After Lucien's first night of deep and uninterrupted sleep, he woke up in his new room within the Fifth Division's command post.
The white walls, marked with stains. It felt less like a command post and more like a prison.
Yet, it was a better change compared to the bench he had been sleeping in for six months. For Lucien, this was his new home.
Rylen stood in the doorway, the tablet clutched tightly in his right hand. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Are you ready to dive into action?".
Lucien nodded in confusion, he wasn't exactly sure what being "ready to dive into action" really meant.
Rylen had told Lucien yesterday that nothing here was handed to him easily. He needed to work hard to keep his place.
"You're not an official member yet," Rylen repeated.
His voice was calm but had the blunt edge of command. "You still need to earn your place in The Nightguard Corps. Follow the steps and you´ll stay. Don't underestimate the trials."
The first test was all about his physical attributes, it seemed simple enough on paper: the first week they took his measurements.
For Lucien, just standing in that room was half the battle.
He was six feet two, and he was a striking figure at just seventeen years old, as if he was pulled straight from the pages of a manga he had cherished in his youth.
His slim frame had filled out with muscle. He weighed in at around one hundred fifty pounds now.
It was a substantial growth from the one hundred fifteen he had been when he was on the streets.
His hair was white which set him apart from the ordinary.
His hair was originally black. His white hair was a mark of the transformation he had undergone these last few weeks.
As he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes reflected an intriguing blend of purple and blue. The face staring back at him felt both new and yet eerily familiar.
"Step one is officially done," Rylen said, watching him while he dressed himself. "Easy right? Now comes the theory about the monsters that we are fighting."
They moved to a different building. Lucien saw a classroom stacked with new tech he had never seen before.
There was an old chalkboard still leaning at the front of the classroom, but projectors and holograms filled the room: rotating models of different creatures and layered maps of Tokyo and the outskirts.
The air inside smelled of toner and the fried yakitori from a nearby stall. For Lucien, it was a reminder that life outside continued.
Lucien sat at the front of the class. Rylen tapped the hologram.
Lucien felt a shock through his whole body: the figure that he saw was the creature he had fought in the industrial zone, its features were burned into Lucien´s memory.
"What you see here are Level 3–4 threats," Rylen said. "These are buildings to town-level threats. Large and fast. They cause the most casualties in urban spaces."
He walked them through the scale that the Nightguard Corps used for monsters. The hologram shifted to grids of the smallest to the biggest creatures.
"Level 5 is the weakest. They appear often. They're even manageable for the weakest soldiers in the corps." Rylen's voice stayed flat.
"Level 4 is where it gets a bit more serious. Those are the kind that can tear through an entire block." The image that Rylen showed was a beast the size of a two-story building.
"Level 3 needs a coordinated force. Ten or even twenty members of the corps might be required to kill it. Level 2 can level a city or a nation.
Then comes the final level. Level 1…" He paused and the room filled with recruits tightened. " There are at least continent and in some cases even planet-level threats. We've seen them twice in a decade."
Lucien took a measured breath. His memory sends him back to the reptile.
Rylen's words settled deep into his mind: the thing he had fought was at level 4 and maybe level 3. He would´ve died if it weren´t for them.
"Everyone here understands the levels?" Rylen asked. Lucien nodded. The class murmured, and some faces went pale beneath the glow of the hologram.
Rylen closed the lecture with some advice. "This week is theory only. You must know what you fight.
He started by explaining their behavior: monsters can only appear at night; they feed on darkness and the latent energy of the moon. Their origin remained a mystery to everyone.
One moment a street was empty; the next a monster would appear out of thin air.
"Everyone will begin the second stage of the trials in the next few days," Rylen said. "First we test your basic combat skills."
Lucien felt his resolve harden with every word that Rylen spoke.
Doubt still lived in him, but he felt that it was mixed with something else: determination. He would prove himself to the world.