Ch7 Cultivation Manual

Captain Unkud allowed a heavy silence to settle across the cavernous chamber before speaking again. Thousands of newly Awakened cadets stood beneath the balcony, exhausted and drenched in sweat, many still clutching their chests as they tried to understand the unfamiliar pulse of power now circulating through their bodies.

Scattered among them were those who would never stand again.

Unkud surveyed the survivors with the same cold expression he had worn throughout the Awakening.

"Pathetic."

The word carried easily through the chamber, amplified until it seemed to come from every wall at once.

"Thousands of you still died. Let that be your first lesson in the Exclipse Army: everyone has limits. Learn yours before those limits destroy you."

Ryan's excitement dimmed as his gaze drifted toward the motionless bodies scattered across the alloy floor. A few minutes ago, he had been too overwhelmed by the transformation happening inside him to truly process them. Now there was no ignoring what the Awakening had cost.

Unkud rested his clawed hands against the balcony railing.

"I will not waste time explaining every biological change currently taking place inside your bodies. Your cores are functional, your Esoteric circulation has been established, and you are now classified as Awakened. Understanding what that means and learning how to use what you have been given are your responsibilities."

He raised one arm, drawing attention to the metallic band around his wrist.

"The device attached to you is your Skynet interface. It serves as your identification, communication system, navigation assistant, biological monitor, training archive, equipment authorization key, and primary access point to Exclipse information systems. If you have questions, ask it. If you don't understand something, learn. Ignorance will not excuse failure."

Ryan looked down at the dark navy band wrapped seamlessly around his wrist. Its faint glow still pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

"You will have the remainder of this cycle to recover and familiarize yourselves with the system," Unkud continued. "Tomorrow, Skynet will issue each of you a mandatory notification directing you to the appropriate teleportation bay."

A murmur spread through the chamber.

Ryan frowned and exchanged a glance with Marcus.

Teleportation bay?

He had expected training to begin quickly, but he'd imagined classrooms, combat simulators, physical evaluations, maybe controlled exercises somewhere inside the station.

Unkud's next words erased that assumption.

"From there, you will be deployed to one of several Exclipse-controlled worlds, where your actual training will begin."

The murmuring grew louder.

Unkud's amber eyes narrowed.

Silence returned almost immediately.

"Prince Vorash considers conventional academy instruction inefficient. His position is that survival, combat, cultivation, and adaptation are learned more effectively through experience than lectures. Whether you agree is irrelevant."

A faint, unpleasant smile touched the Zorvak's scaled face.

"You will learn by doing. You will learn to survive unfamiliar environments, use your new bodies, cultivate your cores, and fight when circumstances demand it. The worlds selected for your training are controlled territories, but do not mistake controlled for safe."

Ryan felt his heartbeat quicken.

Unkud leaned forward slightly.

"Learn everything you can tonight. Tomorrow will be considerably less forgiving."

Then, with a dismissive motion of one claw, he turned away from the balcony and disappeared into the shadows.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Ryan remained where he was, his thoughts struggling to catch up with everything that had happened since he'd stepped off the shuttle.

This morning, he'd said goodbye to his family on Earth.

Now he was standing in an orbital station with a newly Awakened core, thousands of people had died around him, an alien military officer had informed him that he was being teleported to another planet tomorrow, and somehow he was expected to understand how all of this worked before then.

A simple question surfaced through the chaos.

What now?

A soft chime sounded inside his head.

Ryan flinched.

A translucent blue window appeared directly in his field of vision.

[ NOTIFICATION ]

He blinked several times, but the window remained perfectly centered no matter where he looked. When he glanced sideways to see whether anyone else had noticed it, he found thousands of cadets staring into apparently empty space.

Some were blinking rapidly or shifting their eyes as though reading invisible text. Others moved their hands experimentally before realizing there was nothing physical to touch. The sight gave the enormous chamber an eerie quality, as though everyone had suddenly become trapped inside a private world only they could see.

Ryan focused on his notification.

Open.

The window expanded instantly.

His eyebrows rose.

He hadn't spoken or touched the wristband. He had simply wanted the notification to open, and Skynet had responded as naturally as if he'd moved one of his own fingers.

A detailed three-dimensional map of the station unfolded across his vision. His current location appeared as a glowing marker, and a blue route extended through several corridors before terminating inside a residential wing.

[ ASSIGNED QUARTERS: RESIDENTIAL WING C-7 ]

[ REPORT WITHIN: 29:43 ]

The timer immediately began counting down.

Ryan stared at it in fascination. The technology he'd encountered since reaching orbit was beyond anything he'd used on Earth, but this felt different from holograms, autonomous vehicles, or even the spatial materialization he'd seen at intake. The interface wasn't merely around him.

It felt integrated into the way he perceived the world.

Ryan lightly tapped Marcus's arm as the crowd began moving toward the exits.

"You seeing a map?"

Marcus nodded without looking at him. "And a timer. Twenty-nine minutes."

"Same here."

Ryan followed the glowing route through his vision. "I didn't even touch anything. I just thought about opening it and the whole interface expanded."

"Yeah, that's the part I'm trying not to think about."

Ryan glanced at him.

Marcus held up his wrist, studying the seamless band with considerably less enthusiasm.

"This thing stabbed us, synchronized with our biometrics, pumped energy into our bodies during the Awakening, and now it's feeding information directly into our vision. I'm pretty sure it's connected to our central nervous systems."

Ryan looked down at his own band.

Until now, he'd mostly considered it incredible.

That description made it considerably less comforting.

"Okay," Ryan admitted. "That's a little creepy."

Marcus stared at him. "A little?"

Ryan shrugged. "Still incredible technology."

"You're going to say that right up until it starts reading your dreams."

Ryan opened his mouth to answer, but the words died when they reached the edge of the assembly chamber.

Up close, the aftermath was impossible to ignore.

Bodies remained scattered across the alloy floor, some curled onto their sides while others lay flat and motionless beneath the harsh overhead lights. Vanguard proctors moved methodically among them, checking wristbands and vital signs before marking the dead for removal.

There was no panic.

No shouting.

No frantic attempt to restart the process or save someone at the last second.

Only procedure.

Ryan watched one Vanguard proctor kneel beside a girl who looked younger than him. The soldier checked the display on her wristband, pressed two fingers against her neck, then stood and moved to the next body.

Her wristband turned red.

Ryan's stomach tightened.

The air smelled of sweat and ozone, but beneath both lingered the unmistakable metallic scent of blood.

Marcus went silent beside him.

They continued toward the exit.

After several steps, Marcus finally spoke.

"He didn't care."

Ryan knew exactly who he meant.

"Unkud?"

Marcus nodded, staring straight ahead. "Thousands of people died in front of him, and he talked about it like somebody gave him an inconvenient casualty report."

Ryan looked back toward the balcony, although Captain Unkud was long gone.

Marcus rubbed both hands over his face. "That aura alone almost put me on the ground. I swear it felt like a mountain was crushing my skull."

Ryan remembered the pressure forcing his knees to bend and squeezing the air from his lungs. More unsettling was the realization that Unkud had apparently been controlling it the entire time.

"And that wasn't even everything he had," Ryan said quietly.

Marcus glanced at him. "Thanks. I definitely needed to hear that."

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine. I'll just add 'don't annoy eight-foot alien captain' to my survival plan."

Despite himself, Ryan almost smiled.

Marcus pressed a hand against his chest as they walked. "The Awakening was worse, though. When that energy hit me, I honestly thought my core was rejecting it. It felt like something was trying to burn through my ribs from the inside."

Ryan nodded. "For a few seconds, I thought mine was going to burst."

"But then it changed."

Ryan looked over.

Marcus frowned thoughtfully as he opened and closed one hand. "After everything stabilized, I started feeling... different. I'm exhausted, but there's something underneath that."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Ryan knew exactly what he meant.

He focused inward and found the steady presence almost immediately. Before the Awakening, his core had been little more than a warm ember beneath his sternum. Now it possessed weight and rhythm, a quiet reservoir connected to the rest of his body.

"Like there's another heartbeat inside your chest," Ryan said.

Marcus's expression sharpened.

"Yeah. Exactly."

Ryan flexed his fingers.

Even exhausted, his body felt subtly changed. His movements seemed cleaner, his senses a little sharper, and somewhere beneath the fatigue was a feeling of potential that hadn't existed yesterday.

Excitement stirred inside him again.

The emotion immediately made him uncomfortable.

Thousands of people had just died.

He'd stepped around bodies belonging to kids his own age, and yet part of him was still thrilled by what he had become.

Ryan wasn't sure what that said about him. Maybe nothing. Fear and excitement didn't have to cancel each other out. He could hate what had happened in that chamber and still want to understand the power now living inside him.

What mattered was what he did with it.

"Whatever they're throwing us into tomorrow," Ryan said, "we need to learn as much as we can tonight."

Marcus released a slow breath and squared his shoulders. "My current training objective is simpler."

"What?"

"Don't die."

Ryan nodded solemnly. "Strong foundation."

"I'm thinking of maintaining it for all five years."

"Ambitious, but achievable."

Marcus finally laughed.

They reached a massive junction where the flow of cadets separated into different residential sectors. Ryan's navigation route continued ahead while Marcus's curved toward a corridor on the left.

Marcus stopped.

"Looks like this is me."

Ryan held out his fist.

"See you tomorrow."

Marcus bumped it. "Assuming we're assigned to the same place."

"If we're not, try not to get eaten."

"That's your advice?"

"It's free."

"Somehow I still want a refund."

Ryan grinned.

Marcus started away, then paused.

"Ryan."

"Yeah?"

For a moment, Marcus's humor disappeared.

"Good luck, man."

Ryan's expression softened.

"You too."

Marcus disappeared into the stream of cadets.

Ryan continued alone.

The deeper he traveled into the residential wing, the quieter the station became. The roar of the assembly chamber faded until only the steady hum of ventilation and distant machinery remained. Identical reinforced doors lined both sides of the corridor, each marked by a small illuminated identification panel.

Ryan followed the blue path floating across his vision until a familiar figure appeared several meters ahead.

Long black hair.

Blue headband.

His heart jumped.

"Jessica?"

She spun around sharply.

Her shoulders were drawn tight with tension, and her face was noticeably paler than usual. For an instant, she simply stared at him.

Then her blue eyes widened.

"Ryan..."

Relief broke through whatever wall she'd been holding together.

"Oh God."

Her hand rose toward her mouth as tears immediately gathered in her eyes.

"You made it."

Ryan hurried toward her.

"Yeah. I'm okay."

Jessica looked him over from head to toe, almost as though she needed visual confirmation.

"You're alive."

"So are you."

A shaky laugh escaped her, but it faded almost immediately.

Ryan noticed the way her arms were wrapped tightly around her stomach.

"Where are you headed?"

Jessica blinked at the invisible navigation route in front of her. "Left at the end, then right. C-7 residential wing."

Ryan checked his own map.

A little warmth broke through the heaviness in his chest.

"Same."

Jessica managed a faint smile. "Seriously?"

"Looks like we're neighbors."

They started walking together.

For a little while, neither spoke. Their footsteps echoed softly against the metal floor, and Ryan found himself grateful simply to have someone familiar beside him.

Then another familiar face came to mind.

"I hope Jax made it."

Jessica stopped walking.

Ryan took another step before realizing she wasn't beside him anymore.

He turned.

"Jess?"

She was staring at the floor.

"Unkud said thousands died."

Her voice was barely audible.

Ryan's stomach tightened.

"Yeah."

Jessica's breathing became unsteady.

"It was horrible, Ryan."

He moved closer but didn't interrupt.

"The boy beside me..."

Her voice caught.

"He grabbed me during the Awakening."

Ryan remained silent.

Jessica wrapped one hand around her opposite arm, fingers tightening against the fabric of her uniform.

"He was terrified. When the energy started, he grabbed my sleeve and wouldn't let go. He kept screaming for his mother and asking me to help him."

Her eyes filled again.

"I couldn't."

"Jess—"

"I couldn't even help myself."

Her voice rose despite her attempt to control it.

"My whole body was burning. I could barely stay on my feet, and he kept pulling on me and begging me to do something. His wristband started flashing red, and I knew something was wrong, but there was nothing I could do."

Tears slipped freely down her cheeks now.

Ryan felt completely useless.

"He looked at me right before it happened," Jessica continued, her voice trembling harder. "That's the part I can't stop seeing. He looked straight at me, Ryan."

She swallowed.

"Then his eyes just... weren't there anymore. He fell at my feet, and everyone kept screaming, and the process didn't even stop."

Ryan's throat tightened.

For a moment, his mind produced the cold, obvious explanation.

Captain Unkud had warned anyone whose will had fractured to leave. The boy had been given a chance.

Ryan immediately pushed the thought aside.

It didn't matter.

Whatever decision the boy had made, Jessica had watched another fifteen-year-old die while begging her for help. Explaining why it happened wasn't going to make that memory disappear.

Ryan opened his mouth, searching for something useful to say.

Nothing came.

Jessica wiped at her face and gave him a miserable look.

"You're not going to make fun of me for crying, are you?"

Ryan blinked.

"What?"

"You make fun of everything."

"Jess, no."

"I know I'm being—"

"You're not."

She looked away.

Ryan stepped closer and rested a hand gently on her shoulder.

"It's not stupid."

Jessica's eyes returned to him.

Ryan hesitated.

He had never been particularly good at this, and trying to sound wise would probably make things worse.

So he didn't.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say."

Jessica stared at him in surprise.

Ryan continued quietly.

"What happened in there was horrible. You watched somebody die, and you couldn't do anything to stop it. You're allowed to be upset about that."

Her lips trembled.

"Tomorrow they're sending us to another planet."

"I know."

"What if it's worse?"

Ryan didn't answer immediately.

He could have told her everything would be fine, but after what they'd just survived, the words would have sounded hollow.

"I don't know what tomorrow is going to be like," he admitted. "But I know you won't have to walk into it alone."

Jessica looked at him.

"We stick together."

"What if we're assigned to different groups?"

"Then we'll find each other before deployment and figure it out."

"Ryan..."

"I'm serious. We've known each other too long for you to get rid of me now."

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Ryan smiled.

"There. That's better."

Jessica wiped beneath one eye. "You're really bad at comforting people."

"I was doing pretty well until you started reviewing the performance."

"No. You were terrible from the beginning."

"Wow."

Ryan pressed a hand against his chest.

"I open my heart and immediately get attacked."

Jessica laughed again, softer this time, but genuine.

Her fear hadn't vanished. Ryan could see that clearly. Nothing he said was going to erase the memory of the boy dying beside her.

But her breathing had steadied.

For now, that was enough.

"Wait outside my room tomorrow?" she asked after a moment. "Before we go to the teleportation bay?"

Ryan nodded.

"Absolutely."

Jessica searched his face.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

They continued through the residential wing together, no longer needing to fill the silence.

A few corridors later, Jessica's navigation line terminated at a door.

[ QUARTERS C7-184 ]

She stopped.

"This is me."

Ryan checked his own route.

"Mine's only a few doors down."

Jessica placed her palm near the access panel. The door slid open with a quiet hiss.

She hesitated at the threshold.

"Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He smiled.

"Get some rest, Jess."

"You too."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Jessica gave him one last tired smile before stepping inside.

The door closed.

Ryan stood there for another second before continuing down the corridor.

Five doors later, his interface chimed.

[ DESTINATION REACHED ]

A blue outline appeared around the entrance.

The door opened automatically.

Ryan stepped inside and stopped.

The room was tiny.

A narrow platform bed extended from one wall, while a compact bathroom occupied the opposite corner behind a sliding partition. The walls were bare alloy, without decorations, windows, or anything resembling personal comfort.

Ryan slowly looked around.

"Really went all-out on the prison aesthetic."

The door sealed behind him with a heavy thud, cutting off the remaining noise from the corridor.

A recessed storage shelf beside the bathroom caught his attention.

His issued equipment had already been placed there.

A folded Exclipse uniform rested beside lightweight combat boots and a tactical utility harness. Several unfamiliar pieces of equipment occupied the lower shelf, along with a combat knife secured inside a magnetic sheath.

Then Ryan noticed the sidearm.

His fatigue momentarily disappeared.

"No way."

He stepped closer.

The weapon was compact, built from a dark alien alloy with a narrow energy chamber running along its upper frame.

Ryan recognized the model immediately.

Every student learned the basics of standard Exclipse weaponry in school. He'd studied diagrams of this exact particle sidearm, memorized safety procedures, and spent hours using training replicas.

Seeing the real thing sitting a few feet away was different.

Ryan reached toward it.

A warning flashed across his vision.

[ EQUIPMENT ACCESS RESTRICTED ]

His hand stopped.

"Seriously?"

[ AUTHORIZATION REQUIREMENTS NOT MET. ]

Ryan sighed.

"Fine."

He looked longingly at the weapon for another moment before turning away.

The moment he sat on the bed, exhaustion crashed over him.

His shoulders sagged.

For the first time since arriving at the orbital station, he was completely alone.

No screaming.

No orders.

No crowds.

No Captain Unkud.

Only the low vibration of machinery somewhere beyond the walls.

Ryan rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the wristband.

Its dark navy surface remained perfectly smooth.

No screen.

No buttons.

No visible seam.

He turned his arm over.

Nothing.

The technology fascinated him, but Marcus's earlier words lingered.

The device knew his identity and location. It monitored his heart, his nervous system, and his core. It had somehow projected information directly into his visual perception and responded to conscious intent.

Ryan had no idea where the boundary between monitoring and access actually ended.

His father's words returned.

More than you'd think.

Ryan frowned.

"What exactly did you know, Dad?"

The room offered no answer.

He sat there for another moment before pushing the unease aside.

Whatever Skynet was capable of, he needed it.

Tomorrow he was being teleported to another planet, and right now he barely understood what being Awakened meant.

Ryan focused on the small blue icon floating at the edge of his vision.

"How do I use my powers?"

Nothing happened.

He waited.

"Hello?"

Still nothing.

Ryan frowned.

Maybe direct questions weren't enough.

He remembered the old voice assistants he'd used back home.

Worth trying.

"Skynet."

The interface immediately brightened.

[ AWAITING QUERY. ]

Ryan straightened.

"Oh, that's cool."

[ QUERY UNCLEAR. ]

"I wasn't asking—never mind."

He rubbed his hands together.

"Skynet, how do I use my powers?"

The response came immediately.

[ TERMINOLOGY: "POWERS" — AMBIGUOUS. ]

Ryan rolled his eyes.

"Of course it is."

More text appeared.

[ IF USER IS REFERRING TO TALENTS: TALENT ACTIVATION REQUIRES X ENERGY. ]

Ryan's irritation vanished.

"X Energy?"

He'd heard the term countless times before. Streamers talked about X Energy crystals. Military broadcasts referenced X Energy reserves and equipment. Ryan had always understood it as a resource.

Apparently, there was more to it.

"Skynet, what is X Energy?"

[ X ENERGY IS REFINED ESOTERIC ENERGY COMPATIBLE WITH INTERNAL BIOLOGICAL CIRCULATION, CULTIVATION, SKILL EXECUTION, AND TALENT ACTIVATION. ]

Ryan reread the answer.

"So Esoteric Energy and X Energy aren't the same thing."

[ CORRECT. ]

That caught him off guard.

He leaned forward.

"Skynet, explain the difference."

The system responded instantly.

[ ESOTERIC ENERGY IS THE RAW AMBIENT ENERGY PRESENT THROUGHOUT COMPATIBLE ENVIRONMENTS. AN AWAKENED CORE CAN ABSORB AND REFINE ESOTERIC ENERGY INTO X ENERGY. ]

Ryan's eyes widened slightly.

Now things were beginning to connect.

Esoteric Energy was the raw source.

His core was the refinery.

X Energy was the usable product.

"Okay. How do I make X Energy?"

[ THROUGH CULTIVATION. ]

Ryan waited.

That was apparently the entire answer.

"Very detailed."

No response.

Ryan sighed.

"Skynet, how do I cultivate?"

[ REQUEST THE CULTIVATION MANUAL TO PROCEED. ]

Ryan stared at the interface.

"You couldn't just open it automatically?"

Silence.

He was beginning to suspect Skynet had no sense of humor.

"Skynet, open the Cultivation Manual."

The interface expanded.

A large document appeared across his vision.

[ EXCLIPSE INTERNAL CULTIVATION MANUAL ]

[ HUMAN COMPATIBILITY EDITION ]

Ryan stared at the title.

"Cultivation."

It sounded like something from an old fantasy game.

He opened the first section expecting ancient diagrams, mystical philosophy, or at least something remotely dramatic.

Instead, anatomical schematics filled his vision.

Blood vessels.

Nerve pathways.

Core diagrams.

Energy-flow equations.

Biological warnings.

Pages of alien terminology.

Ryan's enthusiasm deflated.

"It's a textbook."

Apparently humanity could conquer Dungeons, travel between worlds, awaken supernatural abilities, and build stations in orbit.

Homework had survived all of it.

Ryan shifted farther onto the bed, crossed his legs, and opened the first chapter.

[ FUNDAMENTALS OF CULTIVATION ]

The manual began by dividing cultivation into two broad disciplines: External Cultivation and Internal Cultivation.

External Cultivation was immediately familiar.

Physical conditioning, resistance training, repetitive combat movement, muscular development, and skeletal reinforcement all fell under its domain. Once someone became Awakened, controlled use of X Energy could enhance those processes dramatically, allowing the body to develop beyond the natural limits of an ordinary human.

But the manual made one point repeatedly clear.

External training alone had a ceiling.

Muscle could only become so dense before the structure supporting it became the weakness. Bones could only endure so much force. Reaction speed, cardiovascular output, and neural processing could be improved, but eventually normal biology reached a point where greater physical strain produced diminishing returns or catastrophic damage.

Internal Cultivation existed to push that ceiling higher.

Ryan leaned forward.

Now it was getting interesting.

According to the manual, human Internal Cultivation was divided into nine primary ranks, each representing a major stage in the body's ability to store, circulate, and withstand X Energy.

The foundation of the entire system was a network of three hundred sixty Qi Points distributed throughout the human body.

Ryan opened the accompanying anatomical diagram.

A translucent human figure appeared in front of him.

Hundreds of tiny points glowed across it, beginning around the torso and spreading through the spine, limbs, neck, hands, feet, and head.

Ryan stared.

"Three hundred sixty?"

The manual continued.

Each primary rank required the opening of forty Qi Points in a prescribed sequence.

Forty points for Rank One.

Another forty for Rank Two.

And so on until all three hundred sixty had been opened.

Within each rank, every ten successfully opened Qi Points represented a sub-rank milestone, producing a larger improvement in energy throughput and physical capability than an individual point normally provided.

Ryan mentally worked through it.

Ten points.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Then forty completed the rank.

After that, the next forty began.

"Okay," he murmured. "That's actually pretty straightforward."

The difficult part, unsurprisingly, was opening them.

Ryan moved to the next section.

Internal Cultivation operated through a cycle.

First, an Awakened individual had to consciously sense and absorb ambient Esoteric Energy from the surrounding environment.

Second, that raw energy was drawn into the core, where it was refined into X Energy.

Third, the refined X Energy entered specialized internal pathways intertwined with the circulatory system, allowing the body to store and move it safely.

Finally, once enough X Energy had accumulated, the cultivator directed it toward the next Qi Point in the prescribed sequence.

Ryan enlarged the diagram.

The manual described Qi Points as natural restrictions within the body's Esoteric circulation network. By repeatedly applying controlled X Energy pressure against one of those restrictions, a cultivator could gradually weaken it until the point opened.

Once opened, the Qi Point became part of the active circulation network, increasing the volume of X Energy the body could safely process.

Each new point improved the system.

More energy could circulate.

More power could be stored.

Greater physical reinforcement became possible.

The body gradually transformed to accommodate what it was becoming.

Ryan's excitement grew as he continued reading.

Then several red warnings appeared.

[ WARNING: QI POINT SEQUENCE MUST BE FOLLOWED EXACTLY. ]

[ ATTEMPTING TO FORCE AN UNAUTHORIZED QI POINT MAY RESULT IN PATHWAY RUPTURE, INTERNAL HEMORRHAGE, CORE INSTABILITY, ORGAN DAMAGE, OR DEATH. ]

Ryan stared at the final word.

"Death again."

At this point, he was starting to think the Exclipse should put it on their recruitment posters.

He returned to the progression chart.

[ CURRENT CULTIVATION RANK: UNRANKED ]

[ QI POINTS OPEN: 0 / 360 ]

[ RANK ONE PROGRESS: 0 / 40 ]

Ryan stared at the zero longer than he wanted to admit.

After surviving the Aptitude Test, leaving Earth, enduring Captain Unkud's aura, and completing the Awakening, he still hadn't technically reached Rank One.

That was humbling.

Awakening hadn't made him powerful.

It had given him the ability to become powerful.

There was a significant difference.

Ryan touched his sternum, feeling the quiet rhythm of his core beneath his chest.

"All right."

Three hundred sixty points stood between him and the theoretical end of the human cultivation system.

He only needed to worry about the first one.

Before beginning, however, another question occurred to him.

"Skynet, show me my Talent."

The interface flickered.

[ TALENT INFORMATION UNAVAILABLE. ]

Ryan frowned.

"Why?"

[ TALENT ASSESSMENT REQUIRES INITIAL CULTIVATION MILESTONE. ]

"What milestone?"

[ OPEN QI POINT 001. ]

Ryan's eyebrows rose.

"So once I open my first Qi Point, you'll tell me what my Talent is?"

[ AFFIRMATIVE. ]

Ryan slowly smiled.

Now there was motivation.

He reopened the manual and navigated directly to the beginner cultivation exercise.

A detailed image appeared showing the location of the first Qi Point near the center of the chest, positioned along an Esoteric pathway just below the core.

The instructions recommended that beginners first learn to sense ambient Esoteric Energy before attempting absorption.

Ryan closed his eyes.

At first, he felt nothing beyond the ordinary sensations of his body.

His heartbeat.

His breathing.

The hard mattress beneath him.

The faint vibration of the station.

Then he noticed his core.

It was easier now.

The steady pulse beneath his sternum felt separate from his heart, a compact presence that seemed to exist both physically and somewhere deeper.

Ryan focused on it.

The manual instructed him to breathe slowly and allow his awareness to expand outward instead of forcing it.

He inhaled.

Held.

Exhaled.

Nothing happened.

Ryan tried again.

Still nothing.

A third attempt produced exactly the same result.

He opened one eye.

"This is going great."

Skynet, wisely, offered no opinion.

Ryan closed his eye again.

He adjusted his breathing and stopped trying so hard.

That was more difficult than it sounded.

Every time he searched for Esoteric Energy, his mind immediately started asking what it was supposed to feel like.

Warm?

Cold?

Electric?

Heavy?

He didn't know.

So Ryan stopped searching for a specific sensation.

He simply listened.

The hum of the station gradually faded from his awareness.

His breathing slowed.

His muscles relaxed.

For several minutes, nothing changed.

Then something brushed against the edge of his perception.

Ryan's brow furrowed.

It was so faint that he initially thought he'd imagined it.

Not heat.

Not sound.

Something else.

A subtle pressure seemed to hang in the air around him, invisible yet strangely present.

Ryan reached toward it with his awareness.

The sensation vanished.

His eyes opened.

He sat completely still.

Then a grin slowly spread across his face.

"There you are."

He checked the time.

He should sleep.

Tomorrow, they were sending him to another world, and he had no idea what would be waiting there.

The intelligent decision would be to rest.

Ryan looked at the progression display again.

[ QI POINTS OPEN: 0 / 360 ]

Then at the locked Talent notification.

He lasted approximately three seconds.

"One more try."

Ryan crossed his legs again, straightened his back, and closed his eyes.

This time, he knew what he was searching for.

Somewhere beyond the alloy walls of his room, the orbital station continued its endless journey around Earth. Millions of newly Awakened cadets were settling into their quarters, grieving, sleeping, studying, or trying to understand the strange new lives they'd been thrown into.

Tomorrow would bring another planet.

Another test.

Maybe Ryan's first real fight.

But tonight, none of that mattered.

Tonight, Ryan Lowell had one goal.

Find the energy.

Draw it into his core.

And open the first of three hundred sixty Qi Points.