I woke up earlier than usual, and for the first time in weeks, I felt… whole. My muscles didn't ache. My head wasn't pounding. Moving was easy, and breathing was pleasant.

Though I wasn't exactly in a fighting mood, I was ready to take part in the tournament. And I knew exactly what I had to thank for that gift.

Evening Sun.

No wonder it required a special licence to use, even though it didn't cause physical addiction. Against the backdrop of the general exhaustion among first-years, it was a weapon of mass restoration.

Its effect was like a week's holiday at sea, with warm, gentle sun and soothing waves. And although the leaves held nothing sinister, that was where the danger lay. One evening with that tea and all your fatigue vanished. A second — and it became hard to remember why you should push through the pain at all.

The risk of psychological dependency far outweighed that of physical addiction.

I could have told myself it was just this once. That I had a tournament today and needed to be in top form. But every temptation starts with just once.

I don't know whether I could've resisted if I had that tea sitting in my own locker. Hard to say for sure. But one thing was clear: drinking it daily would mean losing the ability to endure fatigue altogether. So it was a good thing the tea belonged to Novak, not me.

The meat he'd fed me probably played a role too. Maybe that was what had restored my muscles. The tea had likely just wiped the fatigue from my nervous system, and against that background, it was hard to detect any extra effects.

So. The tournament.

Me, Dubois, Cinar, Mitchell, Arraio, Skoryk, Okoro… Among the names I recognised, there was a heavy tilt in favour of Point cultivators. Which was great! I had a formation sharpened specifically to counter them.

There were hardly any Palm cultivators. Delgado was one, but I'd already beaten her, and the tournament bracket didn't bring us together until the semi-finals. That's also where it placed Cinar, and if I had to bet, I'd bet on him.

Still, there were also names I didn't know. I was sure there would be worthy opponents among the newcomers.

And my first opponent was one of them.

No tournament fights, no duels, and therefore no archived footage, so I had no way to assess his style or techniques. That gave him an advantage. And, honestly, I was nervous.

All I knew about him was his name and primary root. Kiro Che — Palm.

Only five Palms had signed up for the whole tournament. And of course, it had to be his name next in the list after mine.

I suspect both of us had tried to sign up right after Bata Eneri, hoping to be matched against him. It was Eneri's fourth tournament already, and he'd lost in the first round of the previous three.

But Okoro had beaten us by a few seconds. His name landed after Eneri's, and ours took the next slots.

The concrete arena was a first for me, and the tournament itself was being held under a different dome. It looked like the organisers were gradually increasing the difficulty of the terrain. The grey concrete surface featured five brand-new concrete blocks of varying sizes. The smallest stood about half a metre tall, with each next cube increasing in edge length by the same half-metre.

They were arranged in a circle around the arena's centre, leaving enough room for movement and forming something vaguely resembling the spiral path in the hall where I'd had my one-on-one with Rene.

Not using Mad Monkey and new footwork in this fight would've been a crime. Still, the first thing I did was inject Iron Shirt. I needed protection, and my formation wasn't tuned to counter Palm.

My muscles filled with tension, my skin tightened with a steel-like tautness. On top of the energy from last night's dinner with Novak, I felt a fresh surge of power.

The judge gave the signal, and Kiro and I launched ourselves towards each other.

He reached the blocks before I did — his movement technique was a direct dash, while I had to weave my way using Monkey.

Kiro took up a position near the largest cube and started firing projections.

The technique itself wasn't particularly fast on launch, but the projections moved at high speed. I barely dodged the first one.

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A step, a leap, and I was on the one-metre block. From there, up to the one-and-a-half-metre one, and launched a Hook.

The projection curved and slammed into the block just behind Kiro's head, showering his helmet with a spray of concrete dust.

Kiro dived behind the large block, and I jumped onto it, preparing a downward-angled Hook. But the moment my soles felt the surface, my instincts screamed.

The footing itself was dangerous!

I Monkey-leapt backwards without even checking where. And right at that moment, a golden mass erupted from the very surface of the block where my feet had just been. Its shape no longer quite resembled a palm, but the presence of Palm Qi was still unmistakable.

A second projection broke through the block just after the first, but I was already falling to the concrete.

I had never practised backwards leaping on uneven ground, so when my feet didn't find the expected support, they kept moving on inertia. I lost balance and began falling uncontrollably, pitching hard face-down.

Perfect for my new Monkey tricks.

I thrust my hands out in front of me. My feet touched the ground a moment earlier, then Monkey-push with the hands — and I was back upright.

Two Hooks aimed roughly past the cube Kiro was hiding behind, then Monkey onto the one-metre block, a sprint from there to the largest one, with a turn of the torso mid-air.

I came up behind Kiro.

He saw the enemy shadow pass overhead and spun around, but I was already hammering him with Chain Punches.

The projections slammed into him like a burst from a machine gun, instantly pinning him against the concrete wall. Under that pressure, he couldn't execute a single technique.

But the strikes weren't strong enough to end the fight right then, and every extra second was a risk.

I jumped down from the block, continuing the Chain Punches, but mid-fall, I switched to Monkey, preparing my right hand. Instead of the usual springy landing, I dropped hard, throwing all my weight and pressure into him.

My right palm, already glowing with the charge, landed squarely on his forehead.

Boom!

The opponent's visor cracked, and his head smashed into the concrete behind him.

I had instinctively readied a headbutt, part of Iron Head, the bit Adam and I had been working on, but it wasn't needed.

"Stop!" came the judge's command. He appeared from the right, hand raised between us.

Kiro slipped off the wall and collapsed.

The judge raised his hand to stop Kiro's head from hitting it, and I stepped back, clearing the way.

"Victory to Sullivan!" the judge declared.

Iron Shirt had been wasted. But who could've known the fight would be so easy?

Next up for me was Okoro. His match had been even easier than mine.

I knew this guy, I'd beaten him before, but not without stimulants, and even then they had barely helped. He was still one of the strongest, and there was no doubt he'd addressed his past mistakes.

Last time, he'd struggled to break through my shield. He solved that mid-match by getting behind me, where the shield was more vulnerable.

Another major issue for him had been my Hooks. His formation didn't handle non-linear strikes well.

What was my problem?

His speed and agility, overall. He'd gotten behind me incredibly fast and with a level of creativity. His movement technique was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to squeeze out of my Monkey, but those flips of his — there's no way they were possible without adding Air. At least that's what I think. And I hadn't heard of any first-stage techniques that used two types of qi at once. So for me, that kind of thing would only become accessible in stage two.

Even so, Mad Monkey of the East was something far beyond what Okoro had shown.

If he'd fixed his formation, I'd be in trouble.

I had prepared a countermeasure in advance, but it seriously increased the chances of losing.

Sand again...

Must be our karma.

I hoped that if the arena was the same, the outcome would be too.

Just like last time, I injected God of War Fist and Cheetah Pulse.

Even before the judge gave the command, we both leaned forward in sync, ready to launch.

If that's how it was, then maybe... what was the point in keeping my trump card hidden?

The countermeasure I'd prepared was close combat without a shield. I planned to use Monkey as a weapon. It had proven its effectiveness not only in the previous fight. But it still wasn't an offensive technique, and I could only rely on the element of surprise. Even the lightest hammer blow from Okoro hit harder than the strongest Monkey strike.

So what the hell?

I still hadn't fully mastered Iron Head, and I wouldn't be able to execute it in the chaos of battle, but right now, I had time to prepare. The stance was the same, I just had to channel qi differently.

"Fight!" the judge commanded.

Sand exploded beneath Okoro's feet and he charged at me like a desert train, kicking up a massive plume of dust behind him.

I simply ran.

I still had a limit on how many steps I could maintain the technique's pressure, so I didn't activate it immediately, only after the third normal step.

Step.

Everything around me began to slow. The space itself pressed against my armour, as if I were descending into deep water.

Step.

Okoro was probably surprised. Or maybe not — he was slowly raising his hammer to bring it down on my head.

Step!

Damn it, I was a few metres short, and that was my current limit.

That was my limit without stimulants!

Ste—

Impact!

The final step completed as my forehead smashed into Okoro's chest. All the built-up qi burst forward, crushing and fracturing his breastplate, and Okoro himself flew back like a ragdoll.

Something slammed into my back, straining my shield, and I was forced to drop to one knee.

The technique's recoil locked up my muscles, and I panicked, I might not rise before Okoro did.

I pushed myself up with sheer effort and launched a downward Hook to keep him grounded.

It shattered against his formation.

He really had fixed it.

Plan B — Monkey...

"Victory to Sullivan!" the judge announced.

"What?" I said, not quite believing it.

"What did you expect after a hit like that?" he asked me. "His ribs are probably in splinters, and his lungs are mince. Are you alright, though? Head not spinning?"

"No, I'm fine," I assured him.

"Seems like it," he replied after a second. "Though I'm no medic — never was good at reading vitals. Best let the coats in the waiting zone check you out."

"Thanks," I said, and took another look at Okoro.

He wasn't even twitching, while the mechanics were already cutting away his breastplate and the medics waited their turn.

I was right! That's no movement technique — that's a bloody Ult!

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