Forty-five days passed.
The Genesis Zenith Academy did not slow down. It sped up. The announcement of the off-world hunt changed the entire atmosphere of the freshman class.
Fear is a highly efficient motivator.
Before the announcement, the students complained about the pain. They whined about their aching muscles and the terrible food. After Instructor Boras told them about the Core Formation beasts waiting in the jungle, the complaining stopped completely.
They realized their lives literally depended on the daily metrics. If they slacked off for a single hour, they were just preparing to be eaten alive.
The training became brutal. The daily routine was a grinder. Wake up before the sun. Run until your lungs tasted like copper. Lift heavy stones until your muscle fibers tore. Sit in the dark and force ambient Aether into the broken tissue. Sleep. Repeat.
Many students failed. The physical and mental stress was too high. Some quit in the middle of the night and accepted the shame of returning to their home planets. Others pushed themselves too hard, ruptured their own Aether pathways, and were carried out of the arenas on medical stretchers.
The weak were filtered out. The survivors adapted.
Jin adapted faster than anyone else.
He sat cross-legged in the dirt of the practical combat arena. He breathed in a sharp, harsh rhythm. He checked his internal core.
He was Foundation Level 7.
The progress was staggering. His Devourer body strengthening technique worked flawlessly. The painful, awkward postures broke his body down, and his Null Gene absorbed the dense Academy Aether perfectly to rebuild it. He also had capital. He used the stolen bandit cores to buy high-density beast meat from the senior students. He fueled his own rapid growth with pure calories and money.
He opened his dark eyes. He looked at his study group sitting in the dirt next to him. They were a highly functional unit now.
Rian sat on his left. The boy from the eastern borders was covered in dark bruises, but his shoulders were much wider now. He was at Foundation Level 6. His physical strikes were heavy and carried real kinetic force.
Elin sat quietly beside Rian. Her hands were wrapped in fresh, clean bandages. She was at Foundation Level 4. She was not a heavy hitter, but her speed was increasing daily.
Then there was Luna.
Jin looked at the small ledger keeper. She was the biggest statistical anomaly in the group.
In just a month and a half, Luna had skyrocketed. She bypassed Elin entirely. She sat calmly in the dirt, radiating a strange, weightless energy. She was Foundation Level 5.
Her rapid growth made logical sense when Jin analyzed the variables. The space-attribute core he bought her was a perfect, pure catalyst. Because she was a weak mortal before coming here, her body had no bad habits and no previous Aether damage. She was a blank slate. Her cells absorbed the spatial energy like dry sand drinking water.
She still lacked raw physical strength. She could not punch a hole in a stone wall like Rian. But her affinity for distance was growing sharp. The air around her fingers often rippled and distorted when she concentrated. She was becoming hard to touch.
A heavy boot stepped into Jin's line of sight.
Instructor Thorne walked slowly down the rows of seated students. The giant man did not yell today. His massive arms were crossed tightly over his dark grey uniform.
The dirt arena was quiet. The heavy sound of hundreds of students panting was gone.
They had just finished their daily physical conditioning. They ran the fifty laps. They did the hundred sit-ups, the squats, and the pull-ups.
Nobody vomited in the dirt today. Nobody collapsed. Nobody cried.
Thorne stopped walking. He stood in the exact center of the arena. He looked around the room. His flat, cold eyes scanned the hundreds of surviving freshmen. He looked at their posture. He looked at their steady breathing.
Thorne walked up to a tall boy in the front row. Without any warning, Thorne kicked the boy hard in the side of the knee with his heavy leather boot.
A month ago, that kick would have shattered the boy's leg and sent him screaming to the floor. Today, the boy just grunted. His leg locked into place. He did not fall over. His stance held firm.
Thorne nodded once. He stepped back.
"Stop your breathing techniques," Thorne commanded. His deep voice echoed off the cold steel walls.
The students opened their eyes. They stopped pulling in Aether. They stood up from the dirt. They moved in unison. There was no wobbling. There were no shaking knees. They stood perfectly straight.
Thorne uncrossed his massive arms.
"You finally stopped acting like fragile children," Thorne said bluntly. "You do not look like wet noodles anymore. Your legs are solid. Your cores are stable. Your foundation is actually a foundation."
Thorne looked at the group. He did not smile, but the heavy disappointment was gone from his tone.
"Every single one of you standing here has reached the requirements I set on the first day," Thorne announced.
The students held their breath. A ripple of anticipation ran through the dirt arena. They had spent forty-five days doing nothing but basic, brutal calisthenics. They watched the rich kids in other classes practice flashy elemental attacks while they were stuck doing push-ups. They were desperate for the next step.
Thorne turned his massive body. He raised his thick right arm.
He pointed a finger at the perimeter of the arena. He pointed at the heavy wooden racks covering the steel walls.
"Since everyone has met the baseline," Thorne said, his voice dropping low, "you have earned the right to hold steel. You will not break your own wrists when you swing anymore."
He dropped his arm.
"Go to the walls," Thorne ordered. "Select your weapon. Do not pick something because it looks pretty. Do not pick a weapon because your father used it. Pick a tool that fits your current body weight. Pick a tool you can use to kill."
The strict formation broke instantly.
The freshmen walked quickly toward the edges of the room. They did not run, but they moved with eager, focused energy.
Jin walked toward the closest steel wall.
The smell of gun oil and cold iron filled his nose. The wooden racks were massive. They held hundreds of identical, standard-issue training weapons. They were not dull wooden sticks. They were live, lethal steel.
He saw rows of longswords, heavy broadswords, spears, jagged axes, and thick iron maces.
Rian walked straight past the swords. He went directly to the spear rack. He pulled down a heavy ash-wood shaft with a foot-long steel blade at the tip. He tested the weight, thrusting it forward into the empty air. It fit his fighting style perfectly.
Elin moved to the small blades. She picked up two short, curved iron daggers. She spun them in her hands, testing the balance.
Luna walked slowly along the wall. She did not look at the heavy axes or the longswords. She was Level 5, but she was not a close-quarters brawler. Her space legacy required distance. She stopped in front of a rack of small, light throwing knives and a simple iron shortsword. She took the shortsword just for basic defense.
Jin stood in front of the weapons. He analyzed his options.
He was Level 7. His muscles were incredibly dense from the Devourer technique. He needed a weapon that utilized raw kinetic force.
A rapier was useless. An axe was too slow. A standard longsword was too fragile; he would likely snap the blade against a Core Formation beast's armor.
He walked further down the wall. He found a section of heavy blades.
He stopped in front of a rack holding thick, single-edged falchions. They were heavy, brutal chopping swords. The blade was wide at the top to add massive weight to a downward swing. They were designed to hack through thick bone and heavy jungle brush.
It was an ugly weapon. It was not elegant. It was just a heavy piece of sharpened steel on a leather-wrapped handle.
It was perfect.
Jin reached out. He grabbed the leather handle of a heavy falchion. He pulled it off the wooden rack. The metal was cold. The weight was significant, but his Level 7 arm held it easily.
He swung the blade in a short, tight arc. The heavy steel cut through the air with a low whistle.
It felt right. It felt like a proper tool for a hostile acquisition. He lowered the blade to his side. He had his weapon. The tournament was only a few weeks away. The real violence was about to begin.