The off-limits training lot behind the east dorm had no cameras.
No Spirit sensors.
No guards.
No guild scouts.
Just broken stone, collapsed beams, half-dead dummies, and silence.
That made it perfect.
Arin slipped through the loose fence boards, ducked past a collapsed light post, and stood in the middle of the cracked field.
A few dry leaves drifted past his boots.
Dust clung to the air.
This place had been abandoned long ago.
Maybe since the second invasion wave.
No one bothered to repair it.
No one cared.
Good.
He needed the quiet.
He slipped off his jacket and hung it on a metal pipe jutting from the wall.
The sleeves were still stained from drills yesterday.
Sweat, blood, maybe both.
His shoulder still ached from Kai's hit.
A deep bruise ran across his ribs.
But the pain didn't feel like a warning anymore.
It felt like permission.
He stretched out both arms, rolling his neck slowly.
Breathing in.
Out.
One more time.
This time, with no one watching.
He lowered into stance.
Feet apart.
Hips loose.
Elbows in.
The form wasn't from this world.
It didn't belong to a guild.
It wasn't taught in the academy's combat manuals.
It was Earth-style.
Shadowboxing in a moldy garage, barefoot, with broken gloves and cheap tape.
All those solo drills, all those mornings alone with sweat, static, and silence.
Back then, he trained for nothing. Just instinct.
Now, he trained for everything.
Arin's first jab was slow.
Measured.
It cut through the air with a soft whisper.
No aura.
No light.
Then again.
And again.
Ten times.
Each one faster.
Then a cross.
Then a duck.
He spun. Elbow. Knee. Step back. Slide in. Hip twist. Palm strike.
He didn't stop.
His muscles burned by the fifth rotation.
His knees screamed by the tenth.
Sweat rolled down his spine.
His breath came faster, sharper.
But under the noise, he felt it again.
That presence.
Cradle Spark.
It didn't shout.
It didn't glow.
But it moved with him now.
Responded.
The tighter his form, the clearer it pulsed.
He stepped to a dummy a rusted training bot half-stuck in the ground.
He threw a punch, mid-speed.
The bot rocked.
Not much.
Just a tilt.
But something registered.
Not in the bot in him.
Cradle Spark twitched.
Arin threw another.
Then three in a row.
The third landed with a loud crack.
Not because he was stronge.
But because his fist landed at the perfect angle bone alignment, hip rotation, breath control all synced in one moment.
He paused, heart pounding.
That wasn't luck.
It was feedback.
Like Cradle Spark had taken every movement from the last hour, studied it… and improved it.
He backed up. Dropped to the ground. Laid flat.
Arms spread, chest rising.
He closed his eyes.
His father used to train like this.
Alone. Dirty lot.
No aura weapons.
No instructors.
He'd hit walls. Trees. Sandbags filled with broken stone.
And he'd keep going, even when the world had already labeled him outdated.
Arin saw him in the memories now.
Korran, bleeding from the hand, muttering drills under his breath, repeating forms in the dark.
Until one day, he stopped.
And never trained again.
They said it was madness.
Arin was starting to wonder if it was fear.
Not fear of dying.
But fear of what came next.
What Cradle Spark really was.
He sat up slowly.
Then stood.
One more test.
Arin walked to the largest dummy at the back an armored type with reinforced joints, meant for high-tier impact drills.
He'd never touched it before. No one told him not to.
They just assumed he wouldn't.
He planted his feet.
Took one breath.
Then punched.
Nothing.
The dummy didn't move.
He shook out his hand.
Tried again.
Still nothing.
He closed his eyes.
Dropped into full stance.
This time, he flowed.
Left jab. Right hook. Low elbow. High knee. Pivot. Fake step. Shoulder roll. Rising palm. Full-body twist.
Then a final punch aimed high, center mass.
The strike landed with a loud metallic crack.
The dummy jerked back an inch.
Not much.
But more than before.
Arin held his ground, knuckles throbbing.
His whole arm buzzed now.
Not pain. Something else.
Activation.
Cradle Spark had absorbed the sequence the build-up. The weight shift. The coordination.
And it had responded.
Not in power.
In efficiency.
Like it had found the exact moment to unleash every stored ounce of tension and made it count.
Arin stepped back, chest rising.
He knew what this was now.
Cradle Spark wasn't about brute strength. It wasn't about spirit energy or elements.
It was perfected repetition.
It learned. It memorized. It refined.
The more he trained, the more he hurt, the deeper it drilled into him.
Until it became part of him.
He walked to the bench and sat down.
His hand still shook.
He remembered how it used to feel back on Earth.
Training alone. Never winning fights. Always just behind the real athletes.
They laughed at him. Said he was wasting time.
Now, they were gone.
And he was here.
And this time, he wasn't behind.
This time, he had something growing inside him that they couldn't measure, couldn't grade, and couldn't laugh away.
He looked at his arm.
At the veins, now pulsing with faint gold.
Only for a second.
Then it vanished.
Cradle Spark was still hiding.
Still waiting.
But not for long.
A sound rang behind him.
He turned.
Nothing.
Maybe a pipe. Maybe a rat.
But he felt something else.
Movement across the top of the wall.
He stood.
No one there.
Still, his instincts flared.
He wasn't alone anymore.
He waited a beat longer, then grabbed his jacket.
Walked toward the gate.
One last glance back at the lot.
The cracked dummy still leaned at an angle.
A faint mark just a scuff really glowed on its chest.
Arin stared at it.
His strike had left a mark.
And not just on the dummy.
On himself.
He touched his ribs.
The bruise still throbbed.
But it felt lighter now.
He walked through the gap in the fence and slipped back into the alley behind the dorms.
Students passed by in twos and threes, laughing, eating, talking about new Talent charts and tournament prospects.
No one looked at him.
No one knew what just happened.
That was fine.
They would.
Someday.
He turned toward the stairs. His steps were slow but steady.
He reached the door to the dorm.
Paused.
Looked down at his hands again.
They didn't shake anymore.
He whispered, low.
"You think this is it?"
Then he answered himself.
A small, quiet smile.
"No."
He opened the door and walked inside.
Behind him, at the edge of the lot, a boy stood on the rooftop, watching.
Thin frame. Clean hair. Blue coat with a gold badge.
Kai.
He watched Arin disappear into the building.
Then looked down at the cracked dummy.
He narrowed his eyes.
"That wasn't just muscle," he muttered.
He turned and vanished over the roof.