The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual.
For a few seconds, I simply stared at the ceiling, trying to remember why I had bothered setting my alarm so early on a Saturday.
Then I remembered the decision I had made the night before.
Kali.
I reached for my phone and checked the time.
The neighborhood was still quiet, with only the occasional sound of a motorcycle passing somewhere in the distance.
I had spent part of the previous night searching for martial-arts instructors, comparing different schools and reading whatever information I could find online.
Somehow, I had approached the process like I was selecting equipment for a laboratory.
I had compared the distance from home, training schedules, instructor experience, student reviews, training methods, and monthly fees.
At one point, I had even started making a mental list of advantages and disadvantages for each school before realizing how ridiculous I was being.
I wasn’t choosing a research partner.
I was looking for someone to teach me how to fight.
After breakfast, I changed into comfortable clothes and headed toward the training facility I had selected.
It wasn’t particularly impressive from the outside.
The building was modest, with a simple sign above the entrance and several pairs of shoes arranged near the doorway.
There was nothing about the place that suggested it would be the beginning of some extraordinary transformation.
I stood outside for a moment before pushing the door open.
The sound of repeated strikes greeted me immediately.
Several students were training inside, some practicing with sticks while others worked through empty-hand movements under the supervision of an instructor.
I watched quietly from the entrance, paying attention to the way they moved.
At first glance, it looked chaotic.
The students were constantly stepping, turning, striking, and changing positions.
But the longer I watched, the more structure I noticed beneath the movement.
Their feet weren’t moving randomly.
Every step seemed to have a purpose, and every strike was followed by a recovery into another position.
It was different from simply watching someone fight.
There was a system underneath everything.
“First time?”
I turned toward the voice and found a man standing near the edge of the training area.
He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties.
He wasn’t particularly muscular, but there was something about his posture that immediately caught my attention.
He stood comfortably, without appearing stiff or tense, yet his balance seemed almost perfect.
“I came to ask about training,” I said.
He nodded toward the open floor.
“Have you trained before?”
“Not formally.”
“Any other martial arts?”
“No.”
“Sports?”
“A little.”
He studied me for another moment before nodding.
“Then we’ll start with the basics.”
I changed into the appropriate training clothes and stepped onto the floor.
I had expected my first lesson to involve something more exciting.
Instead, the instructor spent several minutes correcting my stance.
At first, I didn’t understand why.
I already knew how to stand.
At least, I thought I did.
“Relax your shoulders.”
I lowered them.
“Not like that.
Don’t force them down.”
I adjusted my posture again.
“Your weight is too far forward.”
I shifted backward.
“Now you’re too far back.”
I looked at him.
He gave me a patient expression.
“You’re thinking about it too much.”
I almost laughed.
Thinking too much was practically my default state.
He demonstrated the stance again and told me to copy him.
I carefully adjusted my feet, knees, hips, and shoulders until my position looked closer to his.
“Better,” he said.
“Now hold it.”
I held the position.
At first, it seemed easy.
After half a minute, however, my legs began to burn.
I tried making small adjustments to relieve the discomfort, but each time I moved, the instructor corrected me.
“Don’t move.”
So I stayed there.
As the seconds passed, the muscles in my legs began to complain more loudly.
I had expected the first lesson to test my strength, but this was different.
The difficulty came from maintaining a position that my body had never been trained to hold.
That realization stayed with me.
For years, I had approached difficult problems by searching for a better solution.
If a machine was inefficient, I redesigned it.
If a piece of technology was beyond our understanding, I studied it until I found a way to reproduce or improve it.
If a mathematical problem resisted one approach, I tried another.
But there wasn’t always a shortcut.
Sometimes the body simply had to adapt.
After the stance, we moved on to footwork, and that was where my problems became much more obvious.
The instructor demonstrated a simple movement and asked me to copy it.
I followed his steps, then repeated them when he asked.
When he introduced a change in angle, I adjusted accordingly, but my movements were too large and too deliberate.
“Too wide,” he said.
I corrected it.
“Too much.”
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He looked at me for a moment before continuing.
“You have good coordination, but you’re trying to move too quickly.”
That wasn’t something I expected to hear.
“I thought speed was important.”
“It is,” he replied.
“But speed without control is just wasted movement.”
I considered his words as he demonstrated the movement again.
Then it clicked.
Marcus.
During our fight, there had been moments when I had seen an attack coming but responded inefficiently.
Instead of shifting into a better angle, I had moved backward.
Instead of redirecting an attack, I had sometimes relied on my enhanced strength to force my way through it.
I had been reacting to what Marcus did instead of controlling my own position.
The instructor had somehow identified the same weakness without knowing anything about that fight.
“You’re trying to solve everything with your body,” he said.
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“You move as if you expect your body to overpower whatever is in front of you.
Maybe you’re strong enough to do that sometimes, but that’s not what I’m trying to teach you.”
He stepped closer and demonstrated the movement again, this time more slowly.
“Your feet determine where your body can go.
Your body determines what you can do from there.
If your position is wrong, strength won’t always fix it.”
I nodded slowly.
That was exactly what I had been missing.
“Again.”
I repeated the movement.
“Again.”
I did it once more, this time focusing on the angle rather than the speed.
“Better.”
We repeated it.
Then again.
And again.
The repetition was almost boring, but after several dozen attempts, something changed.
The movement began to feel less awkward.
It wasn’t natural yet, but my body was beginning to recognize the pattern.
That was when I understood why muscle memory mattered.
Knowing the correct movement was one thing.
Getting the body to perform it without consciously thinking through every individual step was something completely different.
My HEMS could remember every correction perfectly.
I could recall the exact position of the instructor’s feet, the angle of his knees, the rotation of his hips, and the path of his movement.
I could remember everything I had done incorrectly and exactly how he had corrected me.
But remembering the movement wasn’t the same as mastering it.
That distinction was becoming painfully clear.
Eventually, the instructor handed me a pair of training sticks.
I looked at them with renewed interest.
“So we’re finally using weapons?”
“Eventually,” he said.
“For now, you’re going to learn how to hold them.”
I stared at the sticks for a moment.
After everything I had imagined about my first martial-arts lesson, I was being taught how to hold two pieces of wood correctly.
Still, I followed his instructions.
He corrected my grip, showed me how to position my hands, and explained how small changes in my grip affected the movement of the weapon.
Once again, the lesson seemed simple until I tried doing it repeatedly.
Grip.
Position.
Movement.
Recovery.
Repeat.
There was something strangely satisfying about it.
Unlike the scientific problems I had spent years solving, there was no complicated theory behind what I was doing.
I didn’t need a computer, laboratory equipment, or pages of calculations.
I simply needed to perform the movement correctly, recognize my mistakes, and repeat the process until those mistakes became less frequent.
During one exercise, I made the mistake of activating Aetheris.
The change was immediate.
My perception sharpened, and the instructor’s movements suddenly became much easier to follow.
I could track the subtle changes in his posture and see the movements that preceded each technique.
My mind processed the sequence almost instantly.
It should have made everything easier.
Instead, I became aware of another problem.
My body was moving too quickly.
“Stop.”
I froze.
The instructor lowered his sticks.
“You rushed again.”
I glanced at Aetheris.
He obviously couldn’t see the bracelet’s effect, but he could see what it was doing to my movement.
“I’ll slow down.”
“Good.
Don’t chase speed.
Let it come naturally.”
I deliberately reduced the amount of enhancement I was using and repeated the exercise.
The movement immediately felt more controlled.
That gave me another idea.
Perhaps I shouldn’t train while constantly relying on Aetheris.
The bracelet gave me abilities far beyond what an ordinary person possessed, but if I allowed it to compensate for every weakness, I could easily develop habits that would eventually become difficult to correct.
The difference was immediate.
My perception returned to normal.
The instructor’s movements no longer seemed quite as easy to follow, and my reactions felt slower.
My body suddenly felt heavier, and movements that had seemed simple with Aetheris active required considerably more effort.
For the first time since I had acquired the bracelet, I felt completely ordinary.
Strangely enough, I liked it.
If I learned something while Aetheris was inactive, then I could be certain that the skill belonged to me.
The instructor watched me perform the movement again.
“Better.”
I nodded.
We continued.
By the time the session ended, my shirt was soaked with sweat, my legs were sore, and my arms felt heavier than they had when I arrived.
Even my hands were beginning to ache from repeatedly gripping the training sticks.
I sat near the edge of the training area and drank a long mouthful of water.
The instructor sat nearby.
“You did well for your first day.”
“Really?”
“You learn quickly.”
I smiled.
“Thank you.”
“But don’t let that go to your head.”
I looked at him.
He gave me a faint smile.
“Learning quickly isn’t the same as being good.”
I laughed quietly.
“I’ll remember that.”
“Come back consistently.
That’s what matters.”
I nodded.
Consistency.
That was something I could work with.
When I stepped outside, the afternoon sun was already high overhead.
The walk home should have been easy, but every muscle in my body seemed determined to remind me that I had spent the morning doing things I had never trained for before.
My legs were sore, my arms were tired, and I could already imagine how much worse they would feel the following morning.
Yet I couldn’t help smiling.
For the first time in a long while, I had worked on something that couldn’t be solved simply by remembering the answer.
I had to build the answer into myself.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
I pulled it out and saw Rosalie’s name on the screen.
I smiled before opening the message.
Rosalie: How’s your Saturday?
I thought about the morning before typing my reply.
Rafael: I got punched.
Her response came almost immediately.
Rosalie: WHAT?!
I laughed.
Rafael: I’m fine.
Rosalie: Why did you get punched?!
Rafael: I’m learning Kali.
There was a short pause before another message appeared.
Rosalie: Why?
I stopped walking for a moment.
I couldn’t tell her the real reason.
I couldn’t explain Marcus, World War III, or the alien invasion that would eventually reshape the world.
I certainly couldn’t tell her that I was preparing for a future that only I remembered.
So I gave her the simplest answer.
Rafael: I realized I should know how to protect myself.
Her response took longer this time.
Rosalie: Just be careful.
I stared at those three words for several seconds.
Something tightened inside my chest.
I typed my response slowly.
Rafael: I will.
A moment later, another message appeared.
Rosalie: Good.
I don’t want my boyfriend getting hurt.
I stopped walking again.
I read the message once.
Then a second time.
A smile slowly spread across my face.
Rafael: Your boyfriend?
Rosalie: Don’t make me regret saying it.
Rafael: Too late.
Rosalie: You’re annoying.
Rafael: You like me.
Rosalie: Unfortunately.
I laughed as I continued walking.
My legs hurt.
My arms were tired, and I was certain that tomorrow morning was going to be unpleasant.
Yet somehow, I felt better than I had in days.
The training had been exhausting, but it had also given me something I hadn’t realized I needed.
A beginning.
Aetheris could make me stronger.
My memories could make me smarter.
My knowledge could help me prepare for the future.
But none of those things could replace discipline.
If I wanted to survive the future I remembered—and whatever future my actions created—I couldn’t depend entirely on what I already possessed.
I had to develop abilities that belonged to me, abilities that would remain useful even when the future stopped following the path I remembered.
Martial arts was only the beginning.