The tension lingered in the air for a moment longer, but then I saw Johansson’s gaze flick over some text I couldn’t see, and his grip on the mace loosened. His expression shifted—he no longer looked like he was about to turn me into a bloody smear.

  Novak had clearly sent him a message.

  "Sorry, kid…" he muttered, rubbing the back of his helmeted head.

  I just snorted but decided not to push it.

  "Happens."

  Johansson gave me another nod and dropped heavily onto the seat beside me. The rest of the ride passed in silence—him with a grim expression, me with growing unease about how a real demon might react to the ring. Or, for that matter, someone equally hot-tempered from our side.

  I twisted the ring on my finger a few more times, feeling the cold metal against my skin. The thought of how high-level cultivators might react to it didn’t sit well. I needed to keep it out of sight—at least until I reached a pce filled with first-years. There, the risk of running into someone truly dangerous would be minimal.

  I slipped the ring off and shoved it into my pocket.

  Johansson noticed and shot me a curious look.

  "Don’t wanna run into someone like you," I expined. "Too big a fish for me."

  He smirked and nodded in understanding. Then, after a quick gnce around the nearly empty carriage, he leaned in and murmured:

  "If anything bites, call a master without hesitation. Or me."

  I still had no idea who he really was, but given how dangerous he seemed, I wasn’t about to argue.

  Johansson got off a few stops earlier—at Armour Hall. I rode the train all the way back to the dorms, then headed straight for the cafeteria. I’d messaged my roommates beforehand, but both had turned me down, ciming they were busy.

  Right before stepping into the cafeteria, I slipped the ring back onto my finger.

  This time, the meal lottery gave me the jackpot—stewed meat that actually tasted like stewed meat, metallic-looking rice that somehow tasted like goush, and a purple vegetable sad that, surprisingly, tasted like a mix of tomatoes and cucumbers. I’ve had a sad with that taste before — but that one was blue.

  Grateful for such a rare stroke of luck, I even stopped scanning the room for suspicious gnces—at least until I’d taken the edge off my hunger. Only once my pte was more than half empty did I slow my chewing and start watching the other cadets.

  Some were deep in conversation. Others stared bnkly at their interfaces while eating.

  But not a single one so much as gnced at me with suspicion.

  Well… I hadn’t expected quick results anyway.

  I finished my jackpot of a meal, twisted the ring around my finger, and figured there was no point in sitting around any longer. Not a single interested gnce. No dangerous reactions.

  Time to move on. Or rather—time to head back to Armour Hall.

  The hall was much less crowded than st time. It looked like most of the first-years had already picked up their gear, so more ptforms had been switched back to regur dressing mode. Less noise, less chaos—the queues moved faster.

  I spent maybe five to seven minutes waiting in line, then stepped onto the ptform and stood in the centre. The metal maniputors came to life, quickly locking the armour into pce. Everything moved smoothly, no deys— even the click of the locks securing each piece felt pleasantly rhythmic.

  The activation of the hypersensitivity formation, however, was far less pleasant. A wave of nausea hit my full stomach like a hammer. Luckily, it passed fast. I was adapting better now, and hopefully, the trend would continue.

  A few minutes ter, I was leaving Armour Hall and heading toward the Fist Garden.

  Diego 098 put me on violets this time. He even assigned me six drones, which meant the job was no longer quite so simple—or boring. I barely had time to process and seal the baskets, but the pay was still the same single point.

  This time, I sent all the drones to a single flower bed at once. The metal spiders didn’t extend their legs—since violets were low-growing—but they still moved carefully, making sure not to damage the pnts.

  The harvest went quickly and almost without issue. Toward the end, one of the drones started twitching one of its multi-jointed limbs oddly, but it followed the exit command without compint and came to a halt by my feet.

  After reporting to Diego, I realised I still had the energy for another shift. But I didn’t feel like working, either. The workload had increased, and I hadn’t had much time to focus on my qi perception.

  Maybe that was why I still felt fresh.

  "Diego, is it okay to just… walk around here?"

  The thinhorned overseer turned to me with mild curiosity.

  "Reason?"

  "I want to observe other people's techniques. That’s not forbidden, is it?"

  "No," he waved dismissively. "But the higher-ups won’t like it if a first-year is wandering the garden without a purpose."

  "Aren’t you the one in charge here?" I asked.

  I think this was the first time I’d ever seen this Diego smile.

  "When have you ever seen a thinhorn be in charge?"

  "Well, at the very least, I’m following your orders right now."

  Diego waved me off again and gestured toward an area in the distance.

  "No staff should be there for a while. Just don’t climb onto the ptforms—they’re for work only! And—just in case—don’t linger in one pce for too long.”

  "Got it. Thanks."

  I turned in the direction he had indicated and started walking, tuning in to my senses.

  Qi was everywhere. But it was just… general qi. Or maybe it wasn’t, and I simply couldn’t tell the difference yet.

  Since most of the pnts in the garden were low-growing, I could spot people on the ptforms from a distance. The closest figure practicing their techniques was a thinhorn—dressed in a bck jumpsuit, wearing a breathing mask, his posture that of a focused predator.

  He stood in the centre of a training ptform, dark, translucent silver flickering around his hands. His technique looked simir to the ones I’d already seen—especially the first one I had witnessed—but his qi projection was darker.

  The thinhorn raised his hand, and qi thickened around his fist. It didn’t disperse or sh out uncontrolbly—it held a sharp, distinct shape, like a fist cast from liquid metal.

  Slowly, he drew his arm back, as if preparing to strike, then shed forward in a sudden burst. The qi fist tore from his hand—but instead of vanishing, it began to grow, expanding in size as it flew toward a target.

  This was definitely a different technique. The fist grew far too noticeably before detonating, smming into its target—a composite pte set ten metres from the ptform.

  The impact made the pte shudder, and residual qi dispersed onto the low shrubs beneath it. The pte itself had seen better days—hundreds of fine cracks already covered its surface, and I suspected it wouldn’t be long before they repced it.

  I circled around the thinhorn and his ptform, trying to pick up on something in his technique.

  All I got in return was a wary gnce.

  Time to change my target.

  The thinhorn’s technique seemed the most stable of anything I’d seen so far. His qi projection had the clearest projection. It was impressive… but I wasn’t sure if that was actually good.

  And I wasn’t about to spend all day thinking about it. I still had one more shift to finish.

  I moved on, heading toward the thickets, where it was much harder to see anything. Something about the air here felt… different. Not the air itself—my armour was handling my breathing, pumping in more oxygen than what Verdis’ atmosphere naturally offered. But the formation allowed me to feel the thick qi vibrating around me.

  Maybe more of it settled on the bushes here. Or maybe it was just harder to collect from them.

  The qi rippled, like water in a pond after a stone had been tossed in.

  Qi was everywhere. Different kinds of it.

  I focused, trying to catch what felt different. Some parts of the garden seemed "light"—filled with something fluid and fast. Others felt heavy, pressing down like an invisible weight.

  The longer I wandered, the clearer it became: different techniques left their own imprints in the air. But there was something they all had in common…

  A fsh of blue-green armour drew my attention to a cadet. I stopped, frowning.

  School armour was supposed to have bck in its design. I was sure of it. After all, we were the Bck Lotus School! But this guy… his gear didn’t have a single trace of bck.

  Wait—no, there it was! A bck lotus emblem on his shoulder, just like the one on my chest.

  Guess I misunderstood something. I had left my own armour’s colour choices to An. Maybe bck was just the default.

  As interesting as the colour mystery was, the cadet’s technique was far more fascinating. Unlike the thinhorn, who moved slowly and methodically, this one worked in flow. His punches were smooth, natural—his qi projections didn’t fly straight but curved through the air.

  I took a few steps closer, watching.

  Movement—qi burst—projection detached and arced through the air before fading out about twenty meters away.

  Wow.

  This was the longest-range fist I had seen so far!

  Then I saw something even crazier—one of the projections changed course mid-flight. Not sharply, not erratically—gracefully, like a hunting bird adjusting its trajectory before striking.

  Damn, that was beautiful!

  His fists didn’t explode. They simply faded into the air.

  Not wanting to get another wary stare like I had with the thinhorn, I moved on.

  Different techniques left different imprints in the air. Where the blue-green cadet had trained, I felt fluidity, speed.

  But the next pce my walk took me was completely different.

  Here, qi didn’t just feel heavy—it pressed down. It settled in my chest like a solid weight.

  A cultivator in bck-and-blue armour stood on a ptform, moving as if the weight of the entire world rested on his shoulders.

  Then, just as he finished his motion—a downward strike, fist aimed at his own feet—a massive transparent fist, three times the size of my head, came crashing down onto another ptform ten meters away.

  The impact made both the ptform and the ground tremble.

  I almost let my jaw drop.

  Now THAT was some serious magic!—I mean, cultivation. I meant to say cultivation!

  The ptform he was striking wasn’t solid—it was a target, something like a reinforced trampoline. Its surface vibrated, resonating with the fist’s projection impact, scattering residual qi across the surrounding unfamiliar pnts.

  The technique was slow—but the sheer power behind it was overwhelming. I wanted to learn something like this. I’d bet anything that fist could turn solid rock into rubble.

  The cultivator shook off the tension in his body, then settled back into his stance, preparing to repeat the movement.

  This time, I watched even closer.

  Qi thickened around his hands—but even more of it gathered in the air above the target. That was where it truly took shape—massive, dark, like a fist cast from iron.

  The moment its contours sharpened, the cultivator’s fist came down—

  And the projection dropped like a cannonball.

  This time, the impact was even heavier. And in that moment, I felt it.

  Hardness. Strength. Determination.

  This is it.

  This was Fist Qi!

  MaksymPachesiuk