I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Nate returned to his temporary room after midnight.

His permanent dormitory had already been assigned, but the academy had left his old access active until morning. That saved him from meeting four new teammates while carrying an arm he could barely lift.

He locked the door and removed his jacket.

The evaluation started in less than six hours.

Nate raised his right arm. Pain caught beneath the shoulder before his hand reached his face. The tingling returned to his fingers a moment later.

A visit to the clinic would end his evaluation before it began.

He could already imagine the scan, the questions, and the new restriction placed around his wrist. Section Nineteen would enter its first assessment without a combat candidate while Nate waited for damaged tissue to settle.

He pushed the desk against the wall.

For twenty-six days, he had prepared Rovan’s return path. Energy could travel from his Core, through Posthumous Disciple, down across his legs and back through his torso. It reached the shoulder now.

The final stretch lay between that blockage and the empty place beside his Core.

Nate removed his shoes and began.

The first attempt failed near his hip.

He had spent the evening travelling to the Circuit Ward, and his body kept protecting the injured shoulder without permission. His stance tilted slightly whenever he turned.

Nate released the energy and waited.

On the second attempt, the thread reached his ribs before his breathing broke its shape.

The third stopped beneath his shoulder.

Pressure built inside the joint. His fingers began to numb.

Nate dispersed the thread.

He knew what Rovan had changed. The Echo had forced him to experience the correction through the hunter’s body: loosen the shoulder, let the arm travel with the turn, and breathe before the energy reached the obstruction.

His own body continued to resist.

He tried again.

Then again.

One attempt passed beneath the shoulder and scattered across his chest. Another left enough pressure in his knee that Nate had to sit until the warmth faded.

By the ninth, sweat had soaked the back of his shirt.

His Core felt thin. The prepared path remained open, but several sections had begun to ache from repeated use.

Nate sat on the edge of the bed.

Academy candidates normally opened their second Node before completing the return. The occupied Node acted as an anchor, giving the incoming energy somewhere to settle before it re-entered the Core.

Nate had built the road before placing its final support.

Rovan had attempted the same thing.

The academy had expelled him before he could prove it worked.

Nate closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward.

Posthumous Disciple rested in the Root Node beside his Core. Farther along the incomplete route, an empty point responded weakly to his attention.

Something waited beyond it.

Mara had rejected Body Memory during her awakening. Forsaken Claim had preserved the Skill in reserve, but Nate had been unable to use it while he possessed only one Node.

If he opened the second, the reserve could finally become part of him.

His remaining energy gave him one good attempt.

Nate stood.

He allowed the thread to leave his Core slowly.

It passed through Posthumous Disciple, then followed the route into his leg. His weight shifted before the circulation. The ankle remained loose. His knee accepted the movement without holding it.

The thread reached his hip and climbed.

Nate exhaled.

Pain tightened his shoulder.

This time, he did not pull away from it.

His arm moved with the turn. The joint opened just enough for the energy to curve beneath it rather than striking it directly.

The thread entered his chest.

It reached the empty point beside his Core.

Nate held it there.

Pressure filled his ribs as the Core continued feeding a route with nowhere to end.

He reached for the reserve.

Body Memory answered.

The empty point opened.

Pain folded Nate over.

A second Node formed beside his Core, pulling energy from the entire return path. The presence he had carried since the awakening ceremony rushed into it.

BODY MEMORY

The Skill settled into the Node.

Understanding followed.

Body Memory recorded the stable conditions Nate’s body had genuinely reached. Healthy muscle before an injury. A joint after it had adapted to repeated strain. Tendons strengthened through training. Balance and posture practised long enough that the body no longer treated them as temporary changes.

It did not remember Nate as a single past version.

Each part of him carried its own record.

The Skill could guide damaged tissue back toward a stable condition it had already possessed. It could also preserve adaptations once his body had properly consolidated them, making it far harder for injury, rest, or exhaustion to erase what he had earned.

It could not invent an improvement.

Body Memory would never give Nate muscles he had not built or flexibility he had never achieved. It could restore. It could preserve. It could not replace the work required to create a stronger state in the first place.

The second Node drew in the energy waiting beside it.

The thread passed through Body Memory.

Then it returned to the Core.

The route closed.

Energy left the Core again, crossed Posthumous Disciple, moved through Nate’s body, and returned through Body Memory.

The second circulation came more easily.

The third carried more energy than either of the first two.

Nate felt the completed route settle beneath his skin.

His First Circuit had closed.

The strength did not arrive as an explosion. His breathing became clearer. His heartbeat seemed to reach farther through his body. Energy that would once have faded inside his pathways now returned to the Core and entered the next cycle.

Then Body Memory activated.

Nate fell to one knee.

The new Skill examined his body through the completed circulation.

His shoulder had been strained by trapped energy. Muscles surrounding the joint were swollen and pulling against the nerves leading into his hand. His knee and ankle carried weeks of inflammation. Several old contusions from the train remained beneath the surface.

Body Memory found the stable conditions those tissues had possessed before the damage.

Heat spread through his shoulder.

The muscles tightened hard enough to shake his arm, then released. Swelling receded around the joint. Pressure eased from the nerves, and sensation returned cleanly to his fingers.

The Skill moved through his ribs and leg, restoring strained fibres and reducing the inflammation around his joints.

The pathway beneath his shoulder remained tender.

Body Memory could repair the flesh supporting his circulation at this stage. It could not rebuild an energetic pathway that Nate had genuinely damaged. The route still carried every weakness created during the past month.

If he forced energy into the shoulder again, the Skill would not erase the consequences.

That warning came with the same certainty as the rest of its function.

His Core emptied rapidly.

Body Memory had no supply of its own. It drew energy from the Circuit and material from Nate’s body.

Water left his mouth and skin. Sugar vanished from his blood. The Skill consumed stored nutrients to repair tissue and restore what it could.

His stomach cramped.

Nate tried to stop the activation.

Body Memory continued until the shoulder had stabilized, then responded. The heat faded before it reached several smaller bruises.

Nate dropped onto both hands.

His pulse had become quick and weak. His mouth felt dry enough that swallowing hurt.

He reached the bottle beside his bed and emptied it. The water eased his throat but did nothing for the hollow pain spreading through his stomach.

His Core held almost nothing.

The new Node ached each time the Circuit completed a weak rotation, and the pathway beneath his shoulder felt raw despite the repaired tissue around it.

Nate waited for his vision to steady.

Then he lifted his right arm.

It rose above his head.

The muscle no longer pulled. The numbness was gone. His knee bent without the swelling that had followed him since the train.

His body had recovered the stable condition it had already known while keeping the balance and movement he had earned through Rovan’s training.

That combination was the dangerous part.

Nate could push his body toward a better state, consolidate the improvement, and later restore it after ordinary physical damage. Training would still hurt. Progress would still require time. But much less of that progress had to be lost.

His stomach twisted again.

Nate grabbed his academy card and left.

The eastern night canteen served maintenance crews and medical staff until dawn.

Two workers occupied a table near the entrance. A woman behind the counter was replacing containers when Nate approached.

He took the largest meal still available and added bread, fruit, and two bottles of water.

The woman looked at the amount.

"Clinic send you?"

"Late recovery treatment."

"For what?"

"Train injuries."

She glanced at the fading marks around his throat, then pushed another bottle toward him.

"Drink before you eat."

Nate carried everything to an empty table.

He finished the water first.

The food disappeared almost as quickly. Hunger returned before he reached the final piece of bread.

Nate brought the empty tray back.

"Another?"

The woman looked at him, then toward the closed kitchen.

"I have stew and whatever survived dinner."

"I’ll take it."

She filled a bowl and added more bread without asking.

Nate ate more slowly this time. Warmth returned to his hands. The shaking eased, though his Core remained nearly empty.

He took packaged food from a machine on the way out and stored it in his field bag.

Body Memory stayed silent. It had used what Nate allowed it to use and stopped.

He doubted a second activation would be possible until he recovered more energy and replaced what the first had consumed.

Dawn was beginning to lighten the academy walls when Nate reached the Southern Simulation Grounds.

The new Circuit turned slowly inside him.

Keeping it hidden required constant attention. As an Unlinked candidate, his energy had once weakened naturally before it could return. Now every completed loop preserved more of it.

Nate reduced the flow until only a thin current moved through the route.

A basic observer might mistake it for ordinary Root Node circulation. A proper medical scan would expose him immediately.

Four candidates waited beside Gate Three.

Leor stood near two strangers wearing technical and logistics markings. Iris was checking the contents of a medical bag.

She looked up when Nate approached.

Her attention went to his right arm.

Nate used it to adjust the strap across his chest.

Iris closed the bag.

"Your shoulder."

"What about it?"

"You could barely move it last night."

"It eased up."

"In a few hours?"

Nate checked the gate.

"Seems that way."

She stepped toward him.

"Let me scan it."

A horn sounded across the grounds.

The reinforced doors began to separate.

An instructor waited beyond them with six relay cells stacked behind him and a training rifle hanging from one shoulder.

"Section Nineteen. Inside."

Iris kept watching Nate.

He joined the others before she could reach for his arm.

The First Circuit completed another restrained loop beneath his skin as the gate closed behind them.

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