A month had passed in a blur of training sessions and careful isolation. Cale hadn’t advanced at all in his cultivation despite the constant physical exertion, and he hadn’t seen Emma since her mother had called her away.
Rexa had kept her distance too, claiming she needed to focus on her written examinations, though he suspected she was giving him space more out of kindness than necessity.
The month had been frustratingly stagnant, neither progressing nor regressing, just existing in a strange limbo between advancent and stagnation.
Today marked the third day since his official enrollnt at the Academy of Martial Arts and Magic Enhancents. He had specifically chosen the martial arts departnt because he knew that physical combat skills would be essential when he eventually ventured to the eastern lands, where cultivation alone wouldn’t be enough to survive.
The academy sprawled across vast grounds, its stone buildings casting long shadows in the early morning light, and the morning birds chirped in that disgusting way that made him wake before dawn regardless of when he’d actually fallen asleep.
Cale got up and stretched his arms with a yawn, feeling the familiar ache in muscles that had been pushed to their limits every day.
The dorm room was sparse and cold, nothing like the comfort of his quarters back at the estate, and he splashed his face with cold water from the basin before beginning his morning duties.
Yes, even noble children were assigned tasks here, a humbling reality that most of the high-born students complained about constantly, though Cale found it oddly fitting that they were being leveled in this way.
Due to his diocre aura core and the system’s assessnt of his overall low talent in cultivation relative to the standards of this academy, he had been assigned the most nial tasks—cleaning, washing clothes, maintaining the grounds.
anwhile, his peers were out slaying beasts and fighting bandits for experience and substantial points. The thought gnawed at him constantly as he moved through his duties.
I thought I had advanced quite a bit, he thought bitterly while scrubbing the stone floors of the training hall. But this place makes it all feel pathetic. I’m not even a proper apprentice yet in their eyes, and how am I supposed to join a cultivation sect when I can’t even achieve the basic rankings here?
People who had enrolled alongside him were already accepted as squires and disciples within days of arriving, their nas called out during the announcents. Here he was, still stuck with the trial apprentices,performing nial labor invisible in the eyes of the academy’s hierarchy.
The competition was ruthless and unforgiving—the strong accumulated points and privileges while the weak starved for resources and recognition, and there was no sense of camaraderie or mutual aid like there might be in other schools.
This place was built on the principle that only strength mattered, and everything else was secondary.
The school itself isn’t really the problem, I am planning to leave in another month or two anyway, once I’ve got what I need. The real problem is what cos after. Where do I go? What do I do next?
He had fragnts of mories from his previous life—knowledge of special places and hidden opportunities scattered across the continent—but all of them had specific timing requirents.
So would only yield their secrets at certain seasons or tis. Then there were the people he rembered, powerful figures who could aid him if approached correctly, but many of them were either still weak in this tiline or hadn’t even been born yet.
It was a puzzle with pieces that didn’t fit together, at least not yet.
The sound of approaching footsteps pulled him from his thoughts.
A group of senior students rounded the corner. They moved like wolves spotting a wounded deer.
"Isn’t that the weak spirit core from the Midgar family?"
"How pathetic to be born into a hero’s family and still have the lowest rankings," another added, shaking his head mockingly. "Still just a trial apprentice despite acing the written exams. Imagine that."
"It’s the weekend today, so we can challenge him again."
"He’s still novice ranked, isn’t he? Easy points."
Cale listened to their sneers with an almost detached calm. These words, insults, they barely scratched the surface of what he’d endured.
He said nothing, just watched them with flat eyes that made so of them slightly uncomfortable, though they masked it with more aggressive posturing.
A girl erged from around the corner, her uniform marking her as part of the academy’s administrative cadre.
"One against many isn’t a fair fight. At least give him the chance to actually compete properly."
"Leave," one of the seniors responded. "Do you dare defy the rankings here? This is how things work."
Cale sighed, recognizing the inevitability of what was about to happen. These confrontations were daily occurrences now, and trying to avoid them only made things worse.
"Okay, let’s fight," he got up straightening and rolling his shoulders to loosen the tight muscles.
They take as a weak target to score points. How pathetic. But if I don’t fight, they’ll just keep finding reasons to make my life here difficult. And I need the combat experience, anyway.
He chose his opponent carefully—a slightly built senior nad Karin who relied more on technique than raw strength.
It was the sa strategy he employed every day, picking the opponent most likely to give him a chance, however small.
The others ford a circle around them, drawing the attention of a pair of Horkens—the academy’s designated observers and record-keepers who tracked the progression of students from prominent families.
They would record this fight, docunting whether he won or lost, whether he showed improvent or continued his streak of failures.
The fight began with Cale throwing a barrage of punches from his right hand while keeping his left raised to protect his face.
Karin evaded them, ducking and weaving before suddenly pulling Cale’s arm and driving a knee directly into his core. The breath exploded from his lungs, stars blooming across his vision as he coughed blood onto the stone ground and collapsed onto all fours.
Before he could even catch his breath, the senior was on him again, raining down punches.
Cale rolled away desperately, his training kicking in on pure instinct, but the damage was already accumulating.
"Aren’t you ashad to use a donkey roll?" ,"Is that the best a noble’s son can do?"
Cale pushed himself up, blood dripping from his mouth onto his chest. "Again. Let’s fight again."
He went for Karin’s legs, trying to pull the senior off balance, but Karin simply pivoted and drove his foot directly into Cale’s face. The impact snapped his head back, and for a mont everything went dark. When vision returned, he was back on the ground, struggling to push himself upright despite every nerve in his body screaming at him to stay down.
This is the only way to increase cultivation right now.The system does rewards combat experience.
The senior continued his assault, but Cale forced himself to keep fighting back, even as his body broke down under the punishnt.
Finally, Karin landed a punch directly to his chin, and everything went dark.
Consciousness returned slowly, fragntary and incomplete.
Cale’s head throbbed with pain as his eyes fluttered open.
Above him, green leaves filtered the sunlight into a dappled pattern, and he realized he was lying beneath one of the academy’s trees.
The Horken who had been observing must have moved him here after he lost consciousness.
He had dread while unconscious, vivid nightmares populated by the faces of the won.
Emma had been there, Rexa’s crimson eyes, Ava and Fiora had stood cold.
They had all been enrolled in different departnts—politics, magic, artifacts—which ant their schedules would rarely align with his own. In the month he’d been here, he’d caught only glimpses of them in the common areas, never long enough for more than a brief acknowledgnt before they vanished back into their respective worlds.
How did I end up here? Never mind. I’m still weak. Damn, why did I agree to co here in the first place?
But he already knew the answer—because it was the only legitimate path to getting the slave mark removed from his back.
Sothing small glinted in the afternoon light beside him on the grass—a shard of healing pill, worth hundreds of academy points at minimum. He stared at it for a long mont, confused.
Soone had deliberately left this for him.
Whoever did this must be one of the normal people in this place,not one of the savage point-grubbers who see everyone as competition.
He returned to his dorm room and crushed the healing shard into fine powder, applying it carefully to the bruises and deeper cuts that covered his body.
The paste was effective, far better than the cheap healing creams he’d been rationing, and the pain began to recede within minutes.
He didn’t use all of it—the shard was too valuable to waste, and there might co a ti when he needed it more desperately than he did now.
After tending to his wounds, Cale decided to engage in a light training session. It was a small victory within loss, but victories were victories, no matter their scale.
When exhaustion finally forced him to rest, sleep ca quickly and without the usual nightmares that plagued him. He woke to the soft chi of the system notification, his eyes snapping open as awareness flooded back into him.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: NOVICE RANK 2 ATTAINED]
[REWARD UNLOCKED: GOLDEN DAO SUPREMACY SKELETAL STRUCTURE]
Cale sat up slowly, his mind processing the notification with a mixture of shock and confusion.
A skeletal structure? He’d heard of dao physiques in his previous life—like those cultivation novels. But a skeletal structure seed odd. The system had never did him wrong before, though, and it rarely offered rewards that didn’t serve so purpose.
He accepted the reward before his doubts could overwhelm him.
The mont he made that choice, agony exploded through every inch of his being.
A surge of power coursed through his body like liquid lightning, burning through his veins, his muscles and his bones. He scread as his skeleton began to shift and transform.
It was as though his entire skeletal structure was being unmade and remade, crushed and reford new.
The screaming lasted for three full minutes before the pain suddenly cut off as if soone had flipped a switch. There was no gradual fading, no slow subsiding—just an instant transition from agony to complete numbness.
Cale lay gasping on the floor of his dorm, body covered in sweat, his heart hamring against his ribs.
His neck cracked as he rotated it. His bones felt different—denser sohow, more resilient.
When he flexed his arm, he could feel the difference in his musculature, in the way the bones aligned.
I have a system and decades worth of knowledge from my mories. All that remains is the strength to use them properly. The system has given a way to advance quickly, but the situation is not correct for dual cultivation. I need to be strategic about this.
The system pinged again with a new notification.
[LOGS OF PREVIOUS OWNERS PRESENT - READ?]
Cale’s eyes widened.
Previous owners? This dao skeleton had belonged to others before him? That ant there were mories and knowledge from other individuals who had wielded this power.
He could potentially gain techniques, skills, and understanding from them without having to learn everything from scratch. The possibilities were staggering.
He accepted imdiately.
Pale red glitter erupted around his body flowing directly into his mind.
The sensation was overwhelming—a flood of mories that weren’t his own, experiences that belonged to strangers, knowledge that seed to slot into place in his consciousness as if it had always been there.
He saw flashes of other lives, cultivators who had wielded this system too.
There were warriors, Aura Knights, aether cultivators who could manipulate the very fabric of space around them, ancient kings with power that seed to shake the foundations.
One na stood out among the rest—Sage Augustus, a king from a continent he didn’t recognize, from a tiline that seed vastly different from his own.
The mories associated with that na were hazy, as if sothing was preventing him from accessing the knowledge.
But what he could access was enough to realize that this system had a history far more complex and extensive than he’d initially understood.
I’ve got another mystery now, where did this system co from? How many people have had it?
He decided to begin practicing the skills he’d acquired from the previous owners’ mories, but he would split his ti carefully.
The dream realm offered unlimited training ti since ti moved differently there, but he only had limited hours each night before he needed to return to waking life.
He could dedicate roughly half an hour to an hour of real-ti training per day without compromising his academy duties or drawing too much attention.
The day progressed quickly after that, and as evening fell, Cale made his way to the dining hall for the evening al.
The soup served was thin and bland, but he consud it without complaint, then retreated to his dorm.
He didn’t actually sleep for the night—just a brief nap of a few hours to prepare himself for the intense training session ahead.
When sleep finally claid him, Cale’s consciousness shifted into that dream realm.
The nightmares summoned by his contract with Nocturnus awaited him, but so did sothing else now - the accumulated knowledge and techniques of warriors and cultivators who had co before him, new battle techniques now available for him to master and refine.
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