🩸 Chapter 9: Iron in the Blood
🧠Cognitive Hazard Alert – Revision Classification: RED TIER
Archive Entry has been resynced with bracer-logged host memory.
Emotive dampeners were not functioning at the time of imprint.
⚠️ Subject exhibits extreme protective response to perceived threat.
↳ Host behavioral pattern: calm → question → warn → unleash.
Suggested observer action: Do not antagonize the boy.
🌍 Sept 12, 99 BCE – Late Summer 🔥
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The wind carried the scent of pine and cold earth as Junjie stood atop a ridge overlooking the valley, where mists clung to the trees like silk threads and the morning sun filtered through in golden shafts. It should have been peaceful, but his fists were clenched.
"Nano," he said aloud, "I want to learn how to fight."
There was a long pause before Nano muttered to itself, "Hmm... Let me find something resource-efficient but effective. I need to save my space credits for more important things." Then, more formally: "Define parameters—unarmed combat? Weapon mastery? Tactical evasion?"
"All of it," Junjie replied. "I don't want to just survive. I want to win if something comes for me... for my family."
"Understood." Another pause followed, then: "Initiating restricted backdoor access... transferring funds from Primary Archive Upload Account to alias: BrineSpectre02... success. Connecting to Acacia Records subgrid... spoofing credentials... requesting purchase under tactical research license... confirmed. Download commencing. This should suit you. The species possessed a skeletal structure broadly compatible with your own. Biomechanical alignment: 91.2%."
Combat Form θ-17. Retrieved from defunct caste-network archive. Typical applications: assassination, infiltration, elite bodyguarding. Efficiency rating: 97.4% against pre-industrial threats.
Alias forms: Xhav-Relek. Form of the Folded Bone.
"Elegant, efficient, and under budget."
🥋 Day One: Breath and Blows
A strange shimmer passed over the bracer on Junjie's wrist, its interface flickering briefly with alien runes. "Beginning baseline assessment. Stand still," Nano instructed, and Junjie felt a tingling pulse ripple across his body, every joint, muscle, bone, and reflex measured and catalogued in less than a second.
"Scan complete. Your physical enhancements are sufficient for advanced combat training. We'll begin with unarmed strikes."
A glowing wireframe model of Junjie appeared in his mind's eye, overlaid with pressure points, stances, and angles of movement. "Mimic this." The model moved in slow, deliberate motions—a basic stance: knees bent, fists high, weight forward. Junjie copied it, adjusting as Nano corrected him: "Back foot, sixty-degree angle. Elbows tucked. Balance." Then came the strikes—palm blows, elbow jabs, knees, and low kicks—each motion precise and without wasted energy, built to incapacitate, disable, or control.
Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cool air, his limbs burning from exertion at a level his old self could never have endured. "Why this style?" he asked between breaths.
"This is a modified form of close-quarters combat from my previous host's species. Designed for speed, efficiency, and survivability in mixed-species conflicts. It has no name in your tongue."
Junjie grunted, throwing another punch that splintered a nearby tree trunk. "Feels like it works."
"Junjie, you must understand," Nano said after a pause, "knowledge of violence is not the same as wisdom in using it. I can teach you how to fight. Why you fight—that's still yours to decide."
Junjie's knuckles ached as he looked at his hands, callused and trembling not from fear, but anticipation. "I don't want to start a fight," he said softly. "But if one comes to me... I want to end it."
Nano did not reply, but the training model resumed—faster, more complex. Junjie moved with it without flinching.
🪵 Day Two: Wood and Edge
He rose before dawn, sore in all the right ways, his muscles aching with the clean burn of a body sharpened, not broken. Slipping quietly from the house to avoid his mother's gaze as she worked over drying herbs, he stepped into the woods carrying a stout staff carved from young yew—primitive but balanced.
"Your species' weapons are crude but serviceable. We'll adapt," Nano remarked, projecting movement patterns directly into Junjie's motor cortex. Suddenly, he knew how to move the staff, spin it for defense, and strike for maximum pain with minimal effort. Guided by a ghost-light diagram in his mind, he moved in a blur—whirling, thrusting, sweeping, reversing his grip, striking low, then high, then twisting. By midday, he was fighting simulated foes—bandits, beasts, and vaguely humanoid nightmares—adapting, countering, and pressing the attack.
Later, Nano shifted to blades. With his short knife, Junjie marked trees and stumps with slashes—delicate at first, then brutal—learning to move around a guard, redirect momentum, and think in the chaos of close quarters. Shadows of battle flickered between the trees as he practiced feints and finishing blows.
"You're progressing ahead of expected progression," Nano admitted. "You may possess a latent combat aptitude."
"Or maybe I'm just angry," Junjie said, panting.
"Anger is a useful fuel. But unstable. Focus is superior."
He exhaled slowly, grounding himself. The staff rested across his shoulders like a yoke. He didn't feel like a killer, but he felt like someone no one should provoke lightly.
🏹 Day Three: Eyes Like Arrows
Cold winds heralded summer storms as Junjie stood in the clearing with bow in hand and a satchel of smooth, river-polished stones on his belt. "Thrown weapons first," Nano instructed. "Simple tools. Devastating in practiced hands."
Nano corrected his grip, posture, and wrist flick in real time. At first his stones clattered off bark, but soon he was striking knots from ten meters away—then twenty. Knives came next: his own blade and a pair scavenged from an old chest. Throw after throw, until he could land steel within the width of a man's throat.
"Good. Now let's see how your ancestors aimed for the sky."
Junjie strung his bow. Under Nano's guidance, every motion—draw, anchor, release—became refined. It was not merely strength but stillness, breath control, and intent. Targets danced in his vision: moving silhouettes, swooping birds, phantom foes. Arrows flew until his fingers were raw, each shot thudding deep into wood.
"Archery was once a discipline of kings," Nano observed. "In the galaxy, it is called kinetic discipline. An ancient skill, now seen as art by advanced species."
"Art, huh?" Junjie nocked another arrow. "Feels more like war."
"Often, they are the same."
The rain began, but Junjie didn't stop. His movements slowed, becoming meditative. By the time he lowered his bow, hours later, his arms trembled not from weakness but from release.
He had been reshaped—stronger, faster, and trained, but also focused and forged. Standing in the storm, steam rising from his skin, he looked at his steady hands. "I don't feel like myself anymore."
"You feel more like yourself than you ever have," Nano answered.
"Then I'm someone new."
The woods watched in silence as Junjie Ruibo, son of traders, stood with weapon in hand and fire in his eyes. No longer just a vessel. No longer a boy. A warrior was waking.