The days crawl by.
Slow.
Brutal.
Unforgiving.
Training does too.
With Evra, nothing exists except pain.
She hits us, breaks us, pushes us again and again until our bones start learning faster than our minds.
It's simple and monstrous at the same time.
But as the blows pile up, something else starts to wake up.
Not in our muscles.
In our Words.
I start to feel it.
The influence.
The involuntary reactions.
The tiny internal mechanisms we never understood before.
And a strange thought cuts through the haze:
We're not weak.
We're just… badly tuned.
We're Dormants.
The first week ends.
Our bodies are wrecked, our breathing ragged, but that's exactly when Valie appears—like she's been waiting for this moment since day one.
She strides into the arena with a board, chalk, and that passionate, slightly deranged teacher look glued to her face.
— Alright. Come closer. We're finally going to talk about your Words.
We form a half-circle.
Aris on the left.
Fortuna on the right.
Me in the middle.
Valie takes her time, slow and methodical, like she's peeling back layers from something dangerous.
⸻
She turns to Aris first and inhales like she's about to describe a masterpiece.
— Aris… your Word is Supremacy. It's a concept almost too big for a human, and it's already affecting you even though you're only a Dormant. When you activate it, you're not just "getting stronger." No. What your Word does… is make you better than your opponent.
She lets that sink in before continuing.
— When you face someone, your body, your mind, your instinct analyze what they are—speed, technique, precision, instinct—and your Word pushes you to become superior in that exact domain. If your opponent is fast, you become faster. If their technique is perfect, yours becomes sharper. If they dodge well, you predict better. If they strike precisely, you surpass their precision. You become what they are… just better.
A quiet silence hangs between us.
Then she adds:
— It's not an improvement. It's an upgrade. A rewrite. A temporary supremacy over whoever stands in front of you.
Her tone darkens.
— But there's a price. When you activate Supremacy on someone stronger than you, your body feels the difference as pure pain. If they're a bit stronger, the pain is manageable. If they're vastly superior… you suffer. Your muscles tear to compensate, your nerves burn, your bones crack. It's your body paying for a Word that always wants more.
As she speaks, an image flashes through my mind:
Aris collapsing on one knee during training, arm trembling violently, veins bulging under his skin, sweat and blood mixing as he tried to stay standing.
He didn't scream.
But he couldn't hide the shaking.
Valie's voice slices through the memory.
— On weaker opponents, though… it's pure gain. No pain. No backlash. Just free strength. That's how your Word works.
Aris nods once.
He finally understands what's been happening to him.
⸻
Valie turns to me next.
Her expression shifts—part amusement, part worry, part fascination.
— Heyo. Yours is… complicated. Your Word, Unbound, is a Word that rejects limits. It hates rules. It refuses boundaries. It wants everything. And you… you can't even understand what that means yet, because you're still a Dormant.
She points at my chest.
— Your active ability is simple to describe, but incredibly hard to use: you can summon any object. Anything. There's no theoretical limit.
She pauses.
— But to summon something properly, you need to understand it. Deeply. Its exact shape, weight, structure, purpose. If you don't… your summon materializes warped, incomplete, or broken.
Another flash hits me:
me holding a crooked rocket launcher in the arena, tube bent, trigger missing, explosion misaligned.
Evra had laughed for five full seconds before throwing me into a wall.
Valie doesn't give me time to blush.
— But your passive… that's where things become dangerous. Because you chose it yourself.
She steps closer.
— Heyo, you had access to every passive. Absolutely all of them. And you chose one of the only impossible things: infinite energy.
A weight crashes into the arena.
Fortuna freezes mid-blink.
Aris's fists tighten.
Even the air gets colder.
Valie continues:
— Your Word let you choose. And instead of anything reasonable, you chose raw infinity. A limitless fountain of power. Something even a Verbum bearer couldn't contain.
She shakes her head, half scolding, half impressed.
— Of course, it was sealed immediately—by Celia and by the system itself. Your infinity has been cut into seven tiers. As a Dormant, you only access the first one.
Her eyes sharpen.
— And even that first tier already surpasses the reserves of most Awakened bearers.
Another silence.
Long.
Heavy.
Fortuna's gaze shifts—barely—but there's a spark there.
She whispers, almost to herself:
— …infinite?
Aris doesn't speak at all.
But I see the calculation in his eyes.
The tension in his jaw.
The unspoken understanding that whatever I carry… could be a blessing or a disaster.
And me?
I suddenly feel too big for my skin.
And far too small for what I chose.
⸻
Valie pivots toward Fortuna.
Her tone becomes cautious.
— Fortuna. Your Word, Fortune, is deceptive. People think luck is a small bonus… but your Word is one of the most dangerous in this room.
Fortuna doesn't react outwardly.
But I know she's listening.
— Your active only works if your opponent accepts a game. You must get a "yes." Then you both enter a contest of chance—dice, cards, coin toss, anything. And whoever wins… receives overwhelming good fortune for the rest of the fight.
A flash flickers in my head:
Fortuna tossing a die earlier this week, not even looking at it. It rolled against a stone, flipped twice, and landed on a perfect six.
She didn't blink.
Just said, "Normal."
Valie goes on:
— If you win the game, luck shields you. Your dodges become natural. Your strikes land at impossible moments. The world bends a little for you.
If you lose… everything tilts against you.
Then she softens her voice.
— As for your passive… even as a Dormant, you already have slightly improved luck in pure chance. Not enough to win a battle… but enough to twist the small things. Combined with your active… it can flip a fight upside down.
Fortuna nods once, expression unreadable but eyes sharper.
⸻
Valie steps back and finally addresses all three of us.
— Listen carefully. The Dormant rank isn't weak. It's unstable. It's the stage where your Word acts for you, and you have no way to answer it back. Your bodies try to keep up. Your energy leaks, overflows, or turns against you. You have huge potential… but no mastery. No distance. No control.
She lets that truth settle.
— What you are right now is not strength. It's raw material. Uncut. Unpolished. Dangerous.
Her eyes soften just a little.
— You're not weak.
You're under construction.
Another pause.
This one deeper.
— And the world has no idea what you could become.
Neither do you.
She turns away.
— Go rest. Tomorrow… we really begin.
We leave in silence.
Hearts heavy, but changed.
Aris walks with calm tension in his arms.
Fortuna floats forward softly, as if untouched—but her golden eyes flicker with something new.
And me…
I have six golden doors inside my chest, an ocean behind my ribs, and a first tier of infinity humming awake beneath my skin.
We're three Dormants, wandering in a world that never asked for us.
And as I step back toward the dorms, one truth gnaws at me—
I have no idea how to carry what I chose.