The medical bay was chaos wrapped in white sheets.
Nova sat on a narrow bed, watching healers move between the wounded. Fifty candidates had entered Group Seven's exam. Fifty had "died" in one way or another—some screaming, some silent, some still twitching from the residual terror of their final moments. Now they filled the recovery ward, their injuries real even if their deaths had not been.
Beside him, a boy with a crushed arm groaned as a healer knitted bone back together. Across the aisle, the lightning girl—awake now, her eyes hollow—stared at the ceiling without speaking. Cassian the flame-wielder sat in the corner, his hands wrapped in bandages, his expression a mixture of shame and relief.
They had all died.
Well. Almost all.
Nova's survival had drawn attention. He felt it in the glances from other candidates, the whispered conversations that stopped when he approached, the way even the healers looked at him with something like curiosity. A 1st Order, 2nd Rank candidate had outlasted dozens of stronger opponents. Had killed the moguen. Had walked out among the five survivors.
Questions, he thought. Questions I don't want to answer.
A healer approached—a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and a Healing affinity that radiated warmth. "You're Nova Almond?"
"Yes."
"Your vitals are stable. No significant injuries. Dehydration and mana depletion, but that's normal." She studied him for a moment. "The examiners want to see you. All five survivors from your group. Follow me."
They gathered in a small room adjacent to the main examination hall.
Five candidates. Nova recognized them all from the cavern's final moments:
Darius Vane — 1st Order, 7th Rank. A boy with stone-colored skin and earth affinity so strong he had literally merged with the cavern walls to survive. He was broad-shouldered, quiet, his eyes constantly moving as if assessing terrain.
Seraphina Cross — 1st Order, 6th Rank. The lightning girl. She had recovered enough to stand, but her hands still trembled slightly. The moguen's blow had done more than physical damage.
Marcus Webb — 1st Order, 4th Rank. A surprise. He had no obvious combat affinity—his superpower was something called "Spatial Sense," which let him perceive his surroundings in perfect detail. He had survived by simply not being found.
Tessa Blackwood — 1st Order, 5th Rank. A girl with shadow manipulation, her affinity allowing her to fade into darkness and strike from ambush. She watched everyone with predator's eyes.
Nova Almond — 1st Order, 2nd Rank. The lowest cultivation among the survivors. The one who had killed the moguen.
They stood in silence, waiting.
The door opened.
Instructor Mira entered, followed by three others—two women and a man, their cultivations so high Nova couldn't sense them at all. 5th Order at minimum. Possibly higher.
"Congratulations," Mira said flatly. "You are among the five survivors from Group Seven. That means you advance to the second round."
She gestured at the others.
"These are the academy's combat instructors. They will observe your next test personally. Perform well, and you may earn sponsorship. Perform poorly, and your survival in the first round becomes meaningless."
Darius spoke for the first time. "What's the second round?"
Mira smiled. It was not a kind expression.
"Individual combat. You will face each other—and candidates from other groups—in single elimination matches. The last sixteen candidates overall will be admitted to the academy. Everyone else goes home."
Sixteen out of hundreds. The odds were brutal.
"When?" Seraphina asked. Her voice was steady now, the hollow look replaced by something harder.
"Tomorrow. Rest today. Heal. Prepare." Mira's eyes swept over them, lingering on Nova. "Some of you exceeded expectations in the first round. Some of you got lucky. Tomorrow, luck won't save you."
She left.
The other instructors followed, but one—the man—paused at the door. He looked directly at Nova.
"Interesting technique," he said quietly. "Teleportation combat. Who taught you?"
Nova met his gaze. "No one. I taught myself."
The man studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"See that you survive tomorrow. I'd like to see more."
He was gone.
Nova returned to his inn and collapsed onto the bed.
His body ached. His mana had regenerated to full during the medical bay observation, but something deeper was drained—the constant vigilance, the endless calculation, the weight of killing even simulated enemies.
He checked his interface.
GODLESS SYSTEM — PERSONAL INTERFACE
HOST: Nova Almond
AGE: 14
CULTIVATION: 1st Order, 2nd Rank
MANA RESERVE: 194/194 units
BLOODLINE ACTIVATION: 14%
EXAM PROGRESS:
Round 1: Complete — Advanced
Round 2: Scheduled — Tomorrow
Current Standing: 1 of 50 in Group Seven
He thought about the man's question. Teleportation combat. Who taught you?
In another life, the answer would have been simple: no one. He had developed it himself, in the decades before his death, blending his space affinity with blade work until the two became inseparable. But that was another life. Another Nova.
This Nova was supposed to be a village boy with natural talent.
I need to be careful, he thought. Talented is good. Suspicious is fatal.
He pulled out Nora's journal and flipped to the section on cultivation. Tomorrow, he would face candidates two, three, even four ranks above him. His bloodline was only partially activated. His teleportation was powerful but limited by mana.
He needed an edge.
The Iron Foundation Method is solid, he thought, but slow. I need something faster. Something that doesn't require months of patient building.
He read deeper into the journal, past the basic techniques, past the observations on demon behavior, past the painful personal entries. Near the back, in handwriting that was different—sharper, more urgent—he found it.
Battle Meditation
Nova—the first Nova—developed this technique during the Abyss Wars. He needed to recover mana between fights without waiting hours. He needed to push through exhaustion when there was no time to rest.
The principle is simple: enter a meditative state while your body continues to fight. Let instinct carry the battle while your conscious mind rests. It's dangerous—if your instinct fails, you die. But if it works, you can recover mana mid-combat. You can fight for hours when others would collapse.
I've included the basic framework below. Practice it in safe conditions first. Trust your body to remember what your mind forgets.
Your brother's body remembers everything.
Nova read the technique three times.
Then he stood, found a clear space in his small room, and began to practice.
The sun set over the capital.
In the academy's observation tower, four instructors sat around a holographic display showing the surviving candidates from every group. Names and statistics scrolled past—cultivation ranks, superpower classifications, notable achievements.
"Group Seven produced interesting results," Instructor Mira said. "Five survivors. The lowest average cultivation of any group."
The man who had spoken to Nova—Instructor Thorne—nodded. "The Almond boy. 1st Order, 2nd Rank. Killed a 1st Order, 8th Rank moguen solo."
"Impossible," one of the other instructors said flatly. "The rank差距 alone—"
"Watch the footage."
The holographic display shifted, showing the cavern from multiple angles. Nova's movements played out in accelerated time—the careful kills, the strategic positioning, the final, desperate strike that had brought down the moguen.
They watched in silence.
When it ended, Thorne spoke. "Teleportation affinity. A-rank, according to his registration. But that's not what interests me."
"What does?"
"The way he fights. The economy of motion. The understanding of timing." Thorne leaned forward. "That's not natural talent. That's training. Years of it. Possibly decades."
Mira frowned. "He's fourteen."
"I know." Thorne's eyes were thoughtful. "I know."
Nova practiced until his body gave out.
Battle Meditation was harder than it sounded. Entering a meditative state while moving, while thinking, while fighting—his mind kept snapping back to full awareness, disrupting the flow. Each time, he started over.
By midnight, he could maintain the state for three seconds.
By dawn, for ten.
It wasn't enough. But it was a start.
He ate a sparse breakfast, checked his blades, and walked toward Sky Tower.
The second round waited.
The combat arena was a massive structure in the tower's central core—a circular platform fifty yards across, surrounded by rising tiers of seats already filling with spectators. Families had come to watch their children compete. Scouts from guilds and military branches had come to evaluate talent. The instructors sat in elevated boxes, their expressions unreadable.
Nova found his position among the surviving candidates. There were eighty of them now—the best from each group, gathered for single elimination combat.
Eighty candidates. Sixteen spots.
He would have to win three matches to secure admission.
Three matches against opponents who will all be stronger than me.
He scanned the crowd. Darius Vane stood nearby, his stone-colored skin almost blending with the arena's walls. Seraphina Cross was across the platform, lightning flickering between her fingers. Others he didn't recognize—candidates from different groups, with different powers, different strategies.
The first match was called.
"Darius Vane versus Marcus Webb."
The earth shaper and the spatial senser. Nova watched carefully as they stepped onto the platform.
Marcus's strategy was obvious immediately—avoid, evade, use his spatial sense to predict Darius's attacks. But Darius was smarter than he looked. He didn't chase. He controlled.
The stone beneath Marcus's feet shifted, throwing him off balance. A wall rose behind him, cutting off retreat. The ground opened, threatening to swallow him whole.
Marcus lasted three minutes.
When the earth closed around him—carefully, precisely, non-lethally—he surrendered.
Darius Vane advanced.
The second match: Seraphina Cross versus someone Nova didn't recognize.
The lightning girl was relentless. Her opponent, a water manipulator, tried to counter her attacks with defensive barriers, but Seraphina's lightning found every gap, every weakness, every moment of hesitation. Within two minutes, the water manipulator lay twitching on the platform.
Seraphina advanced.
The third match: Tessa Blackwood versus a flame-wielder from Group Three.
Shadow against fire. Theoretically, fire should win—light banishes darkness. But Tessa was clever. She didn't fight in the open. She flickered at the edges of the flame-wielder's vision, appearing just long enough to strike, disappearing before he could react.
The flame-wielder grew frustrated. His attacks became wild, uncontrolled. He burned through his mana too quickly, too carelessly.
When he finally collapsed from exhaustion, Tessa was standing behind him, her knife at his throat.
Tessa advanced.
Match after match followed. Nova watched them all, cataloging strengths and weaknesses, searching for patterns he could exploit.
By midday, forty candidates remained.
By midafternoon, twenty.
And finally—
"Nova Almond versus Lyra Windborne."
The wind girl from Group Seven. The one who had survived through evasion and precision. She stepped onto the platform with the same fluid grace Nova had observed in the capital, her eyes already tracking, already calculating. Her cultivation base, 1st Order, 3rd Rank.
He stepped up to face her.
The crowd quieted.
The match began.
Lyra moved first.
Wind surged across the platform, not as an attack but as a probe—testing his reactions, his balance, his ability to handle pressure. Nova stood his ground, letting the wind wash over him.
She frowned. Changed tactics.
A blade of compressed air shot toward his chest. He teleported three feet left, letting it pass harmlessly. Another blade. Another teleport. Another.
She's testing my limits, he realized. Seeing how many teleports I have, how fast I can react.
He couldn't let her control the pace.
He teleported forward.
Appearing directly in front of her, blades already extended. Lyra's eyes widened—she hadn't expected aggression. But her reflexes were good. Wind caught her, hurling her backward before his blades could find flesh.
She landed twenty feet away, breathing hard.
"You're fast," she said.
"You're predictable."
Her eyes narrowed. "Am I?"
The wind changed.
Instead of attacking directly, she used it to lift—rising ten feet into the air, out of melee range. From above, she rained compressed air blades in an endless barrage. Nova teleported, dodged, twisted—but she could see his landing points now, could predict where he would appear.
She's learning, he thought. Adapting.
So can I.
He closed his eyes.
Battle Meditation.
The world faded. His body moved on instinct—teleport, dodge, weave—while his conscious mind sank into the meditative state. Mana regeneration began. Slow at first, then faster.
Three units. Five. Eight.
Above him, Lyra's barrage continued. But his instinct was good. Better than good. His body remembered decades of combat that his mind had forgotten.
Twelve units regenerated.
He opened his eyes.
Lyra was still airborne, still attacking, but her movements were slower now. Mana depletion. She had spent too much, too quickly, assuming she could force him to exhaust himself first.
She was wrong.
Nova teleported up.
Sixty-five feet straight into the air, appearing directly beside her. His blade caught her across the ribs—not deep, but enough. She gasped, lost concentration, began to fall.
He teleported down, landing smoothly as she crashed onto the platform.
The wind girl lay still.
The crowd erupted.
Nova walked away without looking back.