Cardo and Uncle Jun were discharged from La Paz General Hospital three days later.
Returning to their quiet suburban street was jarring. Association enforcers had removed the piles of black monster ash, but the scars of the miniature gate siege remained. Neighboring houses had shattered windows. Deep claw marks carved into the asphalt. Their own front balcony looked like ground zero of a targeted bombing. The wooden door was splintered, replaced by a thick sheet of insulated metal bolted to the frame.
Aunt Maria spent the last three days switching between crying in relief and fussing over them. She confined Uncle Jun to the living room couch, forbidding him from lifting anything heavier than a television remote until his shoulder stitches dissolved.
Cardo, however, had no intention of resting.
The Void-Hound encounter was burned into his brain. He had nearly died because he lacked the raw stopping power to put the beast down. He needed to get stronger, and he needed to do it immediately.
Since Uncle Jun was injured and couldn't spar, Cardo improvised.
He spent his first afternoon back home searching the local junkyards and salvaging the ruined areas of their front balcony. Working in the scorching heat of the outdoor area, Cardo built a training dummy. He used a steel beam for the central spine, wrapping it tightly in layers of thick, discarded hover-truck tires. He bound the structure together with industrial chains and thick rolls of duct tape.
The finished product was an ugly, tall pillar of rubber and steel. It was designed to be tough and cruel —exactly like the armored hide of an E-rank Void beast.
But hitting harder wasn't enough. He needed to learn where to hit.
"If I can't break their armor, I have to bypass it," Cardo muttered, sitting at the small kitchen table.
Spread in front of him were three worn textbooks he had rented for a steep fee from a market merchant: The Anatomy of the Void, Beast Core Locations, and Weak Points of the E-Tier.
Cardo took a deep breath, cracking his bruised knuckles. He was about to push his cheat code to its absolute limit.
"Manifest," Cardo whispered.
The dark mark on his wrist flared. Clone One emerged out of his shadow, standing silently in the cramped kitchen.
Cardo took control of the invisible mental link connecting him to the clone. He directed the featureless shadow out the back door to stand in front of the tire dummy in the yard.
Remaining seated at the kitchen table, Cardo opened the first textbook to a complex anatomical diagram of a dire-rat's body.
Let's see if my brain can handle extreme multitasking, he thought, his expression tightening.
He split his focus. With half his conscious mind, he read the dense technical text, memorizing the depth and location of the major nerve structures hiding behind a monster's shoulder blade. With the other half, he fired a rapid sequence of commands through the tether.
Stance wide. Sync the breath. Rotate the hip. Strike.
Outside, Clone One snapped into motion. It threw a flawless body-tempering Aether Fist into the thick rubber tires.
THUD. Because of the strict rules of his innate ability, Cardo didn't feel the physical impact of the punch—not yet. The physical feedback was safely delayed until the clone dispersed. However, the cognitive strain of manually puppeteering a complex martial arts strike while simultaneously translating an advanced biological diagram hit him like a sledgehammer.
Cardo frowned. A severe ache flared up in his temples. His brain struggled to process two conflicting streams of focus: the quiet, visual intake of academic literature and the demanding, real-time calculations required to make the shadow move flawlessly.
Again, Cardo commanded, ignoring the rising headache. Adjust the angle. Strike again.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The clone relentlessly battered the dummy. Inside the kitchen, Cardo turned the pages, memorizing the structural weaknesses of a Void-Hound's skull, identifying the exact millimeter where the bone was thinnest near the ear canal.
An hour passed. Then two.
The multitasking experiment turned into a challenging race of mental endurance. His physical body sat safely in a wooden chair, but his mind felt trapped inside a furnace. The mental range required to maintain the physical form of the clone, command its combat movements, and memorize advanced anatomy was astounding.
His vision blurred at the edges. A high-pitched ringing built in his ears. His breathing turned shallow and rapid. He was pushing his core and his talent far past their operational limits.
"Dinner is ready!" Aunt Maria called cheerfully from the stove.
Cardo jumped. His focus slipped for a split of a second. Outside, Clone One lost its precise footing, missing the rubber tire and glancing off the solid steel beam instead.
The sudden disruption in the clone's physical rhythm triggered the mental link, rattling Cardo's skull. He let out a pained hiss, grabbing the edge of the table to steady himself. He didn't dispel the clone. If he broke the tether now, the physical feedback would hit him early. He was determined to finish his mental workouts.
Uncle Jun limped into the kitchen, easing himself into a chair with a slight chuckle. Clarissa rushed in behind him, still wearing her school uniform, and scrambled onto her tall chair next to Cardo.
Aunt Maria placed a piping hot serving dish in the center of the table. It was a rare, expensive treat to celebrate their survival: real chicken, paired with a massive pile of steamed broccoli and green peas.
"Eat up, everyone," Aunt Maria said, smiling and wiping her hands on her apron. "You need your strength."
Cardo stared blankly at his plate. He tried to act normal, but a splitting headache traveled down his neck. Outside, the clone was still throwing planned punches.
THUD. THUD. Every real-time command sent a fresh wave of throbbing pressure behind his eyes.
Clarissa picked up her fork, staring at the green vegetables with pure disgust. She poked a piece of broccoli, making an exaggerated grinning face.
She turned to her older brother, ready to complain, but suddenly stopped. Her eyes went wide.
"Uh, big brother?" Clarissa said, her bossy tone replaced by genuine concern.
Cardo turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused from the mental strain.
"What?"
A single drop of dark red blood slipped out of Cardo's left nostril. It trailed down his lip, hanging for a second before dropping silently onto his white plate.
Aunt Maria gasped, dropping a serving spoon.
"Cardo! You're bleeding!"
Uncle Jun sat up straight, his sharp eyes scanning Cardo's pale, strained face. The veteran recognized the distinct signs of Aether depletion and mental strain.
But before Jun could intervene, Clarissa took decisive action.
She let out a dramatic gasp, placing the back of her small hand against her forehead like a dying Victorian actress.
"Oh my god, he's dying of malnutrition!" Clarissa announced to the table.
Moving with impressive speed, Clarissa grabbed her plate. She scraped every piece of her hated steamed broccoli and green peas directly onto Cardo's plate, completely burying his chicken.
"You clearly need the iron way more than I do," Clarissa said, nodding her head with fake solemnity. She patted Cardo on the shoulder.
"It breaks my heart, but I am bravely sacrificing my delicious, gross vegetables for your health. Please, eat my greens so your brain doesn't explode."
Cardo stared at the mountain of broccoli dominating his plate. He looked at his little sister, who was doing a terrible job of hiding a smug smirk.
The sheer absurdity of the moment shattered Cardo's mental focus. He let out a loud snort of laughter.
The moment his focus broke, the mental link snapped.
Outside, Clone One popped into a cloud of harmless black smoke.
Then, the dam broke. The accumulated sensory feedback of a thousand heavy strikes rushed into Cardo's brain in a single, crushing wave.
Cardo closed his eyes, grabbing a paper napkin to wipe the blood from his nose. His knuckles throbbed with phantom pain, and his shoulders ached from the sudden release of intense muscular exertion. He expected the overwhelming feedback to put him on the floor.
Instead, as the data settled into his cognitive system, a profound sense of enlightenment washed over him.
The extreme multitasking had worked.
The physical muscle memory of striking the unforgiving rubber dummy a thousand times merged flawlessly with the complex anatomical diagrams he had just memorized. He didn't just know how to punch anymore; he knew instinctively where the lethal weak points were located on an E-Rank beast. He could feel the exact angles required to throw a strike past a Void-Hound's armored ribs and crush the vulnerable Aether-core hiding underneath, but he wasn't sure if his sheer strength was enough to make it.
His physical reflexes felt razor-sharp, optimized, and dangerous.
Cardo opened his eyes. The headache was already fading, replaced by a strong determination that burned white-hot in his chest. He was getting stronger at a terrifying, unnatural pace.
He looked over at Clarissa, wiping the last smear of blood from his upper lip.
"Thank you for your sacrifice, Clarissa," Cardo said. His voice was deadpan as he picked up his fork and stabbed a large piece of her discarded broccoli.
"Your bravery will be remembered in the history books."
Clarissa crossed her arms, satisfied with her heist. "Just don't bleed on the chicken next time. It ruins the aesthetic."
Uncle Jun watched the interaction silently from across the table, his eyes narrowing slightly. He didn't say a word about the nosebleed, but the expectant look in the veteran's eyes told Cardo everything he needed to know.
The foundation was built. The Outer Rim was unforgiving, and the monsters were evolving. But as Cardo chewed the stolen broccoli, feeling the refined martial knowledge humming in his veins, he was ready for the next step.
He was going to transcend his limits, and nothing was going to stand in his way.