The men who had laughed by the side, after seeing that they were being filmed by the camera stood up straight and widened their shoulders slightly.
“If you are giving us permission to answer honestly, then I will do ma'am.” The man in the middle said. “All of us have used this machine as part of our training to stay in shape. It certainly seems easy from the outside looking in, but hitting at the same point each time, with the same strength is an incredibly tiring task.
“I have also seen many Altered from AJ Entertainment perform this same exercise before, so in my professional opinion, no matter how talented an Altered may be, to be able to do this for an entire day without rest is an absurd answer. Knowing that, we couldn’t help but laugh.
“I don’t blame him though, he admitted he has never tested his limit, so he might just be overestimating himself… or trying to impress the beautiful young lady.”
Elanor who was standing by the side had a large grin on her face, this was a perfect remark, a confrontation like this always stirred up viewers. In today's day and age, even if there were a lot of viewers, saucy clips that stirred up drama, could be shared and in turn, bring in more viewers to the actual airing.
‘Did I really overestimate myself?’ Gary wondered, looking down at his fist. ‘Here I was actually downplaying it, since I thought it would sound too unrealistic if I told them that I feel like I could keep it up for days.’
Gary was basing this on his past calculations, yet he had actually improved a lot since that time. On top of that, thanks to his Class, he would actually benefit from a large increase in his Energy during nighttime, which would further add to the time he could keep this up.
“As I said, I never tested myself, but I still believe I could keep this up for at least half a day.” Gary stated, not refuting the guards’ opinion. Rather, he proceeded to show Clem how to throw a punch properly before hitting the bag, making it fly back some distance, but it was clear the hit was used just to demonstrate the action, and there was no force put behind it.
A lot of the viewers were inclined to believe the guards, basing it on the experience they had, or what they had heard from others. There were even records of some Altered doing this exercise before.
So far, the green haired student had only left the impression of a somewhat naive and nervous youth on the viewers, making them doubt his claim. Him indirectly admitting that he might have been wrong, rather than keeping a cocky attitude helped his image though.
After being shown how to do it, it was finally time for Clem to punch the bag, and so she did, hitting it dead in the centre. It went along on the ratchet around fifty centimetres proving that the bag was heavier than it looked.
When the bag came back, she was ready to hit it, managing to strike in the same spot. It came back a third time, and she succeeded again, but finally, on the fourth punch, she had only made it go back only around forty centimetres, thus ending the exercise.
“I’m telling you all now, that is a lot harder than it looks.” Clem stated as the camera was on her. “It's not about it being tiring, but to produce the same amount of power. I’m a fit person, but that's really not something I'm used to doing.”
“I have an idea.” Elanor shouted out from the side. “Why don’t we get one of the guards from the AJ Entertainment to give it a go? I think that would be a fairer comparison, for the viewers. There is no need to hit it until he tires. Just try to hit it as far as you can four times like Clem did.”
Elanor was trying to stir up trouble, and of course, the guard captain who spoke up before looked happy to go along with the idea. He was already walking forward, taking off his suit jacket, revealing a white undershirt.
After taking that off, he had a singlet underneath that showed off his muscular chest and tattooed arms. They were far larger than Gary’s and looked just as muscular.
“This training is usually designed for Altered in their normal human form, which is why even in this exercise!'' The man swung his fist right into the back, taking it back around ten metres, it was a powerful hit that was recorded on the camera.
“Some humans are able to get better scores than Altered out there.”
The man smiled as he went on to hit the bag again and again. For all four hits, he had managed to get the same distance as the first time.
Stopping, the man looked toward the camera, and started to flex his biceps. This was the type of person viewers usually disliked, but because he could somewhat back up his cocky attitude, they were unable to say anything bad about him.
“That guy is a beast! Are we sure he’s really not an Altered?”
“Did you hear the sound of the bag every time he hit it! He must be one of the strongest humans on this planet.”
From observing, Eddie and Gary came to the same conclusion, that the man wouldn’t have been able to keep that up for long, maybe two minutes at most. Limiting the activity to only having to hit the bag four times worked in his favour, and they were wondering what point he was trying to make by showing off like that.
In the first place, Gary had never claimed he could hit it the furthest. That wasn’t the true goal of the exercise. The comparison should be about who could hit it with their full strength for as long as possible, no matter how far, this was fair to all shapes and sizes.
“Alright everyone, so now we will finally have Gary, the debut student from the AFA, demonstrate for us how it's done, and show us the difference between a regular person and a debut student!” Clem claimed.
Before Gary walked up to the platform, Eddie walked in front of him.
“Gary, you are a person who represents the AFA.” Eddie said loud and clear so that everyone could hear. “So I don’t want you to embarrass us, hit that bag with all your strength.”
Gary smiled, because he had still been thinking of holding back, but with the teacher's permission, and the smug look on the guard captain’s face, he nodded as he walked up onto the platform.
“He’s an Altered and a student at the AFA, so he should be able to beat him, but if it's only by a metre or so I would be embarrassed.”
“They’re not allowed to transform into their Altered from during this exercise, so maybe he will get a lower score.”
Gary readied his position, he didn’t use his Controlled Transformation, and swinging his arm out, he threw it out forward hitting the bag right in the centre. A loud bang was heard as the bag nearly bent in half from where it had been hit. It swung along the railing at such a fast speed that sparks started to fly.
Then when it reached the end the bag flew off the end of the machine, the chain detached itself and the bag crashed into the wall, as it fell to the floor, the wall was left with a large dent.
The camera caught everything, and the look of disbelief on everyone's faces, including even the teacher Eddie, then it finally went back to Gary.
“Maybe I should have held back a bit,” Gary muttered as he saw the shocked gazes.
*****
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