Why Are You Still Running?

The assessment had begun less than ten minutes ago.

News that Noah had broken the Elite Training Camp's recent speed test record, finishing at more than twice the pace of the second-place recruit in his batch, had already spread throughout the training grounds.

Some were astonished. Some admired him deeply.

—And some stood there dumbfounded for ages, unable to accept it.

Shiryu, for instance.

"I heard the track was only twelve hundred meters long, and you left little Rossi and the others eight hundred meters behind?"

At the strength testing grounds, Shiryu, who had been assigned to the same group as Noah, glanced sideways at him with a cigarette in his mouth. His tone was as sour as if he had swallowed two pounds of lemons.

"You haven't slept for over a week, have you? You've been soaking in the training grounds every day, yet you still have this much energy?"

"Not bad."

Noah curled his lip. He was a little frustrated too. He had clearly tried his best to hold back while running; he had only failed to suppress himself at the very end. Yet he had still fallen short and caused that jaw-dropping scene...

Whatever. If he couldn't stay low-key, then he might as well stop trying.

He would go all out in the remaining tests.

There were over a dozen people queued up at the strength testing grounds. Noah and Shiryu stood relatively far back, while at the very front sat a huge, entirely black machine that looked somewhat like a slot machine.

He had heard it was something the scientists under Vegapunk at the Marine Headquarters Scientific Research Institute had cooked up a few years ago.

At the center of the machine was a slightly indented spot. If someone punched it, the gauge above would leap