The second morning was worse than the first.
Nova's body screamed before he even opened his eyes. Every muscle, every tendon, every joint protested the thought of movement. When he finally forced himself upright, the inhibitor bracelet's 2x gravity pressed down like a physical weight, crushing him back toward the mattress.
I can't, his body pleaded. Just five more minutes. An hour. A day.
He stood anyway.
Darius was already in the hallway, looking only marginally better than Nova felt. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and his usual stone-colored skin had a grayish pallor.
"You look terrible," Nova said.
"You look worse."
They walked to the training ground in silence, joined by other Class A students stumbling through the dawn. Kaelen moved with exaggerated slowness, groaning with each step. Seraphina's lightning had been replaced by a permanent wince. Even Tessa Blackwood, usually so composed in shadows, looked like she hadn't slept at all.
Instructor Valerius waited at the training ground, utterly unbothered by the hour or the temperature or the suffering of thirty teenagers.
"Line up."
They lined up.
"Bracelets active?"
A chorus of groans confirmed it.
"Good. Today, we work on endurance." Valerius smiled—the expression of someone who genuinely enjoyed her job. "You'll be running. Not fast—fast is easy. You'll be running at a steady pace for the next hour. Anyone who stops starts over. Anyone who collapses gets carried to medical and starts again tomorrow. Begin."
The run was torture.
Double gravity turned every step into a weighted plod. The track circled the training ground—half a mile per lap—and Valerius set a pace that felt reasonable for the first five minutes. By ten, Nova's lungs were burning. By fifteen, his legs were numb. By twenty, he was running on nothing but stubbornness and the memory of his sister's words.
I killed ten thousand people to give you this chance. Don't waste it.
He ran.
Around him, students began to fall behind. Corbin Hale dropped out at twenty-five minutes, vomiting onto the track. Tessa Blackwood collapsed at thirty-two, carried away by medical drones. Rina Moon kept going, her spatial sense probably helping her pace herself, but even she was flagging.
Nova counted laps to keep his mind occupied.
Lap four. Five. Six. How many is that? Miles? I don't know. Doesn't matter. Just keep moving.
By forty-five minutes, only a handful remained—Darius, Kaelen, Seraphina, Rina, Vivienne, and Nova. The core of Class A, the ones who refused to quit.
By fifty-five minutes, even they were barely moving.
Nova's vision had narrowed to a tunnel. The track existed. His feet existed. The burning in his chest existed. Nothing else was real.
Ten thousand souls. Don't waste it. Don't waste it. Don't—
"Time."
He collapsed.
He woke on a medical bed, staring at the same white ceiling he was starting to recognize.
A healer leaned over him, checking vitals with practiced efficiency.
"Dehydration. Severe muscle fatigue. Early signs of mana starvation—your body started consuming its own reserves when physical energy ran out." She clicked her tongue. "You're lucky we got to you when we did. Another five minutes and you'd have done real damage."
Nova tried to speak. His throat was sandpaper.
"Don't talk. Drink." A cup of water appeared at his lips. He drank greedily, ignoring the way it sloshed in his empty stomach. "Slowly. You'll throw it up."
He forced himself to slow.
Around him, other beds held other students. Corbin Hale was unconscious, an IV drip feeding fluids into his arm. Tessa Blackwood sat propped against pillows, staring at nothing. Rina Moon was already arguing with a healer about being released.
"Your bracelet stays on," the healer said firmly. "Academy rules. No exceptions."
"But my spatial sense—"
"Will function perfectly well while you rest. Stay. Put."
Rina subsided, grumbling.
Nova closed his eyes and let the healing warmth spread through his body.
By evening, most of Class A had recovered enough to attend their remaining classes.
Nova sat through Magical Theory with half his attention, taking notes on autopilot while his mind drifted. The instructor—a small woman with spectacles and a 4th Order cultivation—droned on about mana circulation patterns and meridian optimization. Important information, probably. He'd absorb it later.
After Theory came Dungeon Ecology. After Ecology came Weapon Maintenance. Hour after hour of classes, each one demanding focus he didn't have, each one pushing him further into exhaustion.
The inhibitor bracelet never came off.
By the time evening training ended and the bracelets were finally deactivated, Nova was running on fumes. The sudden return of his teleportation felt like regaining a lost sense—the world opened up again, distances becoming negotiable, obstacles becoming irrelevant.
But he was too tired to use it.
He walked to his dorm room on shaky legs, fell onto his bed, and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
The third morning was somehow easier.
Not because his body hurt less—it hurt more. Not because the run was shorter—it was longer, a full ninety minutes this time. But because Nova had learned something crucial.
The pain doesn't stop. You just stop caring about it.
He ran. He collapsed. He recovered. He attended classes. He trained. He slept. He woke and did it again.
Days blurred together.
By the end of the first week, Nova could run for two hours without collapsing. By the end of the second, he could spar effectively even under double gravity, his body adapting to the weight until it felt almost normal.
The other students noticed.
"You're different," Rina said one evening, as they walked back from combat class. "When we started, you were struggling to keep up. Now you're matching Kaelen in endurance drills."
"Adaptation."
"That's not adaptation. That's something else." She studied him with her spatial sense—still partially functional even through the inhibitor. "Your body is changing. Getting denser. Stronger. Faster than normal training should allow."
Nova said nothing. His bloodline activation—now at 14%—was accelerating his physical development. The Almond Family Physique was designed for exactly this kind of training. Each day of brutal exercise awakened it further, pushing his body toward its inherited potential.
He checked his interface that night.
BLOODLINE ACTIVATION: 16% (+2% from two weeks of training)
PHYSIQUE BONUSES: +24% strength, +11% durability, +8% mana capacity, +5% regeneration
NOTE: Bloodline responds to physical stress. Continued intense training will accelerate activation.
Sixteen percent. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.
He lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Three months to maintain my position in Class A. Three months of this every day. Three months of pushing past every limit.
The Godless System's quest pulsed in the corner of his vision, a constant reminder of what was at stake.
He could do this. He would do this.
For Nora. For Eliza. For the man he used to be.
For himself.