By the time night came, my body had decided I’d made too many decisions.
The sun went down over the outer walls in a smear of orange and violet.
A package waited for me on my bed when I arrived. Which contained 2 pair of a dark blue almost military like uniform with silver strips.
Lights came on. Corridor traffic shifted from formal to casual. Laughter moved to doorways, arguments to common rooms, fatigue to mattresses.
The Archive slid a panel into my vision.
[Recommended activity: Rest.]
“No,” I said.
[Clarification requested.]
“Training.”
A pause.
[You intend to compound fatigue with physical exertion.]
“Yes.”
[Is this a revenge plot against your own cells?]
“Consider it… applied cultivation.”
The map in my pocket unfolded easily now. The training domes near the outer wall had been tagged with numbers and icons. Some were reserved for formal martial classes, some for Guardian simulation scenarios, some for Combat squads.
One, according to the schedule, was open after midnight for self-practice.
Dome 7, Near Western Ring. Perfect.
I headed there.
The Institute at night had its own personality. leaving only a few late-working faculty and students with too many ambitions and not enough sleep. Security lights traced gentle lines along the paths. The outer wall loomed—stone and metal and energy barrier hummed faintly, keeping Fog and other inconveniences on the right side of reality.
Dome 7 sat near the outer perimeter, just far enough from the main buildings that you had to intend to reach it.
The door slid open when I tapped my student band against the panel.
Inside, silence. The dome was empty.
The dome was a wide, circular space. Padded floor, neutral color. Equipment racks hugged the wall—practice weapons, weighted bars, target dummies. The ceiling was glassed, segments retracted to reveal the night sky.
Stars. Real, not through a screen.
[Environmental analysis: Open sky. Ambient energy level: elevated.]
“Yes,” I whispered.
The Stellar Vessel Art lived in a corner of my Stat Window now. An Archive-granted gacha pull that had been both absurd and precise.
Requirements: Night sky. Open space. Desperate host.
Benefits: Don’t know yet.
I had checked the sign-in register at the dormitory. No one had logged the dome past nine. Either the senior students had more sense than I did, or they had other training arrangements. Either way, the space was mine — chalk circle in the center of packed earth, equipment racks along the walls, the overhead panels open to a sky so dark it made Lyon's city-glow look almost modest.
I set my bag down near the entrance column. The cold was immediate. January through five open ceiling panels is January applied directly,
I pulled on my training jacket, a cheap piece which can be repeatedly washed and even if color goes out, it will still remain wearable, and started with walking.
Rounds of the central ground, steady pace, the ache in my lungs its usual familiar company.
After four rounds of walking I did some low squats.
Then I walked to the center of the deserted dome.
The floor had a faint grid pattern, barely visible underfoot. I found the exact middle and settled into the pushup stance
The sky watched through the glass.
I exhaled and went down, knees wobbled and stiff muscles cracked. A slight rebounding pain shot up in my forearms.
I applied my strength and.
“ONE” I squeaked while a slight tremble followed right after.
I rose, this single action took half of my energy away.
My body protested, my legs wanted me to give up trying to repair this naturally trash body, but someone who had lived his life on a tickling time clock, this was nothing
I lowered again, my back pressing against my spine, and in one go went up.
“TWO” I exhaled through my mouth.
[Maximum limit for physical activity reached] the Archive hovered, observing me.
I remained in the stance for a minute and slowly descended till my chest almost touched the ground, but when I tried but my strength failed me. My strength suddenly left me and the ground rose to embrace me.
But then a hand came out of nowhere
The hand appeared at my sternum. Not a grab. Not a catch. Placed there with precision — palm flat, fingers lightly spread, the way you'd set something fragile on a surface you didn't want to scratch yet it contained absolute strength.
I pushed through.
“THREE” I muttered.
I turned my head to see the source of this strength.
She was crouched beside me. Heels flat on the ground. The hand at my chest was steady — no tension in it, just the quiet fact of support. I stared.
I had, in this life and the previous one, a fairly calibrated sense of how to look at people. Noting without fixating.
Her hair was the color of snow where it hadn't been touched — the pure kind, the morning kind, the kind that a footprint ruins before you've had time to appreciate it.
It fell in one clean line, unbothered by the dome's cold drafts. Her eyes, when they met mine, were the color of blueberry
She was not looking at me the way most people looked at someone in training contexts — calculating, sorting, slotting somewhere.
She was looking at me the way you'd look at a bird attempting to cross a very large floor. Mildly interesting. Possibly in some difficulty.
She removed her hand. Stood — not in the quick, sequential way, but all at once, the way a folded thing opens when you remove the crease.
She had two wooden swords at her hip, practice blades worn dark at the grip by hours of use.
She wore a white tracksuit with black lines and black shorts,
There was a golden band at her wrist. She walked to the center of the chalk circle and drew her swords.
I stopped doing push-ups. I picked up my mat, moved to the edge of the ground, and sat down.
My legs needed the rest and the rest of me, some emotional support. But still I stared at her. Her lonely yet strong figure under the moon, as if fighting a war no one else but only she could fight.
What she was doing was more like watching water when someone had removed a frame. You saw one position.
Then another.
The gap between them did not exist in any visible form. This looked her casual pace. Even at this — this held-back, restrained, warm-up pace — the wooden swords generated wind. Not the exaggerated kind.
The real kind.
The kind that reached me at the edge of the ground with the specific weight of a displaced atmosphere.
The kind that made the training banners along the wall stir and sway.
The kind that, at actual speed, would have taken a person off their feet from fifteen meters without touching them.
[I cannot classify her skill level against your current benchmarks,] the Archive said, in a subdued voice.
[The reference points do not overlap sufficiently.] "Yeah," I said. I watched for another three minutes
Then I went back to the push-ups, because watching something extraordinary is not the same as doing something and my strength stat was still a diplomatic way of saying approximately zero.
She moved. I exercised.
At some point, I felt a pinching pain in my body starting from some parts to the whole body
[Cell Transformation in Progress] the Archive observed.
After what was my fourteenth round. I decided to pack up. I turned my head and saw that I was alone in the whole place.
[She left when you were on your ninth round]
I didn’t think of it much and left the place.