Chapter 39: Chapter 37: The Thorn Chamber

Ceres woke up in yet another medbay pod, which seems like it’s been a recurring theme for the past year. When did he even collapse? “I need to stop getting knocked out and waking up in some random medbay like it’s nothing.”

The last thing he remembered was having breakfast at the visitor hall in Zone 1, where he only met Senia and no one else, not even Cardenia herself. She had much better things to party to than trying to small talk Ceres.

The medbay room was just like another hospital, apart from the facts that there were zero human nurses inside. In fact, there was almost no humans at all save for himself and a single old grey-haired man wearing a white lab coat and anti-grav shoes, hovering in place and peering at his eyes.

Ceres squinted at his face, barely recognizing him as the person who performed his nerval jack installation.

“Doctor Wu…? Is this Zone 4? How did I collapse?”

“Unimportant questions, boy. I’ve been hired by Hawthorn to check up on you, especially after going through two intensive days of VR stage acrobatics that must no doubt be extremely taxing on your underdeveloped brain and body.”

“It’s compounded by the sorely degrading food that you consume in the outer zones, such as your precious steamed dumplings that is just recycled nutri-paste” The older doctor waved his hands at the seemingly inane questions, focusing on a monitor that was showing the vital signs of Ceres.

Ceres noticed that the pod that he was lying in wasn’t like the usual ones where he was covered in electrodes and simple sensors, but it was just a simple sleek enclosed capsule with walls that were probably brimming with sensors so advanced they could pick up the life signs and details from a mile away.

He had never seen this before, not even in promotional media, noting that it must be a relatively pricy technology that doesn’t exist on Athen. Was this a sign of things to come?

“Now keep extremely still and don’t move, unless you want to have the chance to rip your puny head from your spine.” The doctor deftly pressed a few buttons on the exterior of the medbay that were purely holographic, causing a dummy nerval plug packed with medical sensors to enter the base of Ceres neck.

There was no feeling of entering the VR world as the dummy plug wasn’t connected to anything, so he could only dwell on the cold metal feeling and the random bits of stinging as the dummy plug activated several unknown functions only known to the doctor.

The doctor rapidly tapped away on a holo-keyboard, staring intently at a monitor while Ceres kept absolutely still, still pondering what the hell was going on.

After what seemed like an eternity to Ceres who hated being still, the dummy plug finally retracted. The capsule that Ceres was in opened its hatch and allowed him to step out of it.

Flexing his limbs as he stretched outside the capsule, he still wanted to ask a few questions, especially the ‘inane’ questions that he had from before, but he caught the eyes of the doctor that stared him down like as though he was just an insignificant ant.

“Ok, you’re clean, boy, now come back once every week just so everything is alright. And don’t let anyone else tamper with your nerval jack, it’s extremely dangerous and can lead to someone hijacking your head directly.” The doctor said with a serious tone.

Nerval jack hacking was a very real possibility in real life, and some expert hackers could easily bypass the defensive measures to potentially cause a human to be mentally deranged or control him remotely

Ceres nodded, still holding the ‘inane’ question of “where the fuck am I?” deep in his heart, acting as though he knew exactly what was happening.

The doctor got up to leave, floating out the automatic door and leaving Ceres alone, giving him the slight feeling that the doctor didn’t want to be around any longer than he really had to.

As Ceres was just about to exit the medical room as well, the door opened to reveal a young girl the same age as Ceres, except she was much taller.

Her features weren’t particularly sharp and she had minimal muscles in her limbs, making her look slim and slender but nowhere sufficient enough for high intensity combat. Her demeanour was prideful and haughty, her head held high despite being shorter that Ceres, her long black ponytail swishing proudly.

It was Gwen Derfas!

She was defeated in the third stage by Ceres’ team. While she personally didn’t get eliminated and still made it into the main competition on a limp, she still held a strong grudge against Ceres for outsmarting her and eliminating her teammates that she’s been painstakingly training since a year ago!

Her speciality was her outstanding calculation speed and command ability, while her exosuit repair skill were great but not the best.

Combat ability was practically non-existent, leaving her as an amateur at guns and other melee weapons. She had been planning to rely on her teammates to work together through the main competition!

“So, we meet again Ceres! I didn’t expect Hawthorn to have chosen you too. We’ll use this training camp to determine who’s actually the better schemer! I believe you’ve only won out of sheer luck, so don’t get so cocky.” Gwen proudly declared.

She had recognized Ceres as her rival in computational ability ever since Ceres blew her up, and was determined to overcome him during the training camp and subsequently the main competition!

“Err... have we met?” Ceres asked sheepishly, causing Gwen’s face to flare up as she could barely contain her rage.

Ceres followed Gwen, who reluctantly allowed him to follow her to the assembly area. She was assigned to pick him up after receiving notification that he was awake and despite the absolute degradation and lack of recognition from her rival, she still fulfilled her assignment.

Gwen stomped away furiously as she led him down various hallways and rooms, still angered by the comment made by Ceres just now.

“How could he not remember her when he literally set a plan up to take me down BEFORE the competition? He indeed is a top-level planner, intending to wreck the mental stability of mind with this petty trick. It almost worked too.”

“Almost. Too bad my mind is extremely stable and I won’t be easily deterred or broken over by such a childish remark. He must definitely remember me!” Gwen stomped off as Ceres stared wonderingly at the various rooms that they were walking past.

He had already seen a few rooms of combat training and workshops, making him feel excited. He had not even seen this level of equipment even in Zone 1 where they regularly did exhibitions showing the latest technology development on Athen!

Of course, the planet Athen was vastly behind in terms of technology even compared to other parts of the empire due to distance and cost, but some of the facilities even went beyond the latest products brought in from Strathon, the main trading port of the star system!

 It could be said that Strathon, though being in the same star system as Athen, was at least a generation of technology ahead of Athen.

Ceres of course barely remembered Gwen, but to be honest, he had hardly considered killing her as the number one priority target in the first place.

His objective in running to every flag was to blow the team up! When his own team had detected her, he already had an amount of explosives pre-arranged to blow up her team!

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The only real planning he did was how much explosives were needed to blow away 25 people, and capturing the scout was done on the fly.

He didn’t really have much of an insidious scheming streak, it's more like he followed his instincts given the current situation and came up with simple war plans.

The two trainees finally reached the assembly area, which was a simple room with a single holo-board behind a podium, and in front of the podium were four simple stools.

Standing at the podium was Senia, who seemed to retain a permanent presence as an extremely strict no-nonsense teacher dressed in a normal black blazer suit, with a pinned badge marking the Hawthorn emblem.

“You woke up a lot earlier than expected Ceres, considering you ate the entire breakfast portion very fast. I was worried that you would be in yet another coma after consuming the sleeping drugs so fast, but I’m glad to see you fine.”

“Wait, you spiked my food? This is illegal, isn’t it?”

“Call it operational security, I can’t have people knowing that you’re being trained by a Hawthorn, that will drag Cardenia’s name through the dirt in the upper echelons of Athen’s society.” Senia shrugged.

“You may have had an impressing performance in the second and third stage of the qualifiers, but it is nowhere near enough. We can hardly use your existence to justify why we chose you, an outer, instead of a kid from the five families.”

Gwen became more vigilant upon hearing that. She knew well that Ceres deserved to be here more than her, and that she was only here because she had the next highest chance of beating Chad Athen in the competition!

While she was part of the Derfas family, she wasn’t actually studying at the Five Families College, but at a regular inner school.

 Her natural traits only started blooming way after the school selection was done, but she had grown to hate her childhood friend, Chad, who was now the supposed ‘king’ and looked down on everyone else other than him.

It was a complete anti-thesis to her concept of ‘strength in numbers!’

Her family surprisingly supported her joining the training camp but only in secret, making sure Oliver Athen didn’t find out that the Derfas family were hedging their bets on both sides!

They had earnings to make on Cardenia losing the wager and the university plan going through, which they will benefit greatly from.

But sending a single child to earn the support of the Hawthorn also allowed them a way into Cardenia’s good graces if she won!

It would mean that the Derfas had the chance to break out beyond the Athen Family and dominate the planet with Cardenia’s support. This sort of political hedging was commonplace in the upper echelons, though Ceres was still a bit oblivious to all that.

Ceres wasn’t completely convinced at Senia’s reasons for keeping it secret, but decided not to fully pursue it. “So, I assume this is the training facility, was this designed specifically for us in less than a day? That’s amazing.”

“You wish, this was originally meant specifically just for Cardenia and her honor guard to train. Despite the immense responsibilities and busy schedule of the owner of the planet, she still has to keep her personal combat capabilities up. This place is known as the Thorn Chamber, named by the first Hawthorn owner who controlled Athen.”

“It’s been continuously upgraded to fit the current technical specifications set forth by the Dynasty of Hawthorn as to what is expected of the owner, hence its current training facilities. Certain equipment were obtained from the further inner systems of the Empire, so try not to damage them.”

Ceres was reminded that there were better places with better technology with the Loeric Empire! While the Strathon could be considered fairly advanced from the view of the backwater resource planets like Athen, there was a much higher ladder of technology to climb, going beyond the inner systems!

And considering that the Loeric Empire was only a D-Class state, Ceres couldn’t seem to comprehend what kind of wonderful technology could exist in an S-class state!

“They must be living completely digital lives at this rate or living in roaming starships that can warp to a star system with the blink of the eye! What level are their exosuits at?!” Ceres couldn’t help wondering internally.

For now, he was more than content to use the advanced training facilities and resources to boost his own personal capabilities! “So when do we start?” Ceres queried, noticing that they were still the only two trainees in the room. What were the four stools for?

A third trainee finally stumbled into the room, completely dishevelled. It was a young boy about the same height and build as Ceres, but with considerably longer hair that reached his neck and eyes that had bags so large it could fit a snooker ball in it.

His overall attire was unkept, while his red eyes darted all over the room, his head seemingly running in a maddening infinite loop.

“Why am I here? I already paid my debt to that riot group manager! I’m not going to participate in anymore braindead riots, it results in absolutely nothing! What’s the point of them being legal in the first place! Solve it in the courts, idiots!” Before he could continue, Senia strode forward vigorously and slapped his face.

Despite the slap, the boy didn’t stop talking, instead focusing on another topic as though he was uninterrupted “Oh, is this the training facility? That’s amazing, I thought I was captured off-planet, but it’s my first time in space so that would be really amazing if I could actually see any of the windows here. Why don’t you have any windows here? I really want to...” Another slap came in hard.

“Ah right, hello fellow trainees, I almost forgot to introduce myself, I always have this habit of missing out the most critical thing, like that last time I was repairing for a riot and dropped a heating element from the powerpack to the person’s genitals...” A trio of slaps came very fast.

As the third trainee started to speak again, Ceres was starting to think that the third trainee who could barely get his name across would only remain sane for five seconds after every slap.

Senia finally slapped a face-wide metal mask onto the newcomer that covered his entire mouth from the nose down.

It was obviously extremely uncomfortable as it sealed itself around his face, as noted by the gradually intense muffled cries coming from him. Lucky for Ceres and Gwen, the mouth muffler had an in-built active noise cancellation feature, which somehow worked no matter what frequency the third trainee tried to grunt in.

“This is Leonard Athen, please ignore everything he say from now on. He is also possibly the strongest in terms of exosuit repair amongst the three of you, and would be our first choice if it wasn’t for his… interesting personality.” Senia said, while Ceres was slightly shocked that an Athen would be at this training camp too.

He thought that this camp was designed to be a procedure to be implemented for the outer kids like him in the future! However, the mention of ‘strongest’ hit him hard!

Ceres and Gwen’s competitive spirit were lit. “Someone like this is considered stronger than me?”

 

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