Location: Starforge Nexus - Training Facility | Dimensional Fold Space
Time: Day 42 (External: 7 Days)
Six weeks.
Forty-two days of systematic destruction and reconstruction.
Eighty-four training sessions—morning and evening, four hours each, eight hours daily of controlled violence and environmental torture.
Eighty-four medicinal baths of liquid fire that healed while burning, strengthened while destroying.
Jayde stood in the arena's center, practice sword in hand, facing White for their final assessment before the unsealing ceremony.
She looked different now.
Not dramatically—still fifteen years old, still small, still carrying scars from her childhood, although they were much lighter, barely noticeable. She had transformed, she had grown two inches, no longer did she look like an eleven or twelve-year-old child, she was still shorter than her peers, but White had stated that now that she had made up for the shortfall and damage done to her foundation, she would definitely grow a lot taller. Her posture was straighter, shoulders broader, stance more grounded. Muscles defined her arms and legs, where only malnourished thinness had existed before. Her movements were precise, efficient, carrying the confidence of someone who'd earned every ounce of capability through suffering.
Six weeks ago, I could barely run for ninety seconds. Couldn't lift thirty pounds. Zero pull-ups. Collapsed after four hundred feet.
Now—
"Final assessment," White announced. "Running endurance test. Then strength. Then sparring—hand-to-hand and weapons. Then environmental challenge. We test everything. Show me what six weeks of training has forged."
Jayde nodded. No words. Just readiness.
"Run."
She ran.
Perimeter laps. The familiar circuit she'd done a hundred times before. But this time—
Her legs pumped smoothly. Breath controlled, rhythmic, efficient. Heart rate elevated but steady. Form perfect—no wasted motion, every step optimized for maximum distance per energy expended.
Five minutes: barely warming up.
Ten minutes: comfortable pace maintained.
Fifteen minutes: still strong.
Twenty minutes: the burn started, but manageable, expected, and accepted as a normal part of exertion.
Thirty minutes.
Jayde kept running. Legs protesting but functional. Lungs burning but delivering oxygen. Mind clear, focused, counting laps automatically while tactical consciousness monitored body systems.
We can keep going. Another ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.
Forty minutes, twelve seconds.
Her legs stopped working.
But not instant failure this time—gradual shutdown, warning her, letting her slow to a controlled stop instead of a catastrophic crash. She caught herself against the wall, gasping, vision greying at the edges, but conscious, functional, still standing.
"Forty minutes, twelve seconds," White said. "Improvement from day one: thirty-eight minutes, forty-two seconds. You've increased endurance capacity forty-fivefold." He actually smiled—genuine pride, not his usual predatory grin. "Exceptional progress."
Forty-five times stronger. Six weeks of hell compressed into one number.
"Recovery jog. Five minutes. Then strength assessment."
***
The strength tests revealed similar massive improvements.
Deadlift: One hundred forty pounds. Up from thirty.
Bench press: Eighty-five pounds, fifteen repetitions. Up from twenty pounds, three reps.
Pull-ups: Fifteen consecutive. Up from zero.
Squats: Bodyweight plus sixty pounds, twenty reps. Previously couldn't manage bodyweight alone.
"Strength increased four to fivefold across all metrics," White catalogued. "Upper body development particularly impressive—your pull-up capacity went from nonexistent to functionally competent. Core strength is solid. Lower body is excellent."
Jayde's arms shook from the exertion, but she could still move them. Six weeks ago, one assessment would've destroyed her for hours. Now she transitioned immediately to the next test.
"Sparring. Hand-to-hand. Normal rules. Go."
White attacked.
Jayde blocked. Deflected. Actually blocked—not barely surviving, but competently defending. Her Federation muscle memory had fully integrated with Jade's neural pathways, creating something functional.
White's strikes came fast—but not impossibly fast anymore. She could track them, anticipate from shoulder movements, and position herself to minimize impact when blocks failed.
They exchanged maybe fifty techniques before White's sweep caught her leg and dropped her.
Fifty exchanges. Day one was five. Ten-fold improvement.
"Up."
They sparred again. And again. And again.
Jayde fell repeatedly—White's skill was still centuries beyond hers. But she was landing hits now. Not often. Maybe one in twenty strikes actually connected. But that was infinitely more than zero, which had been her success rate week one.
After the tenth knockdown, White called a halt.
"Acceptable. Combat competency achieved. You won't win against skilled opponents, but you won't die immediately either. You can defend long enough to escape or call for help." He handed her a practice sword. "Weapons. Same assessment."
The sword sparring went similarly.
Jayde's bladework had transformed from clumsy flailing to actual technique. Her cuts were clean, combinations smooth, and footwork mobile. White still dismantled her effortlessly—experience gap too vast—but she lasted longer, defended better, occasionally forced him to actually try.
After fifteen exchanges, White nodded. "Functional sword competency achieved. You could survive against Ashborn or Sparkforged tier opponents with basic training. Won't win easily, but won't die immediately."
Survival threshold reached. That's the goal—not winning, just not dying.
"Environmental challenge," White said. "Final test. Heat room, reduced oxygen, darkness, all simultaneously. Spar until failure. This is the worst-case scenario—fighting while every condition works against you."
Oh hell.
***
The combined environmental room was torture.
The temperature forty-five degrees above comfortable. Oxygen reduced to simulate seventeen thousand feet altitude. Pitch darkness—not even the faint bioluminescence, just absolute black.
And in that hell, White attacked.
Jayde couldn't see. Could barely breathe. Heat sapped her strength instantly. Each gasp of thin air left her dizzy, thoughts fuzzy, reactions delayed.
But she fought anyway.
Six weeks of training had taught her body to function through adversity. To push past the screaming warnings of imminent system failure. To operate when every instinct demanded shutdown.
She blocked by sound—hearing White's movements, using spatial awareness instead of vision. Her counters were blind, desperate, mostly missing. But she was fighting. Not well. But fighting.
"Three minutes," White announced from the darkness. His voice was barely audible over her own ragged breathing. "Acceptable performance for worst-case conditions. Week one, you'd have collapsed in thirty seconds. Today: three minutes of functional combat. Adequate environmental adaptation achieved."
The lights came on—blindingly bright after absolute darkness. Oxygen flowed normally again. Temperature normalized.
Jayde collapsed gratefully to the suddenly comfortable floor.
"Final assessment complete," White said. He pulled up her character screen, displayed it where she could see from the floor.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════
║ STARFORGE NEXUS - CONTRACTOR ID
╠═══════════════════════════════════════
║ Name: Jayde Phoenix (Jade Freehold)
║ Contractor Level: 0 → 1 (ADVANCEMENT!)
║ Nexus Merits: 92.0
╠═══════════════════════════════════════
║ PHYSICAL STATUS:
║ - Strength: 21.3/100
║ - Agility: 23.7/100
║ - Endurance: 19.8/100
║ - Constitution: 22.1/100
╠═══════════════════════════════════════
║ CULTIVATION STATUS:
║ - Core: SEALED (Divine Eightfold Lock)
║ - Tier: Voidforge → Ready for Unlock
║ - Essence Access: 0/8 → 1/8 (Pending)
╠═══════════════════════════════════════
║ SKILLS: Combat Fundamentals (Basic)
║ ABILITIES: Environmental Adaptation
║ MISSIONS COMPLETED: 0
╠═══════════════════════════════════════
║ ACCESS LEVEL: Training Facility
║ LOCKED AREAS: 52 → 48
║ FOUNDATION TRAINING: COMPLETE
║ READY FOR FIRST SEAL UNLOCK
╚═══════════════════════════════════════
Level one. Foundation complete. Ready for unsealing.
Stats had increased tenfold. From pathetically weak to merely weak. From incapable of basic function to functionally competent. From certain death in any combat scenario to possible survival if lucky.
Ninety-two Nexus Merits earned—enough to buy several basic skills, or save for something more valuable.
Four locked areas now accessible—probably unlocked by reaching level one, proving herself worthy of additional facilities.
And most importantly—
Foundation training complete. Ready for the first seal unlock.
"Tomorrow," White said quietly, "Isha unseals your Inferno layer. Opens the first lock of the Divine Eightfold. You'll gain access to fire essence, begin actual cultivation, and take your first real step on the path to power."
He crouched beside her, meeting her eyes.
"You've earned this. Six weeks of refusing to quit. Eighty-four sessions of pushing past limits. Eighty-four baths of healing through pain. You survived what breaks most contractors. You adapted what seems impossible. You forged yourself from broken slave child into functional warrior."
White's expression was serious. "The unsealing will hurt. Worse than anything in training. You'll scream. Maybe pass out. Possibly wish for death before it's done." His grey eyes held something almost like respect. "But you'll survive. Because you're a survivor. It's what you do."
He stood, offering a hand.
Jayde took it. Let him pull her upright.
"Bath. Then eat. Then sleep twelve hours—your body needs extra recovery before tomorrow's ordeal." White gestured toward the medicinal bath. "This is your last bath before unsealing. Last session as pure physical training. Tomorrow, you begin true cultivation. Tomorrow, everything changes."
***
The bath felt different tonight.
Same herbs. Same spirit beast blood essence. Same liquid fire that healed and strengthened. But knowing this was the last purely physical recovery—that tomorrow would transform her fundamentally—made the experience almost nostalgic.
Six weeks in this bath. Forty-two times of liquid agony that became familiar, accepted, almost welcome. The pain that meant growth. The fire that forged strength.
(Are you scared?) Jade asked. (About tomorrow?)
Terrified. Pain worse than anything we've experienced. Breaking through divine-era magic. Risking catastrophic failure.
(But we're doing it anyway?)
We're doing it anyway. Because the alternative is staying weak. Staying hunted. Staying powerless.
(We're not powerless anymore,) Jade said softly. (Look at the numbers. We're strong now. Stronger than we've ever been.)
Physically, yes. But without cultivation, without essence access, we're still just a slightly-above-average human in a world of magic users. Tomorrow changes that. Tomorrow, we become something more.
Jade was quiet for a moment. Then: (I'm proud of us. Both of us. Federation you who refused to quit. Child me who survived when anyone else would've broken. Together, we did something impossible.)
Not impossible. Just very, very hard.
(Same thing, really.)
Jayde smiled in the bath's warmth. Yeah. Same thing.
Her character screen floated in her vision. Level one. Foundation complete. Ready for transformation.
Tomorrow, Isha would unseal the first layer.
Tomorrow, the Inferno essence would flow into her Crucible Core for the first time.
Tomorrow, she'd take her first step on the cultivation path—not as Voidforge pretending, but as an actual cultivator. Someone with power. Someone with potential. Someone who might, possibly, eventually, become strong enough to survive what was coming.
One seal down. Seven to go. One essence unlocked. Seven remaining. One step forward into something unprecedented.
Outside the Nexus, in the Dark Forest cave, exactly seven days had passed since Jayde entered the dimensional fold.
Inside, she'd trained for forty-two days. Six weeks of hell compressed into one week of external time.
The clan hunters hadn't even penetrated the mid ring yet. Wouldn't for another week at least, maybe two. Which gave her time. Time to recover from unsealing. Time to learn basic cultivation techniques. Time to adapt to having power instead of just surviving through stubbornness.
Time to become dangerous.
Tomorrow, Jayde thought as exhaustion pulled her toward sleep.