Dylan checked his fuel. He just needed forty grams of ether to return to a dreadnought, and there were two more people who needed them. One of them was Sabrina… while he could help them, if something happened, all of them would be in trouble. Still, he made his choice and shared his ether with them since the others didn’t have any share and everyone was wasting time.

  “... Thank you,” Sabrina said once she began to breathe properly again.

  “You can refund the ether later. No need to make a big deal out of this,” Dylan said while frowning, since it was the first time he heard her talking.

  The group soon found the area where the pods had been left behind, and they sighed in relief. Only for a moment, though, since a beam of light crossed the area and exploded after hitting a pile of rubble.

  “Attention! The enemy creature is charging another attack. The pod doesn’t have enough energy to withstand that kind of attack,” Felix said. “Hurry and leave the planet!”

  It was easy for him to say that… it was true that they didn’t have much energy for everything, but he should have at least an energy shield on the pods. They probably couldn’t store that much energy, though.

  Another beam of energy was fired, and that one exploded a hill pretty close to the pods. The debris even hit them a bit… Still, they didn’t suffer any damage. The members of the sabotage team were waiting for them in one pod, and they had been smart enough to move the remaining two to the same place. Thanks to that, they entered it, and then the sequence of launching was started.

  In no time, they began to fly, and soon enough, everyone was able to see another giant monster preparing another shot… they could only hope that they would gain enough speed and that the beast wouldn’t aim well. Still, almost all of them felt shivers when the enemy attacked, and the beam of ether passed a few meters below them. Soon enough, they crossed the red clouds of that world, and the enemy was no longer in range to attack.

  Some of the soldiers felt so relieved that they lost the strength in their legs and then fell to the floor. Dylan only watched the planet get further away as they crossed the stratosphere. That mission had been way too intense… a lot more than anyone had expected. Still, Dylan didn’t mind that at all… his sore muscles were a pain, but he could leave with them for a few days.

  “Congratulations on completing the mission, everyone,” Felix appeared on everyone’s monitors. “There is no denying that this was an absolute success. We found some bumps along the way, but you all gave your best. This is the first step of one very long journey for humanity, but for now, you can rest assured knowing that you did your job splendidly.”

  Felix smiled genuinely, but it only made everyone feel slightly off. In any case, they found some answers and even more questions… Some civilizations have been using ether for who knows how long. Monsters could use it as well, but on a minor scale if compared to the Omega alien.

  ‘Hopefully, our next mission will be easier than this since we got more than we expected…’ Dylan thought while checking his battle suit. ‘I should obtain enough ether to upgrade the battle suit a bit. All the parameters are important, but I guess I will focus on Power and movement speed.’

  Dylan needed to train harder in order to be able to use the katana without punishing his own body in the process of using it.

  “You did a good job today,” Amanda said while facing that red planet. “Now, what did you think about the mission, and what do you think about the future? Can you keep working like this?”

  “Too many questions.. and the last one is a bit weird,” Dylan scratched the back of his head. “I know that you are worried about me, but something on this level won’t convince me to give up.”

  Not to mention, while at some moments, things had been difficult, Dylan enjoyed the mission quite a bit. Unlike before and since the last ten years since he started his training, he didn’t receive treatment like he was special thanks to his parents. Everyone could only depend on themselves to survive, even when they had a team nearby. Moreover, fighting for real had been way more exciting, and so was exploring a new world… staying in something that wasn’t made of metal had been a novel experience. Still, he couldn’t say either of that without receiving some suspicious eyes.

  “You are fearless, just like your father,” Amanda said, and then sighed.

  “What about mother?” Dylan asked.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Instead of being fearless, she was logical to a fault. If she believed that her allies were strong enough, she didn’t think that anything bad could happen to them,” Amanda explained. “So, she would focus her mind on something else, and that is how those two accomplished that much.”

  Dylan could tell that he had a bit of each with him… if that weren’t the case, it would be weird for a soldier who just graduated not to feel any fear during the whole mission.

  Regardless, after not so long, the pods reached the dreadnought, and the remaining soldiers met the others. They congratulated each other for their hard work. It didn’t look even a bit like they were the people that Dylan found in the refectory the previous day. Probably because they knew about the mission and considered their chances of dying.

  The soldiers took their battle suits to disinfect them and check if that world had any kind of bacteria that could be too dangerous. After that, everyone went for a check up on the pods of medical analysis. Nothing wrong was found with them, so they met the other soldiers in the refectory to celebrate the mission. Dylan wanted to take a break and sleep for three days since his muscle pains were annoying, but Amanda dragged him, saying that celebrating was also part of the job.

  Dylan didn’t think that they could make that in the dreadnought, but they actually had beer, and the workers of the kitchen brought a lot to celebrate as well. Dylan thought that Felix would show up to make everyone slow down, but that never happened. In the end, he drank some of it, and while he managed to relax, he didn’t get even a bit drunk. As for the others, he left most of them in the refectory, almost sleeping on the tables and floor after the party lasted for over six hours.

  ‘I bet we will have the day off tomorrow, but I will wake up early to train in the simulator,’ Dylan thought once he got in his room.

  Once Dylan checked the terminal of his room, he saw ten messages and twenty calls. Claire didn’t know when to give it a rest. Regardless, he sent her a text message to inform her of his return. She probably would wake up in the middle of the night and would be unable to sleep until he confirms with her eyes that he was fine. Besides, Dylan truly needed to rest.

  At that very moment, Dylan lay on the bed and fell asleep. He didn’t realize it, but he was pretty exhausted. Despite that, or maybe because of that, Dylan slept like a rock and only woke up the next day when the alarm echoed… he thought that he had turned it off, and then he got up to check it. It was the battle report of the previous mission.

  Contribution rank of the mission to planet W1:

  Francis: 20% - Reward: 10.000 grams of concentrated ether.

  Dylan: 10% - Reward: 5.000 grams of concentrated ether.

  …

  Dylan didn’t check the other ranks since he was surprised. He honestly didn’t think that he did more than the others, and he honestly thought that one-third of the results of the mission were thanks to Francis. Not to mention, that much ether was a lot more than he had expected.

  [Research about the magic core and the corpses brought during the mission is still undergoing, but the research team has already obtained some results considering the footage of the mission. We obtained some results of how to improve movement speed exponentially while using ether, and the team also was able to add a function to the battle suit that will improve movement speed and the users by transmitting to them some ether using an artificial core. The research team is also analyzing the ability of the monsters to find the presence of other creatures, and we believe that we can create a magic radar to find signatures that have ether in their bodies.]

  “This will be useful… we could find some large sources of ether, but not the smaller ones,” Dylan nodded to himself while rubbing his eyes. “Maybe we can find smaller extraction points… running out of ammo is pretty annoying for those who prefer guns, after all.”

  There was no mention of the materials that the storage team brought from that world. Considering that they had a hard time there, Dylan wasn’t expecting much.

  Dylan stretched his body since he was no longer sleepy and then went for his morning routine. It was time to prepare for the next mission, and the first preparation was to make his body stronger to handle the katana.

  Still, before that, Dylan left his room once he was ready and then went to the recruits’ area. Claire probably will have her lessons started soon, and he didn’t want her to waste another day worrying. It was annoying since he had to wait for her outside the girls’ dorms. When she showed up, she looked like she didn’t sleep all that much, but then she opened her eyes widely.

  “Dylan!” Claire rushed toward and then hugged him with all her might. “Are you fine? Are you hurt somewhere? Why didn’t you call me sooner? Did you know how worried I was?”

  “Too many questions, and it is too early in the morning for me to be motivated enough to answer all of them,” Dylan replied while patting her. “All that you need to know for now is that everything went well.”

  Claire sighed… she knew that information about the mission still was a military secret until the top dogs decided otherwise. Still, she was more than satisfied knowing that Dylan was fine.

  “I will train on the simulator. See you later,” Dylan said since he was getting some stares from the other girls leaving the girls dorms.

  “All right,” Claire nodded and then fixed her posture, since her own actions embarrassed her a bit.

  Dylan left that area and headed to one of the many simulators in the soldiers’ sector. He wondered if they could update the training missions considering the data that they just got.

  Still, that wouldn’t help much, since Dylan only wanted to train his sword swings instead of practicing them over and over again against the same type of enemy in a virtual simulation. The simulators could be useful, but he just learned that they had some serious limitations… people get too used to them. The veteran soldiers, at least most of them, weren’t that adaptable, thanks to it.