I went to dinner.

  Then I had a second dinner.

  After that, a third.

  I followed it with dessert, then a second dessert, and finally a banana, just in case. I was not entirely sure where all of it was going, only that my body demanded it with an urgency that left no room for debate. Each bite felt less like indulgence and more like repair. At some point after the banana, the hollow, gnawing need finally eased, not vanishing so much as loosening its grip. For the first time since my advancement, I felt full in a way that did not feel fragile or temporary, as if the fullness might actually last.

  My body felt heavy after that, but it was a good weight, grounded instead of threatening. I took a long bath, lowering myself into the heat and letting the water soak into muscles that still felt unfamiliar. There were places that ached in dull, distant ways, not from injury but from change. I stayed there longer than necessary, breathing slowly, letting the heat convince my body that it was safe to rest.

  By the time I crawled into bed, exhaustion had settled deep into my bones. It was the kind that did not need coaxing or ritual. I barely noticed when sleep began to take hold.

  Tomorrow we would be back in class with Greta, and I wanted to start my regimen.

  She had said I would be allowed to begin tomorrow. That single permission carried more weight than I would have expected. It meant I would get up early and start something that, if I succeeded, I would be doing for the rest of my life. The thought was both daunting and exhilarating. There was comfort in its simplicity, in the idea that the path forward began with small, repeatable actions rather than grand declarations.

  The exercises themselves were simple on the surface, almost mundane, movements that anyone could look at and dismiss. But I knew better. I understood how repetition shaped structure, how small stresses applied consistently could rewrite a body over time. These exercises would decide what kind of body I built, and by extension, what kind of future that body could carry. They would become a quiet foundation beneath everything else I chose to do.

  I had not prayed at all in this life.

  In my past life, prayer had been routine. I had prayed many times to the god of magic, sometimes out of gratitude, sometimes out of habit, sometimes because it was expected of me. My devotion to him had been unquestioned, woven so tightly into my identity that I had never thought to examine it. That devotion was no longer warranted. Whatever bond we had once shared was gone, and I did not feel grief over its absence. It simply was.

  But the god of iron had done something for me.

  Even if it seemed small to others, it was more than I had ever asked of any god before. He had brought me into this world when I should have been nothing. He had given me a second chance when I had been drifting in the void, untethered and facing oblivion, with no certainty that I would ever exist again. And when I had gone through what I could only describe as my core death, lacking any better term for the experience, and found myself in his heaven, he had helped me without demand or condition.

  His heaven had felt real in a way few things ever had.

  His kindness had felt real, grounded and present rather than abstract or performative.

  So, my devotion to him would be real as well.

  I lay back against the pillows and prayed.

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  I did not kneel as I once had for the god of magic. I did not lower myself in submission or recite memorized words passed down by tradition. I did not offer promises I could not be certain I would keep. Instead, I sat in my bed, closed my eyes, and spoke honestly, as one person might speak to another.

  I wished him well.

  I thanked him for what he had done for me, and for what he had done for all of mankind. I thanked him for the simple, brutal gift of strength, for the ability to move, to lift, to endure, to exist in a body that could act upon the world rather than merely observe it.

  All sentient races owed him thanks, whether they understood it or not. He had given us the strength of body required to live, to survive long enough for choice and thought to matter. It was the first gift, given so freely and so universally that most never thought to question it. And because it was universal, almost no one thought to thank him for it directly.

  People prayed at the Temple of Iron when they trained. They prayed through exertion, through strain, through discipline. Squats and push-ups, deadlifts and presses were their offerings, each repetition a wordless affirmation of effort. Even when I had visited the Church of Iron, it had felt less like a place of spoken prayer and more like a place where bodies themselves were the temples, shaped through intention and work.

  I suspected that was exactly what he preferred.

  Still, for that moment, I wanted to give him something quieter. Something that was not measured in repetitions or weight lifted. Just honest gratitude, offered without expectation of reward or acknowledgment.

  That felt right.

  With that thought settled, I let rest take me, knowing that when morning came, the real work would begin, and that for once, I was ready to meet it.

  In my dreams, the God of Iron spoke to me.

  He did not appear in fire or light, nor did he announce himself with spectacle. His presence was heavy and steady, like weight settling properly onto a bar, like balance found after strain. When he spoke, it was not with impatience or demand. He told me that since I would be starting my regimen tomorrow, I should take it easy at first, not as a limitation, but as a safeguard against breaking something that was still being forged.

  He told me that by the time I reached twelve years of age and completed my Adventurer’s Guild training, I should be capable of completing the full regimen. Until then, I would need to progress gradually and with intention, moving from having never followed a regimen at all to what he called the One Punch Regimen.

  The name itself conveyed purpose rather than aggression. It was not about striking once for the sake of force, but about becoming someone for whom a single strike could matter because of everything that supported it. The regimen was a method designed to build my body again and again, reinforcing it through repetition, alignment, and patience rather than haste. Each stage existed to support the next, with nothing wasted and nothing rushed.

  When I woke, the dream did not fade the way others usually did. It remained with me, settled and immovable. I knew with the certainty of steel that I had been visited by him once more. Even though I did not speak to him directly, and even though he did not answer questions or explain his reasoning, he was still helping me in ways that were practical and tangible.

  He was kind in a way that did not demand attention or worship. Even if he remained silent to the rest of the world, he had already given everyone much and demanded nothing in return. He had given strength of body, the ability to endure hardship, and the means to act within the world.

  That made his attention toward me difficult to reconcile. He had no clear reason to be this helpful, and I could not dismiss the possibility that there were things I did not yet understand.

  I did not want to be burned again by another god. I did not want to discover, years from now, that I had mistaken generosity for ownership or guidance for control. I searched the memory of the dream for hooks, for hidden conditions, for the sense of obligation I had once felt so keenly in my devotion to the god of magic, but I could not find any trace of them.

  Still, I considered the possibility of a concealed purpose behind his actions, some selfish design that would eventually reveal itself. I could not see one, and that absence of clarity lingered longer than comfort usually did.

  If he were a false god, as the god of magic had proven to be, then there would be little hope left for the sentient races of this world. We would exist only as resources to be consumed, lives shaped to feed divinities that wore benevolent masks while teaching dependence instead of resilience.

  I could not accept that outcome without evidence.

  So, I chose to believe, not blindly and not forgetfully, but with full awareness of what blind faith had once cost me. I chose belief because it aligned with what I had experienced and with what he encouraged rather than demanded.

  I held faith that my god was good, and I intended to begin the work he had set out for me.