Liam could clearly feel it—his striking power had gone up since his hand-to-hand combat skill leveled up.
Unfortunately, with the skill upgrade came a steep drop in experience gain rate.
But Liam didn't stop. This wasn't some throwaway skill like speed reading or sketching—it was core to his survival.He needed to train it, master it, live it.
Jabs, knifehands, elbows, knees, side kicks…
After every motion, Liam paused to reflect, breaking down what felt off, and what felt right.Whenever a move rewarded more EXP, he marked it mentally and drilled it again and again.
[Combat Tactics - Lv1 | EXP +3][Combat Tactics - Lv1 | EXP +2]
…
Deep in the rhythm of improvement, Liam lost all sense of time. He didn't even notice the instructor watching him.
Coach Warren, a broad-shouldered man with a dusting of stubble and a soldier's posture, stroked his chin, eyes narrowing.
"Huh… thought Class C only had two students that really grasped kinetic chaining. Didn't expect this kid."
He hadn't even glanced at the impact meter, but as a former special ops instructor, he didn't need to. The kid's transfer of force was clean—too clean for a beginner.
He wasn't just moving like a student. He was moving like a soldier.
Among the current year, maybe twenty or thirty cadets in the entire school could pull off that level of execution.
Then he remembered something the students had been whispering about—Liam had accepted a challenge match today.
Warren's interest sharpened.
Combat challenges weren't discouraged. Hell, if you couldn't handle a spar, how would you fare against a two-ton predator trying to rip your throat out?
The next period was Evasion Drills, back-to-back with combat class.
They'd already gone through theory and forms in earlier semesters. Now it was all about real-world application: reflex, agility, decision-making under pressure.
Today's module? Auto-target dodging drill.
Inside a two-meter-wide training corridor, a wall-mounted sentry gun fired bursts of rubberized rounds, while hidden wall panels would eject carbon-fiber rods at random angles.
Cadets wore clear visors for eye protection, but the rest was up to reflexes and guts.
Liam dropped low, feet light, shoulders loose, weaving like a panther on caffeine. Bullets zipped past. Rods snapped out like vipers. Timing was everything.
He didn't get impaled, but the bullets still got him now and then. Not because he was sloppy—it was just fast. Really fast.
[Evasion - Lv0 | EXP +7][Evasion - Lv0 ▶︎ Lv1 | Potential Point +1]
"…!"
It was like something unlocked. Liam's footwork became fluid, instinctive. Every step, every shift of weight now clicked.
Toes, ankles, calves, hips—his whole body began to move as one. He dipped, rolled, pivoted, spun.
The corridor became his stage.
Ten minutes later, the round ended.
Liam checked his stats.
"Hits taken: 98"
Most of them happened before his upgrade. Once Evasion hit Lv1, the numbers dropped off fast.
He glanced at the skill progress bar.
Evasion - Lv1 (11.8%)
Damn. That's fast.
His hand-to-hand skill had taken the full class to reach 15.5% after leveling up. But here? Barely ten
minutes in and he was already over 10%.
Why?
He glanced at the gun barrels. At the wall rods. At his bruises.
Pressure.
The kind that didn't just motivate you—it rewired you.
He wasn't just dodging for practice. His brain thought he was dodging death.
Every neuron was lit. Every movement mattered.
So... what if he cranked it higher?
He walked to the terminal and toggled the dial from Level 1 to Level 2.
"Let's see how far I can push this."
The corridor roared back to life—faster bullets, more angles, two rods at once.
[Evasion - Lv1 | EXP +9][Evasion - Lv1 | EXP +7][Evasion - Lv1 ▶︎ Lv2 | Potential Point +1][AGILITY +1 | 9 ▶︎ 10]
Somewhere during the fifth wave, Liam's Evasion hit Level 2—and his agility stat broke into double digits.
He grinned like a lunatic and… switched to Level 3.
Big mistake.
He got wrecked.
It wasn't the skill's fault—his body simply couldn't keep up. The bullets were too fast, the rods too many, his eyes couldn't even track them all.
Every impact hurt. A lot.
Speed equals force. And Level 3's force? Not playing games.
With a groan, Liam dropped back to Level 2. That level still gave him solid gains—enough to keep progressing.
The machine restarted, and Liam dove back into his bullet ballet.
Elsewhere, in the operations room, Coach Warren stared hard at the monitor feed.
The kid moved like a ghost, floating through streams of gunfire, never the same step twice. His
footwork was clean, tight—beautiful.
"You seeing this?"
A smoky voice cut in from the side.
It was Evie Moreau, the academy's Evasion instructor. Short-haired, chain-smoking, catlike. Lean
like a whip.
"I saw someone tweaking the difficulty settings. Had to check it out."
Warren folded his arms. "Counting the senior cadets, how many can do this?"
"Under ten."
She exhaled through her nose, lips curled in amusement.
"That kind of reactive movement? That'll turn heads even at the Hunter trials."
Warren didn't respond right away. He reached over, pulled out a file folder, and flipped it open.
Inside was a profile. A clean-cut cadet with sharp features and a cocky smile.
Liam Vance
Entry Score: 3rd in year, 1st in Class C
Current Rank: 382nd in year, 36th in class — bottom five.
"…Now that's a drop," Evie muttered.
"He started blacking out mid-semester. Medical anomaly. Missed most of his core training."
Evie raised an eyebrow. "That the kid who collapsed in my corridor drill last term?"
Warren nodded. "That's him."
"That kind of physical inconsistency is a death sentence in the field. Why hasn't the school cut him loose?"
"Because," Warren said slowly, "his focus channeling efficiency is second only to the top two cadets."
Evie's brows lifted. "Wait. You mean—?"
"Yeah. And those two are confirmed Awakened."
Evie let out a low whistle.
"So the school thinks this kid's got an ability brewing?"
"Exactly."
And in this academy, with only six confirmed Awakened total?
If Liam Vance's spark ignited—
He wouldn't just be relevant.
He'd be unstoppable.