They gave Nexar a small room for the night.
It wasn't really a room.
It was closer to a storage cell that had been cleaned enough to become one.
One narrow bed. One metal table. One chair.
No window.
The walls were plain grey alloy, and a thin strip of white light ran across the ceiling. There was no clock, no decoration, nothing that suggested anyone was supposed to feel comfortable inside it.
The door locked from the outside.
Nexar stood there for a few seconds after the guard left.
He looked at the door.
Then at the room.
"Better than Sector 0," he muttered.
He removed his wet coat and placed it over the back of the chair.
His clothes were still damp from the rain. The smell of the testing arena and anti-mana gas clung to them.
Nexar sat on the edge of the bed.
His body was tired.
Not badly.
Just enough for him to notice.
The 2,801-kilogram test had left his right hand slightly stiff. The practical assessment had pushed his body further than he wanted to admit. And the deep scan had left a strange pressure behind his eyes.
He flexed his fingers.
They moved normally.
The golden warmth beneath his sternum had already returned to its usual quiet rhythm.
The dark void was different.
It remained deep inside him.
Silent.
Still.
Nexar closed his eyes for a moment.
He could almost feel it.
Not moving.
Not attacking.
Just... existing.
Like something buried beneath a frozen lake.
He opened the Third Eye Manual.
The transparent pages appeared inside his mind.
Most of them were still blurred.
Some contained only incomplete words.
Others showed strange diagrams of the human body, energy pathways, breathing patterns and methods for concealing one's internal energy.
Nexar slowly turned the pages.
One section caught his attention.
[Energy Concealment — Basic]
[Requirement: Third Eye 25%]
[Status: Available]
He studied the diagram.
It wasn't a technique for becoming invisible.
It was simpler than that.
It taught the body to stop announcing its energy to the outside world.
Nexar understood why that could be useful.
On Earth, almost everyone seemed to measure strength by what their machines could detect.
Gene Points.
Aura.
Qi.
Energy signatures.
If he could control what those systems saw, he wouldn't have to explain everything.
He followed the instructions carefully.
Slow breath.
Relax the shoulders.
Reduce the outward flow.
Keep the energy close to the core.
The golden warmth beneath his chest slowly became quieter.
The faint pressure around his body disappeared.
Nexar opened his eyes.
The Manual gave a small response.
[Basic Energy Concealment learned]
He stared at the words.
"Useful."
Then the Manual suddenly pulsed.
Nexar stopped.
A new page appeared.
[Nearby Life Signature Detected]
[Distance: 12 meters]
[Emotion: Curiosity and Fear]
His eyes moved toward the door.
Someone was standing outside.
Nexar didn't move.
He didn't reach for a weapon.
He simply listened.
Nothing.
Then, very faintly, he heard breathing.
Slow.
Uneven.
Someone trying not to make a sound.
Nexar waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
The person remained there.
Not a guard.
A guard wouldn't be standing outside a locked room without a reason.
Nexar slowly looked at the wall beside him.
His Third Eye activated.
The solid metal became easier to understand.
The room beyond it.
The corridor.
The life signature.
A young person.
Probably a student.
Heart rate elevated.
Hands slightly trembling.
No weapon detected.
Nexar's eyes narrowed.
Why are they afraid?
The person outside suddenly stepped back.
Their footsteps disappeared down the corridor.
Nexar remained seated.
He could have followed.
Instead, he closed the Manual.
There was no reason to chase someone who hadn't attacked him.
Not yet.
He lay down on the bed.
The mattress was harder than it looked.
Nexar stared at the ceiling.
For fifteen years, the night had belonged to Sector 0.
There had been no doors.
No guards.
No machines watching him through walls.
Only darkness, rain, monsters and the constant possibility that morning might never come.
Now he was back on Earth.
And somehow he still couldn't sleep without checking the room twice.
A strange thought crossed his mind.
I survived Sector 0.
He looked at the locked door.
Maybe Earth will be harder.
A faint smile almost appeared.
Then disappeared.
Sleep came slowly.
Morning arrived without sunlight.
There was only a change in the artificial lights outside his room.
Nexar had been awake for several minutes when the lock clicked.
The door opened.
A guard stood outside.
"Get up. Practical assessment starts in thirty minutes."
Nexar sat up.
"Unclassified group?"
The guard nodded.
"Group One."
Nexar put on his coat.
As he stepped into the corridor, several other candidates were already being escorted toward the elevators.
Some looked nervous.
Others looked exhausted.
One young man was quietly talking to himself.
Another was checking the same cheap combat knife over and over again.
Nexar walked past them without saying anything.
Then the Third Eye Manual opened by itself.
A single line appeared.
[Today's trial will not be normal.]
Nexar slowed down.
Another line appeared beneath it.
[Something old has noticed the frost.]
His expression hardened.
Frost?
He had never seen that word in the Manual before.
He looked around the corridor.
Nothing appeared unusual.
People were talking.
Guards were moving candidates.
Machines hummed behind the walls.
Everything looked normal.
But Nexar knew better than to trust appearances.
Deep inside his chest, the void moved.
Just once.
A tiny shift.
Like something turning in its sleep.
Nexar stopped walking for half a second.
The golden warmth of Manipura remained steady.
But beneath it...
Something colder brushed against his consciousness.
He opened his Third Eye.
For an instant, a thin layer of pale frost appeared across the edge of his vision.
Not real frost.
Something inside the energy pathways.
Then it vanished.
Nexar's eyes narrowed.
So that's what the Manual meant.
"Nexar!"
The guard shouted from ahead.
Nexar looked up.
The others were already entering the elevator.
He walked toward them.
"Coming."
The elevator doors closed.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then the young man beside Nexar glanced at him.
"You were in the pillar test yesterday, right?"
Nexar looked at him.
"Yes."
The boy swallowed.
"You got 2,801."
Nexar nodded.
The boy looked away.
"People are saying you're some kind of hidden gene experiment."
Nexar said nothing.
Another candidate laughed nervously.
"Maybe he's a monster."
Nexar looked at him.
The boy immediately stopped laughing.
The elevator continued downward.
Sector B — Practical Assessment
The numbers on the display changed.
B3.
B4.
B5.
Then the lights flickered.
For one second, the elevator display showed something that wasn't supposed to be there.
B0
Nexar's Third Eye opened.
The display returned to normal.
Nobody else seemed to notice.
But Nexar did.
B0.
The same letter and number combination he'd seen in his own status readings.
The elevator reached the arena level.
The doors opened.
A wave of cold air entered.
The candidates stepped out.
Nexar remained still for one second longer.
He looked down the corridor.
At the far end, behind several security doors, something was making a faint sound.
A slow pulse.
Almost like a heartbeat.
Nexar's Manipura answered.
Thump.
His eyes became colder.
Whatever was waiting for today's test...
It wasn't part of the test.
Far above Sector B, Commander Rhea stood alone inside the observation room.
A holographic display showed Nexar's signal moving through the academy.
She watched the readings carefully.
Then another window appeared.
ANOMALOUS ENERGY FLUCTUATION
Rhea frowned.
The graph showed a brief spike.
Then nothing.
She enlarged the recording.
A thin layer of pale distortion had appeared around Nexar's energy signature for less than a second.
Rhea's crystal eye glowed.
"The frost..."
She remembered the old reports.
Reports that most people in the academy had never even heard of.
She closed the file.
"They want observation."
Her expression hardened.
"Fine."
She turned off the screen.
"But if that thing inside him starts spreading..."
She looked toward the floor beneath her.
"...I won't wait for another order."