“Hundred and thirty-two,” Phillips barely lifted himself up for another push-up.

“Good job, you are nearly used to six-fold pressure environment,” Melody said, chilling in the same room. “We will start a live combat prep after a regular healing potion doping and an hour of rest.”

Phillip thought Rem’s extra-curricular training would be extreme. He was wrong — catastrophically wrong. The training he received wasn’t just harsh, it was Horizon Dawn’s trade-mark of brutal. The Dawn took a basic from Scathach but period under Satholia elevated the training system. Exercises under high pressure environment. Mana-doping to increase resistance of one Aura. Mental routine technique to optimize concentration. Regular meal of Alchemical serum for nutrition. It was a regime to turn your average joe to superhuman and superhuman to superhero. Every member of the Dawn, including the physically weakened Rem and non combat active Cytortia, was put through this gauntlet. The Dawn didn’t simply toss the student in the forest and pray; they condensed the optimal training condition to improve physical limitation at accelerated period.

It was a revolutionary training, abusing the magical steroid ability to improve growth and Cytortia’s medical skill to eliminate the consequences.

Within a week, the originally frail Phillips was ripped. His stats moved from C to B, and approaching A. However, those terrifying growths were simply getting him ready for advance combat training. Steroid and artificial gravity only got you the body, but the technique came from something else.

The Dawn debated introducing their test-apprentice to True Magic, but apparently Satholia shot the idea down. According to Satholia, while True Magic existed in every person, only in a specific circumstance would it unleash its potential. As the Queen of Center, she bargained six special quotas from the WORLD for Rem, Melody, Luxinna, Ehto, Cytortia and Hikma to awaken their power through secondary awakening. Without quota and WORLD insisted on breaking the reality breaking bullshit, mass-recruitment wasn’t on the menus.

Thus, until Satholia haggled more recruitment slot from the stingy arbitrator of reality, the Dawn’s recruitment drive would be hitting the break.

Still, they planned to give Ehto the next best thing. A modified version of Orwell Mehest’s Adamakles using planned from Horizon Dawn’s member Origin.

Phillip got five flavors and picked what he felt closest to him. Adamakles modified after Melody’s [Manifestation]. Rem expected its effect was like Wayward’s [The Fire Bird].

Unfortunately, being baked under the raw power of [Dravritra] was too hot for the young man. Melody’s Adamakles was one of the hardest to establish because it would require synthetic dragon essence that could only be created via Absolute Extraction using [Nectra Floral] and a medium to blend the user’s attribute with raw bathtub of dragon concentrate. Luckily, the Dawn got a stock of Dragon essence after the snafu in Millian and Phillip possessed lightning attributes like Luxinna.

Phillip barely met the requirement to pursue his interest. Although, the happiness he received from this unexpected good fortune quickly had its anus pull inside-out, because acclimating your Mana with an alchemical bath of dragon juice and [Static Glass] felt like a painful acid scrub. Then there were the painful facts that he needed to live and sleep with the bathtub of hell until he formed a pseudo [Dragon Reactor].

To his credit, Phillip faced his self-impose torture without hesitation. His Mana soon exhibit the draconic property and Melody expected he would finally get the [Dragon Reactor] down within 2 weeks.

However, that left one week of intense combat training to make sure the boy would walk out of the battlefield with Penelope instead of a coffin.

The Dawn didn’t know this, of course, but they were writing history. Few weeks ago, Phillips was your average joe with an impossible dream — a D-rank fodder. Yet, within less than a month, the Dawn made him in a B-class. Geniuses use their entire childhood to reach that point. Average joe didn’t have a hope at all. The Dawn kicked the previous power-levelling record holder in the nut. The soon to be Acropolis’ training method would soon become legendary marvel that shamed every magical and martial institution in Phantasia. Its success rate, detail and innovative uses of every psychological, physical, alchemical, and Manalogical element to forge a warrior were unprecedented.

Most outrageously, it was relatively accessible. No huge sect locked it inside a stuffy library. No one was keeping it’s in an attic. Acropolis’ authority got expressively forbade by Remus the co-founder from inhibiting its spread. Aurorin and the Seven Continental Alliance only got their arrogance to blame for utterly failing to recognize its existence until years later when Acropolis finally grown into a respectable city state. The nation’s strict adherence to its value of freedom and new beginning meant this method was designed by Rem like he wanted to be adopted by Cicero and Thomas Jefferson.

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARM, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

This quoted from the American constitution was carved in a monument at the Acropolis square. As far as Rem was concerned, Phillip was just a test case to see how viable the method was. The moment it proven to work was the moment it got shipped into market.

This blatant disrespect Rem gave to the natural common-sense of inhibiting the right for self-defend would awe even Orwell Mehest. Yes, Orwell’s Diogenesis would soon become the major headache of Divine Fist, but even the young descendant of the Deathless Clan looked at Acropolis and performed the pose of supplication in respect and awe.

Why? Because by the time Acropolis got on anyone radar. Nearly every able man and woman was A-rankers on average. This newly born nation of the Dawn doesn’t need an amy. They were the army to themselves. It was like invading the America where every state was Texas and every gun owner was Super Saiyan. Something wasn’t worth the effort to surmount and the future Acropolis was amongst one of them.

In the coming era, the Seven Continental Alliance experimented with Super soldiers, Starland became the symbol of compromised and empty platitude, Isle of Knowledge fractured, Aurorin and Balperia descend to anarchy and tyranny, Demonic Continent became the punching bag, the Holy Land became the laughingstock, Vampire suffered from internal culture revolution and Enma Enterprise and Divine Fist ran around like a headless chicken to pick the fracture pieces. Yet, amongst the mess Phantasia descended into, one nation and its allies rise like Phoenix from the ash-heap of history as the prosperous winner of them all. With the strongest non-state militia that surplexed the newly minted army of Supersoilder enhanced by World Enemy DNA to the ground, business men more roid than Kenshiro, and School literally quoting the American Founding Father as their national Anthem.

Sadly, the record of disrespect from the nation so Chad it humbled Diogenesis and emasculated El Acerbia would come later. Right now, Phillip was simply the baby step in a long Acropolis military prestige. A step that was batted around to shape up by one Melody.

“I can’t move anymore,” Phillip gasped from the floor. “I am not cut out for this.”

Melody drank from the water bottle and sat a bottle of carbonated apple down beside him.

“You wasn’t,” the demoness corrected with a much softer eyes than the one she had years ago. “You are doing fine. Those pain and ebb you are feeling? They are your strained muscle being rebuild back better. Our special herbal bath and good food will fix that.”

Phillip groaned.

“Did it have to be so painful?”

“Philip, your body is literally tearing itself apart to build itself back better. It will hurt without a doubt. Think of it like this, the more painful it is now the higher survival chance will be when you eventually have to march up to Acrisius and punch him in the face.”

Phillip laughed.

“You spoke like you expect me to face off against him, Man-to-Man.”

The exhausted man suddenly realized Melody wasn’t kidding.

“You must be joking.”

“I wish.”

Phillip got only one question.

“Why me? Why not you? Or Mr. Dream. Or Miss. Latoria. Send Mr. Chronicler, he will beat Promtus and two attacks. What are you planning to send a newbie like me to beat someone so high on the military totem pole?”

Melody thought back to how far she had come. A year ago, she would agree with Phillip, but as a member of Horizon Dawn she saw further. It no longer about taking the shorter path of convenience and self-aggrandizing. It was about fighting for a vision.

“Because it doesn’t prove a point. Acrisius is currently more than another head on the block. He can be taken as a symbol of everything damning Centuria; the obsession with power, compromising integrity and charity to those weaker to win in the history book, and the symbol that might and prestige made a man. Yes, I can put on my mask and dash his head to the rock, but that would be foreign intervention by a god-like figure. I am going to make him a martyr. Can you live with that guy as a martyr?”

Phillip looked at Melody.

“How would I beat the Dukes to prove anything?”

Melody smiled at the boy.

“If a boy from humble origin with nothing in his blood but hard work, dream and spirit to succeed challenges the would-be-king and defeats him to protect what he loves. What message will it spells?” Melody reminiscence upon her very battle with Rem. “If Acrisius loses to you, who takes back Penelope, all those Dukes become loser for investing in this war. It won’t be a story of rescuing a nation from a brink of devastation or an internal reform that justifies bloodshed. Your victory is the symbolic triumph of Acropolis’ very foundation: the American Dream. A boy from a humble beginning rescuing a girl of his dream even when every force under and above heaven condemned her to die. If you won, you will set a precedent of what is possible and inspire countless people. You will be an example of a person succeed not because of the jackass system, but human spirit and desire to care for other. If Phillip Odysseus can defy the odds and win, everyone can.”

Melody continued to spouse what she learned from Rem.

“Phantasia is plagued by insistent addiction to power without ideal. Every faction worships the need to control two more yards of something without even knowing why. And they are using whatever method they see fit to do it. You don’t know this yet, but we are flooding in threats arising in respond to this tom-fuckery. Some want to be above it. Others want to maintain the status quo or advance the agenda in this stupid game of tic-tac-toe. The rest want to end it in bloody revolution. Centuria and your girlfriend are simply the latest body bagged by this cancer.”

“She isn’t my girlfriend,” Phillips responded. “But from what you said, having me rescue Penelope by beating Acrisius is just a beginning.” Phillip realized something. “Acropolis is also part of the plan”

“Yes,” Melody admitted. “As you know, to prevent more nation and people from burning down in a fire of greed and door-matting to the status quo, we needed to toss the stupid ideology, fueling it, from the rooftop. Sadly, ideology cannot be killed and any attempt to silence it will just drive it underground and allow it to surface later. Only superior ideal can kill another ideal.”

Phillip got it.

“You are pitting Acropolis’ promise of new beginning, believes in dream and individual freedom for the betterment of all against the rest of Phantasia,” he concluded. “If Acropolis grew from a settlement to a nigh-unstoppable and free land, it will be undeniable evidence of how the rest of Phantasian is indisputably wrong.”

“And a victory of Acropolis’ citizen against the old guard of Phantasia will help build the momentum,” Melody declared sweetly. “So, Phillips dear, we have a lot riding on you.”

Somehow that sweet smile weight like a pickup truck on Phillip’s poor shoulder.

…

On the other end of the country, Hikma and Ehto weren’t smiling at all.

Ehto was suited in a black multi-module combat armor that completely hid his body beneath plating of sophisticate weapon and high-power weaponry. Meanwhile, Hikma was in his Dawn issue combat suit with a sheathed Symphony Blade dangling by his belt. Both men looked clean compared to trails of charred sand and the sea of groaning bodies they just fought through.

The operation was a success. The two waited until the bandits met with their supplier and began the ambush. One-two hit combo of flashbang and sleeping gas sent the group into panic, opening them for Hikma and Ehto to swoop in and took the collective goon to lunches. The battle was over in less than ten minutes, but what it led to keep them here for much longer.

“Isn’t this a symbol of Aurorin?” Ehto glanced at one item they confiscated from the supplier. The buffoon was yelling at the two about the fact they knew nothing before Hikma sent him to the sandman with one slice of Symphony Blade.

Hikma glanced at the crown emblem in the man's wallet.

Aurorin was an independent faction outside the realm of Seven Continental Alliance. They were the gathering of influential noble from all over Phantasia, with sky-high corruption and almost bottomless wealth. Liberator was founded to fight them (unsuccessfully). It was almost too perfect for them to fund the bandit, almost too perfect.

“Yes, this smell fishy,” Hikma concluded. “Why on Earth would Aurorin supply the bandit destabilizing Starland? They made like 15% of the entire Phantasia GDP, taking stolen good made little sense.”

Ehto turned toward the octopus.

“Rem, Lady Satholia, do you have any idea?”

[Curious,] Satholia’s voice echoed on another end of the line. [They must be a reason for Aurorin to be involved.]

“I don’t think this is a framing attempt,” Rem said. “They are already unpopular and the international legal system is heavily rigged for them. Any tactic to frame them is a long shot, not even worth attempting. I believe they only want to mess the Coalition of Tengen as much as possible.”

“Then we come back to the old question,” Hikma said. “What would they gain from doing that?”

"Hikma, dear," Satholia’s voice said. "It isn’t them who gain anything. It is who. Remember, someone actually benefited from an easily conquer nation. The south of Starland is Majestopia border. That is essentially a sentence to be a meat shield against the vampire."

“The order border is Frisnia, which is currently warring against Tai Hua and Starland, which is being occupied by Tai Hua,” Rem knew exactly who got the winning. “Let assumes our opponent sees no value in human-life because they are bastard, then they wouldn’t care where the refugee fleeing from the chaos end up. Let us assume they ran away from the vampire at southern border and hedge the bet at the fellow member of Coalition. Under that scenario, who loses and who wins?”

“Tai Hua, Frisnia and Starland need to deal with the border crisis, Rem,” Ehto made the calculation in second. “Everyone lost.”

Rem made a dry laugh from the telephone. Ehto might have a supercomputer brain, but he didn’t get human ability to imagine possibilities. “No, Ehto, there is a winner. Frisnia and Tai Hua will be dead exhausted. Starland will run around like a deviant penguin in mating season until a certain chick come over and seduces them with a combination of cashes and promises that the problem will go away. This person — connected to Aurorin — will knee-cap her major enemy, weaken her future targets and solidify her foothold in one stone's throw.”

Hikma’s eyes widened.

“No way. Cytortia talks about her often, and I think she is exaggerating.”

“You haven’t hanged around Cytortia long enough, yet, Hikma,” Rem growled. “Or else you will already realize LinLey Tianshang doesn’t have depth she can’t sink through.”

Ehto looked at the bandits they just annihilated, “You mean Cytortia’s senior sister—the Heavenly Daughter of Water.”

“Righto,” Rem humorlessly replied. “If LinLey already got moving, I bet my right arm Tai Hua aren’t far behind. Gentleman, we are in collision course with a three-front war. I hope you are ready.”