As they say, old habits die hard. Caden was lazy—in one word. In a matter of days, his life changed. He was lazy, then he was not. Caden threw habits in the trash. But was it really Caden, or was this the doing of the gift he carried, his bloodline? he did not know.
As Caden thought this, the training continued. The SparX training unit lunged again, its mechanical fist blurring through the air. Caden twisted to the side, blocking with his forearm, only to feel the shock of impact rattle down to his bones.
"Damn thing hits like a truck," he muttered through gritted teeth, before countering with a sharp hook. This was not training, he thought. More like a street fight. There were no rules other than who gave up first. He should have set the settings with rules.
The robot barely flinched. Its movements were relentless, efficient, merciless. Each strike carried the weight of a car crash, sometimes like a truck, sometimes worse—like a bulldozer plowing into his ribs. Again and again, it's blows hammered into him, driving him across the practice floor.
This fight was enlightening. He was not a fighter—yet. He was parsing the memories of the Prince, quickly learning one of the fighting styles, more like a movement. Although at first he got pummeled left and right, he started getting used to being attacked. His stance shifted, along with his thoughts. With an angry look on his face, He Shouted..
"I've had enough of this shit—get ready to get pummeled!"
while breathing heavily as he stepped back. With a fierce shout, he lunged forward in the pattern he had pulled from the memories. Its name was Phantom Stride.
Like a phantom, he moved like a ghost to the left side of the bot and punched fiercely. His eyes gleamed gold, his dynamic vision sharpening, the bot becoming his sole target. His expression was that of a hunter upon its prey. Although the bot was fast enough to try to parry, it was still too late. The punch connected with its shoulder.
with a Weeeng! sound
The bot was slammed fiercely against the wall. Caden, witnessing this, first looked at his fist and noticed it was coated in some kind of energy.
"Hmm, what is this?" he muttered aloud. His eyes narrowed with a look of confusion as he tried to focus on that, but the energy dissipated. Like a smoke, it was there then puff gone.
In the distance, the bot stirred. A faint orange light flickered across the impacted shoulder, with a crack across his shoulder accompanied by a sharp sleeee sound. You can see that the left hand is useless now. Its eyes changed—from blue to orange shading across its lenses.
Caden instantly had a bad feeling. "Ahh, hell nah!" he cursed, bracing himself for another round.
In the end, even if he wanted to learn something new, he was in no condition to continue. He had to stop the practice. More like the beating. But he had learned something: Phantom Stride was a beginner-level movement technique, one of the top skills in the Ghost Movement category.
By the end, his face was bruised, his shoulders swollen, and his chest burned with every breath. Yet, remarkably, he was still standing. His body was recovering fast. Heavy bruises remained, but lighter ones were already gone. The shocking part was that no blood had been spilled.
He was in no mood to talk to people after that beating, so he waved away the enthused crowd. He heard them whispering:
"I think the Prince has gone through some tough training," muttered someone in the crowd, outside in the public training area. followed by various comments on the prince's conditions.
"I know, right? I've never seen him this bruised before."
"Yeah, I think it's because of the military drills."
"No, I think it's because the Prince lost his cultivation." This comment drew the attention of everyone to the person who said it. By the looks, he was definitely not here for the training. He was wearing a form-fitting polyfiber combat weave with a visor glowing on his face with data streams. A drone was quietly hovering by his side. Everyone thought this guy was from logistics personnel.
"What? Where did you hear that, and why are you here?" The visor guy looked at the person and turned around to leave. No interest in answering.
Caden didn't think much of it, other than noticing that his hearing seemed sharper than before.
Dragging himself back to his quarters, Caden wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the bed. But first, he showered. There was no way he would sleep in sweat-filled clothes. As he showered, the persisting feeling of heaviness in his head did not relent. As he drifted toward sleep, something strange began to happen. The recovery started to get faster. The bruises faded. The swelling lessened. Not instantly—but faster than any normal human healing should allow.
Deep within him, something stirred.
The forgotten chip embedded in his soul pulsed faintly. It had absorbed enough of his bloodline power, with a trace of the clock's mysterious energy feeding into it as well. Although normally it would have taken more time, this practice session was enough for its evolution to complete.
The moment evolution completed, energy pulsed throughout Caden's body, gathering information from his body—from recovery to stamina, strength, and agility.
The Clock System had known all along. It was omnipotent in his work. It can be called a miracle. A once-in-a-lifetime chance for Prince Caden, which was stolen from him by a different guy but by the same name. That was why it had said nothing about the bloodline awakening, nor given him anything extra to understand his situation. Now, as Caden's battered body rested, the chip began its work.
It was by no means intended to hijack the body. More like—it couldn't. It was bound to Caden for life.
And first things first, it thought about naming itself. It decided to go with:
The Most Knowledgeable and Nutritional Master.