A few days later, Saito and the Administrator stood shoulder to shoulder in the training ground they had temporarily marked out for themselves.
From the look of things, the Administrator appeared to be in the middle of teaching Saito how to develop his Originium Arts.
And where Saito was concerned, the Administrator harbored no thoughts whatsoever of holding anything back — right from the get-go, she was already planning to hand over the absolute bottom-of-the-trunk trick from her own personal arsenal, in full.
“Carefully sense the pulse of Originium energy.
Originium itself is, fundamentally, a concentrated mass of high-purity Originium energy — it’s just that most of the time it sits in an inactive state.
What you need to do is feel it, make contact with it, and control it so that it gradually comes ‘alive.'”
The Administrator’s explanation method leaned just a touch on the metaphorical side — for Saito, after all, sensing Originium was a near-instinctive matter, and laying out detailed data analyses and step-by-step procedures in front of him might actually end up constraining his power.
So she set the more systematic teaching methods aside for later, wanting to first see just how far Saito could get on his own ‘understanding’ alone, and then, with that information, prescribe the proper remedy and draw up the next stage of his curriculum from there.
And just as she had predicted, Saito understood what she meant very quickly indeed.
Soon enough, under the Administrator’s careful guidance, a faintly red-glowing piece of ‘Originium’ was floating in the palm of Saito’s hand.
Only — this piece of Originium seemed a little different from the one she was holding in her own hand.
Right now, it was just a tad bit too active!
The Administrator, realizing what was happening, immediately shouted at the top of her lungs:
“Hurry up and throw it!!!”
Saito did so on instinct.
That piece of ‘Originium’ was hurled off into the distance with all his strength, and the moment it was out of his control, the immense mass of active Originium energy that had been compressed inside it instantly lost all stability.
That palm-sized chunk of Originium bloomed across the snowfield in a brilliant crimson light.
BOOM——!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM——!!!
A chain of explosions rang out.
The Administrator, one hand clutching Saito’s wrist, raised her free right hand, and a translucent orange-yellow barrier materialized in front of the two of them, fending off the Originium shards and dirt that came flying their way.
And as for the spot where that Originium had touched down — a massive crater had already opened up there, dotted all across its inside with densely packed clusters of tiny Originium crystals.
“How about that, huh?!
Am I the man or what?!”
Saito was clearly very pleased with his own handiwork — pulling off this much destructive power on his very first attempt at learning a new Originium Arts skill.
“…”
The Administrator beside him, on the other hand, gradually lapsed into silence, and only after a long pause did she manage to muster a somewhat strained smile for Saito.
“It’s…
The power output’s certainly substantial.”
For the sake of not crushing Saito’s enthusiasm, the Administrator still chose to offer up some words of encouragement.
But — was there any chance, just any chance at all, that the lesson they were supposed to have been learning today was how to use Originium Arts to construct a stable piece of Originium?
The Originium was now scattered all over the ground, sure — but where exactly was the ‘stable’ part?!!
After a brief mental crash, the Administrator let out a long sigh.
They were still only at the very beginning of his training, and there was plenty of time left ahead.
The fact that he’d been able to reach this level on his very first attempt at a new Originium Arts skill — even if the direction of his understanding had veered off a bit — was, in and of itself, more than enough to demonstrate just how absolutely terrifying Saito’s talent really was.
“Let’s keep at it.”
Looking at the confident young man in front of her, the Administrator broke into a smile of her own.
…
…
“Can you still manage to smile?
Because I sure can’t anymore.”
A few more days had passed.
Looking at the practice ground laid out before her in utter ruin, the hands the Administrator had clasped behind her back were trembling without pause.
“Sorry — I just couldn’t quite reel it in there for a second…”
“Honestly — I would much rather it turn out there’s something wrong with my teaching method.”
The Administrator’s tone was deeply earnest, but Saito just instinctively turned his head off to one side.
First — he was going to need to put up a few words in his own defense.
It wasn’t as if Saito hadn’t been studying diligently — quite the opposite, in fact.
His progress had been remarkably rapid.
He had picked up the better part of what the Administrator had been teaching him over the past few days, and had built up a solid basic grasp of the various techniques of Originium Arts.
The most fundamental moves — constructing Originium, shaping Originium — he had already learned through and through.
The trouble was that every time he reached a certain level of proficiency, he would ‘instinctively’ want to give that freshly shaped piece of Originium a little activation, just to see what would happen.
And as everyone well knew, once an Originium construct started getting activated, even by just a little, trying to suppress it back down was an extraordinarily difficult task.
Saito, with only a short time of study under his belt, clearly couldn’t pull off that kind of delicate manipulation — and on top of that, with his absurdly outstanding Originium adaptability, his power output would inevitably end up just a smidge on the heavier side…
And the result of all that, well…
The current sorry state of the training ground was probably enough to say a few things on the subject.
The conclusion that had finally been reached was this: Saito, in theory, had tremendous potential to become an illustrious Six-Star Grenadier (lol).
Seeing the Administrator gradually losing all her strength in front of him, Saito grabbed hold of her right hand and looked at her with the most earnest expression he could muster.
The corners of the Administrator’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t reply.
It seemed she really, really wasn’t in the mood to keep discussing this particular topic with Saito right now.
“Let’s just wrap it up here for today.
I’ve got the snowmobile fixed up, so you can start thinking about heading out for some exploration soon.”
The Administrator pointed off toward the temporary workshop set up beside the Protocol Core a short distance away.
Saito followed the line of her finger, and from a distance he caught sight of a battered, weather-worn snowmobile.
The moment Saito laid eyes on that bike, his gaze became utterly glued to it.
The body of the vehicle was low-slung and compact overall, with large stretches of its metal frame exposed.
The dark-gray alloy shell was covered in the marks of years gone by, and the panels on either side bore the traces of weld work, lending the bike a few extra notes of rugged character.
Facts had once again proven it true: it really is hard for any man not to be drawn in by this kind of crystallization of modern industry.
At the very least, Saito at this moment was completely incapable of pulling himself away.
He climbed onto this brand-new, freshly-unearthed snowmobile without a moment’s hesitation and looked over at the Administrator beside him.
“Can I give it a try right now?”
“Of course.”
Naturally, the whole point of going through all that trouble to get it fixed up was so he could ride it.
The Administrator handed Saito the helmet, gloves, and key, and Saito — once he had hurriedly suited up — couldn’t wait another second to fire up the snowmobile.
The roar of the small Originium engine rang out across the Frozen Plains.
Saito felt the mechanical rumble beneath him, felt its faint vibration, and instinctively stretched out his somewhat stiff hands, left and right.
The instant both his hands closed around the handlebars, he felt the body of the vehicle sink slightly — and then, a soft body pressed up against his back.
A warm breath flowed past the back of his neck.
Saito’s body suddenly went rigid, and then the Administrator’s gentle voice sounded right beside his ear.
“You just keep driving.
I need to test the stability of the vehicle.”
“…Right.”
Forcibly hurling every last wandering thought in his head out of his mind, Saito gripped the handlebars once more, and then flashed the Administrator behind him a ‘devilishly roguish smirk.’
“Then you’d better hold on tight!”
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Arknights Endfield: