The Mental Universe Realization Training Method
After the meeting on the Mental Universe Realization Training Method concluded, the training grounds where the First Special Mobility Battalion had assembled buzzed with energy. Kaizen intended to make up for his blunder during the meeting—and to showcase his competence to the person in charge—by personally donning the aerial mobility device and giving a demonstration.
Technicians approached and began fitting the equipment onto his body. But then—right in front of him, the overall commander was staring at him with piercing intensity. Kaizen felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Serian thought to herself, ‘Where have I seen him before…’
Ah! That uniform! The ice chocolate from yesterday!
She couldn’t remember the face of the person whose clothes she had drenched with her ice chocolate the night before, but she recalled that pristine white uniform with perfect clarity.
Once the equipment was fully secured and Kaizen stepped forward to address the soldiers, Serian approached him.
“I thought you looked familiar. We met last night, didn’t we?”
Hehe, what a small world.
She said it with pure, innocent admiration, but Kaizen could only interpret her words in an entirely different way.
No!! What does that mean? She clearly remembers everything. But now she’s bringing it up again—!!! Is this a silent threat that if I don’t perform perfectly, she’ll make last night’s incident public and bury me with it…?
Goosebumps prickled across Kaizen’s skin. He snapped to attention and saluted sharply.
“I will absolutely live up to the expectations of the overall commander!”
Without hesitation, Kaizen kicked off the ground and soared into the air. It was a flawless, impeccable leap befitting the top graduate of the Valhalla Knight Academy.
He had to prove his worth through this demonstration—prove that he was the one qualified to lead this unit.
But only a few seconds after he began using the equipment in earnest, a crisis struck.
The moment he maxed out his mana output to gain altitude, the grip began to vibrate faintly, like a trembling aspen leaf.
‘…Is it defective?!’
He panicked for a split second, but his knightly instincts kicked in immediately. No—this was a warning that he was about to overload the system. He unconsciously adjusted his power, and the vibration vanished as if it had never been there.
Instead of relying on noisy auditory or visual signals in the chaos of battle, this was an extremely intuitive feedback system that utilized the user’s own senses. And that wasn’t all.
When he executed a sharp turn in midair and performed complex maneuvers, a soft blue glow flickered at the edge of his vision. The Moonstone at his waist—which he had assumed was merely decorative—changed in brightness according to mana consumption, visually indicating the remaining operational time.
Feel it through vibration. Confirm it with light.
All stray thoughts vanished from Kaizen’s mind. Every part of the design meshed together perfectly, making the device feel like an extension of his own body. A revolutionary new weapon that fused with the user’s senses in a way he had never experienced before.
Even as he sliced through the air with dazzling maneuvers, he could no longer focus on showing off his own skill. Every nerve in his body was overwhelmed by the unimaginable genius embedded in this new equipment.
“Waaaaah—!”
When his demonstration ended, thunderous applause and cheers erupted from the soldiers filling the training grounds. But Kaizen didn’t hear any of it. His entire body still trembled with lingering awe.
‘This… is an object from a realm beyond humanity!’
He had never encountered equipment like this before. It went beyond mere high performance; every tiny psychological and physical reaction of the user had been meticulously considered. A perfect structure that understood every variable of combat and resolved them in the most efficient way possible.
This was the new technology that a genius of the century had created—the future of the empire itself.
He couldn’t help but be astonished. It truly belonged to a domain that transcended human limits.
Kaizen turned his gaze toward the silver-haired girl who had designed this equipment. What kind of abyss lurked behind that youthful face? No matter how he thought about it, this was not something a mere human intellect could have produced.
A monster. The word “genius” wasn’t enough to describe her.
When humans witness something that surpasses their understanding, they feel both fear and reverence. Kaizen suddenly recalled that perhaps the myths and legends of divine beings had originated from moments just like this.
While he stood there, lost in admiration, Serian approached him again with a serious expression.
She’s coming! What now?! Did my demonstration not meet her standards? Am I about to be reprimanded?
Just as Kaizen steeled himself for a scolding, Serian pointed at the faint chocolate stain still visible on his uniform and said,
“You shouldn’t wash that with hot water. Rinse it in cold water first—it comes out much better that way.”
“……Pardon?”
“It’s a dairy-based stain, you see.”
What… is this supposed to mean now?
Thousands of circuits spun wildly inside Kaizen’s head. Hot… hot things… beware of excessive passion… cold… cool… lead the unit with cold reason??
‘Please forgive my arrogance. Instead, you are showing me an even greater path…’
A leader who covers for her subordinate’s mistake without exposing it, and even offers guidance without holding back. He was deeply moved by the profound depth of Serian’s character.
Of course—Serian wasn’t thinking anything of the sort. She had simply been bothered by the stain.
But Kaizen, already lost in his massive misunderstanding, turned toward the watching soldiers with a heart swelling with emotion.
“Soldiers! Be proud that you have been granted the honor of being the first to wear this magnificent equipment that will become part of the empire’s history!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Now, we begin training!”
And so, after an hour of mobility training—the wide parade ground was bathed in the crimson light of the setting sun. The elite members of the First Special Mobility Battalion set down their equipment on the dusty ground.
Rough breathing could be heard here and there, but instead of utter exhaustion, their faces showed a subtle sense of emptiness.
Just one hour. The Ultra-High-Density Real Combat Compression Training crammed an entire day’s worth of core training into that single hour, allowing not a single second of rest or lapse in focus. What remained at the end of that intense concentration was sweat, the lingering scent of mana—and the itchy dissatisfaction of having just started to warm up when it all ended.
Kaizen stood before them. A trace of dissatisfaction flickered across his face as well, but the real test was only just beginning.
“Commander, are we really doing this?”
The first to speak was his adjutant. He shrugged as he asked,
“Is today’s training really over with just this? We’ve barely warmed up… Meditation? Wouldn’t it be better to do another hour of basic mobility drills instead?”
Kaizen silently turned his head and observed the soldiers seated across the parade ground. Every member selected for the First Special Mobility Battalion was an elite among elites, gathered from across the empire and brimming with pride. No matter how intense the training had been, a single hour could never satisfy their overflowing drive.
The thrill they had felt just moments ago while wearing the new equipment and soaring through the sky still lingered in their bodies. They were disappointed that training had ended before that exhilarating sensation could fully fade.
Some fiddled with the equipment’s connection points to loosen their hands, while others gazed longingly at the empty air where they had just been flying. They all seemed to share the same thought. The adjutant’s words spoke for everyone present.
Kaizen, too, keenly felt that the training time was woefully insufficient—but he did not waver. Or rather, he tried his hardest not to. In his mind, the cold gaze of the overall commander he had faced in the laboratory earlier that day was still crystal clear.
It had been when he visited her lab to ask for the specific details of the Mental Universe Realization Training Method. Kaizen had naturally expected systematic instructional materials or a secret manual of some kind. Instead, what he received was a single sentence bordering on contempt.
「If I have to teach you every little thing, how can this possibly become proper training?」
He was momentarily flustered by her icy attitude. But soon, he began to ponder the deeper meaning hidden within that short sentence.
‘If you don’t realize it yourself, it can never truly become yours.’
He could feel her fundamental philosophy regarding training. She was currently testing both his and the soldiers’ capacity.
Kaizen cleared his throat and shouted in a voice that echoed across the parade ground.
“This is an order from the overall commander! From now on, everyone close your eyes and enter meditation! Commune with the universe within… and feel the unity with the equipment!”
A brief silence fell. The soldiers looked at each other in confusion at the incomprehensible command. But they were soon overwhelmed by Kaizen’s serious expression. One by one, they awkwardly adjusted their posture and slowly closed their eyes.
At that very moment—in the shadowed observation tower at the edge of the training grounds, Serian watched the entire scene unfold. A satisfied smile spread across her face.
She stirred the ice chocolate that Martin had specially procured for her with a straw, savoring the perfect comedy playing out before her eyes.
‘Hehe, they’re actually doing it. This.’
Kaizen shouting vague, cloud-grasping nonsense with a straight face, and the soldiers faithfully following him. It was a flawless combination. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
Several days passed like that.
Then one day—a certain soldier stood out. He was the least talented in the unit, and therefore the most desperate. Instead of grandiose concepts like “universe” or “unity,” he closed his eyes and simply recalled the mobility training from earlier.
The sensation of the wire firing, the feeling of his body being pulled as gas ejected, the sense of balance when rotating in midair… He had only retraced those movements out of lingering regret, letting his body remember what it had felt.
That was the moment.
“Ugh…!”
A faint spark of mana flame crackled around his body. His muscles twitched subtly, as if he were actually performing the maneuvers.
Kaizen cried out in shock.
“Th-that’s…!”
The soldier slowly opened his eyes. His pupils were trembling.
“Just now… my body… it felt exactly like I was wearing the equipment…! I could feel the sensation of balancing in midair!”
Those words became the trigger. The other soldiers began focusing on their meditation as well, each recalling their movements from training.
Crackle. Crackle-crackle!
Soon, blue sparks of mana flame began blooming all across the parade ground.
A few days later, in Serian’s private laboratory.
Serian took a satisfied sip from her freshly delivered ice chocolate and picked up the regular report Kaizen had submitted. An irrepressible, expectant smile played on her lips.
‘…Was one hour of training per day too much?’
Even she thought it seemed far too short. By now, the soldiers’ dissatisfaction should have been shooting through the roof, with zero improvement in their skills. The report should have been packed with complaints about the training method, plummeting morale, and Kaizen’s desperate pleas as he struggled to manage the mess.
‘Hehe, let’s see just how badly things have fallen apart.’
Humming a little tune, she flipped to the first page.
[First Special Mobility Battalion Weekly Training Progress Report]
Dense data and graphs filled the page beneath the dry title. Serian skimmed over everything else and fixed her eyes on the “Training Achievement” graph.
Huh?
Her eyes widened. The line on the graph… was strange. The line that should have been scraping the bottom was shooting up vertically like it had gone insane.
“What is this? Did they draw the graph wrong?”
Serian tilted her head in confusion and turned to the next page. There, written in Kaizen’s handwriting, was the overall evaluation.
The Mental Universe Realization Training Method bestowed upon us by the overall commander is truly revolutionary. The soldiers are internalizing actual mobility sensations through mental resonance alone, without physical fatigue. The results are astounding. At this rate—
Huh?
Serian unconsciously let out a sound. She rubbed her eyes and read the report again. But the content didn’t change.
She had only made them practice for one hour each day and told them to spend the rest of the time sleeping or meditating. Yet the soldiers’ aerial mobility abilities were improving day by day.
And at an incredibly, incredibly rapid pace.