Greta laughed outright, and the laugh turned into a half cough because of the nose clip. “No. That’s impurities. Your body just went from uninitiated to core user. Congratulations. You’re officially a core cultivator.”

  I stared at her.

  Some part of my mind, the part that was still a scholar, still cataloging, still trying to build a complete model of this world, filed the information away.

  Impurities.

  Core evolution pushes waste out.

  Body rewrites itself.

  It leaves behind impurities.

  Of course it did.

  Nothing ever became stronger without throwing something away.

  Greta waved a hand in front of her face like she was trying to shoo the smell back into the mattress. “Tin is mild,” she added cheerfully. “Every advancement is worse. My gold advancement smelled so bad we had to seal the room for weeks.”

  My stomach lurched.

  I gagged. If I’d had anything in my stomach, it would have come up.

  “My bed is ruined,” I said faintly.

  “Don’t worry,” Greta replied. “We’ll burn it. You also need a bath. Immediately.”

  She said immediately like she meant it as an order.

  I swallowed, because the word bath reminded me of how clean the heaven had been, how clean the stone floors were, how the air smelled like effort instead of rot.

  A bath sounded like a miracle.

  Greta stood, and the chair creaked. She moved with the same deliberate control I had just tried to imitate, every motion efficient. Even with the nose clip, even with the smell, she did not flinch away from the work.

  “Next time,” she said, “we’ll use the advancement room. This room was fine for your first core, but copper and above always happen there. It’s airtight.”

  “It’s airtight,” I repeated.

  “Not because it helps the process,” she said, anticipating the question. “It’s because it keeps the smell contained. We also monitor things closely.”

  I stared at the stained bedding like it had personally insulted me.

  “Can things go wrong during advancement?” I asked.

  Greta shook her head. “I’ve never seen it happen. Never even heard of it. Still, precautions matter. The Adventurers Guild takes safety seriously. The good ones, at least.”

  The good ones.

  So, there were bad ones.

  Of course there were.

  There were bad anything, anywhere people gathered power.

  I exhaled slowly and looked away from the bunk, because if I kept staring at it, I was going to start imagining what a gold advancement would do to a room.

  I needed to focus on what mattered.

  Food.

  Training.

  My regimen.

  Greta had said no for the first few weeks.

  That made sense.

  Stabilize.

  Survive.

  Then build.

  I shifted again, and this time I could feel the new balance of my body. The center of gravity was the same, but my awareness of it was sharper. When I moved my arm, I could feel my shoulder blade slide. When I flexed my foot, I could feel the tendon in my ankle pull.

  I knew where I was in space.

  That should have been normal.

  It was not.

  It felt like a weapon being sharpened.

  Greta watched me notice it.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You’re feeling it,” she said.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “My body is… louder.”

  “Good.” Greta nodded. “Now. Before you start pacing like a caged animal, we do the guide book stretches.”

  “The what,” I asked.

  She reached for the small booklet sitting on the table, the Adventurers Guild guide that they had shoved into my hands like it was a holy text for tin ranks. The cover was worn, corners soft from too many people turning it over. The pages smelled faintly of ink and dust.

  Greta flipped it open with practiced ease, as if she had taught this section a thousand times.

  “Foundation stretching,” she said. “You do them every day. It keeps injuries down. It teaches your body positions. It makes you less stupid.”

  I blinked. “That last part is not in the book.”

  “It should be.”

  She pointed at the floor. “Stand.”

  I stood.

  Even standing felt different. My feet planted more evenly. My knees did not lock. My hips settled into alignment without me having to think about it.

  Greta’s eyes narrowed again, almost approving. “See,” she said. “Most kids wobble. You’re already trying to stack yourself.”

  I did not tell her it felt like invisible hands had spent eternity forcing my joints into perfect positions.

  I did not tell her that I could still hear the God of Iron’s voice in my head saying again.

  Greta pointed to the page. “First stretch. Forward fold. Hinge at the hips. Not the back. Keep your knees soft.”

  I lowered myself slowly.

  My hamstrings complained.

  My spine stayed long.

  I let my head hang.

  The world inverted slightly, light turning the stone into a soft blur.

  Greta crouched in front of me, watching my posture. Her large hands hovered near my shoulders like she was ready to correct me, but she did not touch.

  “You’re controlling it,” she said. “Most tin kids just flop.”

  “I do not like flopping,” I muttered, voice muffled by my own shirt as I folded.

  Greta made a sound that might have been a laugh.

  “Next,” she said. “Lunge. One foot forward. Knee over ankle. Back leg straight. Hips forward.”

  I stepped into the position.

  My balance held.

  My muscles shook slightly, but the shake felt purposeful, like the body was learning instead of panicking.

  Greta’s gaze flicked over me, sharp and assessing. “You really do seem to have a passion,” she said. “I see it in very few for martial training.”

  Passion.

  Was it passion.

  Or was it desperation.

  I thought of the god of magic’s perfect realm, the suffocating perfection of it, the feeling of being trapped inside someone else’s lie. I thought of my stolen name, my stolen legacy, the way the world refused to hear the titles I tried to say.

  “That’s one way to say it,” I said.

  Greta snorted through the nose clip. “Yes. The other way is that you’re insane.”

  I held the lunge and breathed through the stretch, letting my hips sink forward, letting the tension open.

  Then Greta flipped the page again. “Seated twist. Sit. Cross leg. Hand on knee. Turn slowly. Do not wrench yourself.”

  I sat.

  I twisted.

  Slowly.

  The movement felt familiar, like a spell gesture slowed down until it became pure anatomy.

  I could feel the muscles along my spine engage one by one.

  I could feel the rib cage shift.

  I could feel my breath move into the side of my body.

  Greta watched, and for a moment her expression softened. The strictness stayed, but the fear in her eyes eased, like she had been waiting for me to wake up wrong and now she was finally letting herself believe I had woken up right.

  I remembered she had called me a good man.

  I did not know if I deserved that.

  I did know she had meant it.

  I came out of the twist and exhaled.

  Then I looked at her.

  “Greta,” I said, “I have some things I need to ask you.”

  “Mm?”

  “We’ll be training together for a while,” I said. “Is there any time where I could do my own regimen as well? I’ve been… lax about it.”

  Greta raised an eyebrow. “Really? I’m surprised you had a regimen at all. Most children don’t understand why one matters. I usually have to explain it.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said quickly. “But is there time?”

  “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Just not for the first few weeks. You need to stabilize first.”

  My mind raced ahead anyway.

  The God of Iron had been serious. Dead serious. He had said it like a commandment.

  The regimen was brutal in a way that felt almost laughable for a toddler’s body.

  It was also the first plan I had been given in this world that felt like it belonged to me.

  Just the simplest method of becoming harder to kill.

  I nodded, then hesitated, because there was one more part of the regimen that would not leave my mind.

  The banana.

  I had asked for it without thinking, like my body had decided it was important before my mind could argue.

  The God of Iron had said one a day.

  Why.

  Was it potassium.

  Was it a joke.

  Was it some ancient secret.

  I did not know.

  I only knew I wanted one.

  I nodded, then hesitated again. “How long will we be staying here? And… would it be possible for me to see my dad? He’s at the wall.”

  Greta considered. “Sundays are rest days. We usually head back into the city, but if you want, I can pick you up from the wall and you can spend time with him.”

  “That would be great,” I said.

  The thought of my father hit me like a weight.

  The way he looked at me like I was fragile and also like I was his pride.

  I wanted to show him I was still here.

  I wanted to show him I was becoming more.

  I also wanted to make sure the wall had not swallowed him.

  This world ate people.

  I had already learned that.

  I inhaled, then immediately regretted it.

  The smell was still there.

  It was worse now that I was moving around.

  Greta’s voice sounded even funnier through the nose clip when she spoke again. “All right. Stretching done. Now we solve the problem of you being a biological weapon.”

  I stared at her.

  She pointed at the bunk.

  I looked.

  My eyes watered.

  “I am going to burn that,” Greta said. “But first, you are going to bathe. You are not walking into the mess hall like this. People will think something died in your clothes.”

  I swallowed. “Something did.”

  Greta paused.

  Then she nodded once, like she accepted the statement as fact. “Yes,” she said softly. “Something did.”

  The air went quiet for a beat, heavy with understanding.

  Then Greta’s face hardened back into practical command. “And something lived. Now move. Carefully. Slow. Keep that control. You’re going to need it.”

  I rose.

  I did it slowly, deliberately, feeling every joint open.

  Greta watched me like a teacher watching a student who had finally stopped wasting their talent.

  “You’re going places,” she said, almost to herself. Then she looked at me more intently. “Azolo, when you’re done here, don’t join a city guild.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not one of them,” she said simply. “City guilds require money and noble backing to go anywhere. They’re safer, sure. But you’re not looking for safe.”

  I nodded. “I’m trying to kill a god and thats not something you can do safely.”

  She laughed like I’d told a joke.

  I laughed too.

  In my head, I was laughing for an entirely different reason.