Training Facility C looked more like a warehouse than a classroom.
Gray walls, high ceilings, equipment scattered everywhere. Weapon racks lined one side. Training dummies stood in rows. Mats covered most of the floor. The whole place smelled like sweat and synthetic materials.
Soren arrived at 0655. Early. Nervous energy wouldn't let him sit still in his dorm.
Other students trickled in. Maybe fifty total. All the ones who'd gotten eliminated early or ranked low. The untrained majority. Jake showed up yawning, still half-asleep. A few others Soren recognized from yesterday's assessment.
Mira walked in at 0658. She nodded at him. He nodded back.
At exactly 0700, Instructor Torren stepped forward.
"Group A. Welcome to your first day of not embarrassing yourselves." His voice carried across the space without effort. Wolf DNA users had that advantage. "Most of you made it through assessment on talent alone. Raw ability. Dumb luck."
He let that sink in.
"That ends today. We're building foundation. Footwork. Stance. Distance management. Basic defensive positions." Torren walked between the students. "This will feel boring. You'll want to skip ahead to flashy techniques. Don't. Foundation is everything."
Someone in the back shifted uncomfortably.
"You watched the top ten yesterday. Shadowmane, Steelheart, Webb. You know what they had that you don't?" Torren stopped walking. "Years of this boring foundation work. That's the difference."
[He's not wrong.]
*I know.*
[You're going to hate this.]
*Probably.*
Torren clapped once. "Pair up. Find someone roughly your size. We're starting with basic stance correction."
The room dissolved into movement. Students finding partners. Soren looked around.
"Cross."
Mira stood a few feet away. "We're similar height. Makes sense."
"Yeah, sure."
They found an open spot on the mats. Around them, other pairs did the same. Jake paired with another reactor heart user across the room.
Torren demonstrated first. "Fighting stance. Feet shoulder-width. Dominant foot back. Weight distributed sixty-forty forward. Hands up." He moved into position. Perfect form. "Looks simple. It's not. Most of you are doing it wrong without knowing."
He walked through the room, correcting people. Adjusting foot positions. Fixing weight distribution. Moving arms slightly.
When he got to Soren, he stopped.
"Let me guess. Never trained before enhancement?"
"No, sir."
"Thought so. Your stance is—" Torren nudged Soren's back foot with his boot. "—completely wrong. Weight's all forward. You're ready to fall over."
Soren shifted.
"Too far. Back." Torren adjusted him manually. "There. Feel the difference?"
"Yeah."
"You won't hold it. Muscle memory takes time. You'll default to your bad habits constantly." Torren moved to the next pair. "That's why we drill it."
For the next hour, they held stances.
Just stood there. In position. Instructors walked around making corrections.
Soren's legs started burning after ten minutes.
"Don't lock your knees," Torren called out. "Stay loose. Tense muscles fatigue faster."
Fifteen minutes. The burn intensified.
Twenty minutes. Soren's thighs were screaming.
[This is pathetic. You're just standing still.]
*It hurts.*
[Your legs are enhanced. Ten percent tiger beetle DNA and you can't hold a basic stance?]
*There's no muscle memory. My body doesn't know what it's doing.*
[Then teach it. That's what training is.]
Around him, other students were struggling too. Some better than others. Mira looked uncomfortable but stable. Jake was wobbling every few seconds.
Thirty minutes.
"Position check!" Torren shouted.
Everyone froze. The instructors walked through again, correcting posture. When Torren reached Soren, he sighed.
"Back foot drifted forward. Weight shifted. Hands dropped." He fixed everything again. "See? Muscle memory doesn't exist yet. Your body forgets in minutes."
"How long until it sticks?"
"Weeks. Maybe months depending on how much you practice." Torren moved on. "That's why combat family students dominate. They learned this at age five."
Forty-five minutes.
Soren's entire lower body was on fire. Not the good burn from exercise. The bad burn from holding an unnatural position for way too long. His enhanced healing helped but couldn't eliminate the fatigue.
"Break!" Torren finally called. "Five minutes. Hydrate."
Everyone collapsed. Some literally just dropped to the mats.
Soren sat heavily. His legs felt like they'd been replaced with concrete.
"That was just standing," Jake said from nearby. He looked miserable. "We didn't even move."
"Foundation," Mira said. She was stretching. Smart. "My instructor back home made me hold stances for an hour when I first started. This is normal."
"You had an instructor?"
"Three years before integration. My parents hired someone to teach basics." She looked at Soren. "You?"
"Nothing. I got enhanced two weeks ago and immediately started assessment prep."
"That explains a lot."
"Thanks."
"Wasn't an insult. You made top ten with zero training. That's impressive." Mira stood. "But you're going to suffer here more than most."
[She's right.]
*I know.*
Break ended too fast.
"Back up. Footwork drills next."
The next hour was stepping. Forward. Back. Side to side. Each step had to maintain the stance. Weight distribution controlled. Hands up. No wasted movement.
Soren screwed it up constantly.
He'd step forward and his back foot would drag. Or his weight would shift wrong. Or his hands would drop. Every single repetition had something incorrect.
Torren corrected him probably fifteen times.
"You're thinking too much," the instructor finally said. "Your enhanced perception is working against you. You see every micro-adjustment but your body can't execute that fast. Slow down. Let muscle memory develop naturally."
"But I don't have muscle memory."
"Exactly. So stop trying to use perception to compensate. Do the movement wrong. Get corrected. Do it again. Thousands of repetitions until your body remembers without thinking."
Easier said than done.
By the time 0900 rolled around, Soren was exhausted. They'd done two hours of basic stance and footwork. Nothing else. No fighting. No weapons. Just the absolute fundamentals.
And he was destroyed.
"Dismissed," Torren said. "You've got enhancement integration drills next. Then lunch. Then weapons training. Then tactical sparring. Get used to being tired."
Students dispersed. Most looked shell-shocked.
[That was humbling.]
*Yeah.*
[Two hours of basics and you're already exhausted. This is going to be a long journey.]
*I'm aware.*
Soren checked his schedule. Enhancement integration drills with Instructor Mako in fifteen minutes. Different facility.
He grabbed water and headed out.
The integration training facility was smaller. Maybe thirty students inside. Different group—these were people who'd made top hundred but needed work on using their abilities efficiently.
Instructor Mako stood at the front. Shark DNA. Teeth visible when he talked. "Integration drills. You've all got enhancements. DNA merge or reactor heart. You barely know how to use them."
He gestured to the equipment around the room. "We're teaching efficiency. How to activate abilities without wasting energy. How to maintain enhanced states longer. How to combine enhancement with actual technique instead of flailing around hoping instinct saves you."
That last part felt directed at Soren specifically.
Mako split them into groups based on enhancement type. DNA users on one side, reactor heart users on the other.
Soren ended up with about twenty DNA merge students. Various animals. Some insect DNA—Mira was there too.
"DNA users. Your enhancements give physical advantages. Speed, strength, senses, whatever your animal provides. But most of you activate everything at once and burn through stamina in minutes." Mako demonstrated with his own shark DNA. His eyes changed, teeth sharpened, muscles tensed. "Full activation. Useful in short bursts. Terrible for sustained combat."
He relaxed. Back to baseline. "Partial activation. Specific traits only. Conserves energy." His teeth sharpened but nothing else changed. "Harder to control. Requires practice."
For the next hour, they practiced partial activation.
Soren tried to activate just his enhanced perception without the full tiger beetle burst speed. It was hard. The abilities wanted to trigger together. Instinct pushed for all or nothing.
"Separate them mentally," Mako instructed. "Your perception is analytical. Your speed is physical. They're different systems."
Soren concentrated. Tried to trigger just perception.
His eyes shifted. Green glow. The world slowed slightly.
But his legs tensed automatically, ready for burst speed.
"Almost. Release the physical tension. Perception only."
It took twelve attempts before Soren managed perception alone. Just the analytical processing. No speed preparation.
[Progress.]
*Barely.*
[It's something. More than you had an hour ago.]
By the time integration drills ended, Soren had a headache. Mental fatigue from controlling abilities consciously instead of letting instinct handle everything.
Lunch was quick. He grabbed food, ate without tasting it, checked his schedule.
1300: Weapons Training with Instructor Hayes.
1530: Tactical Sparring with Instructor Wei.
Then advanced training for top ten at 1900.
[Long day.]
*Yeah.*
[And you've learned what? How to stand correctly and partially activate perception?]
*Foundation.*
[Boring foundation.]
*That's the point.*
The weapons facility was different. Organized chaos. Students at different stations with different weapons. Some learning energy rifles. Others with plasma blades. Traditional weapons in another section.
Instructor Hayes stood in the center. Reactor heart visible through her chest plate. Cybernetic arms gleaming. "Weapons training. If you don't know which end to hold, I'll teach you. If you think you know, I'll show you why you're wrong."
She split students by path. Reactor heart users toward ranged weapons. DNA users toward melee.
Soren ended up at a station with training batons. Same weapon he'd used in assessment.
Hayes walked over. "Batons. Good choice for beginners. Hard to kill yourself accidentally."
"That a common problem?"
"You'd be surprised." She demonstrated basic grip. "Fingers here. Thumb wrapped. Wrist alignment matters. Swing from the shoulder, not the elbow."
She handed him a baton. "Show me."
Soren gripped it the way she'd shown. Swung at a training dummy.
Hayes stopped him halfway through. "Wrist bent. Power loss. Alignment is wrong."
She adjusted his grip. "Again."
He swung.
"Better. Still wrong. Again."
This pattern repeated probably thirty times. Each swing Hayes found something to correct. Grip, wrist, shoulder, follow-through, recovery position.
By the end of the hour, Soren's arm felt dead and his swings looked marginally less terrible.
"Progress," Hayes said. "Come back tomorrow. We'll do another thousand repetitions."
Tactical sparring was last. Instructor Wei. Tiger DNA like Soren but way higher percentage. Her golden eyes tracked everything.
"Sparring. You'll fight each other. I'll stop you when you do something stupid. That'll be constantly."
She paired students based on assessment rankings. Soren got matched with someone who'd placed fortieth. Guy with bear DNA, basic training only.
"Begin."
They circled each other. Soren tried to remember footwork from this morning.
The bear DNA user rushed in. No technique, just raw aggression.
Soren sidestepped. Tried for a counter strike.
Wei's voice cut through. "Stop. Cross, you dropped your guard completely. That counter gets you killed. Reset."
They reset. Went again.
Three seconds in, Wei stopped them. "Both of you. Terrible footwork. Cross, your back foot dragged. Mikhail, you're standing straight up."
She corrected their positions. "Again."
This happened probably twenty times in five minutes. Every exchange ended in corrections.
[You're terrible at this.]
*Learning.*
[Slowly.]
*That's how learning works.*
By 1730, when sparring ended, Soren had maybe landed two clean hits in dozens of attempts. Every exchange exposed his complete lack of training.
Wei dismissed them. "Tomorrow same time. You'll be slightly less terrible."
Soren collapsed on a bench outside. Every muscle hurt. Mental exhaustion competed with physical fatigue. He'd learned more in six hours than the previous two weeks combined.
And he felt worse at fighting than when the day started.
[Welcome to real training.]
*Yeah.*
[Six hours. All you learned was how much you don't know.]
*That's actually useful information.*
[Is it?]
*Knowing what you suck at means you know what to practice.*
He checked his AR. 1800. One hour before advanced training for top ten.
Time to grab food and pretend his body still worked.