MORNING CALL AND THE MENTAL PHASE
Ryu woke before the alarm. He opened his eyes slowly, letting the dorm lights brighten in gentle increments that matched Vasena's artificial circadian cycle. On the bed beside him, Aki lay sprawled on his back, wrapped in two fresh bandages and looking like someone who had brawled with a truck and barely survived. Ryu checked his temperature with the back of his hand, noted the steady rhythm of his breathing, then sat up without a sound.
Inside his head, NV surfaced like a quiet line of code. Ryu gave the smallest nod. Keep watching.
The door slid open. Cassandra stepped in with a tablet pressed to her chest, hair a little messy as if she had spent the night buried in data instead of sleeping. Her gaze swept the room, relaxed a fraction when she saw Ryu already sitting upright, then sharpened again as she checked the time on her tablet.
"You wake up earlier every day," she said. "Part of your coping mechanism, or just habit?"
"What is today's module?" Ryu asked.
"Basic Module Two. Mental Layering," Cassandra replied.
Aki jerked upright at those words and let out a strangled scream. "Mental? Again? Are they going to scramble my brain twice in one week?"
Cassandra's mouth twitched. "Not scramble. Stress test. We want to see if you can keep your sense of self when your perception and memory are pushed out of alignment."
Aki jabbed a finger toward Ryu. "He does not even look like he has a sense of self. He just stands there, stares at the void, and passes everything." Ryu turned his head slightly. "I have an identity."
"Yeah," Aki muttered, collapsing back for a second. "Your identity is 'final boss of mental exams'."
"Get ready," Cassandra cut in, crisp again. "You have one minute before I mark you late."
They headed out into the corridor together. The light shifted from warm white into a cooler blue white, the temperature dropping half a degree as they entered the mental wing.
The floor hummed with the distant vibration of systems buried somewhere deep below, like a second heartbeat echoing through the building. By the time they reached the thick door to Mental Room Two, a red holo panel had already lit up, hovering at eye level.
The rules scrolled in clean lines. Eyes must remain open. Ears must not be covered.
No speaking during the session. Hands may not touch the floor. If mental pressure exceeds your limit, raise your right hand.
Aki swallowed loudly. "That last rule sounds like 'we expect some of you to break'."
Cassandra's gaze lingered on Ryu. She lowered her voice slightly. "If you sense anything that feels wrong, not just stressful, tell me after. Your resonance is not standard."
"I know," Ryu said.
They stepped inside. The door sealed with a low hiss, and every wall turned utterly black. No patterns. No lines. Just a dense darkness that swallowed shapes. For a brief moment there was nothing, not even the faint hum of systems. Then a neutral voice spilled from hidden speakers, perfectly calm.
"Welcome to Mental Layering. You will be exposed to stimuli designed to distort perception, memory, and intuition. Do not trust what you see or hear. Trust the rhythm of your breathing and your internal baseline."
Aki leaned over and whispered anyway. "What does that mean, distort?" The system did not answer. The darkness did.
Faint gray silhouettes began to appear on the walls, just outlines at first. Then there were soft, distant sounds, like footsteps and static filtered through water. A pale blue glow seeped along the edges of the panels, just enough to give everything a ghostlike depth. Aki's shoulders climbed toward his ears.
"Bro," he murmured, "tell me this is fake."
Ryu focused on the closest silhouette. It was not properly human, more like a hollow figure with two small white points where eyes should be. It stood completely still, but the air around it felt wrong. On another panel, a different image resolved, this one a man's profile. The angle of the jaw. The shape of the shoulders. The way the head tilted. Too familiar.
His father. Or something wearing his outline.
NV tightened its presence. Ryu kept his breathing steady. I will not. On his right, Aki squeaked. "There is a clown in front of me. A clown. With teeth. I hate clowns."
The figure on Ryu's panel stepped closer. The features sharpened. The illusion smiled, but the expression did not reach the eyes. Then a voice followed, low and dragged out, like it had traveled through a long tunnel.
"Ryu..."
NV's tone jumped half a notch. Ryu did not flinch. The illusion took another step. "Ryu… why did you not come? You are here because I died. You could have saved me. You left me."
Ryu sank his weight toward the floor, not to collapse but to anchor himself. He slowed his inhalations, counted the beats of his heart, watched for the first spike of irrational emotion.
Artificial, he reminded himself. It is a test, not a memory. The image distorted, stretching at the edges. The voice cracked, changing shape mid-sentence.
"You… should have… DIED."
Ryu lifted his right hand to the side. It was not a plea for help but a clear refusal of the scenario. The panels flickered white. The illusion vanished as if it had never existed.
The instructor's voice returned, calm and technical. "Core identity stable. Misdirection failed to anchor. No penetration of primary layer."
Aki's voice burst from somewhere else in the room. "I just got chased by a giant clown with a saw and you only see your dead dad? This system is rigged."
Ryu did not reply. The voice the system had chosen for his father had scraped along a sealed part of him, but it had not broken through. He filed that away as data, nothing more.
Behind the observation glass, Cassandra watched the readings. Lines representing stress, recognition, threat, and identity wove across the display in shifting colors. Ryu's chart remained strangely clean.
"The misdirection never reaches his decision layer," she said quietly. "He rejects it before the pattern stabilizes."
The mental specialist beside her nodded. "Even the top of the Gryphon class takes hits in this module. He does not just resist. He isolates."
Cassandra did not look away from the screen. "An anomaly, then. And an anomaly inside Vasena is never just a student."
DISGUISED OBSERVERS AND THE ARRIVAL OF LEVEL TWO
The rest area had been designed to look harmless. White walls, rounded corners, soft modular seats arranged in loose circles. Dispensers lined one side, offering nutrient drinks in eleven flavors that all somehow tasted vaguely like chalk. Aki grabbed three in a row, downed them as if he had crossed a desert, then sank to the floor with his back to the wall.
"I almost died," he muttered. "A giant clown tried to saw my face off. I could smell the rubber. I could hear the squeaks. That was not right."
Ratha sat on the nearest bench, elbows on his knees, his expression still tight. "I saw my older brother. He has never even been inside this facility. It was… wrong in a way I cannot explain."
Vex sat opposite them and pushed his hair back, his gaze fixed on Ryu instead of the room. "I only got darkness," he said. "No face, no body, just a vibration that sounded like a voice about to form." He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "But when you stepped up, it felt like the whole pattern changed. The system reacted differently. Are you aware of that?"
Ryu met his eyes. "Yes."
"You were not afraid?"
"No."
Kallen folded his arms and watched Ryu with an analytical stare. "Our charts spike on emotional cues. His chart moved only when the system changed its algorithm. He responds more to the test than to the content."
The door slid open again. An instructor strode in, scrolling through lines of text on his tablet. Without preamble, he spoke to the room at large.
"As of today, some of your groups will be merged with Basic-1 units from central facilities. These are top scoring candidates from the northern, eastern, and western sectors."
Aki groaned from the floor. "We barely survived this tier and now they are importing higher difficulty?"
The instructor continued as if he had not spoken. "Participants from the central facilities usually hold Level Two Genius status."
Silence dropped over the room.
Ratha turned his head slowly. "Level Two," he said. "The ones with their own restricted database."
"Correct," Kallen replied.
Vex glanced sideways at Ryu. "They have their own ranking games. If you stand in their way, it becomes personal."
Aki pointed at Ryu as if presenting evidence. "So they are going to come after the guy who broke the simulator."
Ryu did not answer. NV pushed into the foreground again. To record data, Ryu thought. Or to provoke something. NV paused a fraction of a second. Ryu's expression did not flicker.
The instructor tapped his tablet and stepped aside. "Central candidates entering now."
The door opened a little wider this time. Four children entered, and the atmosphere shifted with them. Their presence felt more concentrated, as if the air around their bodies carried greater density.
The first was tall with eyes that took in the room in a single sweep and then began cataloging details. The second had pale gray hair, relaxed posture, and a pressure behind his gaze that suggested he was rarely surprised.
The third looked almost frail, but his attention moved with predatory patience. The fourth wore a faint, practiced smile that never quite became warmth. All four locked onto the same point.
Ryu.
As if someone had sent them a file marked priority target. One of them walked straight over. He stopped in front of Ryu and looked him over with open curiosity. "You are Ryu," he said. It was not a question.
Aki took half a step forward on reflex, putting himself between them. "We just did a psych exam that tried to break us in half. Maybe cool down first?"
The boy ignored him. "We are not here for small talk," he said. "We heard there is a subject here that the system cannot map properly." His gaze sharpened. "We want to see if that rumor is true."
"What rumor exactly?" Ryu asked.
"That you are the only natural anomaly the predictors cannot quantify." The boy's lips tilted. "We consider that interesting."
"The exams will decide whether anything is true," Ryu replied quietly. "Not rumors."
"Good answer," the boy said. "I prefer that over false humility." Vex leaned close to Aki and whispered, "We really are dead." "Absolutely," Aki whispered back.
The instructor stepped in again. "They will join the evening module. You will all participate in combined training."
Ryu watched the Level Two kids move toward the scanners with easy, economical strides. They did not walk like students excited about a new school. They walked like operatives rotating into a familiar facility.
Ratha moved closer. "You understand these are not our level," he said. "They skip steps. They are allowed to."
"I know," Ryu answered.
Aki dragged his hands down his face and groaned. "This is Basic. This is literally the entry bracket. Intermediate is going to kill me."
NV reappeared, its tone sharper. Another one? Ryu's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. What is the new order?
NV hesitated, then delivered the answer without inflection.
Ryu looked at the blank wall for a second longer than necessary, then let his gaze drift back to the group. No outward change. Only a recalibration of variables in his mind.
Aki nudged him with an elbow. "You went quiet. That is your 'bad things are coming' face. What now?"
"Nothing," Ryu said. "There is simply a lot that will happen."
EVENING TRAINING AND THE FIRST SIGN OF REAL DANGER
The Dark Tactics Arena lived up to its name. The ceiling panels dimmed until the lights became little more than outlines, and the shadows between them grew thick and heavy. Floor sensors glowed in narrow strips that marked safe zones and nothing else. The air carried a faint metallic tang, as if the room remembered every fall and impact that had ever happened inside it.
All Basic-2 participants were lined up along one side. The Level Two prodigies had been distributed across different teams, scattered to balance the groups and stress the simulations. Ryu found himself in a familiar configuration: Aki, Ratha, Kallen, Vex, and himself. Their section hummed with low anxiety and thin jokes that did not quite land.
"The objective is straightforward," the instructor's voice echoed from somewhere beyond the gloom. "You will be defending against an active threat. The attacking side will behave as if you are live targets."
Aki flinched. "Live targets? Please do not say monsters. I am not ready for teeth."
"No creatures," the instructor said. "You will be facing the Level Two units."
Aki let his forehead tap the padded wall behind him. "We are so done."
The lights dropped another notch. The arena fell into deep shadow, shapes becoming vague and slippery. Only the floor sensors flickered faintly beneath their feet. Somewhere on the far side, footsteps shifted from the metallic echo of a group to the softer roll of individuals taking position.
"They are moving," Ratha whispered.
Kallen checked the tactical feed on his wrist. "Patterns indicate a four pronged approach," he murmured. "Symmetry. They will test our structure first."
Vex's eyes had narrowed, listening rather than looking. "Their timing is tight. They are used to reading cues we do not even register."
Aki grabbed Ryu's sleeve and clung like it was a lifeline. "You know you are leading, right? If you say 'run' I am already gone."
Ryu closed his eyes. Darkness inside darkness. Sight was unreliable here anyway. He tuned in to the rhythm beneath the noise: the weight of footsteps, the way breath caught before a strike, the faint vibration when someone shifted their balance. NV flowed alongside that perception, syncing its analysis with his instincts.
Ryu opened his eyes even though it did not change what he perceived. "Ratha, hold left side," he said, voice low and steady. "Everyone else, move with the rhythm. Do not fight it."
Aki made a strangled sound. "What rhythm? My rhythm is screaming."
The first silhouette burst out of the dark. The strike came clean and fast, designed to test rather than kill. Ryu shifted his head by a few centimeters. The punch cut through empty air and the attacker's momentum carried him a fraction too far past centerline. Ryu stepped into that gap, bumping the boy's arm just enough to divert his follow up. The exchange looked simple. It was not.
Vex watched with incredulous focus. "I cannot see his opponent clearly," he whispered, mostly to himself. "But Ryu moves like he already saw three versions of this fight."
On the left, Ratha met his attacker with brute force and good instincts. Kallen absorbed a flurry of probing strikes, adjusting his guard, feeding information back into their formation. Aki ran a looping pattern along the outer edge, yelling half formed battle cries and curses, attracting one of the Level Twos without any finesse at all but somehow disrupting their timing.
The Level Two in front of Ryu tilted his head, as if enjoying himself. "You can see me?"
"No," Ryu answered.
"Then what do you see?"
"Flow."
The boy gave a small, genuine smile. "Interesting."
His next assault came harder. Combinations chained together with almost no pause, angles changed mid swing. Ryu did not try to match speed. He shaved off impact by moving only as much as he needed. All economy, no waste.
NV cut in again.
Ryu pressed his foot into the floor, altering his own trajectory. He let the incoming strike skim past, stepped into the pocket where the boy's weight was still shifting, and touched his right shoulder with precisely measured force. Not enough to injure further. Just enough to overload balance and timing.
The Level Two dropped to one knee.
For a moment, no one spoke. Even in the half darkness, the tension changed.
Aki stumbled closer, breathing hard. "Bro… did you just beat a Level Two?"
Ryu did not answer him. His attention went to the other three Level Twos at the edge of the arena. They had stopped moving. All three were watching him. There was no anger in their faces. No frustration. Only a sharpened interest.
Their leader stepped forward, clapping once, twice, in slow, deliberate beats.
"You are not Level One," he said. "We knew that already."
Ryu held his gaze, quiet and unblinking.
"And you are not Level Two either," the boy went on. The space between them felt tighter, as if the room itself were listening.
"You do not fit any tier." The boy tilted his head slightly. "You are in a category we do not have a word for." He looked back at his own team with a satisfied smile. "We have found him."
Ryu finally spoke. "Found what?"
"A genius the models cannot map," the boy replied. "A natural anomaly. The kind that breaks systems."
NV shuddered hard, enough that Ryu felt a faint pressure behind his eyes.
Purpose?
Aki watched Ryu's profile and blanched. "Your face just turned into your 'I am doing advanced math about danger' expression. What now?"
Before Ryu could respond, every light in the arena cut out at once. Darkness slammed down, thicker than before. Even the floor sensors went dark. For a heartbeat there was only breathing and the echo of that last clap.
A side door slid open with a heavy, muffled sound. Footsteps approached. These did not match the patterns of children, nor the measured tread of Vasena instructors. Six silhouettes appeared as darker shapes inside the dark, their presence like cold weight pressing on the air.
They did not belong to any known team.
Their signatures did not exist in the local database.
NV's voice dropped to a whisper.
Ryu slowly shifted his stance.
This was no longer training.
This was not another calibrated test.
For the first time since stepping into Vasena, someone had entered a controlled environment with one clear intention:
make sure Ryu does not walk back out the same way he came in.