Sand crunched beneath my feet. I stepped forward half a pace, slid left, shifted my weight — and snapped my left hand out. The first projection flew, followed by a dozen more hurtling toward Kate.

She dodged them all effortlessly, dancing between them like a gymnast, and fired back with an lightning bolt.

I had to choose — dodge or keep up the bombardment.

Screw it. I'd spent enough time just dodging in the past.

I pulled the invisible wall toward me, and a moment before the lightning bolt hit, a silver cocoon of a shield flashed into being around me.

The bolt exploded into violet sparks.

"Impressive!" Kate called, weaving away from my next barrage like a rhythmic dancer.

I pressed harder: punch-punch-punch-hook-punch-punch-hook!

While most of the projections flew straight, two veered in wide arcs, aiming to hit her at angles of seventy to eighty degrees — almost from the side. It didn't fool her, though. Surprised, maybe, but not tricked. She twisted and slid between them with the same uncanny grace.

With a step back and to the left, she slipped past the Chain Strike burst — the hook skimmed past her face by barely an inch.

A step forward and left, hips shifting just enough to let a wide-angled Chain Punch slip past her ribs. The following hook whooshed past her back.

"Wow! You've clearly been putting the time in!" she called out.

And I could tell — she was moving faster now. Nearly as fast as Adam. But while Adam had long since mastered Condensation, this was still new for Kate. I tried to catch her off-guard, knowing I might not get another chance.

I'd gotten faster too. Not as fast as Kate, though. Late Refinement was no match for early Condensation. I'd broken through — not to a new stage, but past the second bottleneck. The diarrhoea had been brief. The dispersion rate waiting for me afterward — now that would be hellish.

Still, dispersion came after cultivation. Right now, this was combat training, and lightning bolts were flying at my face.

"Shields are great!" she said, unleashing another volley. Sparks from the impacts completely obscured my view. "Did I ever tell you how the Metal Ants chewed off my arm?"

She kept firing. I had to break the rhythm — stopped the projection stream and jumped aside, rolling under the hailstorm to ease the pressure on my shield and clear my vision from the damn sparks.

Didn't work.

Even after Adam's drill, which had taught me to walk on sand like it was solid flooring, and even though popping back onto my feet from a roll was second nature by now, Kate matched my speed effortlessly. And without the shield getting topped up from an active technique, it quickly gave out — cracked and shattered like an eggshell.

Two bolts hit me in quick succession — shoulder and chest — third-stage enhanced bolts.

It felt like someone smashed me with a hammer plugged into a 220-volt socket. Every hair on my body stood up at a perfect ninety-degree angle, lifting even my jumpsuit.

Throwing in a theatrical flip like some stuntman in an epic action flick, I landed flat on my back, legs flopped over my torso.

"God…" I croaked, too drained to uncross my own legs. "You're worse than Adam. We only just started!"

Eventually, I rolled to the side, and my legs uncurled on their own.

"The ants chewed through my shield, Jake!" Kate announced cheerfully. "I taught you to dodge, not to tank everything with a barrier. Now get up and show me how it's done!"

"Not a chance," I shot back. "After that beating, I need at least fifteen minutes just to function again."

"No one gives you fifteen minutes in a real fight."

"Thank God this is just training," I said, somehow managing to sit up. "Have a little mercy — this is torture, not sparring. Especially considering you've got zero control over the strength of those bolts!"

"W-e-e-ell…" Kate hesitated. "I did just break through."

"I know. That's why I'm saying — we need a break."

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Kate sat down in the sand beside me.

"All in all, you've made real progress over these past four weeks," she admitted.

"Adam said that too," I replied. "But I don't feel it. I haven't made either of you break a sweat. I need a sparring partner at my level."

"Hm… I'll think about how to set that up," Kate said.

"And maybe you could also think about… adjusting your bolt trajectories a bit? Like Adam does?" I asked cautiously. Maybe she just didn't know how.

"I'll think about it," she replied. "You're right. Can't have you losing fifteen minutes every time you get hit."

We rested a while longer, then went back at it. I didn't try to hit her anymore — just dodged and threw in the occasional projection. Same kind of training I'd been doing with Adam for the past three weeks.

After training with Kate came lunch. I ate with my guys — minus Nur, who was still getting used to the name Zola. And I was getting used to calling her that. Strangely, the body change hadn't affected the way I felt about her at all.

We were still friends, though we kept things subtle — careful not to let the others catch on and slap a label on me as the kind of guy who swapped out a sick girl for the new one while the old one was still in the infirmary. That was the story Bulsara had cooked up for us.

Technically, Nur's body was still in the infirmary. Legally speaking, she was a comatose patient. No one knew that her soul was currently wearing a different body.

In the three weeks since her transfer, Zola had already broken through her first bottleneck. Her cultivation schedule was insane — every other day she was in the Flow Chamber. Bulsara had framed it as some kind of research project, pulling off something similar to what Dr. Robinson did when he first got me in there. So technically, the school was footing the bill for Zola — full package: cultivation, tea, some kind of recovery treatments in pods...

I half-joked that I could use some acceleration too, but Novak shut that idea down immediately.

Overall, all of my roommates had already broken through their first bottleneck. Marlon was first, Denis second, and Bao brought up the rear. But let's not forget — our rich boy had crystals stashed away. I had a feeling he'd surprise us all when it came time to leap to the next stage.

And of course, there were the techniques.

I suspected Marlon had learned two, though he was annoyingly silent about it. Bao and Denis had each picked up one: Gentle Touch and Living Vine. Living Vine was geared toward accelerating the growth of a cultivator's living weapon — like the staff Lin Jiao used to immobilise Marek during the incident in the showers. Hard to judge its combat potential, but Gentle Touch was anything but gentle. It was essentially a palm projection that phased through armour and struck internal organs directly.

From what I'd learned, palm cultivators were not to be underestimated. Though the natural counters to Fist cultivators were said to be the Point-type — like Erik Dubois. He'd broken through his second bottleneck a week and a half ago, making him third among all the first-years. I ranked twenty-sixth.

I could've ranked higher if I'd gone for reassessment earlier. The closer I got to the edge of the stage, the dispersion became harsher — which I expected. What I didn't expect was that it wouldn't be the only challenge. My first reassessment doubled my tolerance time from fifteen to thirty minutes. The second added only five. This time, I didn't delay or get distracted — went for my next one just a week later. Nine days, to be exact, and it gave me another five minutes. Amazing what you can get done without demons and bullies getting in your way.

Speaking of bullies — not long after Nur became Zola, our little mutual support group of bullying victims cornered Kiran and Tan on the stairs and turned them into two very tenderised steaks. They hit so hard it became a life-threatening situation and upper periods from The Order had to step in.

That incident calmed the last gang in our block considerably. They stopped picking on others and started worrying about their own necks. It all evolved into a cold war — two rival bands avoiding open conflict but fiercely recruiting.

The victims had a cleaner reputation, so people were more willing to join them. But the bullies drew in the more aggressive, unhinged types – real muscles so to say.

I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us. Compared to both sides, we assistant supervisors didn't have the numbers.

But we had Dubois — and my reputation.

So far, that was enough.

And since I wasn't cultivating as often as I wanted, I started spending more time in Rene's hall — kept polishing Chain Punch with the Hook, and began studying Mad Monkey. At the same time, I somehow still managed to keep up with my shifts in the Fist Garden. Not drone work — saturation!

Yep, I now stood on the platform and watered the flowers with leftover Fist Qi from Chain Punch.

Diego had forbidden me from using the Hook. Said the technique was still too raw, and instead of saturating the garden, it'd pollute it. Though in my view, it was still Fist Qi all the same. My fist root was now exactly 50, and because of the insane demand, the school shop had stopped selling essence for units — only for merit points now. If I'd known that was coming, I would've stocked up on air essence while it was still available.

Still, because of my previous shenanigans, I had twenty-five ampoules stashed in my locker. Maybe I could trade them later? Would've been nice to make some connections in another school, but for a first-year, that was impossible. We were limited — if not by walls, then definitely by the school grounds.

First-years had enough assignments outside the walls — and they paid decently, at least compared to what you could earn inside — but most of it was low-skill grunt work: gathering, fetch-and-carry, drone supervision, or livestock feeding.

Speaking of livestock and meat — the main source of protein on Verdis was bugs. Massive ones, the size of bulls, all the way down to smaller chicken-sized critters. Which raised the obvious question: what exactly were those eggs in the cafeteria that I'd gotten so fond of?

Once I found out, I nearly became a vegetarian. But metal rice wasn't on the menu every day, so my principles didn't last long.

Livestock care was decently paid — 5 points an hour — but shifts were eight hours long, in armour, with only a short break that didn't count toward your time. And getting to the pastures wasn't quick either. You either had to rattle around in a transport carrier or fly your own surfboard. One of those shifts meant training that same day was off the table. Still, Bao and Denis were taking those gigs two or three times a week.

Long story short — change was everywhere. Everyone had advanced: Kate, Zola, Dubois, Marlon, Bao and Denis. Even Dr. Robinson had reached the fourth stage.

Life didn't stand still — it was speeding up.

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