The Plan

"Grisha, I have finally selected the 10 people you asked for," Alia handed the documents to Grisha. "So far, these are the most suitable candidates, who can be appointed as the leaders of the squads for the upcoming JETs."

"That was fast! You sure about these people?"  Grisha said as she glanced at the papers. " Because some of them look like cannon fodders to me ..."

"We really can't do anything about that, this year's recruits are all the weakest of the bunch," Alia replied with confusion. "Although we have talented ones too, some of them didn't even apply for the position of squad leader. So these are the best, from the ones who registered!"

"Jake, Vick, Tanya, Rahul, Huang... I see none of these names on the list, what is going on?" Grisha was confused too.

"I told you just now. Many talented cadets of this year have backed off from the squad leader position." Alia tried to clarify with a hypothesis, " They are not interested in being the leaders. But I am not sure why?"

"Hmm, I see... for now, I will pass this to Colonel. Call instructor Goro and others to take the next combat lesson for the rookies. In fact, tell all the instructors to tighten the grip on the training regiment, so we can avoid at least some casualties. You are dismissed for now." Ordered Grisha.

"Yes, Sir" Alia left the cabin to make necessary arrangements.

...

Away from the base, a paled-skin youth was looking at the 3-feet purple-moth from inside the dense bushes ... his breathing had a light pace and a dampened pulse. He was like a hidden viper; he was undistinguishable with his surroundings, almost like Cameleon.

"Dammit! Why is this moth too perceptive?" The current situation agitated Creed heavily."I have been hiding here for 2 hours now, but I can't find an opening to kill this beast."

All the beasts in the glitches were not as easy as one thought, even the weakest beast could turn the tables if hunters do not take caution ... all of them were the masters of their element with sufficiently acute perception.

Creed suddenly saw an opening, "Okay, big guy. So you are finally letting your guard down, eh?"

The purple-moth seemed to be distracted for a split second.

Creed's biggest advantage in the fields was that he too was extraordinarily perceptive to his surroundings. He has always had a craft for manipulating his senses. His ability to read others was not some specialized skill, but a highly unusual gift. His senses and calmness came handy whenever he was in danger.

The depth of his senses was leaps and bounds ahead of a normal person, the constant threat of death refined it even more over the entire year. That's how he survived the entire year inside the glitch.

When he was around 5-years-old, Creed saw a poker game on tv. He liked the game, so he asked his father to teach him the 'rules'. Since he was just a kid, his father jokingly taught him the game and played the game with him. Somehow the game reached a point where he defeated his father 20 times in a row, just by reading his expressions, his body language, and his breath.

When asked about it from his dad, Creed told his dad something strange.

He said, "I don't know dad, but every time you breathe, I know what kind of move you will pull".

Creed tried to explain more when asked, but couldn't explain it properly, as he was just a 5-year-old back then. Though his father recognized his talent and tried to hone his abilities in the training facility for some years until his death.

"Okay, now is my chance." Creed jumped out like a viper from the bushes and stabbed creature feather.

~TZZ TZZ TZZ~

"First the wings and then the neck!!" Creed already had a plan.

Creed slashed the wings of the black moth to prevent it from flying away... the moth let out the small shriek before it tried to bite into his right leg... the ground turned soft like a swamp, slowing him from his retreat.

The moth used his elemental affinity to slow him down.

Seeing this he was stuck in the swamp and couldn't do anything, he let the creature bite him intentionally. After spending an entire year inside the Glitch Creed already knew how much of a revengeful, these creatures were.

After the moth bit him in his leg, he swiftly slashed it in the neck. Its body became paralyzed and dropped on the ground lifeless while his head was still biting into his leg.

[Purple-Vicious Moth Killed]

[Gained Soul Crystal +1 ]

A red aura enveloped his body. And he pulled himself away from the muddy swamp.

"Argh! this stings like hell," Creed slowly cleaned the mud from his eyes. "But I got the job done somehow."

Creed bashed the stuck head of the beast with his other leg, revealing a 4 cm deep bite mark in his right foot. His foot was bleeding and burning with pain. Though he didn't do much about the wound, he spat on it and put some ointment from his bag. 

From three days after his discovery of the beast-synthesis process, he has been collecting as many soul crystals as possible, so he could reach his root chakra threshold as soon as possible.

He calculated that every time he kills a synthesized-beast he would gain 0.5 saturation points from each kill, whereas normal beast still gave him only 0.1 saturation points. In these three days, he had killed 11 ordinary beasts and the 2 synthesized-beast from the inside the cage. He had gained 11 new soul-crystals.

He also had bought two more cages, even though he wanted to buy more his room only had so much capacity ... by all the killing in the three days his saturation point tally was at 18.4  points and earth affinity was 6 points in total.

"It's hard to believe that one week ago my root saturation point was only thirteen points ...," Creed got a little emotional as this was a problem hindering him for over an entire year. "Growth of roughly 5 points in a week, it's almost comparable to the saturation of an average person."

He had to kill 7 times more creatures than other people. The number becomes even more drastic when we keep an account of the limited time. Since they only trained Cadets for 12-14 months, killing 1045 beast in that much time for a single person became close to impossible for a rookie.

Others only needed to kill 145 beasts while they also had time to spare and high output to gain from each kill. Thus their progress was mathematically exponential.

Furthermore, killing the beast was not the only thing inside the glitch cadet had other jobs as well, so when other people were busy enjoying and training for other skills, he had no choice but to keep hunting the beast with progress slow as a snail.

———

"Okay... I have to set a target now. I need to extend my saturation point tally close to the threshold in this one month's time," Creed got anxious by his own thoughts.

"I really don't want to be killed in JETs. I know they will use me as some kind of use and throw rag."

He had already converted the 4 soul-crystal into the beasts-eggs and was waiting for them to hatch. He also observed that eggs would take close to three days' time to hatch.

He planned to create two batches of 4 eggs and he would convert them into eggs with a one-day difference, and so likewise he will gain 2 saturation points with a one-day difference as well.

That means after the first three days he will gain 2 saturation points every day. And in the meantime, while they take their time to hatch, he planned to hunt four more beasts and collect more backup soul-crystal while separating him with his training regiment. And will keep rotating this cycle.

"My calculations say that in every 8 days I will get 16 points from synthesized-beast plus 3 saturation points from normal beasts that make 19 points in 8 days..."Creed made some rough calculations in his head.

"We have a month before JETs starts so I can accumulate 70 new points in this time around. Since I already have 18 points, my total tally after a month should be over 90 points."

"If I can work this out, I guess I will survive in the time of crisis."

Creed planned to achieve his threshold as soon as possible. Then he went as he planned. He knew that slacking off will get him nowhere, so he planned to push it through, as he knew that was the only way to survive in the upcoming crisis.

Before this, no matter what he tried, he saw no hope in his ways, but he still kept pushing through so this time with an obvious change and visible path he had had no reason to slack off.

After the eight-days, his saturation point tally reached 37 points and since he got comparatively stronger, he could now hunt 5-7 lower level beasts in one day time. He realized that now he had more backup crystals since he was only converting 4 crystals per day.

———

Creed Gryffon [ Human ]

Life Span [100 Years]

¤ Root Chakra -  [37+]

¤ Sacral Chakra -  [0]

¤ Solar Plexus Chakra -  [0]

¤ Heart Chakra -  [0]

¤ Throat Chakra -  [0]

¤ Third Eye Chakra -  [0]

¤ Crown Chakra -  [0]

¤ Element Affinity - Earth[22]

———

He accumulated backup crystal in case they assigned him on duty and couldn't go for the hunt, then he would use those backup crystals. His pace was slow enough to NOT attract the attention of other cadets.

~Knock Knock~

"Who is it? " Creed got pulled away from his thoughts.

~Know Knock~

"Creed, open the door!!"

He tried to cover the cages by putting old clothes on them. He could not just tell his secret, even if it was Jake.

"Coming, just wait a second." 

He opened the door just enough to peek outside.

"How can I help you, secretary Barnes?" Said Creed with a fake smile.

"Just come out, we need to talk," Alia Barnes ordered with cold eyes.