Aryan looked up, meeting his father's intense gaze. "Yes, Father?"
"Yesterday, you claimed to have had an epiphany. You claimed to have purged your body of its weakness." Vikram stood and walked toward the training stones. "Words are wind. Show me."
Rohan smirked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, ready for a show. He expected his brother to make an excuse, to falter under their father's direct command as he always did.
Vikram gestured to the smallest of the training stones, one weighing roughly fifty kilograms.
"The last time you attempted this, you sprained your back. Lift it."
A sense of calm settled over Aryan. He had cultivated through the night. He had felt the bottleneck of the first layer tremble and then shatter just before the dawn. The System panel, visible only to him, had confirmed it.
[Congratulations, Host! You have broken through to Qi Condensation Realm - Layer 2.]
[Your attributes have improved.]
He walked to the stone, no hurry in his stride. He ignored Rohan's derisive snort. He bent his knees, kept his back straight, and wrapped his fingers around the rough, cool surface of the stone. He remembered the last time he had tried this. The stone had felt fused to the earth, the strain on his muscles and bones unbearable.
This time, it felt different. He drew a faint wisp of Qi from his dantian, letting it flow into his arms. He tightened his grip and lifted.
The stone came off the ground with an ease that surprised even him. No strain, no struggle. It felt no heavier than a large sack of rice. He stood straight, holding the fifty-kilogram stone in his hands as if it were a trifle.
Silence descended upon the courtyard.
Rohan's smirk vanished, his jaw slack with disbelief. Meera gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. Priya, watching from the kitchen doorway, had tears of joy welling in her eyes.
Vikram's stoic mask didn't just crack it shattered. His eyes were wide, and years of grim disappointment warred with a sudden, shocking flare of hope. He took an involuntary step forward, his voice a rough whisper. "How is this possible?"
Aryan calmly placed the stone back on the ground without a sound. He looked at the next stone in the line, the one weighing one hundred and fifty kilograms a stone Rohan had only started training with a year ago.
Without a word, he moved to it. He bent, gripped it, and lifted.
The one-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram stone rose from the ground without a sound. There was no grunt of effort, no tremble in his arms, no flush of strain on his face. He heaved it up as if it were hollow, in complete defiance of the effort Rohan knew it required. He held it for a moment, the morning sun glinting off its surface, then set it down as gently as the first.
The courtyard was now so quiet that the chirp of last night's cricket would have sounded like a roar. Rohan was no longer leaning against the wall. He was standing straight, his face a mixture of shock, confusion, and something else something that looked almost like fear.
Aryan looked at his father. For the first time, he didn't see disappointment in the man's eyes.
He saw pure, profound astonishment.
"I feel new," Aryan repeated his words from yesterday, but now they carried the undeniable weight of stone.
He turned and walked back toward his room, leaving his family frozen in the courtyard. He knew this was just the beginning. Strength was the only language truly respected in this world, and he had just spoken his first coherent sentence. Back in his room, he sat on his bed and, with a thought, called up the Supreme Store for the first time. A vast, scrolling list of incredible items filled his vision, their prices listed in SP. Weapons that hummed with power, pills that promised miraculous effects, techniques that could topple mountains.
His 100 SP felt like a paltry sum before such treasures. But it wasn't discouraging. It was a map to a future of limitless power. A cold resolve, harder than any training stone, settled in his heart. The taunts of 'Trash Aryan', the pitying looks, the weight of being the family's shame they were all debts to be repaid. He wouldn't just earn points and buy treasures. He would devour every resource, seize every advantage, and climb a ladder built from the broken hopes of others, until the name Aryan Rathore became a weight upon the world itself.