Sam steps away from the table finishing his meal and switching off the television. He walks over to the sink to wash up his dishes, rethinking his plan for the day. The majority of the people in his year level intended to hit up the town one last time.

These manuals have introduced a new variable but not wanting to disappoint his friends, Sam sends out a few messages.

‘I’m busy today, my family needs me and I’ve a few things to study still.’

‘I have to study up some new weapon types, I found I can’t actually handle a claymore.’

‘My family has shown me their training manual, I’m studying it one last time… for the first time.’

…

Many other people respond similarly showing that their initial plans for the day are off. Sam also feels a wave of relief as he thinks about the free time afforded to him now. His parents assigned him some chores to handle, but that gives him the rest of the day free to study the manuals.

Sam quickly takes care of the chores that involve cleaning up the house and taking out the garbage, he does all the large tasks before taking a break to look at one of the many manuals in the folder, the very first of which is titled:

1st A-class training manual.

Sam doesn’t question the title as he opens it; ‘Do you wish to become the A-Class superstar of your region?! You too can become one if you follow these 3 easy steps! Listed below are the easy steps you need to follow to start your journey!,” Sam reads further on in small print “further personalised steps are possible by arranging a personal trainer.’

He reads through the manual further, it only takes a few minutes before he places his phone down.

“It said that I just need to focus my internal energy in a particular direction… easy.”

Sam squats down on the ground according to the manual that was displayed, the instructions are quite simple as if he does this action then his internal energy will go in a particular direction so if he follows it up by this one it’ll go in this direction.

He spends several minutes following this routine that seems simple but also seem to follow some sort of strange pattern, some ancient system that he cannot really tell much from but he feels deep within him, something resonates strangely.

He stops this after 20 rotations, panting to catch his breath before pulling out his phone again.

“It says that this is the same basic exercise in all the top 5 manuals, I need to do that 2500 times before the ceremony?”

Sam collapses on the couch and exits this manual, he opens up another manual which reads,

Blazing Hot Flames Advanced Beginners Manual

He immediately opens through the intro and looks at the exercise at the start, he reads over it a few times before opting to try it out according to the instructions presented. It doesn’t take long for him to stop while frowning heavily.

“These are exactly the damn same… Not just the top 5…”

Sam opens several other famous manuals which also read the same, each of them have the same beginner exercises then branches off depending on what monster you get. Some of them are in a different order but overall they’re the same, Sam sighs.

“Well…”

Sam sits down on his bed in defeat. Each one of them has been has been a series of disappointment, anyone that hasn’t acquired a monster yet will think the same. These manuals are great for someone after they have hatched their monster, yet they know what monster they have.

Until then it’s just guesswork, if you’re training the method to call upon a vicious clouded tiger’s blood-sickle yet you have a plains bison, you might cause harm to your monster or cause it to die by forcing mana in a way that’s incompatible.

He takes a moment to settle down and think it over. “Each and every single one of them so far has been the same sort of intro exercise, it seems that even the ancient humans were unable to do much about it…”

He spends his time going through each manual and picking out the ones that are the same, he needs to complete 2500 of these things regardless before the notification rings so he needs to get started and time is quickly running out.

Sam gets to work, his muscles quickly groaning after 5 sets of them yet he continues going reaching 200 before realising it nearly collapsing on the bed after completing the 200th set. His entire body is red as sweat pours out of his skin, struggling to catch his breath as he stops moving.

‘These things are far too hard on the human body, they require his muscles to be used in ways that weren’t naturally and fully stressed’ Sam pushes his body forward.

He enters a regime of doing 200 sets before collapsing for several minutes, it takes several hours for him to completely 2000 of them, when he decides to take a longer break pulling out his phone again scrolling through the manuals as it’s nearing dinner time with the sun setting.

His scrolling through the manuals forces him into a section where most people will not delve into the so-called esoteric training regimes or manuals. The difference being most large kingdoms, cities, corporations, sects or schools will have a collection of manuals they offer to all their people.

Loyalty is rewarded with gaining access to the higher tier manuals, so far every single manual he has seen is the introduction manual that most groups will not care about. They won’t give it out freely but they won’t stop you from possessing it.

That’s not the same with the higher level manuals that you only get when showing loyalty to the group.

The higher the level of manual, the higher the level of power you can get from following the manual.

This means that those higher-level manuals are very well protected secrets, not even snippets of the training manual can be shown outside of approved methods and they protect it very closely. Not even a prince is immune from being killed if they leak secrets.

Most people will attempt to join these groups for access to the higher level manuals, it’s the easiest method to gain power and the group will provide resources to help train up and allow their group’s people to get stronger.

They don’t mind handing out these initial manuals because if they can get people hooked in to a particular manual, then no matter their monster. They’ll eventually become a member of that group no matter the monsters.

Sam randomly opens a manual, ‘BellyFall’s Flight Schematics’ is one of the so called esoteric manuals, they don’t have a strength rating and they also don’t follow traditional manual guidelines, sometimes being a simple battle skill or some person’s random epiphany they jot down for all time.

“Hello there, you are reading the result of my last 6 years of research. I started with the simple thought of, can’t I just throw my massive belly around to fly?”

Sam chuckles inwardly at this intro, he continues to read as the manual outlines how this person would use his monster to somehow shift his internal mass by shifting where the fat contents of his stomach are, moving them to his monster temporarily building up initial momentum then switching back to increase velocity with mass.

He raises an eyebrow at this explanation, it doesn’t make sense but over the page it shows a video of the hero ‘BellyFall’ being able to fly through the sky and change direction using this method, he looks strange changing size on the video but the results speak for themselves.

The following page includes the manual training method, it’s mostly a bunch of muscle exercises yet flipping towards the end it actually includes a few mental exercises, those are rare for training manuals to include.

Sam spends a few minutes attempting the exercises but cannot do anything beyond pretending he can do it, this is again stuff that can only work when you have a monster yet the exercises don’t say that suggesting it can be used beforehand.

The only harm is looking strange doing these weird exercises, he does several sets of these before changing into a different manual.

‘Jericho’s Energy Burst’

“Ah this one, I had heard about it before… I thought it was banned because a lot of people killed themselves?”

Sam opens the manual with great interest, this is a move that everyone around his age knows about because he was a famous hero when they were younger. He was rumoured to be one of the great leaders that’d lead a big push back.

The hero Jericho would be featured on television and appear in movies, he’d do interviews and go around the countries advertising the plans he was involved with and the future of man-kind. Everyone was excited to be around him, he had a single move that he was famous for doing but he did it very well.

His famous move was ‘Energy Burst’ where he would gather all his energy shooting it out of his hands. It would get progressively stronger up to where he used 1000% total power, no one saw his monster so they’re not sure if it was related.

This move was able to strike down a half-step stage 6 creature that would have been a large threat if it grew any further, after that he sort of disappeared from sight with only a few mentions occasionally before being listed on the deceased list.

Sam opens the manual where he can still picture Jericho speaking the words, “Hey, you want to learn my move? Well make sure you ask my permission first! Haha, this move is simple you just…”

Sam reads through it carefully, making sure he memorises each of the steps required. It doesn’t take long as it’s a very simple move, you just deploy 6 sets of muscles which activate the 3 energy points required for the energy to flow out of your body.

Sam perfects the simple move feeling confident that he’ll be able to use this skill shortly after the ceremony, the manual continues for a few more words that catch his eye.

‘It was thanks to two of my friends I was able to do this, Red Thunder Flash and Wyrm’

Sam recalls information about Jericho and cannot recall either of them being associated with him, he looks up information on the internet about them but can only see their names on the deceased list, far earlier than Jericho appears.

He sends a message to his friend, ‘Hey, do you remember anything about Wyrm or Red Thunder flash? They were old heroes’

It doesn’t take long for a message to come back, ‘Haven’t heard of Wyrm but Red Thunder is called Red Flash, he has a training manual… be careful poking around too closely with the old hero manuals’

‘Ok thanks, I was just curious as searching came up with nothing.’

‘Sure, oh my cousin reached Stage 3 today, he lit 99 points and got certified almost instantly, I think the ceremony will be really soon’

‘Nice. We will get there soon, thanks for the help.’

Sam returns to the manuals and quickly finds the one in question, ‘Red Flash - Thundering Lightning Strike of extreme solitude, under the Wisdom…’

“Jeez that’s a mouthful, let’s see…”

‘Six hundred and fifty nine days, that’s how long I sat beneath the peak of the Thunderous Mountains, each day my body was met with an onslaught of lightning, chilling winds and freezing rain. The beasts were also relentless but I did not move….’

The introduction is like a diary of this person’s experiences learning their art, it seems to be described as the internal energy being forced to a remote point using some strange mechanism, it’s described as using 242 muscle groups to activate 72 points, 3 different times.

Sam’s head is confused as all this information barely makes sense, the exercises seem simple but the groups of muscles are so intricate that he’s not sure that it’s possible without precise control of every muscle in your body.

He tries to practise it for a single set but is wiped out by the 4th move, he reads ahead trying to memorise it before reaching the end of the manual where some more words catch his eye.

‘I could not have got this far without my friend Wyrm and his helper, Jericho. His morphology-chronology control technique permitted my survival many times through this ordeal, the teachings of Xayu Xau will be engraved in my heart.’

Sam raises an eyebrow at this, it seems almost religious when no one would openly state their religious beliefs back then, it’s no different now but it was much harsher back then.

He attempts the exercises again, his muscles cramping up yet again after the fourth grouping.

“How can someone do this? Does it really need that morphology thing?” Sam says laying down on the bed in frustration.

Sam flips through the manuals, there’s nothing about morphology beyond how insect-type monsters will often bestow an ability like that upon reaching stage 2. There’s absolutely nothing about Chronology so it might not be related to any sort of ability.

“So that’s a dead-end, maybe the Xayu Xau thing is a hint?”

Sam scrolls through the manuals reaching the end, there’s many strangely named manuals down here which probably don’t get too many viewers.

‘Vivacious Vicky’s Vivarium of Vicissitude’, ‘Vulv…’, ‘Xallide Illidium’, ‘Xayu Xau Script’…

Sam immediately opens it while muttering, “It really is there…”

‘A script is a teachings or a guideline to show something how to do something. Here I will show you what my teacher Xayu Xau imparted to me upon his death bed. I am unable to decipher it so I record his ‘script’ here for all to have the chance at learning of the great Xayu Xau.’

Sam could not find anything about Xayu Xau, not even in the deceased list so it’s possible that he was just a normal person. He continues to read.

‘These are his words copied verbatim;

“Danny, si mcgnio tnocna arstsied eb areft aertf nsiuiotrn eht Thta My ecesinttr eihncstga ewnh be teh hte ttaghu ythe won nicgom iesnl its nltera mstu

I lal uyo maens odsrw nac fo drea fndi lenits tnnediaco drosw to nwasers imet vhae fro het out wrkos twnhii teh oT unr esteh seeht” and “EL-ALL-REAN-PO”’

Sam tries to understand these words but cannot make sense of it, it all just seems gibberish to him yet that’s all the manual contains. There’s nothing else like it has been cut off early, he’s able to memorise it easily.

Sam spends several more minutes going through the manuals at the end, the ones that no one would see as they are never mentioned yet the Xayu Xau’s teachings manual is always on the back of his mind, it’s like those words are engraved in his head.

Sam stands up to finishes up the exercises when,

*GROAN*

His stomach lets him know that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast and it’s after dinner time now, the rest of his house is empty leaving him wondering where his parents are. He leaves his room and grabs some food, relaxing while watching some food for a few minutes before returning to his room.

The last set of exercises won’t finish themselves and he’s close to the end, he’ll have half-step stage 1 strength if he can complete it and work out which manual his monster will suit.