specific guns and equipment and fiddled with it.

"Find a weapon that suits you and take it. Don't forget to take some secondary equipment. The only thing I'll impose you is this," Moria spoke to Arimane and went toward a big box in the corner of the room. He opened it and took out a one-meter long case and threw it to him.

Arimane carefully caught it and immediately felt the weight before putting it on the ground. He could actually carry it easily, but he was still hiding his peculiar strength.

"What is this?" He asked after looking at the case.

"Eion AMR, E-032 SR, with one-use explosive Eion bullets," Moria answered. "Although it's even hurtful for me to say it, you're definitely the best sharpshooter in the squad. Especially with a precision rifle. So, you take it. A sniper is always an encouraging backup. Pick the rest of your loadout now," he instructed and handed a small book to Arimane.

"This is the instructions on the use of Eion weapons and their capacities. I'm sure you will quickly adapt to it,” Moria added before going to fetch his own weapons.

Arimane opened the small book and read the first page in just a few seconds, he then continued to read like this. His reading speed was so fast that people would call it inhuman. He finished the book in a minute and sighed. "I see," he muttered and started wandering around the armory.

He skipped a lot of weapons and directly went to the handguns. He never really liked assault rifles and he was already carrying a sniper with him. The first rule of an assassin was to always be the lightest possible.

He looked around for a minute then took a revolver magnum. He already had a sniper rifle with him, so he assumed he won't fire much with any other weapon, so he went for power and precision.

The bullets of a revolver, with Eion energy, were also special. You still had to put them in the cylinder, but when you shoot, it's not the bullet that will go but the Eion charged inside of it. After the cylinder turns, that bullet will then be recharged by an Eion system integrated to the gun itself.

Essentially, a regular Eion gun doesn't have bullets to shoot, it's just the Eion energy alone. But when you have a real bullet with it to synergize, you actually can gather more energy and fire with more power. The reload was longer though. For example, an Eion assault rifle doesn’t have bullets, but rifles like the one Arimane just got had.

After that, he continued to inspect the rest of the equipment and two minutes later he had two Eion grenades, night vision lentils, small binoculars, and a tactical knife with him. Lastly, he grabbed a bulletproof coat.

With this, he was ready and came back to the entrance to wait for the rest of the squad. He was quick apparently since he was the first to finish packing his stuff. If the squad was here, they would most likely say to him that he should feel more thrill by going through so many weapons of high quality.

Arimane opened the SR case while waiting. He then looked at all the parts of the rifle. He quickly assembled it and, in the process, Tieria came back carrying a bag with her. She was a bit surprised when she spotted Arimane, she thought he would take more time to choose his equipment.

She put down her bag and sat down to wait as well, she just observed Arimane as he steadily assembled the rifle.

In just a minute, he had finished assembling it. He then proceeded to admire it. It was a refined black steel rifle. The barrel was pretty large and the scope was a bit fancy. He detached it and looked through it, it had thermal and night vision along with movement detection.

He smirked as he looked through the scope. Tieria looked at him and tilted her head.

"You're enjoying it after all. I thought it was strange that you were not trembling with excitement like everyone else did when they came here the first time," she commended and he trembled.

He was a bit caught off guard. He cleared his throat and put the scope back in the case and then followed by disassembling the rifle. "Of course, I'm excited. I actually want to test this one right away."

Tieria faintly smiled before checking the equipment she had in her bag. Meanwhile, Arimane put back the rifle inside the case and closed it again.

"By the way, your loadout is really light. What's your expertise?" Arimane asked Tieria in curiosity. She shrugged and showed him the contents of her bag. Knives, a coat, a small gun with silencer, binoculars, and night vision lentils.

"I'm a spy and a scout. I don't really engage the enemy usually," she said and zipped her bag. "And I'll most likely be your spotter if it's needed," she added and Arima nodded.

"Then I'll be happy to work with you. I never teamed up with you, right? Even in training," he said and extended his hand.

Tieria’s eyes widened a bit and she shook his hand before smiling. "Sure, I'll work hard to not drag you down."

Arima wryly smiled. "Come on, you're supposed to be the senior," he uttered and then a voice resounded behind him.

"If I could call myself your senior, it would be awesome."

It was a lazy sounding voice. Arimane looked over his shoulder and saw Jin approaching. He was almost glaring while walking toward him.

He sighed and sat down next to Arimane. "You're not this squad's little genius for nothing," he declared then lit up a cigarette.

Tieria nodded in agreement with an indifferent expression. Arimane was put in an awkward situation. Anyone would appreciate being praised but it was kind of hard to answer when a person held you in such a high regard.

The trio chatter together for a bit while waiting for everyone to finish their preparations. It was ten minutes later that Moria announced that they were leaving to the airport.