Seed of Titan-Chapter 202: Shocking the Shocker

Drai stood there in disbelief. He knew he hadn’t executed the move perfectly, but finding out that he had only achieved such a low completion rate still shook his confidence.

At that moment, a new screen full of text popped up next to him. Upon reading its content, Drai realized it was displaying a long list of errors, each accompanied by corrective instructions.

"’Vertical angle deviation of right arm tuck– lower your right forearm by 7 degrees. Premature tensing of right arm – only tense your right arm around two-fifths into the motion. Inconsistent horizontal alignment of right arm trajectory – maintain roughly a 29-degree trajectory throughout the motion. Misplacement of right hand...’"

Drai continued reading aloud a few more points before exclaiming, "What in the name... All these errors just for my right arm?"

Drai then scrolled down the list and saw that there were multiple errors for most of his major body parts, including those related to foot positions and angles, center of balance, weight distribution, and torso rotation. There were also two particular errors he hadn’t expected to see—mistimed breathing and gaze shifts.

"Really? Even my gaze was wrong? Does it even affect the move?" Drai skeptically muttered.

Even for a training maniac like Drai, seeing all the instructions hurt his head.

"Welp, I doubt I’ll ever reach one hundred percent completion with all these mistakes, and even if I do, it certainly won’t be tonight," Drai thought as he eyed the digital clock above the entrance that showed 21:48.

Drai then reread the long list before he eventually decided to take the matter slowly and correct his right arm’s form first.

A minute later, after Drai was done adjusting his arm’s initial position according to the instructions, he tried out the move again while making further adjustments to his muscle tension and motion.

This time, the strike felt smoother and was visibly faster, though it was still nowhere near the speed of the hologram’s version. And just like before, the voice coming from the machine announced the completion rate.

"Completion: Eleven percent."

"Wow, not bad. I managed to more than double my completion rate in one try," Drai praised himself with a satisfied look before checking the list of errors again.

Immediately, his contentment evaporated, as not only did he see that his previous mistakes were still there, though their margins of error had shrunk, he also noticed a number of new mistakes that he apparently just made.

Sighing heavily, Drai remarked, "This is gonna be a real grind, isn’t it?"

***

Four days later, late in the morning, the Seventh Squad were moving through a lush forest kilometers away from Rivida. Their running pace wasn’t too fast, as they had to take into account their less agile members.

"Patrol groups at twelve and two. Left break," Beachball, who was in the lead, reported through his earpiece before altering his course.

The rest of the squad immediately followed suit as they collectively took a left detour.

"Bud, be gentler would you? The bumps are killing me," Gramps unceremoniously mentioned from Drai’s back.

"...I’ll try."

Perhaps it was due to his tremendous endurance or some sort of repayment for his new training room, but Drai had been given the responsibility of carrying Gramps around during today’s assignment.

Drai initially didn’t mind the task at all, but his rider’s trivial naggings were starting to wear on him.

Just then, Beachball reported again, "Slow down. Ambush ahead."

"Nas, Daniel, Drai, prepare to engage," Frost instructed as the whole squad lowered their pace.

"Nice. Whip me, baby," Danny said to Cubes, who then tossed him a cube that transformed into a pair of black whips.

Meanwhile, Drai asked Gramps, "You wanna get off or what?"

"Nah, I like it here, bud—though I could really use a bit more fat paddings," Gramps replied as he pressed his finger onto Drai’s trim and firm back muscles.

"Then suit yourself," Drai helplessly remarked before activating Nova Flux.

Shortly after, a group of earth golems and treant-like figures emerged from the trees and began assaulting them.

The three designated engagers swiftly moved to intercept the ambushers, while the rest stepped back, huddling in a diamond formation.

"Woohoo!" Gramps hollered as Drai flew toward a golem, shattering its chest with a single Nexus Punch. He then flew to another one and knocked its head off with a Nexus Slap.

Meanwhile, Danny was busy dealing with four golems at the same time. Although his weapons of choice weren’t that effective in dealing with such opponents, Danny didn’t seem to mind as he repeatedly lashed at their ankles, tripping them to a halt. He also occasionally whipped their rock heads and butts with little to no effect, though he did get plenty of chuckles out of it.

On the other hand, Ghost opted to deal with the ten or so puppet-like trees. Although they were more agile than the golems, none of them managed to reach the rear group since Ghost was pushing them back simultaneously, chipping away at their barks each time he passed by them.

These bipedal trees could only flail their branch-like arms helplessly against the invisible opponent, but that too came to a stop after they no longer had any branches left to flail.

A few moments later, all the ambushers were finally felled.

Drai landed back near Frost’s group, still carrying Gramps, whose flushed cheeks made it clear he had enjoyed the thrilling ride.

"Way to ruin my fun, Drai," Danny teasingly grumbled upon returning before tossing back his whips to Cubes.

"Sorry for the slip, guys. These things only transformed after we came close to them," Beachball said with an apologetic look.

"Don’t fret it, Eric. They must have anticipated that we’d go around this way to avoid the patrolling groups," Frost quickly reassured before ordering them to continue forward.

The squad ran for another five minutes before they were stopped by another batch of patrol groups. However, this time they had no choice but to confront the one right ahead of them, as Beachball had confirmed that there were multiple groups circling the area in which their target was supposedly located.

In a flash, Ghost managed to down the group of three. Yet, for some unknown reason, this silent takedown managed to attract the attention of the patrol groups directly beside this one, so the squad was soon confronted by six other people.

From their looks, the two patrol groups seemed to have the same team composition—two melee combatants and one spellcaster.

Seeing that one of the people coming from the right was wielding two metal clubs, Danny excitedly asked Cubes for a pair of batons before rushing toward his chosen opponent.

"Don’t bother us! This is a duel between dual-wielders!" Danny shouted to the mace-wielder’s teammates right before he clashed. Of course the other two had no reason to comply, but before they could help out their colleague, the spellcaster’s neck was struck out of nowhere, knocking her out. This scene startled the last man, who had just transformed into a werebeast, and he decided not to pounce at Danny but swipe his claws around defensively.

At the same time, Mandy gargled a bunch of colored liquids and sprayed them onto the group coming from their left, forcing them to scatter to avoid the jetstreams, which turned out to be acidic.

Frost then followed up with his own spell that instantly trapped the mage-looking guy inside a vibrant blue ice sphere.

This time Drai didn’t want his left arm to be preoccupied with Gramps, so he nonchalantly flung the man far away to their rear before activating all his skills and flying to a bald lady who was draped in chains.

Seeing the white figure flying toward her, the lady waited until Drai was closer before hurling her chains at him.

As if alive, the chains swiftly wrapped around Drai, who immediately halted his flight. And after getting a feel of the chains’ sturdiness, he calmly told the lady, "Sorry, Miss, but I’m sure these aren’t strong enough to restrain me."

"Really? Then how about I shock you instead?" the lady replied before channeling high-voltage currents through her chains, which in turn coursed through Drai, causing his figure to shine even brighter from the blinding light enveloping him.

The lady waited in anticipation, but not only did Drai keep hovering there stably, he didn’t even let out a single groan.

’I didn’t accidentally shock this guy to death, did I?’ the lady anxiously thought. ’No—there’s no way his flight persists post-mortem, unless he’s actually using some flying equipment.’

While this was happening, Beachball rolled away and disappeared into the trees. Meanwhile, Cubes donned her exoskeleton, attached two oversized power hammers onto both her arms, and strapped a small net-launcher onto her shoulder before engaging the remaining man of this group, who looked rather intimidated, perhaps due to his side’s increasingly grim situation or Cubes’ shiny equipment.

As for the chain-wielding lady, her mana was starting to run low, so she finally stopped channeling her spell.

"That should do it... right?" she uncertainly mumbled while looking at the completely blackened figure hovering before her.

However, as soon as she said that, the scorched figure suddenly moved. And with a few booming chest pounds, the black layer was completely shed.

"Phew, that was shocking," Drai remarked. But as he looked at the lady, he was a bit confused—her widened eyes were now fixed on him, but at a point well below his face.

Looking down his body, Drai finally realized what was distracting her.

"Ah shit, I’m naked."