Third POV
The slave camp didn't change.
The sky was still the same pale, washed-out gray every morning.
The air still smelled of dust, sweat, and iron.
The guards still barked the same orders in the same flat voices, as if the years between days didn't exist.
But Elias had changed.
It had been nine months since that night Tarek had caught him slipping back from training. Nine months of stolen hours, quiet breathing, aching muscles, and the slow, grinding rhythm of a body being pushed to its limit.
First POV
I'd stopped counting the nights.
It was easier that way.
Every time I went out, I thought I'd hit the wall — the point where my body would finally give out. And every time, I'd come back the next night anyway.
There were weeks when progress felt like sand slipping through my fingers. My body was too thin, my hands blistered from the day's work, my stomach aching from half-rations.
But something was changing. Slowly. Quietly.
Third POV
Bones hardened first.
The technique — Iron Root Method — was slow to work without proper food or rest, but the constant repetition ground its patterns into his flesh and marrow.
Every stance held a little longer.
Every breath sank a little deeper.
The workday no longer left him staggering. He could haul twice the weight of firewood he'd managed when he first started training, and his shoulders no longer trembled under the strain.
First POV
The breakthrough came on a night like any other.
The camp was silent except for the occasional creak of wood in the cold. I went through the opening sequence of the Iron Root Method, my breath clouding in the air, the familiar ache in my legs settling in like an old companion.
Then… something shifted.
It was like the air itself grew heavier, pressing against me from all sides. My breath hitched, my pulse pounding in my ears.
And then, just as suddenly, the weight was gone — replaced by a slow, steady burn in my chest.
It wasn't the sharp pain of strain. It was power.
Third POV
Tier One.
It didn't come with light or thunder or any visible sign — just a tightening of the body's fibers, a subtle hum in the bones, the quiet knowledge that something fundamental had changed.
Strength surged into muscles that had been starved for years. His heartbeat steadied, each pulse pumping more efficiently. The aches that had haunted him since boyhood felt distant, muted.
First POV
I tightened my fists.
The cold didn't bite the same way. The air felt sharper, cleaner in my lungs. I wanted to move, to test the limits of whatever I'd just unlocked.
But the biggest change wasn't the strength. It was the endurance.
Where before, each night's training left me exhausted, now I felt like I could keep going until dawn.
Third POV
Elias moved through the forms again, faster this time, the sharp snap of his movements stirring frost from the ground.
When he finished, he stood breathing evenly, sweat beading on his forehead — but not from exhaustion.
He didn't yet have the bulk of a true warrior. His thin frame was still a testament to years of hunger, the muscles lean rather than full. But the power beneath the skin was unmistakable now, coiled and ready.
First POV
I didn't think much of it until the next evening.
One of the guards shoved me as I carried a water bucket toward the storage shed. I stumbled — but didn't spill.
The guard, annoyed, shoved harder. This time, I planted my feet.
He might as well have pushed against a wall.
His eyes flickered — not with suspicion, but with irritation. He didn't notice what had changed. He just knew I hadn't moved like a normal slave.
Third POV
It wasn't a fight — not yet. Elias didn't give him reason. But in that moment, he knew.
If it came to it, he could hold his own.
Maybe not win cleanly — not yet — but he could take the blows and stay standing.
The days of crumpling under a guard's casual strike were gone.
First POV
It wasn't the end. Far from it.
Tier One was just the first step, and I was still a shadow of what I could be if I had real food, real rest, real time.
But now, for the first time since I'd been dragged to this camp, I felt like I had something the guards couldn't see.
A weapon.
Even if it was hidden under rags and bone.