Micah pulled off his old Shadow Step Boots and slipped on the Mark IIs. The difference was immediate. The original boots had been responsive, but the Mark IIs felt like they were reading his mind. He shifted his weight to his left foot, and the thruster on that side fired a micro-burst before his brain had even finished sending the signal. He pivoted right, and the boots adjusted instantly, killing friction on his right sole while maintaining grip on his left.
He took three steps across the room, then fired a full lateral burst. His body snapped sideways so fast that the air cracked. He caught himself on the far wall, both feet planted, and grinned.
’If these things had existed during the Stone-Ape fight, I would have finished that thing in half the time and with half the broken ribs.’
Then came the Void Fang.
He pulled the katana from its scabbard, and the blade sang. Not metaphorically. The micro-vibration edge was already active, oscillating at forty thousand cycles per second, producing a high-pitched hum that vibrated in his teeth and made the hair on his arms stand up.
The blade was pitch-black from tip to guard, so dark that it seemed to absorb the light around it. The edge was so fine that he couldn’t see it with the naked eye. It just ended, like the blade had been cut out of reality itself.
He gripped the hilt with both hands and swung it once. The blade moved through the air with a whisper, no resistance, no drag. The micro-vibrations eliminated friction entirely, and the result was a cut so clean and fast that his eyes couldn’t track the tip.
He swung it at the edge of his metal bunk frame. The blade passed through the steel like it wasn’t there. A clean diagonal cut, no sparks, no sound, no effort. The severed piece of metal slid off and clattered to the floor.
’My old iron sword needed three hits to cut through beast hide. This thing just sliced through military-grade steel without slowing down.’
He sheathed the Void Fang and strapped the scabbard to his back. Then he attached the throwing knife harness to his right thigh, feeling the twelve small blades click into their magnetic slots with a satisfying snap.
He stood in front of his mirror and looked at himself.
The Phantom Carapace hugged his body in sleek black. The Void Fang rose over his shoulder. The throwing knives glinted on his thigh. The Mark II boots grounded him like they were part of his feet.
A week ago, he’d been a ten-percent Flux recruit in a torn uniform with a rusty iron sword and hands that couldn’t stop shaking.
Now he looked like something out of a NovelPhoenix cover.
’Not bad. Not bad at all.’
He spent the next three hours running combat drills in his quarters.
The room was small, but the Shadow Step Boots let him use the walls and ceiling as extensions of the floor. He ran through combinations, chaining together strikes and evasions that would have been physically impossible a week ago.
Beast Analysis tracked his movements in real time, highlighting inefficiencies in his angles and suggesting micro-adjustments to his footwork. Each correction shaved milliseconds off his reaction time, and each session pushed his body to move faster, hit harder, and recover quicker.
By the end of the second hour, he was executing combinations that defied standard military training. A wall-run into a downward slash. A lateral burst into a spinning back kick. A ceiling-mounted drop into a plunging stab with the Void Fang.
His body moved like a weapon, and the gear amplified every advantage he already had.
When he finally stopped, his muscles were burning and his breathing was ragged. He sat on the edge of his bunk, drained the last of his water canteen, and pulled out his comm device.
He logged into the civilian virtual network to check on the auction.
Chloe had not been lazy.
The Astral Trade Syndicate had plastered the "Flawless Miracle Serum" across every major communication channel on the planet. The marketing was aggressive, professional, and everywhere. Headlines screamed from every news feed. Analysts debated the condenser’s implications on live broadcasts. Social media was on fire with speculation, rumors, and desperate wishful thinking from soldiers who dreamed of getting their hands on it.
The virtual auction house was packed. Micah’s anonymous account showed a live feed of the bidding floor, rendered in high-resolution 3D. Hundreds of avatars filled the space, each one representing a buyer who had paid the entry fee just to participate.
The avatars were anonymous, but their affiliations were not. Small icons next to each name indicated their organizational backing. Pharmaceutical conglomerates. Military procurement divisions. Noble family crests. Corporate investment groups. Every major power player on the planet had sent a representative.
The auctioneer appeared on the main stage. She was a polished woman in a silver gown, her voice smooth and commanding as she introduced the single item up for bid.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most exclusive auction in the history of the Astral Trade Syndicate. Tonight, we offer one item. One vial. One opportunity."
The 3D model of the condenser appeared above the stage, rotating slowly, its sapphire glow casting blue light across the virtual room.
"The Flawless Miracle Serum. A Liquid Flux Condenser with a confirmed fourfold absorption rate and zero-point-zero percent impurity. Verified by Master Appraiser Tier One."
She paused.
"The starting bid is one hundred thousand credits."
The number appeared on screen. Six figures. A sum that would take most soldiers three years to earn.
The room went quiet for exactly two seconds.
Then the bids started flying.
One hundred and fifty thousand. Two hundred. Three hundred. Five hundred. The numbers climbed so fast that the display couldn’t keep up, each new bid overwriting the last before Micah could read it.
Minor noble families dropped out within the first thirty seconds. Their credit limits couldn’t sustain the pace. The mid-tier corporate buyers lasted another minute before they too fell away, their avatars dimming as they withdrew.
By the two-minute mark, only the heavyweights remained. Five avatars, each one representing a faction with enough financial backing to buy a small city.
The bidding crossed ten million. Then twenty. Then fifty.
The chat feed beside the auction stage had devolved into a war zone. Rival factions hurled insults and threats at each other in real time, their messages scrolling so fast that Micah could barely read them.
"Clara Group will bury your entire family if you keep bidding."
"Back off before we sanction your supply lines."
"This vial belongs to the Vanguard. Withdraw or face consequences."
At the five-minute mark, a new bidder entered the fray. The avatar was simple, unadorned, but the icon next to its name carried more weight than any other in the room.
The Clara Group. The largest pharmaceutical and military supply conglomerate on the planet.
Their representative didn’t exchange insults. Didn’t threaten. Didn’t argue. They simply placed a single bid that made the entire room go silent.
One billion credits.
One. Billion.
The number sat on the screen, glowing, enormous, definitive. Nobody countered. Nobody could counter. The other four avatars dimmed one by one as their operators withdrew, each of them recognizing that the Clara Group had just drawn a line in the sand that couldn’t be crossed.
The auctioneer’s voice was steady but Micah could see her hands trembling.
"Going once. Going twice."
Pause.
"SOLD. To the Clara Group, for one billion pure original credits."
The virtual room exploded. The chat feed collapsed under the weight of thousands of simultaneous messages. News feeds across the planet picked up the story in real time, headlines updating every few seconds.
Micah stared at his comm device screen.
His account balance had updated. Syndicate fees had been deducted. The remaining amount sat there in plain white digits.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he set the device down, lay back on his bunk, and closed his eyes.
’I’m a billionaire. I’m an actual billionaire. I got here by punching walls and letting a training dummy break my ribs.’
He let out a laugh that bounced off the concrete walls of his tiny, spartan quarters.
’Tomorrow, I’m going to buy Dexter a fruit basket. Just to watch him squirm.’
Micah sat on his bunk and stared at the number on his comm device until the screen went dark.
One billion credits.
He picked the device up, tapped the screen awake, and checked the balance again. Still there. Still real. Still an amount of money that made his brain short-circuit every time he looked at it.
He set the device down, picked it up, checked it again.
Still there.
’Okay. Stop. Put it down. Walk away. You have a tournament to prepare for and you’re acting like a kid who just found his Christmas presents early.’
He forced himself to set the comm device on the nightstand and placed his water canteen on top of it to block the screen. The money was staggering. More than staggering. It was the kind of wealth that could buy entire districts, fund private armies, and make noble families bow at the dinner table. Even the highest-ranking military instructors at the academy probably didn’t clear a fraction of that in their entire careers.
And it was his. All of it. Sitting in an anonymous account that couldn’t be traced back to a ten-percent-Flux recruit who still had holes in his academy-issued boots.
But money wouldn’t save him in the ring.
Dexter would be there. Forty-four percent Flux, years of elite training, and a grudge that had been simmering since the day Micah accidentally took first place in the arena trial. Myra would be there too, cold and precise and hungry to reclaim her position.
These were people who had trained their entire lives for combat. People who had been bred, raised, and conditioned to fight. People who had never lost a ranking match in their entire academy career.
And Micah was about to walk into a tournament against all of them with a system that rewarded getting hurt, a set of gear worth more than the academy building itself, and a Flux level that had gone from ten to forty in the span of a week.
He took a slow, deep breath. Then another. Then he dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups.
Not because he needed the exercise. His body was already in better shape than it had ever been, courtesy of the Stone-Ape power crystal and the Advanced Flux Breathing Talent. He needed the rhythm. The focus. The simple, repetitive physical action that quieted the noise in his head and brought his attention back to what mattered.
Push-up. Breathe. Push-up. Breathe.
The tournament was tomorrow. Everything he’d done over the past week, the ruins, the vault, the Stone-Ape, the Drake, the Syndicate, all of it had been preparation for this single event.
He needed to be ready.
He trained through the night
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