The knock came at 4:30 AM.
Nova was already awake. Years of village life had conditioned him to rise before dawn, and the academy's schedule left no room for laziness. He dressed quickly—simple training clothes, no weapons allowed for morning exercise—and opened the door.
Darius stood in the hallway, already dressed, his expression as unreadable as ever.
"First day of morning training. We go together."
It wasn't a question.
Nova nodded and fell into step beside him. They walked through the quiet dormitory halls, past doors that were just beginning to open, past students rubbing sleep from their eyes and muttering complaints about the hour.
"Any advice?" Nova asked.
"Don't fall behind. Don't complain. Don't draw attention to yourself." Darius glanced at him. "You're the lowest rank in Class A. Everyone will be watching to see if you belong. Prove that you do."
Nova said nothing. He'd been proving himself his whole life—or at least, the whole life he could remember.
The training ground was a massive open space behind the main academy building. Padded mats covered the ground, and strange equipment lined the walls—devices Nova didn't recognize, their purposes unclear.
Thirty students from Class A gathered in loose formation. Nova recognized most of them from the list: Tessa Blackwood standing alone in the shadows, Vivienne Reed examining a plant that had no business growing on a training mat, Corbin Hale stretching with practiced ease, Rina Moon watching everything with her spatial sense fully extended.
And at the front, waiting with obvious impatience, stood a woman Nova hadn't met before.
She was tall—taller than any woman he'd seen—with close-cropped dark hair and arms corded with muscle. Her cultivation was impossible to sense, which meant she was at least 5th Order. Possibly higher. A scar ran from her left temple to her jaw, barely missing her eye.
"You're late."
The words cut through the morning air like a blade.
Nova checked the time. 4:55. They were five minutes early.
"I said you're late." The woman's eyes swept over the assembled students. "In my class, if you're not here five minutes before start, you're late. If you're late once, you run laps until you throw up. If you're late twice, you're out of Class A. Understood?"
Murmurs of acknowledgment.
"I can't hear you."
"UNDERSTOOD!"
"Better." The woman began to pace in front of them. "I am Instructor Valerius. I teach physical conditioning, close combat, and survival. In this class, your superpowers mean nothing. In this class, you learn what your body can do without the crutch of mana and abilities."
She stopped in front of a cart loaded with metal bracelets.
"These are inhibitor cuffs. They block your ability to access your superpowers for the duration of training. They also increase the gravitational load on your body. Today, you'll start at 2x gravity. By the end of the month, some of you might handle 3x."
She picked up a bracelet and tossed it to the nearest student—Corbin Hale. He caught it, examined it with obvious distaste, and clamped it around his wrist.
The effect was immediate. Corbin's flame affinity vanished—Nova could sense it, the sudden absence of heat that had surrounded the boy. And his posture changed, shoulders dropping as if carrying an invisible weight.
"Next."
The bracelets were distributed. Nova caught his and studied it before putting it on. Simple metal, unadorned, with faint runes etched along its surface. The Godless System pinged.
GODLESS SYSTEM DETECTED: EXTERNAL INHIBITOR
DEVICE: Standard Academy Inhibitor Bracelet — Grade: B
EFFECT: Blocks superpower access — Active gravitational enhancement: 2x
DETECTED LOCK ON: Teleportation (A-Rank)
SYSTEM CAPABILITY: Inhibitor can be bypassed. Would you like to disable the lock?
[YES] — [NO]
Nova hesitated.
The bracelet would make this training harder—much harder. Without teleportation, without mana, under double gravity, he would be forced to rely on nothing but his physical body. His bloodline was partially active, giving him 22% enhanced strength, but that was passive—it would still function.
But disabling the lock would be cheating. And cheating meant he wouldn't truly know his limits.
No, he told the System. Leave it active.
Acknowledged. Inhibitor accepted.
He clamped the bracelet around his wrist.
The world changed.
His teleportation vanished—not blocked, but gone, like a limb that had fallen asleep. He couldn't feel it at all. And the weight... the weight pressed down on him like he was carrying another person on his shoulders. Every movement required more effort. Every breath came harder.
This is what normal people feel, he realized. This is what it's like without power.
Around him, other students were having similar reactions. Tessa Blackwood stumbled as her shadow manipulation vanished. Rina Moon gasped, suddenly blind without her spatial sense. Even Kaelen Stoneheart—1st Order, 8th Rank—looked uncomfortable as his stone skin became inaccessible.
"Get used to it," Instructor Valerius said. "This is your life for the next hour every morning. Now—line up."
The exercises were brutal.
Push-ups first. In 2x gravity, every push-up felt like lifting twice his body weight. Nova managed thirty before his arms started shaking. Forty before his chest burned. Fifty before he collapsed.
"Get up." Valerius's voice was right behind him. "You're not done until I say you're done."
He got up.
Sixty push-ups. Seventy. At eighty, his vision blurred. At ninety, his arms gave out completely.
"Rest. Thirty seconds. Then squats."
Nova lay on the mat, gasping, while other students continued. Kaelen was still going strong at one hundred twenty. Darius moved with mechanical precision, never fast but never stopping. Seraphina—lightning girl without her lightning—struggled but refused to quit.
They're all stronger than me, Nova thought. Even without powers, they've trained longer, prepared harder.
Thirty seconds passed too quickly.
Squats. Two hundred of them. Lunges. Burpees. Sprint drills across the training ground, each step feeling like running through water.
By the end of the first hour, Nova could barely stand.
"Good." Valerius surveyed her trembling class with something that might have been satisfaction. "You survived. Tomorrow, we do it again. And the day after. And every day until you can do this without collapsing."
She walked away.
Around Nova, students began to peel themselves off the mats. Some were vomiting into buckets placed at the edges of the training ground. Others simply lay where they'd fallen, too exhausted to move.
Darius appeared beside him. The earth shaper was sweating, his breath heavy, but he was still standing.
"You made it."
"Barely."
"Barely counts." Darius offered a hand. "Come on. Breakfast in thirty minutes. You'll need the calories."
Nova took the hand and let himself be pulled up.
His body screamed. Every muscle, every joint, every bone protested the movement. But he was standing. He was alive. He had survived.
And tomorrow, he thought, I'll do it again.
Breakfast was a quiet affair.
The Class A students sat together at a long table in the dining hall, too exhausted to talk much. Nova ate mechanically—eggs, meat, bread, anything that would replenish what he'd burned. Across from him, Kaelen consumed enough food for three people.
"First day always hurts," Kaelen said between bites. "Second day hurts worse. Third day, you stop feeling pain entirely because everything's already numb."
"Comforting."
"Not meant to be comforting. Meant to be true."
Nova nodded and kept eating.
His wrist itched. The inhibitor bracelet was still there, still blocking his teleportation, still pressing 2x gravity onto his body. It would remain until evening training ended—twelve more hours of carrying this weight.
He finished his breakfast and stood.
"First class starts in an hour. Combat Fundamentals with Instructor Thorne." Darius was watching him. "You ready?"
Nova thought about his screaming muscles, his depleted energy, his twelve more hours of double gravity.
"No," he admitted. "But I'm going anyway."
Darius almost smiled.
"Good answer."