The first breath of morning hadn't yet touched the sky when Kaelren opened his eyes.
The stone lantern in his luxury tent still glowed softly, runes pulsing like a heartbeat in rest. The air was cool, quiet — the kind of silence that belonged only to the disciplined.
He rose without hesitation.
The floor beneath him, padded with beast-hide, muffled his steps as he settled into his usual spot. Cross-legged. Back straight. Palms resting lightly on his knees.
He inhaled through his nose, slow and measured, and began to guide the Qi Refinement technique through his body.
It started faint, as always — the pull of ambient Qi in the air like invisible threads brushing against his skin. Not enough to shape, not yet. But enough to feel. Enough to grasp.
Each breath cycled the energy closer to his center.
Each exhale refined his control.
Still, despite the slow accumulation, the inner coil behind his navel remained incomplete. He hadn't reached the first stage of the Qi Gathering Realm, but the thread had thickened since yesterday. The pool was growing.
Steady. Precise. No rushing this path, he reminded himself.
Gene Refinement was violence.
Qi was patience.
After an hour, the first dull horns of Camp 12 echoed across the canyon floor.
Kaelren stood, stretching his back with a low pop, and dressed swiftly. Black combat boots, battle jeans. Tank top. Metal bracers.
He clipped his Gravity Band to his arm.
Then he stepped outside and made his way to breakfast.
The high-rank mess tent smelled different.
Meat.
Real meat.
Not gray mystery strips boiled in rancid broth — but slabs of freshly cut beast, seared and seasoned. The kind of food warriors dreamed of. The kind that built muscle and restored marrow.
Kaelren approached without hesitation as Rank 25.
The attendants didn't question him. One of them — a scarred woman with a data-visor over her left eye — handed him a tray stacked with three portions. His bowl was thick and polished. The meat on it glistened.
Succulent. Real.
He nodded in thanks, turned, and walked right out of the high-class area.
Back toward the mid-tier zone.
Some high-rankers watched him with quiet confusion. A few with disdain.
He ignored them.
Dren was already seated in their usual spot near the pit-edge benches, chewing through his own tray of lower-grade food. He looked up, then blinked.
"That's a lot of meat."
Kaelren dropped the tray and sat.
"You're supposed to eat that in the high rank tent," Dren said.
Kaelren shrugged. "It's quieter here." obviously lieing.
Dren chuckled and shook his head. "You're going to make enemies."
Kaelren glanced at him. "I already have some."
They ate in silence for a few moments, steam rising between them in the cold air.
Then Dren spoke.
"I'm going on a mission today."
Kaelren looked up, mildly surprised.
"You've already picked one?"
Dren nodded. "Rotten Stone retrieval. C-rank location, but D-rank difficulty. Cave system two valleys over. Low threat unless you're dumb or slow."
"Good fit," Kaelren said. It wasn't sarcasm. He could tell dren had reached the 2nd stage of body refinement.
Dren gave a slight smile. "I figured if I want to be useful to myself, I can't keep hiding in drills forever."
Kaelren paused between bites. "You're not hiding. You're sharpening."
"I'm done sharpening. Time to cut."
Kaelren nodded.
They both finished their meals. When Dren stood, Kaelren did too.
But something in Dren's posture — in the set of his shoulders and the steadiness of his breath — told Kaelren that his friend was walking into something not just physical, but personal.
Training was brutal, as expected.
Camp 12 didn't care if you were Rank 70 or Rank 1 — you ran the same miles, bled the same on the weight chains, screamed the same in ice baths. Only the strong rose. Only the dead fell.
Kaelren powered through it all under 2x the gravity. This is exactly what the gravity Band was used for.
Afterward, sweat-drenched and sore, he watched Dren walk toward the mission tent with a quiet determination. No fear. Just resolve.
Kaelren, in contrast, turned toward the upper plateau — toward the mixed fighting pit.
New territory.
Only those in the high ranks could enter. Rank 25 and up. A place where fighters from all twelve camps gathered.
The mixed pits were nothing like the narrow, blood-slick rings of Camp 12.
Set high on a shale plateau overlooking the training basin, the arena was massive. Even the climb up was hard. The edges ringed by ancient stone pillars and reinforced steel barricades. Shattered gear and dried blood littered the outer area. One stone bore a brutal carving:
"No ranks. No rules. Only power."
Kaelren stepped past the threshold and immediately felt the shift — not just in tension, but in pressure.
Dozens of eyes turned toward him. Not with curiosity, but with calculation.
Recruits from all twelve camps were scattered across the plateau. Most stood in clusters — lean combatants wrapped in beast furs, augments glowing faintly beneath skin, weapons strapped across backs. The air buzzed with anticipation.
Kaelren was a newcomer.
He didn't flinch.
From the crowd, a tall youth broke off and moved toward him with deliberate ease.
His emblem: rank 22. Camp 8.
He was older, broader-shouldered, with charcoal hair shaved at the sides and a long scar trailing from his chin to his collarbone.
"Fresh meat," he said, voice low but audible. "Didn't think Camp 12 had anyone worth sending only their top 5 ranks are somewhat decent the rest are trash.
Kaelren met his gaze, silent.
"I'm Drevik," the boy continued, pacing into the central ring. "I like to warm up before the top dogs show up. You'll do."
Kaelren didn't respond.
Drevik grinned. "Tail and all . Let's see what bleeds first."
No ref called the match.
No horn. No count.
Just movement.
Drevik came in fast — no posturing, just raw aggression. His fist snapped toward Kaelren's temple like a hammer, but Kaelren ducked, twisted, and countered with a short elbow to the ribs. Drevik grunted, then drove a knee into Kaelren's thigh.
The impact was brutal — the kind meant to hobble.
Kaelren's leg buckled for a breath, but he twisted with it, using the motion to slam his shoulder into Drevik's sternum. The hit staggered him.
Drevik didn't fall.
He smiled.
He came again, this time feinting high and sweeping low. Kaelren saw it — barely — and leapt back just in time. The edge of Drevik's boot grazed his ankle.
The crowd stirred. Some were nodding now. Others narrowed their eyes.
Kaelren launched forward.
Fist to the jaw. Knee to the gut. Then a sudden pivot — elbow to the back of Drevik's neck as he doubled forward. Drevik stumbled, catching himself on all fours, coughing blood onto the stone.
Kaelren followed through. Smashing his heel through Drevik's head.
Dead.
From the sidelines, a few high-rankers murmured to each other. A tall girl with coiled braids and a cybernetic spine took special note of Kaelren, eyes flickering with assessment. Her emblem reading camp 1 rank 3.
Kaelren stood alone in the ring for a moment longer,soon someone else came up to fight him.
Kaelren had a few more fights. Nothing serious or hard. All with people around the same ranks. He won them all.
He walked away, bruised but calm.
He had tested his edge.
And found it sharper than expected.
The mixed pits echoed behind him — grunts, laughter, blood still steaming on stone — but Kaelren left it all behind without a word.
His body was marked by the fights. His thigh ached where Drevik's kick had landed, and his shoulder still throbbed from the slam. But none of it slowed him.
At Rank 25, he was entitled to dinner.
A real one.
The high-rank mess tent was quieter than the mid ranked area — fewer fighters, fewer mouths. The food here was fire-seared and properly portioned. Cuts of meat still carried their juices. The broth had bones in it. Vegetables weren't ground to paste.
Kaelren took a tray and sat alone at the edge of the high-tier benches. Others ate in quiet clusters, casting the occasional glance his way. None approached. None greeted him.
He didn't expect them to.
He ate slowly, chewing each bite with absent precision. His eyes weren't on his food, but on the empty places in the tent.
Back in his tent, the heat rune flickered warm.
Kaelren removed his shirt and ran a hand down his side. The bruises were beginning to settle — dull purple along the ribs, a red welt on his thigh. He pressed two fingers to the sorest point and exhaled.
Then he sat.
Cross-legged. Bare skin on fur.
The Gene Refinement Sutra rose within him like a burning chant. It moved through bone and tendon, tracing the places most damaged first. The pain was sharper tonight, more insistent. His body had taken real punishment in the pits.
Good.
The Sutra thrived on destruction.
He guided it carefully, breathing through the sharp jabs of healing fire. His muscles clenched and relaxed in slow waves as if the technique itself had hands — and was molding him from raw meat into tempered steel.
Flesh breaks. Steel forms.
By the time he finished the last cycle, sweat glistened down his chest, and the shaking in his arms had subsided. The pain had faded again — not gone, but buried beneath something stronger.
Kaelren crawled into bed, still shirtless falling into his bed.
Morning came with the scent of wind and blood — the constant perfume of Camp 12.
He woke with precision, not grogginess, and settled once more into the floor-space where his body knew the shape of discipline.
The Qi Refinement technique came easier now. Each breath pulled more energy inward. His body didn't just receive the Qi — it welcomed it.
His concentration narrowed.
One cycle.
Then another.
And then —
A rush of warmth coiled tight behind his navel, sharp and luminous, like a spark catching dry kindling.
Kaelren's body tensed.
His skin prickled.
The internal thread of Qi he'd been nurturing for days condensed, becoming something more — a tangible pool, a breath of power under his control. He didn't move, didn't gasp. But his pulse thundered.
Qi Gathering Realm – Stage 1.
Not a storm. Not a blaze.
But a calm fire beginning to burn in the dark.
His senses sharpened. His body felt lighter, like it could react just a half-step sooner. Strength still came from his body, but now something else supported it — subtle, flowing, silent.
Qi.
The second path had opened.
Kaelren stood slowly, chest rising with satisfaction, a Slight smile on his face.
He dressed.
Shouldered his bracers.
Strapped the Gravity Band to his arm.
And walked out into the chill of dawn.
As a high-ranker, he didn't need to wait in line anymore. The attendant handed him his meal with a nod — hot meat, boiled greens, and dense black bread.
He took the tray.
And walked to the mid-rank benches out of habit.
Dren wasn't there.
Kaelren paused, eyes scanning the line, the camp paths, the tents in the distance.
Still no sign.
He sat down anyway.
He ate slowly.
Alone.
Dren was supposed to return last night. Or at worst, early this morning. The mission wasn't high risk — cave extraction, he'd said. Nothing serious unless you were reckless.
But if he wasn't back now...
He failed...
Kaelren stared down at the half-finished meal in his hand, his fingers tightening around the tray.
Camp rules were absolute.
Failure meant exile.
Exile meant death.
Kaelren didn't speak.
He finished his food, bite by bite, with the quiet precision of someone who didn't know how else to grieve.
No one asked him where Dren was. No one noticed the empty space beside him. No one cared.
And in that silence, Kaelren realized something:
He might never have another friend in this camp.
Maybe not in the entire Blood Fang Clan.
Friendship didn't survive here.
Only power did.
He swallowed the last bite and stood up.
The tray clattered louder than it should have when he set it down.
Then he walked away without a word.