The walk to the training hall passed through the familiar evening bustle of Dornhaven, though Evan found himself noticing more of it than usual. He ate the small meal he'd picked up on the way out of the stall as he walked, a warm spiced meat wrap called a Hearthroll, filled with thinly sliced meat, roasted vegetables, and a mild sauce folded into soft flatbread. It was simple, filling street food, common enough that he'd seen similar stalls throughout Dornhaven, and the warmth of it was welcome against the evening air. He paused once near a crowded crossing while a stream of pedestrians passed beneath the glowing signs overhead. The town's artificial lights were beginning to brighten as the afternoon illumination faded, casting reflections across windows and polished stone while street vendors prepared for the evening crowd. Somewhere above, a transit carriage slid along an elevated route with barely a sound, its mana-lit rails glowing beneath it.
His thoughts kept returning to the construct.
For once, Valor had already decided what the evening would hold. Evan wasn't wondering what conditioning circuit awaited him or whether the day's training would leave him too exhausted to think clearly. He had a much simpler goal now: improve the first sequence. He had spent the morning learning how much could be hidden inside a movement that looked almost trivial, and the realization had left him with an odd mixture of frustration and anticipation. There was something satisfying about having a problem he could actually understand, even if solving it would take far longer than he wanted.
Halfway to the hall, he noticed his stride had become slightly uneven as he approached a corner. Without thinking, he shortened one step and adjusted his weight before turning, the movement smooth enough that he barely registered making the correction until afterward. Evan slowed for a moment, a faint smile appearing despite himself.
He had spent the day practicing with Grade Zero, and already its lessons were beginning to follow him into the rest of his life. The thought made him strangely pleased. He had expected the construct to teach him techniques. Instead, it was teaching him to notice himself.
When Evan reached the training hall, he found Ren, Keira, Lyra, and Dain already there. They exchanged the usual greetings and spent a few minutes talking about the day before joining the rest of the trainees for their evening conditioning. The conversation was light and familiar, touching on work, food, and whatever else had occupied their attention since morning. By the time they began warming up, Evan had settled comfortably back into the rhythm of training with them.
The evening conditioning followed the routine he had grown accustomed to: stretching, balance work, stance transitions, core stabilization, footwork drills, and the other exercises that formed the foundation of their training. Evan worked through each of them alongside his friends, paying attention to his movements while allowing himself to settle into the familiar pace of the session. The work was demanding enough to leave him warm and slightly winded by the end, but it no longer carried the same uncertainty it had when he first arrived at the hall.
When the conditioning session finally ended, the others gathered their things and prepared to leave.
"Good luck in there," Ren said, slinging his bag over one shoulder. "Try not to let Grade Zero make you question every step you've ever taken."
Keira gave him an amused look. "You'll do fine. Just keep working at it."
"And don't stay so long that you're half-dead tomorrow morning," Lyra added.
Dain nodded. "Take it easy when you need to. You've got plenty of time to improve."
Evan smiled and thanked them, watching as the four of them headed out together. Their voices gradually faded into the wider noise of the training hall before the entrance doors closed behind them.
Evan remained where he was for another few minutes, taking a small breather and drinking some water. The evening conditioning had left his muscles pleasantly tired, but his mind was already turning toward the next part of his training.
When he finally rose, he made his way toward the construct section.
When he entered the construct section, Evan found several trainees already occupying the higher-grade circles farther down the hall. Some were practicing individual movements and techniques, repeating them against their assigned constructs until they could execute them with greater consistency, while others were actively fighting their constructs, using the encounters to test and refine what they had learned. Evan paused near the entrance and approached the section's operator, presenting his lattice band and the authorization Valor had registered for him. The operator checked the permission, confirmed his access, and directed him toward the Grade Zero circle without further fuss.
Evan thanked him before moving toward his assigned circle. He set his bag aside near the edge of the practice area and stepped inside. The runes beneath his feet lit almost immediately, briefly displaying the authorization tied to his access before settling into a steady glow. Across from him, the construct's eyes brightened softly as it recognized his presence. A moment later, it took its first measured step.
Without hesitation, Evan mirrored it once again, beginning exactly where he had left off that morning.
This time, however, the opening stance came a little more naturally, requiring fewer conscious corrections before he began. His shoulders settled sooner, and his breathing found its rhythm earlier. When the first step landed, he found himself paying more attention to the shift beginning at his center rather than thinking only about where his foot should go. Grade Zero remained as uncompromising as ever, exposing plenty of mistakes, but Evan could feel that some of yesterday's corrections were beginning to stay with him. It was a small difference, but enough for him to notice.
Since leaving the construct that morning, Evan had been thinking about how much easier it might be to study Grade Zero if he could narrow his attention even further. Predator Focus came to mind more than once, and now that he was standing across from an actual opponent, he finally had the clearest opportunity to test it. One of the reasons it had taken so long to activate during the first trial, he suspected, was that he had never understood what he was facing. He had not known whether the presence before him was even physical, let alone whether it could truly be considered a target.
This time, there was no such uncertainty. Evan consciously activated Predator Focus.
His attention narrowed almost immediately, the surrounding training hall receding as his awareness settled around the construct's movements. His breathing slowed, and each repetition became easier to examine in detail. The skill did not transform what he was seeing, but it sharpened the edges of each movement enough for him to follow the subtle transitions more clearly: the shift through the hips, the placement of the foot, the recovery that had already begun before the previous motion was fully complete.
Evan continued through the sequence, comparing each movement against his own and searching for the smallest corrections he could make.
The effect was subtle from the outside. Grade Zero continued at the same pace, while the scrape of distant equipment, muffled conversations, and even his growing fatigue faded into the background. He found himself following the construct's center of mass and catching the small adjustments that preceded each step: a slight turn through the hips, weight settling onto one leg, a brief release of tension before motion began. Those preparations lasted only an instant, yet they revealed where each movement truly started. For the first time, Evan was seeing more than the movement itself. He was beginning to recognize the sequence that led into it.
Another sequence began.
Evan mirrored it immediately. The first step landed cleaner than before, his recovery following with less hesitation. As he reset, he deliberately brought Cold Calculus to the front of his awareness and let it work through the observations he had already gathered, comparing the latest movement with his earlier attempts and weighing where the improvement had come from. He did the same with Territory Sense, allowing the passive map of the practice circle to settle more clearly into his awareness as it continued gathering information about his position, the construct's movements, and the small changes in spacing between them.
Neither skill told him what to do. Cold Calculus could estimate what was likely to happen from the information available to him, while Territory Sense could reveal patterns in how movement was distributed through the space, but neither could explain why a particular movement worked or correct the mistakes in his execution. Grade Zero remained the teacher. Evan still had to observe, understand, and make each adjustment himself, but now he had more information to work with every time the sequence began again.
The hour slipped by almost unnoticed. Repetition blended into repetition until Evan could no longer remember exactly how many times he had performed the opening sequence. Occasionally he would stop after a step, reset his stance, and spend several seconds thinking through a single mistake before trying again. Other times the corrections came without thought at all, his body instinctively adjusting after comparing itself against the construct's flawless standard. Every few minutes Grade Zero would return to its neutral stance before beginning again, tireless and perfectly consistent, offering the exact same lesson with the exact same precision.
The skills gradually became part of the process rather than something he had to consciously manage. Predator Focus sharpened what he saw, Territory Sense gave him a growing spatial picture, and Cold Calculus helped him interpret the observations accumulating with each repetition. None of them could perform the movement for him or tell him exactly why he was making a mistake. That understanding still had to come from Evan himself, built through observation, correction, and repetition. Yet with each cycle, he was able to draw a little more from the lesson Grade Zero had given him, noticing details that might otherwise have passed unnoticed and carrying each small refinement into the next attempt.
As the session drew to a close, the construct completed another demonstration and became still.
The runes beneath the platform shimmered softly before the same emotionless voice echoed through the training area once more.
Grade Zero Observation Record Updated.
Movement Stability Increased.
Synchronization Efficiency Improved.
Continue Current Training Pattern.
The voice fell silent as quickly as it had appeared. Once again, the system offered no percentages, rankings, or indication of how much farther he had to go. Grade Zero acknowledged only direction, never destination. Evan exhaled slowly, feeling equal parts exhausted and satisfied. He bowed his head ever so slightly toward the construct out of simple respect before stepping out of the practice circle. Tomorrow morning, it would begin from the first step again. And so would he.
As Evan stepped back into the main training hall, he noticed how thoroughly spent he felt. His body was tired, yet not in the familiar way that followed conditioning circuits or long runs. This exhaustion settled deeper, born less from physical strain than from the sustained concentration Grade Zero had demanded. Keeping Predator Focus active while letting Territory Sense gradually build its picture and Cold Calculus work through the information had added another layer to the process. It had required him to keep track of far more than he could normally absorb from the same number of repetitions, but the extra effort had also given him considerably more insight than he had gained when training without them. Every movement had been examined from another angle, leaving less room for his mind to drift into habit or momentum.
Even so, the construct had done nothing for him. It had simply given him more to observe, while the skills helped him make better use of what he was seeing. There was something deeply satisfying about that. His progress still could not be measured neatly through numbers or levels, yet he could feel that his own body was becoming a little easier to understand.
Leaving the training hall behind, Evan made his way through the cooling evening streets toward the Authority Hall. He felt pleasantly tired, the sort of fatigue that came with knowing he had spent the evening well. The session had given him far more to think about than he could possibly process at once, yet the thought left him quietly satisfied.
He let himself slow down as he walked, taking the rest of the journey as a chance to unwind. Dornhaven had settled into its evening rhythm around him, with shops keeping their doors open beneath illuminated signs, food stalls drawing clusters of late customers, and streams of people moving between the various districts. Evan exchanged a few brief words with familiar faces along the way, sometimes stopping for only a moment before continuing on. The town itself seemed to change after dark. Mana lamps brightened along the streets, transit routes carried a steady flow of carriages overhead, and glowing advertisements shifted across the facades of taller buildings. Farther off, the upper levels of Dornhaven rose above the older streets in layers of surfaces that reminded Evan of stone, glass, and metal, though he had no way of knowing whether they were actually made from the same materials he had known on Earth. Their smooth facades caught the city's lights, stretching upward into the darkening sky.
For once, Evan made little effort to study everything around him. He simply enjoyed the walk, letting the sounds and movement of the city pass around him as his mind gradually settled.
By the time the broad entrance of the Authority Hall came into view ahead, Evan was feeling increasingly hungry, the evening's training having left him famished enough that his thoughts had begun drifting toward his next meal.
Once Evan returned to his room, the familiar evening routine unfolded almost without thought. A hot shower eased the lingering tension from his muscles, after which he sat down to a hearty dinner and ate with considerably more appetite than usual. The meal left him comfortably full, and he lingered for a few minutes afterward, letting the warmth settle before finally moving to the chair beside the window and opening his notebook once more.
Tonight, the page filled considerably faster than it had the previous evening. The additional time with Grade Zero, together with the greater clarity he had gained from using his skills during the session, had given him far more to work with. His notes grew into several pages as he expanded on what he had written before, added observations that had only become apparent through repeated practice, and made a few changes to earlier entries where his understanding had shifted. He went through the notes more than once, refining them as he wrote until he was satisfied that they reflected what he had actually learned rather than what he merely thought he had understood.
At the bottom of the final page, he added a single line for his own sake.
Don't chase perfection. Remove imperfections one at a time.
Evan read through everything once more, then closed the notebook with a quiet sense of satisfaction and set it aside.
When he finally lay down, sleep did not come immediately. Instead, the day's lessons replayed quietly through his mind. Grade Zero's silent demonstration. Valor's measured guidance. The things he had learned about Dornhaven's traditions and festivals. Keln's passing remark that fights were often decided before the first strike when one fighter's foundations were far stronger than the other's. None of those moments seemed particularly important on their own. Yet together they formed another small layer in the foundation he was building. Evan closed his eyes with a faint smile. Tomorrow, the construct would teach the same lesson again. The difference, he hoped, was that tomorrow he would be just a little more capable of understanding it than he had been today.
***
The lattice band's gentle chime broke the silence before dawn once again.
05:00
Evan rose, washed, dressed, and made his way through the quiet streets toward Morning Ember Provisions, where he stopped for breakfast before continuing to the training hall. The morning had already become familiar enough to feel routine. He arrived before the others, as usual, and worked through his conditioning on his own first, running laps, moving through his drills, swimming, and finishing with the weight training that had become a regular part of his foundation work.
His construct training followed the same principle he had settled on the previous evening: rather than trying to absorb everything at once, he gave his attention to a small part of the lesson and stayed with it until he understood it more clearly. Grade Zero remained just as patient and exacting as ever, but Evan's growing familiarity with its movements allowed him to draw more from each repetition. Predator Focus helped him isolate the construct's preparations, Territory Sense continued building its picture of the practice space, and Cold Calculus helped him compare the information he was gathering. He still had more mistakes than he could count, but he was no longer overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. He could work through them one at a time.
After taking a short break, he joined the others for their regular training. The session passed in the usual mixture of drills, conversation, and the occasional complaint from Ren, and afterward Evan spent some time with the group before heading into the city. He made his way to the library and stayed there for a while, continuing to learn about Dornhaven and its customs. The more he read, the more the city stopped feeling like a place he had merely arrived in and started becoming somewhere he could actually understand. He picked up more details about seasonal celebrations, local traditions, old districts, and the small habits that shaped daily life, adding them to the growing collection of knowledge he was slowly assembling.
From the library he went to Bovan's stall for his shift, settling into the familiar rhythm of serving customers. The work itself had become easier to move through, and between orders he occasionally glanced toward the arena screens, watching the fighters with a little more understanding than before. The comments and advice he had heard from others now seemed to connect with what Grade Zero was teaching him, even when he was only catching fragments of a fight between customers. A quick meal gave him enough energy for the remainder of the evening before he returned to the training hall for conditioning with his friends.
The evening construct session followed much the same pattern as the morning, though Evan found himself able to notice more without having to force his attention toward every detail. The skills remained useful precisely because they did not replace his own judgment. They simply helped him make better use of what he was seeing, gradually turning each hour of practice into something richer than simple repetition.
By the time he returned to his room at the Authority Hall, he was thoroughly tired but satisfied. He showered, changed, ate dinner, and spent some time going through his notebook before settling down for the night. The day's observations joined the growing collection already filling its pages, and Evan closed the book with the quiet sense that the routine was beginning to settle into something sustainable.
***
The following evening, after their usual training, Evan finally found himself standing with Ren, Keira, Lyra, and Dain when the conversation they had been meaning to have came around again. It had been postponed more than once because Dain's other appointments kept interfering with the timing, but this time none of them had anywhere else they needed to be immediately.
They talked for a while, considered a few possibilities, rejected one or two, and eventually settled on an arrangement that suited all of them. They would go to the arena and watch the fights from inside rather than relying on the public screens scattered throughout the city, giving Evan the chance to experience the matches from the stands. The others had all been to the arena before, of course, but this time they were going because they wanted to share the experience with him, and their growing enthusiasm made it clear that they were looking forward to it almost as much as he was. The date was fixed for one week later.
Ren seemed pleased that they had finally managed to agree on something without needing another month of discussion. Keira merely gave a small nod, while Lyra reminded them that everyone had better remember the date this time, giving Ren a pointed side-eye as she said it.
None of them had ever asked Evan directly where he was from. Perhaps they thought it might be a sore subject, or simply understood that it was something he would mention when he was ready. Still, after all the time they had spent around him, the group had quietly reached the same conclusion: Evan was not from anywhere nearby. His knowledge of Dornhaven, his questions about things everyone else took for granted, and the occasional gaps in what he understood about the world had made that much fairly obvious. They had simply chosen to leave the subject alone.
Dain, however, had been quieter through most of the conversation. When the others finally reached an agreement, he simply glanced at the date they had chosen and gave an absentminded nod before shifting the subject toward something else. There was nothing particularly unusual about the gesture, yet Evan found himself watching him for a moment longer.
Dain had always seemed straightforward enough on the surface. Friendly, dependable, and usually content to let the others fill the silence. But the more time Evan spent around him, the more he suspected there was considerably more going on beneath that easy manner than Dain ever bothered to show.
For now, though, the matter was settled. One week from then, they would meet again.
And that was enough for Evan as he headed back toward the Authority Hall after completing his construct session, already letting the day's exhaustion pull his thoughts toward sleep.
***
Morning came much the same as it always had, though the days that followed gradually began settling into a rhythm all their own. Evan rose before dawn, crossed the still-quiet streets of Dornhaven with an embercake in hand, and stood before Grade Zero while most of the town still slept. There were plenty of other breakfast options available from the town's many stalls, but for the moment his mind kept returning to embercakes. He had grown rather fond of them, and his tongue seemed to prefer them over the alternatives he'd tried.
Each morning began with the same opening stance. The same first step. The same uncompromising standard waiting patiently across the platform. Yet despite the outward sameness, no two sessions felt identical. On one day, he noticed his breathing falling out of rhythm during a movement. On another, he caught himself carrying unnecessary tension somewhere in his body. Every correction uncovered another flaw hidden beneath it, and every flaw removed allowed him to notice one that had previously escaped his attention. Improvement never arrived dramatically. It accumulated quietly, one imperfection disappearing at a time.
The rest of each day continued unfolding with the same dependable cadence. A few peaceful hours in the library, where books became his constant companions as he gathered information about the various unfamiliar things in this world. Afternoon shifts beside Rovan and Bovan, where the principles of balance, weight transfer, and efficient recovery slipped naturally into ordinary work until even carrying bowls and turning between customers became opportunities to reinforce cleaner movement. Evenings brought conditioning, movement drills, laughter, complaints from Ren, precise corrections from Lyra, thoughtful observations from Keira, understated guidance from Dain, and the occasional silent nod from Valor that somehow carried more meaning than praise ever could. By the time Evan returned to Grade Zero for his evening exception, the lessons gathered throughout the day would quietly meet each other again inside the practice circle, each repetition becoming just a little richer than the last.
Days slipped quietly into one another after that. The changes were too gradual to notice from one morning to the next, yet impossible to ignore when viewed across the passing week. The opening stance that had once demanded complete concentration eventually settled almost instinctively. His feet stopped searching for balance after every step. His shoulders remained relaxed more often than not. The construct continued exposing flaws with relentless consistency, though they became progressively smaller, deeper, and more difficult to uncover. More than once, Evan spent an entire morning refining what looked like a single identical movement from the outside, only to leave feeling as though he had discovered an entirely new layer hidden beneath it. Grade Zero never changed its lesson. It simply revealed more of it as his understanding grew.
With every passing day, his three passive skills quietly adapted alongside his own learning. Predator Focus became more familiar. The moment he stepped onto the construct platform, his attention naturally narrowed toward the subtle preparations preceding each movement. Cold Calculus grew increasingly efficient at comparing one attempt against hundreds that had come before, allowing recurring mistakes to stand out with remarkable clarity. Even Territory Sense seemed to respond differently within the practice circle. Rather than drawing his awareness outward toward the surrounding space as it once had, it lingered around the relationship between his own body and that space instead, making tiny imbalances, inefficient angles, and shifting lines of movement feel just a little more tangible than before. Evan never consciously questioned why the skill felt different. He simply accepted that, somehow, it had begun helping him learn in ways it never had before.
As the days passed, the people around Evan began noticing that he was improving. Ren occasionally complained that Evan was becoming annoyingly difficult to surprise during movement drills, while Lyra found herself giving him fewer corrections during transitions. Dain, meanwhile, quietly began pushing the pace during some of their partner exercises, apparently deciding Evan was ready for it. Valor remained sparing with his approval, usually offering little more than a brief look or nod before moving on.
Marin had also noticed where Evan's interests were heading and began pointing him toward more material whenever he came looking to learn more about Grade Zero and its training methods. Beyond that, the changes were mostly his own to notice. Day by day, practice became a little more familiar, his understanding grew, and his movements improved along with it.
The routine continued, and so did Evan.
The closer he moved toward the construct's standard, the smaller the differences became, and paradoxically, the more difficult they were to eliminate.
Even the observation records had quietly changed. During the first few days they appeared only occasionally, acknowledging broad improvements in movement stability or synchronization. Now they arrived less frequently, but each one addressed increasingly specific refinements.
Grade Zero Observation Record Updated.
Upper Body Tension Reduced.
Recovery Timing Improved.
Lower Limb Stability Within Expected Parameters.
Continue Current Training Pattern.
The construct remained as unemotional as ever, never suggesting satisfaction or disappointment. It simply measured, compared, and guided through flawless repetition. Evan had stopped hoping for praise from it long ago. Instead, he found himself looking forward to those brief objective records. Each one meant that another tiny imperfection had quietly disappeared.
The days continued to pass in that quiet rhythm, until the day finally arrived when Evan and the others were due to head to the Silvercrest Arena, one of Dornhaven's renowned combat venues. At last, it was time to see the fights from inside the arena itself.