Invincible Earth! : Volume 1

Lance felt a pounding in his head as if someone had bashed it in with a huge hammer. This made him wake up, finding himself propped up between his two “friends”.

Although he felt indignant at being pushed into the fight, he knew that the situation probably would have resulted in one anyway seeing the reactions of the two goons. “Did we win?“, he asked, massaging what seemed to be a big lump on his forehead.

“Easy peasy. You think our ranks are just for show? Besides, Apollo wasn’t interested in getting into a fight now anyway. Even if he had 20 such goons, it would have been an easy fight.“, bragged Darius. When Lance was massaging his forehead with his eyes closed, Darius and Entsy shared a nod as they approved of Lance’s attitude. If he were whining right now about being pushed into the fight, it would have made them rethink their decision.

“Apollos the blonde haired kid? Seems very cocky. What are your ranks anyway? You didn’t mention them to me when we met.“, asked Lance as he reached forward to the plate in front of him. It was a standard school lunch, with some sort of meat, vegetables and long stalks that looked like beans but were yellow.

“I’m 2nd and Entsy here is 10th. Most of the top 1000 ranks are occupied by people like us who were taught by ancestors on earth itself. Eat up first. The yellow stalks are a food called enidra, exclusive to the IE station. They might be pretty tasteless, but they have incredible healing properties. They are grown in 0-gravity and require a lot of rare materials to reach maturity. I was surprised to see the cafeteria being so liberal. My old man rarely gave me some of these unless he accidentally broke my ribs. Aside from being great for healing, they lay a solid foundation for cultivation in the body. If a typical human being ate this every day, he would live up to 150 years of age easily.“, answered Darius.

Lance was impressed as he started munching on the stalks. They were slightly crunchy but mostly bland. As he swallowed the first stalk, the pain in his head started fading away and he found himself becoming full of energy. He hurriedly gobbled down the rest of the food on the plate, excitedly looking for more new foods that might have such wondrous effects.

“Slow down. Other foods are same as back on earth.“, said Entsy idly while munching on some enidra. Entsy didn’t talk much, always opting to get his point across in as few words as possible. Darius, on the other hand, was already with a lengthy explanation for any topic. It almost seemed as if there was no topic that he didn’t know about.

“Ya, others are your typical produce and meat. My old man told me that there was a time when each and every food was specially grown in IE, with each one having more and more amazing effects. It was the height of a major war, and initiates were directly sent to the front lines with minimal training. Thus, they needed as much advantage as possible. He said it was a boon that we were born now. I, on the other hand, disagree. If we were born then, we would have had more opportunities to climb the ranks and become stronger, faster. The people who excelled then are the people in command now.” Darius sat up straight and radiated ambition as he said these words. Lance could see that both of his new friends were highly ambitious, as he had seen Entsy also nodding along with fighting spirit in his eyes.

Instead of feeling daunted by their ambitions, he felt himself also being filled with fighting spirit. He could not wait to fight, to prove himself and to get stronger. Although he couldn’t explain to himself his motivation and purpose for feeling so, he was clear that this was what he wanted.

…

Lance had already gobbled down his food but he was still hungry. Seeing him eyeing their plates, Entsy pushed his mostly untouched plate to Lance. Lance happily accepted the food and finished it, finally becoming full for the first time on the IE station.

Seeing this, Darius stood up, starting to lead them out.

“Lets get to our dorms. Training starts tomorrow. It seems me and Entsy have advanced classes while you are on the basics. The instructors here are top notch but also very strict, so don’t fool around and train properly.”

The trio exited in the opposite direction they had entered from. This was another huge room with the expanse of space as the roof. Because the roof was made of glass, it gave the illusion that they were standing on a huge open field on Earth. From a room, Lance felt as if he had stepped out onto a mountain range. As far as the eye could see, there were forested mountains. Some were smaller and some were larger, but the whole landscape was an assortment of such mountains. Lance turned back to see where they had come from, and received a fright as he saw the door hovering on the ground with landscapes behind it. He wanted to see if it was just the door standing on the ground magically, but as he bent back to view the door from the other side, a “CLUNK” sound was heard as he had bashed his head on an unseen wall.

He heard the two snickering behind him and turned around to see Darius and Entsy holding back the urge to laugh. As they saw his accusing face, they couldn’t hold it in any more and burst out laughing.

“Gets me every time. The door is set in a huge mirror like material, and using image technologies the illusion that the door is standing in the air is caused. Hey, don’t look at me like that. This is a tradition in IE. Even I was laughed at when I first came here.”

Lance walked to Darius and kicked him in his leg, only to clutch his own leg in pain. It felt like hitting a rock.

“Ok, enough fun and games. Lets get to our dorm. You must be eager to start cultivation.“, said Darius as he started walking towards a particular mountain.

The trio had stepped into a grassy plain with pathways leading to various mountains and they were now headed to one particular mountain which seemed smaller than the rest.

It took a half hour to just enter the forest as the foot of the mountain. Lance felt as if he were entering a whole new world. The air here was crisp and each breath filled him with vitality. The trees were huge and towering. It would require 10 people to surround one tree, and each was also over a hundred feet tall. As Lance looked up, there seemed to be houses in the trees, some round and some square but all of them were made out of wood. There was a particular house which was huge but as the whole floor was just wood from the outside, it just occupied a certain area of the sky. Each and every house blended into the atmosphere and it would be hard to distinguish them unless one were looking closely.

There was a pleasant ambient lighting with occasional pockets of sunlight that sneaked in. Passing these areas of sunlight made Lance feel as if he were being microwaved, as it almost burnt his skin. He avoided them from then on.

After another half hour of walking, they came to a certain tree in the forest. It must be noted that although the trees were huge, the number of them weren’t very high. A 50 feet area might only have 2 or 3 trees spaced apart, but the various shrubs and roots on the ground along with the grass gave on the strong feeling that they were back on earth in an unexplored forest.

Darius bent towards the tree and a head-sized eye automatically opened in the originally normal bark of the tree. After a moment in which it seemed Darius’s eye was scanned, a lift opened up in the tree. A little bark fell off but the door of the lift were also covered by bark on the surface.

Lance followed the two into an industrial lift which could fit 20 people inside. There were no buttons, and the lift automatically stopped after a few seconds.

Lance was amazed to step into a modern furnished condo. There was a huge hall with a TV, a kitchen almost as big as the hall and three bedrooms. One side of the house was filled with windows overlooking the lush greenery outside.

“We opted for this model as we thought you would be most comfortable in it. We can change it later as you like.“, said Darius as he walked in.

“Welcome to our dorm. From now on, we are a team. Remember, our progress is your progress and your failure is also our failure. So, you better work hard and catch up with us soon. Both of us have high hopes for you, and we will do our best to help you.“, stated Darius, walking into the center of the hall and stretching out his hand in the air, palm facing downwards.

Entsy put his arm on Darius’s, looking expectantly at Lance.

Lance felt touched. He didn’t know how it was, but he felt closer to these two than almost all of his friends back on earth.

He walked forward and also placed his hand on theirs.

They looked into each others eyes, ready to face all difficulties. Together they would stand, and together they would walk.

…

Lance was meditating in a seated position as he finally felt what he had been waiting for since what felt like a life time.

If one were standing in front of him, they would see that there were many changes in Lance. The fat was still there, but under it was newly developed muscle that gave him an overall sturdy look. Rather than looking overweight, Lance was starting to look more and more like a power lifter. This could be attributed to the brutal training he had been going through.

Each morning, he would wake up and go to the training ground located a half hour walk away from their dorm tree in an open plain. There, he would learn the basics of fighting.

The first day, Lance had been filled with expectations to learn exciting martial arts. The instructor had started off by making all the newbies stand in a line and punching each one in the face.

Incidentally, Lance happened to be first and got knocked out only to be awoken a few moments later with a throbbing in his face.

Then started the training. Depending on each persons reaction to the punch, they were divided into groups and given specialized training in relation to their level.

Lance was in the bottom group, comprising of people who were knocked out and closed their eyes when they got punched.

There was no time for socializing, as this group mostly spent their time getting hit either by the instructors fists or a machine which shot balls at them at dizzying speeds. It reminded Lance of the machine used by tennis players to train.

This took around 10 days to perfect. If it weren’t for the enidra that each and every trainee ate during all three meals, their bodies would have given out by now. Instead, their bodies were injured and healed over and over again, as if they were crude iron being forged in the furnace.

On the 11th day, expectations rose in the group again for martial arts. They were destined to be disappointed again, as the remainder course consisted of only three things:punch, kick and dodge.

Each trainee was paired with an initiate from an advanced group. Advanced groups either consisted of people who had trained in some form of fighting, or of those who had been brought up by their ancestors and had already cultivated to a certain level.

The former groups, along with Lance’s group were almost like children in front of the latter groups. There were multiple instances when people were sent to the infirmary urgently because the other party couldn’t control their power.

Of course, the guilty party were heavily reprimanded and cut off from enidra for a day. Enidra was so vital to the training that a single day without it could result in falling behind by a week, as enidra worked best when the injuries were recently sustained. Hence, everyone was very serious about the training.

Lance had been paired with Darius and Entsy once or twice. They hadn’t gone easy on him at all.

Lance was in the bottom of the bottom group, as he had no knowledge of his nature yet. Others who had at least a rudimentary understanding of their nature performed much better with rapid improvements.

Lance envied these people but try as he may, he just could not figure out what his nature was. The only clue he had was the feeling he had before being punched by Dimi, but that feeling hadn’t appeared yet in the training. Lance suspected that it was something instinctual, and resolved to patiently wait for it to reveal itself at the appropriate time.

They were taught only two forms: the standard punch and the standard kick. Unlike conventional instructions though, the IE instructors showed them how to put their whole weight behind the motion. The whole point of getting beat up was to learn these instructions and imbibe them in the body as muscle memory, using pain as a motivator to achieve this all the faster.

When you punch or kick, every cell in your body must move with you, with the singular intention of destroying whatever is in your path. When you dodge, every muscle and tissue in your body must instictually contract or expand to move out of the way as efficiently as possible.

Lance landed his first punch on a trainee on the 28th day. Although it wasn’t very impressive in comparison, Lance felt emboldened by his achievement.

Each day after going back to their dorms, how ever much their bodies hurt with the enidra working on healing all the damaged cells, they had to sit down and meditate. The sooner they broke through into beginning stage-1 initiate, the easier the training would be.

It was the last day before they set off on their first mission and Lance finally felt the signs that he was about to break through.