Boom! Boom!
"Kyak!" Millie shrieked every time a pebble exploded beside her. Even though she wasn't harmed by those attacks, the sounds still rattled her. Moreover, she had to fight without getting within the range of the Villain Millie's ability, which would render her high friction windshield useless.
As the fights continued, Muscle Lantern stared at the scene from the side, hidden from view, frowning as he stared at the figure beside him, "Is this the best way?"
"Yup," Compass Carburettor nodded in confidence, "What is the fastest way a Villain can defeat you or get under your skin?"
Muscle Lantern recalled a good fraction of his annoying experiences, "Either they take hostage or use a familiar incident to claim to be the same as me and even work for the same ideals as myself."
"Exactly," Compass Carburettor nodded in response, "Those two are the Villains' most potent weapons that render a Hero weak. So, I'm just training them in regards to that."
He pointed at Millie, "Currently, her villain version is not only stronger than her but also possesses her ability geared to be purely destructive without any constructive uses. This villain has her backstory, her ideas, and her ideals, but became twisted to become a Villain. So,"
"By fighting against her villain self, Millie wouldn't be fazed against the Villains she faces in the future whose actions would be no different to tricks before her, since she endured the real deal that could break her spirit." Muscle Lantern nodded before asking, "But, will she be alright? Facing a villain version of herself would destroy her spirit as a Hero, right?"
"Nah, she'll be alright." Compass Carburettor nodded casually, "The motives of this villain version are weak. She's not brutal enough as she's just the first opponent. You can just think of her as someone that became a Villain because she was bored of a stable society. You know, those casual types of Villains?"
"Are you planning to…" Muscle Lantern felt a lack of words, understanding what Compass Carburettor planned to do next.
"Yep," Compass Carburettor nodded, watching Muscle Lantern's face pale in response as he said, "Once Millie conquers this version, I'll make her face her villain self with stronger villainous tendencies, and so on and so forth."
"But you needn't worry." Compass Carburettor said, "I won't make her disillusioned about herself. I'll also make her face her Hero self to learn about ways she could be better. It would be like gazing into the future at a version that's a tad better than her."
"How are you sure that they are beneficial for her?" Muscle Lantern noticed an issue, "If you were even a tad wrong about her character, you'll completely destroy her growth."
In response to that, Compass Carburettor let out a cheerful smile in praise, "You've really changed, huh? So, you were originally this smart."
"Thanks to you, I'm able to wield my full potential and have even figured out a way to surpass my peak." Muscle Lantern said in gratitude before staring at Compass Carburettor to ask for an answer.
"My power is experience." Compass Carburettor said in all seriousness as he stared at the fighting students, "I've faced countless battles. At one point, I could create an endless army. But despite that, even when I possessed infinite energy, I couldn't win against my enemy. My daughter was harmed. That's when my lacking self came to understand something."
He spoke solemnly, sighing, "Experience is the ultimate weapon."
"But isn't that obvious?" Muscle Lantern tilted his head, "In every field, a veteran is vastly superior as compared to a new recruit just because of their wealth of experience."
"Funny, right?" Compass Carburettor smiled wryly, "It took me three defeats to realise that."
"And now," His eyes shone like the sun for a moment as he stared at Millie, "I possess a vast world of experience and the means to apply them."
"I have an accurate reading on their characters based on what I inferred until now." Compass Carburettor assured him, "Besides, I'm only exploring their psyche based on what I know. So these training and tests are within the range that I'm aware of. That's why both the Hero and Villain versions would be from their near future and not from a timeline far away that I cannot infer the info of yet."
"I understand," Muscle Lantern nodded as he stared at Millie, watching her mount an attack on her villain version as he unleashed a beam of light on her. The beam strengthened her body, raised the structural integrity of her bones and caused the flexibility of her tendons and ligaments to improve.
Overall, her physical fighting strength improved. As she was in a highly tense state of an adrenaline rush, she failed to notice the upgrade.
But in the next second, the beam changed colour from white to gold.
'I see, as I expected. He managed to tap into that realm.' Compass Carburettor smiled in response, noticing Millie's power getting strengthened in response by the beam.
The power of every Hero and Villain was fully fused with their body. And since Muscle Lantern's power was to modify the physique, it made no sense how he wasn't able to affect the powers of others. But that was only because he lacked the necessary understanding for it.
And now, he was able to modify the powers of others too. Not to mention as he immediately focused even further, sweating a little as the beam of light changed from golden to starlight, suddenly causing Millie to feel as if she was awake now, more alert than before.
It felt like she had embarked into a whole new world as an upgraded self. If her brain could process a thousand thoughts per second before, it was now capable of 1200 thoughts per second. A massive twenty percent increase.
With that increase, not only were her decisions faster, but she was also able to take in the data relayed by her sensory organs, process it faster, and act on it, actuating her body muscles faster. The overall effect was multiplicative of her original self and wasn't a mere twenty percent increase in her powers.
She fought against the Villain Millie in that state for a dozen seconds before the world reverted to the original classroom as she noticed her senses falling back to the usual level.
"I'll take care of their experience while you work on getting them accustomed to a stronger version of themselves so that they could develop themselves faster." Compass Carburettor spoke to Muscle Lantern as the two revealed their figures to the exhausted students.
