Elias tries to train alone in secret — chasing growth the System will not give him. Clone after clone, push-up after push-up, nothing changes. The System remains still. Uninterested. He begins to realize the System has rules he doesn't understand… and they're not designed for safety.
---
The tunnel was narrow, barely a meter across, its ceiling low enough that Elias had to keep his shoulders hunched. Ancient pipes ran along the ceiling like exposed veins. Half of them hissed. One of them dripped something blue that glowed faintly in the dark.
Elias didn't care.
He'd chosen this place because it wasn't monitored — a side-passage for waste maintenance beneath Sub-Sector Delta's barracks. A dead zone in the vox network, officially condemned after a promethium leak. No cameras. No servitors. No patrols.
Perfect for a man trying to hide something impossible.
He stripped off his flak coat and laid it across a rusted pipe.
His shirt was soaked in sweat.
The floor beneath his feet was uneven ferrocrete, slippery in places. No grip. No support.
Even better.
He exhaled slowly and whispered to himself.
"Okay. Let's try again."
He formed the seal — his fingers snapping together in the practiced rhythm.
Clone Technique.
Poof.
A clone appeared beside him. Solid. Stable. He gave it a nod. The clone nodded back.
Then Elias turned and pointed toward the far wall.
The clone dashed forward. Silent. Fast.
It jumped — hands reaching for the edge of a collapsed pipe to pull itself up.
The moment its fingers touched metal—
Poof.
Gone.
Elias sighed.
He sat down cross-legged in the dark, fingers pressed together again.
Clone Technique.
Poof.
Gone.
Clone Technique.
Poof.
Cracked.
Collapsed into dust before it even moved.
He wiped his forehead, breathing harder now. Not from exertion. From frustration.
The System didn't respond.
No chime.
No text.
No progress bar.
Just silence.
He stood and braced himself against the wall.
Tried the tree-walking technique — not from memory, but instinct. He remembered how it worked. Mold chakra to the soles of your feet. Flow it evenly. Stick to the surface.
He lifted one foot and placed it on the wall. Focused.
The chakra flowed.
For a second.
Then slipped. Like oil on wet glass.
He crashed back onto the ground with a grunt.
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Half an hour passed.
Then an hour.
He was slick with sweat. His palms were scraped. His knees bruised from landing wrong.
His chakra was flickering — not empty, just… inert.
He knew it was there. He could feel it. But it was like trying to use a limb that refused to answer. No matter how hard he focused, no matter how correct his movements were…
Nothing changed.
He sat again in the dark, leaning back against the wall. His head rested on the cool metal behind him. His heart still beat fast — not from effort anymore, but from something worse.
Fear.
Not of death.
Not of pain.
Fear that this power, this System, this second life — wasn't meant to be used.
Only spent.
A thought drifted through his mind, unwelcome but real:
What if I'm just another pawn in someone else's game?
He clenched his fists and stared at the ceiling.
The System didn't respond.
No words.
No guidance.
No feedback.
Only static — the kind of silence that said:
You're not interesting right now.
Elias stood again. Slowly. Carefully.
His legs hurt. His ribs still hadn't healed. His shoulder ached from a pulled tendon during the last wall-run attempt.
He looked down at his own body like a stranger.
Then he whispered, without bitterness:
"…Fine."
He walked out of the tunnel.
Out of the dark.
Not toward the barracks.
Not toward safety.
Toward the edge of the hive — toward a place where death lived loud.
[END OF PART 1]