The arena did not forget Kali's name.
By the time the sun reached its peak over Vanguard Institute, the echoes of his victory had spread across every training sector. Conversations stopped when he passed. Eyes followed him. Whispers clung to his back.
A Rank 5 who crushed his opponent in three seconds.
That was not normal.
Kali ignored it.
He returned to Gravity Hall.
The attendant at the desk recognized him immediately. "Back again?"
"Set it to 5.4x."
The man's fingers paused above the console. "That's beyond your recovery limit."
"Then don't set a limit."
The chamber sealed.
The world fell.
Gravity wrapped around his spine like chains. His knees slammed down. His ribs screamed as the pressure tried to collapse his lungs. Kali clenched his teeth and forced his breathing steady.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Cosmic energy surged into him, violent and burning. His muscles shredded. Blood vessels burst behind his eyes. The fracture in the Rank 5 ceiling widened again — painfully, slowly.
Five minutes.
Ten.
At thirteen minutes, Kali's vision dissolved into static. His heartbeat skipped.
At fifteen, the system's alarms erupted.
WARNING — VITAL STABILITY CRITICAL
Kali refused to release.
He stayed kneeling.
He stayed conscious.
The world blurred.
And then—
Something inside him snapped.
Not bones.
Not muscle.
The invisible wall.
A pressure wave rippled outward from his body. The cosmic energy inside his chest roared, stabilizing violently, reorganizing every cell.
The chamber lights flickered.
The gravity disengaged.
Kali collapsed.
The console outside updated.
Cultivation Stage: Planetary — Rank 6
He lay there shaking, vision fading, blood soaking the floor.
But he was alive.
And he had crossed the first true threshold.
Aftershock
News spread faster than the medics.
By evening, the institute's elite training zone was in uproar.
Zhao Jie stood in the observation deck, eyes fixed on the medical report.
"Rank 6… without resources… without contract…"
His fists clenched.
Luo Lan watched from the shadows, her gaze unreadable.
The Cost
Kali woke in the recovery ward.
His body felt wrong — heavier, denser, more real.
The doctor's expression was grim. "Your organs barely held. Another minute and your heart would've collapsed."
Kali stared at the ceiling. "But it didn't."
"No," the doctor said. "It didn't."
Kali closed his eyes.
Planetary Rank 6.
Eighty-two days remained.
The climb had truly begun.