Roland's premier Meat shop
Periun city, Kettlia Region
Ashtarium Nation
North American Continent
October 9th, 2019
The echo of footsteps rang sharp against the reinforced floor of the Cold Hollow. The training chamber was dim, lit only by the soft glow of mana crystals embedded in the walls, casting silver-blue light across the space. Jack stood at the center of the arena mat, his breath even, his stance grounded. Across from him, Jacien rolled his shoulders, claws retracted for now, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"So," Jacien said, circling slowly, "Nico tells me you've been cooking up something new."
Jack nodded. "A Battle Art. I've been piecing it together for days. Just… needed to feel it in my bones first."
Jacien gave a low, approving chuckle. "Good. That's how all the real ones start. You ready to test it?"
"As I'll ever be."
"Then don't hold back. Show me what your space looks like."
Without another word, Jacien vanished—his footwork a blur, his body cutting through the air with practiced ease. He was already in motion, coming in fast, closing the gap with speed that would have overwhelmed the Jack of just a week ago. Jack's hands clenched. His instincts screamed move, but he didn't.
Instead—he reached inward.
Flow control—steady.Infusion—synchronized.Zone Drive—ignite.
The world around him seemed to twist, a soft ripple radiating outward from where his foot met the ground. Space warped—just slightly—and Jacien faltered mid-step. Not stopped. Not slowed. Just… out of rhythm. Jack's breathing deepened as his Mana surged—not wildly, but deliberately, each pulse aligning with the spiral of his soul. He could feel the tension in the air, the moment between action and consequence. And then, in that suspended beat, he whispered the name he had chosen.
"Spatial Anchor strike."
Mana surged through him and down into the ground, anchoring a zone of warped space centered beneath his opponent's position. The space thickened, not with weight, but with resistance—like turning the air itself into molasses around Jacien's joints.
Jacien's eyes flicked wide for half a second. His stride staggered, slowed—not from a physical strike, but from spatial drag. His trajectory skewed, his momentum collapsed.
Jack moved, pivoting with momentum recalibrated by his own anchored zone. His fist, infused with concentrated Mana, struck Jacien square in the side.
A dull thoom echoed across the chamber.
Jacien grunted and staggered back, caught off guard for the first time in days.
Jack skidded to a stop, heart pounding, his zone receding in a silent ripple.
The silence held for a breath.
Then Jacien straightened, rubbing his ribs, eyes gleaming. "You little bastard," he said, voice full of approval. "That was good. That wasn't just control—you shaped the field. Used your Zone as a weight. Spatial entrapment, mass manipulation, and a reinforced strike all in one."
Jack grinned. "I call it spatial Anchor strike. Lock their movement, shift their balance... and counter hard."
Jacien nodded slowly. "A good technique. You didn't try to imitate anyone else—you made the battlefield yours."
From the observation platform above, Nico smiled faintly, arms crossed.
"Now," Jacien added, his grin widening, "let's see if you can do it again when I stop pulling my punches."
Jack's smile didn't falter. "Bring it."
They went again. But this time, it was different. Brutally different. Jacien wasn't holding back anymore. Jack barely had time to think before the older man was on him, his movements a blur of precision and power. Jack tried to respond—tried to deploy the Spatial Anchor Strike—but Jacien wasn't giving him an inch of space.
The first time had been a gift. Jacien had allowed it, curious to see what Jack could do. But now? Now he was testing him. Jack staggered backward, gritting his teeth as he tried to keep up. The Zone Drive inside him pulsed, but the sequence required to activate the technique was complex—layered.
Step one: expand the Zone. Step two: set anchor points—localized spatial nodes that increased gravitational drag within the field. Step three: apply spatial locks beneath his feet and behind his fists, creating vectors of frictionless tension to stabilize his body mid-motion.The idea was to generate a burst strike—not by brute force, but by converting spatial balance into precision and amplified impact. The spatial locks absorbed recoil, kept him from overextending, and allowed him to deliver devastating hits without compromising posture.
It was a brilliant system. In theory. In practice? Jacien was simply too fast. Before Jack could finish expanding the Zone or align even a single anchor point, Jacien was already inside his guard. A blur of movement—an elbow to the ribs, a sweep at the leg—and Jack hit the mat again and again, breath knocked clean from his lungs each time.
He coughed, trying to rise, but Jacien was already standing over him.
"You see the problem?" Jacien said, voice calm but firm. "What you've built is solid. But you're relying on too many conditions. Too many steps. A good Battle Art needs to respond, not wait."
Jack groaned, rolling to his side. "Easy for you to say…"
Jacien offered him a hand. Jack took it.
"You've got the blueprint," Jacien continued. "Now you need to refine it. Compress the process. Make it instinctive. If your enemy can shut it down before it starts, it's useless."
From above, Nico called down. "Don't get discouraged, Jack. What you're building is powerful—but right now, it's still an engine with too many moving parts. We'll help you cut it down to its essence."
Jack wiped sweat from his brow and took a breath.
He understood now. Battle arts wasn't just about deploying a cool move. It was a combat system. And if he wanted it to make his own, it had to be faster. Smoother. Second nature. No more thinking. Just doing like it was second nature to him.
He squared up again.
"Alright," he said, eyes narrowing. "Let's go again."
Jacien grinned. "That's more like it."
In the days that followed, Jack came to a hard truth.
Spatial Anchor Strike—as powerful as it felt in the moment—wasn't a complete Battle Art.
It was an effective technique, sure. A precise, punishing move with good timing and power behind it. A potential finisher. But it wasn't enough to carry him through a real fight—especially not against other Manaborns.
Against Mundanes, it would've ended most battles before they began. But against a trained Ascendant, against someone like Jacien… it would get him killed. And so he kept pushing.
Day after day, he sparred with Jacien—each bout demanding more from him, stripping away hesitation and burning off wasted movement. The chaos of his early attempts slowly gave way to form. Rhythm. Control.
His stance sharpened.His strikes grew more efficient.His footwork, once scattered and reactive, began to flow with purpose. Jack felt it in his body—the shift from instinct to discipline. No more flailing. No more flukes. Every motion now served a function: to strike, to evade, to control.
Even his stamina, which had once buckled under pressure, was holding strong. He was learning to pace his Mana output, to conserve strength without losing edge. The sync between body and soul was no longer theory—it was becoming reflex.
He was evolving. Not just a boy with a spark of power. Not just someone chasing strength. A fighter. Now, when he imagined facing a skilled mundane martial artist, he didn't feel doubt. He didn't even feel challenged. He knew—without arrogance, but with certainty—that they wouldn't stand a chance. He was becoming something else. Something more.
"Are all Manaborns Ascendants?" Jack asked, his breath still steadying after a brief sparring session with Nico.
They stood in the Cold Hollow, the air cool and heavy with residual mana. Jacien was upstairs, back in the shop, tending to business. Down here, the world was quiet—focused. Jack had grown to appreciate these moments. The rhythm of training. The clarity it brought.
Nico wiped a trace of sweat from his brow, then shook his head. "Unfortunately… no."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"To ascend," Nico continued, "to grow and truly develop as a cultivator—it's a privilege. A rare honor. Not something guaranteed by birth. Most Manaborns never reach that point."
Jack listened, his curiosity sharpening.
"Many Manaborns," Nico said, "are born with fixed, static abilities—powers that can't evolve. Their soul cores are dormant. Inactive. Which means they can't form a Mana Core at all."
"But… they still use Mana, right?" Jack asked.
"They can generate it, yes. Their souls can filter Spirit Energy into Mana naturally—just like you. But they can't control the process. It's unconscious. Automatic. Like breathing without understanding what oxygen is."
"So they're stuck," Jack murmured.
Nico nodded. "Exactly. They may have flashy abilities—but no cultivation, no growth. No ability to refine or expand their power."
Jack frowned, the weight of it sinking in. "So being an Ascendant… really is rare."
"Rarer than you think," Nico said quietly. "And far more dangerous. You'll find far more Dormant Ascendants than Awakened Manaborns. Most never take that first step."
He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he observed Jack. "Hmm... it seems your soul core is ready. It's fully saturated with Spirit Energy. All that Mana training must've accelerated your cultivation. You're on the cusp."
Jack looked up, listening intently.
"Now all you need to do is meditate," Nico continued. "With your core in this state, you should be able to ascend to the next realm."
Jack nodded. He'd already felt it—an internal fullness, a pressure building quietly within, waiting for release. A kind of density behind his awareness that made his body feel heavier… more rooted.
Without another word, he sat down, crossing his legs on the training mat. He closed his eyes and turned inward—reaching for that deep, quiet space inside himself.
The Internal World.
There, in the sanctum of his soul, it waited: a shining, rotating sphere suspended in the void—his soul core. At its center, a dense inner chamber pulsed with exotic energy—the raw, luminous glow of pure Spirit Energy. Jack drew closer, not with his body, but with his will. He focused. And in that stillness, instinct took over.
He felt the urge to cycle the sphere—rotate it with purpose, not passively. The moment he followed that urge, his soul core began to spin faster. The pressure mounted.
Then—release.
A radiant surge burst from the core, flooding his internal world. Mana poured from the soul core like a breaking dam, cascading through his spiritual channels, rushing down into his dantian where his developing Mana Core resided.
The Mana Core pulsed as it absorbed the surge, expanding, stabilizing. A new harmony formed between soul and core—between the breath of spirit and the will of the body. Jack's consciousness trembled under the force of the transformation.
He was ascending.
As the torrent of Spirit-infused Mana surged through him, Jack felt the contours of his Internal World begin to shift.
At the Novice Realm, his internal space had been little more than a void—dark, still, and undefined. A quiet chamber where only the soul core floated, surrounded by emptiness. But now, as his soul core pulsed with a rhythm deeper than thought, that void trembled… and then began to bloom.
Light fractured through the darkness, forming luminous strands that spread outward like roots of starlight. The internal world around him expanded—no longer an empty sphere, but a nascent realm of its own. Colors that didn't exist in the material world flickered across the edges of the space. Prismatic mist began to swirl, infused with the residual essence of Spirit Energy, forming a kind of atmospheric field.
The soul core hovered at the center like a radiant sun, but now it was orbited by faint glyphs—symbols of potential, etched into the space by the act of conscious growth.
And beneath it, the Mana Core—once a fragile, embryonic node in his dantian—had grown solid and stable, glowing with a soft silver-blue hue. No longer simply a storage point, it had become a responsive organ of power, resonating with his soul like an echo chamber for intention.
The Novice Realm had been about awakening. The Acolyte Realm… was about alignment.
Jack could feel the shift in his perception immediately.
Where before Mana was something he reached for, now it responded—intimately, instinctively. Flow Control no longer felt like paddling through a river. It was like breathing.
He could feel spatial tension more acutely now. The density of reality. The way mass pulled, the way motion curved space. His Zone Drive—his Ability Factor—felt closer to him than ever before, like a second skin.
Even his body, though still sore and recovering from training, felt lighter. More efficient. His stamina regenerated faster, and his spatial awareness expanded, letting him sense shifts in energy beyond his immediate field of vision.
Nico watched him carefully as Jack opened his eyes, a faint glow still receding from his irises.
"You've stepped into the Acolyte Realm," Nico said with quiet satisfaction. "From here on out, you're no longer just touching your power. You're weaving with it." Jack exhaled, a subtle smile forming on his lips. He could feel it—subtle but profound. This was just the beginning.
As Jack walked home, his steps felt lighter than they had in weeks. The soreness in his limbs was still there, but it was different now—earned, tempered, like the echo of a forge strike on steel. His mind raced with thoughts of how far he'd come… and what his Zone Drive might now be capable of, now that he had stepped into the Acolyte Realm.
That was when the Codex stirred within him.
"Now that Ascendant has entered the Acolyte Realm, Codex recommends immediate prioritization of system upgrade," the Codex said, its voice clinical, composed as always.
"Upgrade?" Jack echoed aloud, brow furrowing.
"Affirmative. In order to assist with the continued enhancement of Ascendant's cultivation, Codex must undergo structural optimization. Each cultivation advancement requires Codex system recalibration to adapt to higher energy demands."
Jack glanced around, making sure no one was nearby, then continued in a lower voice, "Alright. How do I upgrade you?"
"Codex requires assimilation of Mana Stones—crystallized spirit-energy cores found in Manaborn territory or cultivation-rich zones. Upon integration, they will provide sufficient metaphysical fuel for the system upgrade."
"Makes sense…" Jack murmured. "Where do I even get Mana Stones?"
"Options include scavenging them from defeated Manaborn, purchasing from black market arcane brokers, or extraction from mana-imbued beasts. Warning: legal acquisition is limited for unregistered Factorists."
Jack sighed. "So basically… steal them, buy them from sketchy people, or hunt monsters."
"Correct."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Figures."
Still, he couldn't deny the logic. If the Codex was going to help him refine his Zone Drive and push his cultivation further, he'd need every advantage—and if that meant powering it with Mana Stones, then so be it.
He looked up at the sky as he walked, the stars just starting to pierce through the velvet dusk.
Looks like the next stage of training just found me…