Chapter 151: Chapter 150 Let's Go Wild in Africa_2
Compared to the unlucky Joe Ga, Nis and Antar performed unexpectedly well.
Their physical fitness was not the best, but their years of constant high-pressure combat had honed their psychological adjustment abilities, mental resolve, and body control far beyond those of Joe Ga, the boss.
This training had no time limit. Its purpose was not to compete over strength but to teach people to control their emotions and develop their stress resistance skills.
The most typical was the initial self-rescue drill, the surfacing part. It seemed straightforward, but it required trainees to control their instinct to breathe deeply. Breathing too deeply would cause trouble when sinking, and sinking too slowly would make you feel like you were drowning after a few rounds.
This first drill was so challenging that Joe Ga felt that the quick checks and diving equipment training during daily breaks were no longer hard.
To complete the inspection and donning of the diving gear within 10 minutes, every detail had to be meticulous. If anyone took too long or did something wrong, everyone would endure a round of Sardinian water torture.
It involved lying by the poolside, fluttering one's legs with flippers on while a coach poured water over the trainees' faces with a hose.
When Joe Ga finally met the standard on his fifth attempt, he realized people truly were masochistic.
The condition of pain was trigger-happy. It could quickly focus one's mind and imprint all the training content on the brain as a habit, ensuring no errors.
Only when everyone had passed the diving preparation test did the real meat of the training camp get "served."
The true core of Combat Diving Training was to stay calm under severe oxygen deprivation and manage self-rescue.
Donning an all-black diving mask, carrying oxygen and lead weights, after settling at the pool bottom for a few minutes, a coach would come up to mess with you.
It started with underwater collisions, then pulling you to roll underwater, and finally snatching your breathing tube. When you felt you were about to die, they still wouldn't let you resurface, pushing your will to its limits.
Joe Ga felt many times like he was going to die!
Wearing the pitch-black diving goggles, facing the instructor's "lethal" harassment without visual aid, drove Joe Ga crazy.
Initially, he would tear off the goggles and desperately resist, and then he kicked the instructor's groin, paying five thousand in compensation to continue the training.
Ordinary people couldn't fathom the terror, blinded, yet constantly under attack from someone nearby, each collision and roll heightening Joe Ga's fear until he collapsed.
In this endless terrifying ordeal, Joe Ga often experienced death-inducing thrills. Although always being rescued was somewhat embarrassing, Joe Ga astonishingly found his fear of dying diminishing, and the initial tension not as intense.
Among all the soldiers present, apart from Dorian, only Nis and Antar managed to endure the reduced gear stress training till the end.
The real experts never joined, while the remaining soldiers who were enjoying the benefits, without the standard preliminary exercises and hoping to adapt to combat diving training through a mere two days of crash course, was impossible.
As people gradually dropped out, Joe Ga, the boss, to everyone's astonishment, leveraged his habituation to 'death' and finally completed this transformative training on the last day!
Nis stood by the poolside, muttering something, while Joe Ga lay in the water like a rock, unmoved by any amount of attack or dragging by the instructor.
Facing the instructor tearing and entwining his oxygen tube, Joe Ga never panicked and quickly fumbled to complete his self-rescue.
As the instructor continued to apply pressure, steadily reducing his source of oxygen, his body's stress was pushed to the limit.
Only those who have experienced it know that when you feel short of oxygen in water, your fingers itch, your heart rate increases, and then there's a rumbling sound in your eardrums.
At this time, one is on the verge of fainting, and the physical pain pushes fear to its limits.
At this point, one's consciousness gradually fades, and Joe Ga needed to fight this sensation to keep himself as conscious as possible, to make the right decisions in desperate circumstances.
This was entering the hardest part of the Combat Diving Training, "combatting hunger," which means confronting the instinct to survive.
This scene would traumatize any normal person, and Joe Ga himself had collapsed many times at this stage.
When Joe Ga finally completed the training and emerged from the water, everyone instinctively applauded him.
After spending so many days together, these soldiers had long realized that their boss was actually a novice.
But it was this novice who endured a training that even the experts among them could not withstand.
When Joe Ga surfaced, he was still conscious, removed his black diving goggles, and breathed deeply, feeling more lucid than ever before.
At the last moment underwater, he had almost completely lost the ability to move, but his consciousness was very clear.
It's hard to describe that feeling, a bit like the legendary out-of-body experience, where from a higher perspective you observe and control your own body.
When the instructor signaled that he had met the standards and could surface, he even intentionally lingered underwater for a few extra seconds, making the instructor think something had happened to him before he slowly emerged.
The pleasure produced from the near-death experience was replaced by the pleasure of breaking through the mental barrier!
Glancing at Vito coming over with an oxygen tank, Joe Ga grinned and said, "You were right, some people feel exhilarated after succeeding, I feel exhilarated right now, maybe I should do it again, this time I could last even longer."
Vito listened, nodded admiringly, handed him the oxygen tank, and then shook his head saying, "Our medical facilities here cannot guarantee safety under that kind of stress, if you want to keep trying, you'll have to go to another place, pay a different price."
While pinching Joe Ga's arm, Vito added, "But I think there's no need now, your issue was an emotional one, and you have already overcome it!"
Joe Ga, whose fingers were still itching, rubbed his temples vigorously and then looked around at the soldiers, smiling, "Fellows, you've won, welcome to P·B International Defense Company!
We're off to perform a great act in Africa, are you ready?"
The soldiers looked at one another and then suddenly shouted in unison, "Sir, yes sir!"