Chapter 41: The Dragons’ Gymnasium — Break and Rebuild, Again and Again
When my eyelids lifted, my muscles screamed at me. Every fiber burned as if I’d slept on an anvil. My duel with Garrum had left me in pieces, but... I was still alive.
That alone felt like a luxury—just sore instead of shredded to bits.
I stretched, my back cracking like a warped beam. A few push-ups, two sets of squats. Nothing special, but my body held up better than before. Less trembling, more control. Or maybe I’d just become dumb enough to find comfort in pain.
I sat cross-legged on the floor. Silence. I inhaled from the belly, deep, down to the ribs. Mana flowed in—golden dust clinging to my skin, warm threads curling around my lungs, then rolling into my veins. On the exhale, I guided it. Toward the bruised shoulder, the aching side, the stiff wrist. The filaments heated, smoothed out the knots, calmed the trembling. One minute, two... enough for the pain to become bearable and for my head to clear.
The shower. Again. I’d already washed the blood off yesterday, but after the exercises and the breathing I couldn’t stand the sweat stuck to my skin anymore. Hot water trickled down my scars, tracing burning grooves along my flanks. I scrubbed as if I could erase the crowd, their screams, and that insane laugh that had slipped out of me. But no. It stuck, like a smell that never fades.
Clean kimono, Aurelia put away, and there I was again in the stone corridors.
Descending the steps toward the refectory, I felt a strange shiver. Déjà vu. The smells of burnt coffee, warm bread, muffled voices... All of it dragged me back to that other morning. Except this time, silence fell flat when I walked in.
The humans straightened up, stiff as soldiers. Their eyes shone with adoration but also fear. As if I’d become both their champion and their nightmare. The other races, though, glared at me. The elves with icy contempt, the dragons with smoldering rage, the dwarves with a hard forge-born snicker. All had seen Garrum fall. All had seen... my laugh.
I clenched my jaw, crossed the hall and dropped myself at an isolated table. A human waitress came at once, trembling, to ask me:
— "Wh... what can I get you, Mr. Kaito?"
Mr. Kaito. Damn it, again.
— "Coffee. Black."
I would have liked to savor this scrap of normality, but she appeared again.
Reina.
She walked straight toward me, set a bundle of yellowed paper on the table. The noise cracked like a whip. Exactly like last time. Except this time, the headline jumped at my eyes:
"THE HUMAN HERO RIDICULES GARRUM IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE ACADEMY."
Below: "A mad laugh chills the arena — humans cheered, dragons humiliated."
And a crude engraving: me, head thrown back, mouth wide open, Aurelia raised to the sky, looking like a demon broken out of his chains.
I felt my ears heat up. Damn it. Not only had they transcribed everything, but they’d noted my laugh too. Black on white, in giant letters:
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
I wanted to close the paper, but too late. Dozens of eyes were on me. Some with admiration. Others with disgust. All with one thought: there’s the crazy human who humiliated a dragon heir.
Reina crossed her arms, a crooked smile on her lips.
— "You should be proud. You just redefined what it means to be human."
I muttered through clenched teeth, cheeks burning:
— "Proud, my ass..."
I grabbed my cup, took a sip. Bitter. Too bitter. Just like last time. Damn, this was my life: every morning, bitter coffee and a newspaper trying to kill me with shame.
The universe kept serving me its sadistic combo: bitter coffee + shitty paper.
I blew on the black liquid, staring at my reflection.
Not by strength. Not by glory. I’d won through cunning, through lies, through manipulation. And that had put me, a poor human, in the center of the board.
I tightened my grip on the cup, gritted my teeth.
Another hard day ahead...
After finishing my black coffee, I left the cafeteria with my stomach knotted, still stung by that damned headline and the laugh printed in huge letters. Damn... even on yellowed paper it kept haunting me. Every step in the stone corridor echoed like the Academy itself was mocking me.
The walls were the same as usual: plain, cold, carved to perfection like everything dragons touched.
Yet when a heavy runic door opened in front of us, I froze.
From outside, it looked like a soulless barn, just another wing of the academy. Plain, functional. But as soon as we stepped inside...
— "...Holy shit."
The slap. A gym, sure, but sponsored by the gods themselves.
Runic machines shimmered, sheathed in symbols pulsing like artificial hearts. Silhouettes of living metal—freaking robots forged from draconic steel—moved in silence, mimicking walking or fighting as if they breathed. Farther on, an integrated forge spewed blue flames, its runic anvils heated to the point of vibrating. And at the center, the weight room: gravitational loads, stone blocks carved with glyphs, easily a thousand times heavier than they looked.
A shiver ran through me. The whole place reeked of sweat, iron, raw energy. I gave a bitter chuckle.
— "Damn... a dragon-style fitness center."
Miyu burst out laughing behind me.
— "Oh, perfect. You’ll finally be able to bulk something other than your ego."
I shot her a dark look, but her insolent smile almost forced me to smile back.
Reina, meanwhile, had already moved closer to the machines. Her icy eyes slid over the mechanisms, her thin fingers brushing the inscriptions as if mentally scanning each rune.
— "Impressive," she murmured, neutral. "This is engineering on a level even our best labs never reached."
Hikari, half hidden behind me, stared at the training robots with wide eyes. Her hands nervously clenched her sleeves, and her voice trembled:
— "A... are they alive?"
I shrugged, unable to give her a clear answer. And honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Ayame, on the other hand, walked forward calmly, her silhouette upright despite the heavy atmosphere. Her brown eyes lingered on the forge’s blue flames, then on the gravitational loads. She inhaled deeply before saying:
— "It reminds me of certain military complexes on Earth. But a thousand times more... primitive and advanced at once."
I frowned. Yeah. That was exactly it: both archaic and futuristic. A place built to break bodies and remake them stronger.
And deep down, a raw thought stabbed me: if I’m going to survive here... it’s in this damn hangar that I’ll leave my skin.
A shiver swept the room. Not the kind you get from a draft or a too-hot flame. No. The kind that drops on you like an invisible weight.
I felt it before I even saw her.
The Headmistress.
Her steps echoed behind us, slow, implacable, each claw-click on the stone hammering in my chest like a death knell. When she finally appeared, silence fell on its own. Even the runic machines seemed to hold their breath.
Sahr’Veyra.
She didn’t need to roar or puff up her chest. Her body alone was enough. Her snow-white hair shimmered with red glints, her golden eyes pierced us like two dead suns. Her broad shoulders, covered in ancient scars, radiated an experience that made me feel like a kid with a wooden toy.
I swallowed, but her voice fell before I could. Low, rasping, burning.
— "From today on, I am your main instructor. And your training instructor."
Not another word, not a smile. Just a declaration. Like dropping an anvil on a table.
She swept us with her gaze, one by one. My stomach knotted when her pupils met mine. No magic needed to flay me: I felt like she already saw my scars, my lies, my damned laugh in the arena.
She went on, relentless:
— "Here, you will have only one hour of theory per week. History. Nothing more."
Her tone left no room for discussion.
— "The rest," she continued, stepping forward, her massive silhouette swallowing the torchlight, "six days out of seven... will be practice."
She gestured slowly at the room. The runic machines, the gravitational loads, the forged automatons... all seemed to vibrate around her, as if even steel bent to her presence.
— "You will train your way. At your pace."
She paused. Her thin lips stretched into a cold, humorless smirk.
— "I’m here to correct you, to help you."
The Headmistress straightened, her golden eyes burning in the dimness.
— "Never forget: the Academy is not a place to learn."
Her voice roared then, brutal, almost inhuman.
— "It is a place to survive long enough to deserve to learn."
Her words slammed against my ribs like a rain of hammers.
A thick silence followed. Then, as if her unspoken order had cracked through the air, the groups began to scatter.
The dragonides were first. Their massive silhouettes moved toward the runic automatons, and the clash of metal on metal rang out instantly. Their claws sank into steel shells as if they were rotten wood. Each tail strike shattered stone blocks, each roar drowned the sound of anvils. They trained, yes, but in their own way: a show of brute power.
The elves slid toward a fencing area. Their living-wood blades sprang out silently, drawing perfect arcs. It was beautiful, too beautiful. Every move seemed choreographed, every parry a measured dance. Too clean. Too cold. I already hated that precision that made it look like they’d never sweated in their lives.
The dwarves tramped heavily toward the forge. Their hammers slammed against the runic anvils, the sound resounding like war drums. Their beards trembled with sweat, their voices rumbled guttural chants. They didn’t need sparring: their training was to strike again and again until the metal itself gave way.
And us humans? We just stood there. Four lost survivors in a world that didn’t want us. Hesitant. Too aware of our weaknesses.
I glanced at Aurelia, then at my hands still bruised. Garrum came crashing back into my mind. His granite fists, his steel skin, his titan’s body that could have crushed me in a single embrace. I’d won, yes, but through cunning. Through a damned lie.
I exhaled, bitter.
It had worked once. But if I run into another Garrum tomorrow? Something even worse? I can’t cheat forever.
I crossed the room, ignoring the stares. The gravitational loads awaited me, stone blocks darkened with softly pulsing runes. I laid my hands on them, felt their weight vibrate into my bones. I pulled, I pushed. My body screamed instantly. My muscles burned as if torn with claws. My forearms trembled, my thighs wanted to give.
I let go of the stone with a grunt. Sweat already stuck to my forehead.
Damn... Not enough. Not like this.
I knew it. The normal process, the push-ups and weights, would take months, years. Time I didn’t have. Here, the Academy wouldn’t hand us a calm schedule to progress. Here, you died if you weren’t ready by tomorrow.
I sat heavily, hands on my trembling thighs. And a brutal idea cut through me.
What if I could speed up the process? Force my muscles to tear, then regenerate them right away?
I clenched my fists, breathing short.
That’s it. That’s what I need. Not to wait months. Not to count on luck. But to break and rebuild, again and again, until even Garrum would have a hard time looking down on me.
I looked up. The girls were already watching me from a distance, intrigued. My heart thumped hard, too hard.
Yeah. Time to tell them.
I gathered my breath and the girls around me. My body still trembled from the first try on the runic loads, but my head burned with an idea too obsessive to keep quiet.
— "Listen..." My voice came out rougher than I expected. "I’ve been thinking. My muscles give out every time I try to push. Normal. But... what if we could speed up the process? Micro-tears... and then, direct regeneration with magic. Destroy, rebuild. Again and again. Faster. Stronger."
Hikari’s eyes widened. Her thin fingers clenched her sleeve.
— "That... that could work," she breathed, hesitant. "Muscle strengthens by healing its fibers. But..." She bit her lip, her gaze skittering away for a moment. "If you regenerate too fast, it can cause imbalances. Your tissues won’t keep up. Chronic pain. Spasms. And maybe... irreversible tears."
Her worry tightened my chest. I nodded, but Reina cut in before I could answer.
— "Hikari’s right." Her voice cracked like a whip, cold, surgical. She crossed her arms, her scepter glowing faintly against her chest. "Muscles aren’t just fibers. They’re cells. Contractile proteins, actin, myosin... They don’t reform by magic. If you want to build, you have to give them material to build with. Nutrients, energy. You can stimulate them, yes. But without enough supply, you’ll just starve them. Result: catabolism. Your body will devour itself."
Damn. Put like that, it felt like I was about to sign my own death warrant.
Ayame laid her hand on my thigh, gentle but firm, as if to bring balance back to this icy discussion. Her brown eyes vibrated with almost scientific focus.
— "In biotechnology, we’re already working on that. On Earth, I modified cell lines to adapt to toxic environments. We could consider... accelerated muscular adaptation. But it carries a huge risk. Mutation. If your body reacts badly, you won’t just have sore arms. You could... become deformed."
I swallowed. My mind tossed me an image of my biceps swelling like disgusting bladders. Great.
— "Looove this conversation," Miyu snickered, crouched halfway on a bench, her katana resting on her shoulder. Her eyes blazed with predatory insolence. "But honestly? Screw the theory. You want muscles? We’ll burn them. Literally. I can boost your circulation with my Primordial Flame. You burn, your tissues bleed, and bam: instant healing behind it. We can even alternate with thermal shocks. Cold, hot, cold, hot. Your body will think it’s at war, and it’ll adapt."
She burst out laughing, her heavy breasts bouncing under her half-open kimono.
— "You’re insane," Hikari whispered, horrified.
— "No. I’m realistic." Miyu shrugged, a predator’s smile on her lips. "Pain forges."
Silence fell for a second. I stared at my hands, my forearms still trembling. Everything they said made sense, in one way or another. Each brought her piece of truth, her shard of knowledge or madness. And me, I had nothing but my guts and this obsession to never again stand in front of a Garrum with nothing but trickery.
That’s when I felt it.
A gaze, nailed to my neck.
I didn’t even need to turn right away. Sylvara’Khareth.
She was there, off to the side, leaning against a stone column like a lazy cat, her wings folded but quivering slightly with each breath. Her golden eyes shone with a troubled interest, a mix of contempt and curiosity. A thin, predatory smile curved her lips.
I pretended not to notice. No way I’d give her the advantage of knowing she’d unsettled me. But her gaze stayed locked on me, heavy, insistent.
I inhaled deeply, set my hands on my knees, and concluded in a low voice, for myself as much as for them:
If Garrum taught me one thing, it’s that technique isn’t enough when your opponent can crush you.
I clenched my teeth, my nails digging into my skin.
So yeah... I’ll let myself be broken. Again and again. Until I become the steel that doesn’t bend.
We ended the session broken, yet stronger. Our adjustments, our calculations, our corrections... all of it had ended up shaping a method. Not perfect, not heroic. Just ours. And as I lay in my bed, I thought that maybe tonight, pain would be the only true teacher I had left.