The sun wasn't even up yet. Cardo sat awake in the chill of his small room, his thumb tracing the rough black mark on his right wrist. How did a basic shadow construct actually work?
He took a slow breath and pushed a tiny fraction of his Aether into his mark. No heat. No surge of power. Just a hollow void, like pouring water down a bottomless well. Where was the energy going?
"Come out," he whispered, forcing every drop of his available Aether into the crest.
The black ink liquefied. It slid off his arm, dripping onto the floorboards before stretching upward. Seconds later, two pitch-black shapes stood at the foot of his bed. Two clones. His current limit. He tilted his head, studying them.
They matched his height and build, but the resemblance ended there. No faces, no clothes, no hair. Just blank, solid silhouettes swallowing the dim light. What could they actually do?
He raised his right hand. A full second ticked by before the two clones mirrored the movement.
He tilted his head to the left. After waiting for one more second, they proceeded to lean.
Too slow. The lag felt like a bad network connection. Poking the nearest clone yielded a cold, solid resistance. It didn't track him; it just stood there, waiting for input. A mindless puppet.
If they couldn't fight, could they at least do chores? Aunt Maria would be up soon for her double shift. It would be a huge relief for her if this natural ability could do some housework. Three pairs of hands were more effective than one.
He quietly moved down the hall, using his mind to control the shadows. Following closely behind were firm, silent footsteps.
He directed the first clone in the kitchen to the broom that was lying in the corner. Sweep the floor. The signature delay passed, and the clone lumbered over. Featureless fingers gripped the handle, pushing dirt across the tiles in robotic, jerky motions.
"Not bad," he murmured. Zombie-like, sure, but effective.
Time for a dexterity test. He moved to the kitchen sink with the second clone, turned on the faucet, and handed it a sponge with soap and a cheap ceramic plate. Wash it. Gently.
The shadow took the plate. Or tried to. Made from solidified Aether, the clone lacked the natural friction of human skin. The soapy, wet ceramic slipped right through its grip.
CRASH.
The plate shattered into five pieces on the tile.
Cardo scrambled back, wincing at the echoing clatter. Crap. They were definitely awake now. He frantically waved his hands
Stop! Drop the broom! Freeze!
Both entities locked up instantly. Clone One froze awkwardly by the fridge; Clone Two hovered over the sink, water dripping from its rigid fingers. Immediate override command. Good to know.
The kitchen door creaked open. He braced himself for Aunt Maria, or worse, Uncle Jun bursting in with his heavy cane.
Clarissa stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. She wore oversized yellow pajamas, her pink backpack slung over one shoulder.
"Clarissa, wait, don't scream," Cardo whispered, hands raised in surrender. "I know it looks weird, but they're—"
She stopped rubbing her eyes. Any normal kid would scream at the two towering, faceless monsters taking up the kitchen. Clarissa didn't flinch. She marched right up to Clone Two, inspected it, and stared down at the shattered ceramic.
"You broke Auntie's soup bowl."
"It was a failed friction test," he hissed, kicking the shards under the cabinet. "Why aren't you freaking out? Those are my clones!"
"Why would I?" she scoffed. "They're just you, but edgier and way quieter. Honestly, I'm curious if one of them can do my math homework."
Shrugging off the heavy backpack, she shoved it onto Clone One's rigid, outstretched arm. Still locked in the freeze command, the shadow didn't budge a millimeter. It held the bag like a statue.
Clarissa gave it an approving nod. "Good coat rack." She turned around, unfazed. "If you're done experimenting on the dishes, big bro, pour me some cereal."
Cardo stood frozen. His six-year-old sister was treating clones like living room furniture. He looked from the two shadows—one currently sporting a sparkly pink backpack—down to his wrist. The mental thread connecting him to them hummed, faint but undeniable. They were clumsy, low-tier summons right now, but his mind raced with the possibilities. He was going to find out exactly what else these mindless puppets could do.
Cardo's backyard in the Outer Rim was nothing special. It was just a patch of overgrown grass bordered by a cheap, rotting wooden fence. The air smelled of cut weeds, passing exhaust fumes, and the neighbor's cooking. But to Cardo, this cramped space was a training ground.
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the yard. Cardo sat on an overturned storage crate, staring at the two pitch-black shapes standing in front of him.
Clone One and Clone Two.
They possessed no glowing Aether auras or flashy elemental weapons. Any real fighter from the inner city would laugh at these Basic Shadow clones.
But Cardo could not ignore them. If he failed to advance, his family would drown in debt—or worse, he would be drafted as frontline cannon fodder. He looked down at the frayed, yellowing book in his lap. It was Uncle Jun's old military manual: Basic Fist Arts: A Guide to Aether-Free Combat.
Cardo traced the faded cover, his chest aching with a familiar frustration. In this world, your worth was strictly tied to your genetic luck. Awakeners with S-Rank Core Capacities could level cities. A-Ranks could crush monsters with pure telekinetic pressure.
And Cardo? His E-rank core capacity was tiny, and his natural talent for absorbing Aether was agonizingly slow and clogged. He had no fire, no lightning, and no massive energy tank to rely on.
But there was a story told by the desperate people in the Outer Rim. A myth. They said some Awakeners started with useless innate abilities, but they climbed to the top using pure, unadulterated physical skill. They trained their bodies until their martial arts could shatter monster bones without needing a drop of Aether.
What if I do that? Cardo thought, looking down at his uncalloused hands.
It was a childish hope. But when you lived in a crumbling house with a little sister to protect, you held on to any hope you could find. If his core capacity were weak, his physical foundation had to be unbreakable.
There was just one problem. The military manual required a baseline of extreme physical fitness. Cardo was a scrawny sixteen-year-old from the slums. He simply did not have the biological strength to execute the heavy maneuvers.
He thought about attempting the grueling workout by himself, but watching his clones just stand there idly felt like a waste of resources.
"If I can't do it alone," Cardo said, his voice hardening with determination, "you guys are going to train with me."
He closed his eyes and focused on the faint mental tether connecting his mind to the shadows. Get in line.
Cardo dropped to the ground. Clone One and Clone Two immediately dropped right next to him. They all shifted into a rigid push-up position. Cardo remembered an old, legendary workout plan from a pre-Awakening era. One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats.
Start.
They pushed up and down on the grass. One. Two. Three.
The clones moved like flawless machines. Forged from pure Aether, they had no lungs to burn and no muscles to tear. But Cardo was entirely human. By the tenth repetition, his arms shook violently, and his lungs gasped for air. He collapsed flat onto the grass with a heavy, defeated sigh. He was completely out of energy. He crawled back to his crate and picked up the manual.
"I'm out," he panted, wiping a thick layer of sweat from his forehead. "But you two keep going."
Twenty-one. Twenty-two.
The clones' form was sloppy. Their elbows stuck out wide, losing kinetic efficiency. Cardo opened the book to the first chapter. "No, tuck your elbows in," he commanded, studying the anatomical diagrams on the yellowed pages.
The clones adjusted their arms instantly. Cardo watched them with laser focus. He read about how to align the spine properly, how to distribute weight, and how to snap a punch. He was keen to learn it all.
Fifty. Fifty-one.
The clones seamlessly switched to sit-ups. They moved up and down in a smooth, unbroken rhythm. But as they worked, Cardo felt a strange, tightening pain in his chest. Forcing the clones to perform intense physical labor was actively draining his tiny Aether pool.
Eighty. Eighty-one.
The shadows started their squats. The ache in Cardo's chest grew into a sharp, stabbing pressure. He began to sweat again, his breathing turning ragged. His E-Rank core was running empty fast.
"Keep going," Cardo grunted through his teeth, his vision beginning to blur at the edges. "Don't stop until one hundred."
Ninety-one. Cardo dropped the book into the grass. The mental tether in his head felt like a frayed wire about to snap. Nausea washed over him.
"One... more..." Cardo gasped, clutching his chest.
One hundred.
As soon as Clone Two finished the final squat, Cardo's Aether core hit absolute zero.
Snap.
The mental tether broke. The two clones popped like fragile balloons, dissolving into plumes of harmless black smoke and vanishing into the late afternoon air. Cardo let out a massive sigh of relief, slumping forward to rest his heavy head.
Then, his world exploded.
[ZERO AETHER CAPACITY.]
[CONSTRUCT DISPERSAL DETECTED.] [INITIATING SENSORY FEEDBACK...]
It hit him like a runaway freight train. Cardo let out a choked gasp and toppled off the crate, hitting the dirt with a loud, painful thud.
Every single muscle in his chest, stomach, and legs screamed in absolute agony. It wasn't just a cramp. It was the concentrated, localized trauma of performing one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and squats all at the exact same time. Every ounce of physical exertion and fatigue from the clones forcefully rushed back into his weak, unprepared body.
He lay paralyzed in the grass, twitching, entirely unable to move a muscle. He couldn't even draw enough breath to yell.
But through the blinding, terrifying pain, he felt something else.
Learning.
He suddenly knew exactly what a mechanically perfect push-up felt like. He could feel the exact center of balance required for a flawless squat. His nervous system had completely soaked up the raw muscle memory from the clones' automated repetitions.
The realization hit him even harder than the pain. His clones were not just mindless robots. They were literal extensions of his own physical form. When they vanished, every single thing they experienced was downloaded directly into his brain.
He didn't need a high talent rate to absorb Aether quickly. He didn't need to be a natural martial arts genius. He had a cheat code. He could order his clones to throw a thousand perfect punches, let them vanish, and instantly gain the muscle memory of a veteran fighter. He could compress months of grueling physical conditioning into a single, agonizing afternoon.
Lying in the dirt, sweating profusely and shaking uncontrollably, Cardo smiled. This is not a useless innate ability. It is an extreme biological speed-up.
"Are you dead?"
The flat, unimpressed voice broke through his racing thoughts. He couldn't turn his head, but he didn't need to.
Poke. A sharp stick gently prodded his cheek.
"Because if you are dead, I get your room," Clarissa stated matter-of-factly.
Cardo groaned, peeling one eye open. His little sister stood towering over him in her oversized yellow pajamas, wielding a broken tree branch. She didn't look worried in the slightest; she just looked deeply annoyed.
Poke.
"Stop stabbing me," Cardo wheezed, his voice barely a whisper. "I am having a breakthrough."
Clarissa crouched down, resting her chin on her knees. She critically inspected his shaking, sweat-drenched body lying in the weeds. She shook her head slowly, her bright red ribbons bouncing with disappointment.
"You look like a squashed bug," she diagnosed smoothly. "Wow. Big brother is very weak. You did exactly ten push-ups, and now you are completely paralized."
"It's... the feedback..." Cardo tried to explain, but his jaw was trembling too violently to form proper sentences.
"Do I need to eat your dinner, too?" Clarissa asked, casually poking his nose with the tip of the stick. "Auntie made pork. If you cannot physically lift a spoon, I am eating your portion."
Cardo let out a weak, breathless laugh, even though it felt like his ribs were on fire.
He couldn't move. He was just an E-Rank nobody in a crumbling Outer Rim town. He was miles away from fighting real monsters or trading blows with inner-city elites.
But as Clarissa marched back inside, loudly complaining to Aunt Maria about her brother slacking off before dinner, Cardo slowly curled his shaking fingers into a tight fist in the grass. His brain buzzed with fresh, flawless muscle memory, just waiting to be unleashed.
He wasn't a genetic prodigy. But he was going to outwork every single Awakener in the city.