The mess hall was empty when I arrived.

  The quiet settled over the space gently. The hall had opened before its usual rhythm began, and the building lingered in a calm pause between sleep and waking. The stillness felt deliberate, as though the space was taking its time before filling itself with noise and movement.

  Myrda was already up.

  She stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled, hair tied back, hands moving with the unhurried certainty of someone who had been awake long enough that the hour no longer mattered. When she looked up and saw me, her eyes narrowed slightly as she assessed me.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  She did not ask why. Instead, she moved. A plate appeared in front of me, then another, then a third, placed with a practiced rhythm that suggested this was not the first time she had dealt with someone whose body demanded more than it should have.

  I began to eat, because my body demanded it before anything else.

  The first breakfast vanished quickly because my body required it immediately. My hands trembled faintly as I finished it, a reminder that my body was still learning what it meant to exist in this state. The second breakfast followed more slowly, the sharp edge of hunger dulled but not gone. By the time I reached the third, my food frenzy had ended.

  Myrda watched without comment. When I finished the third plate, she set a smaller one beside me, already prepared.

  I stared at it for a moment, then accepted the truth of the situation and ate that as well.

  After that, my body settled into something stable. I did not feel full, but the edge of collapse receded. The feeling that I might come apart if I stood too quickly eased and gave way to something more solid.

  The hall filled slowly, waking in layers as different groups arrived according to habit.

  The Iron-ranked adventurers arrived first. Their conversations were quiet, made up of hushed greetings. They focused on food and whatever quests waited for them next, rather than anything happening in the guild hall itself. There was a quiet readiness to them that marked them as people who had completed their adventurer training. I wondered if that was what we would be like in the future, quiet and steady instead of the children we were now.

  I looked for Rowan and did not see her among them. She was probably still asleep. She might be around later, but for now it was the only notable thing that happened before others started arriving.

  When the magical trainees entered, several of them glanced in my direction. Noticing where I had taken my seat, they adjusted their path and moved decisively to the opposite side of the hall. They spoke among themselves as they settled, voices low and clustered, as though the choice had been made without the need for discussion.

  Randall arrived after them.

  He came down the steps yawning, his usual foppishness on full display. He wore fuzzy bunny slippers and an ostentatious robe and hat, staff in hand, looking like a textbook illustration of a wizard who had just rolled out of bed. Everything about him grated on me. My dislike for the man had not softened.

  He sat with his class and whistled sharply toward Myrda. She looked up with clear irritation at the sound, but she brought his breakfast anyway. The food looked older and colder than what the rest of us had been served. Randall noticed, but did not comment. Instead, he warmed it himself with a casual casting of the warming spell and ate without complaint. Judging by how easily he accepted it, this was not a new exchange between them.

  He remained a poor instructor and an unpleasant man, and Myrda’s quiet retaliation with yesterday’s food seemed to be something he had learned to expect. I found the situation more amusing than I probably should have. The only reason he ever had warm meals at all was because pyromancy happened to be the single discipline he knew. Had he started with any other school of magic, he would have been eating cold food every morning until he apologized, and his arrogance would never have allowed that.

  The martial trainees gathered near the side table.

  Winnie claimed the seat next to me with her usual confidence, planting herself as though the space had been waiting for her specifically. Koo leaned back nearby, posture relaxed, eyes moving over the room with faint amusement. Raven sat quietly, watching people instead of listening to them. Glim shifted his weight from foot to foot, energy barely contained, ready to start the day. Mildred stayed close to the group without forcing herself into its center. Sean could not sit still even while eating, legs bouncing beneath the table. Tom’s gaze tracked exits, corners, and pathways as if second nature.

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  Meka arrived a little later than the rest, careful with her steps, Bunny held close to her chest. She tried to make herself smaller as she moved through the room, a habit born of caution. It did not quite work.

  Greta entered once the hall was fully awake.

  The flow of the room adjusted around her presence, conversations shifting, paths changing, space opening without instruction. Myrda altered her movement without looking up, granting Greta a clear line through the hall as naturally as breathing.

  Greta’s gaze swept over our class, counting heads. Then her eyes settled on me. She watched long enough to judge whether I had eaten enough to stand on my own strength. She nodded once satisfied with what she saw.

  “All right,” Greta said, her voice carrying without effort. “Class, we’re moving.”

  Benches scraped and plates were abandoned as the group rose together, the clatter of preparation echoing briefly before being swallowed by motion.

  “Yard first,” Greta continued as she turned toward the doors. “Stretching, then a run. We’ll take it around the building.”

  Her gaze flicked back to me. “Azolo, you can start your regimen whenever you’re ready.”

  I inclined my head.

  Greta’s attention shifted to Meka. “You’re coming with us,” she said. “You’ll be part of this class today before Azolo sets you on your path. I want you to watch how the day works, and for you to learn how your body feels when it’s asked to do more than cast spells.”

  Meka nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  As the group began filing out, I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “You should understand what you will be doing later,” I said, keeping my tone steady. “Not today. Soon. I expected you to start today, but Greta is right. You need to learn the basics of your body first. I did not understand how important that was until this life, and I will not have you skip it.”

  “When you have time and space, you will sit somewhere quiet and close your eyes. You will pull a single bit of mana to one palm and hold it there, contained, as if it were wrapped in a thin bubble. Then you will guide that same mana back through your body and into your other palm without letting it disperse. You will move it back and forth the same way each time, slowly, and pay attention to how that passage feels inside you.”

  She listened closely, her grip tightening slightly on Bunny.

  “We are not expanding your mana channels at the start,” I continued. “That comes later. This is about mapping what already exists. As you move that mana through yourself, you will begin to understand the shape of your own network and where it resists or flows easily. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but do not fight that sensation. Once you settle into it, time will slip away. It will feel like an instant, even though much more time will pass than you expect.”

  Meka nodded, absorbing the instruction without interrupting.

  “For now,” I finished, “you stay with the class and learn how your body feels when it moves. When the time comes, you will already know what to do.”

  Greta led the class out, their footsteps fading as they rounded the building. The yard emptied behind them, leaving a wide, open space that expanded as bodies left it.

  I waited until they were gone, giving the yard time to empty completely.

  Then I moved to a clear patch of ground and began to prepare in earnest.

  I started with stretches, slow, deliberate motions meant to ready my body for strain it had not yet learned to endure. I rolled my shoulders and felt where tension lingered. I loosened my wrists, careful not to rush them. I worked through my hips and ankles, noting every place where resistance existed.

  I lowered myself to the ground once my body felt fully awake.

  The God of Iron had shown me many things in his heaven, and all of them rested on the same foundation. Strength depended on structure to function at all. When the body failed to support itself correctly, effort turned against itself, strain traveled to the wrong places, and movement collapsed under its own weight.

  I placed my hands on the dirt and set my position as carefully as I could manage. My mind knew the shape of the movement. My body did not.

  The first push-up failed almost immediately. My elbows drifted outward, my hips sagged, and my shoulders shook as my structure gave way.

  I stopped there, because continuing would have trained my body to fail in the same way.

  I reset and tried again. The second attempt held longer, but tension replaced balance, my breath tightening as effort overtook control. I stopped.

  On the third attempt, something shifted. I caught my elbows before they wandered. I corrected my hips as they dipped. I lowered myself under control and pushed back up with care rather than force. It was still imperfect, but it was closer.

  I continued slowly, treating each repetition as an instruction. Each movement carried information from my mind into muscle, narrowing the distance between my knowledge and ability.

  By the fifth repetition, my body moved with a coherence it had not possessed at the start. I stopped there.

  The God of Iron had warned me not to chase exhaustion on the first day. This was something to build toward over time, not something to conquer immediately.

  I moved on to sit-ups, stopping whenever my posture faltered, then to squats, which came more naturally thanks to years spent training balance and coordination. Even so, the first repetition wobbled before I corrected it, and I did not ignore that moment.

  After completing the earlier exercises, I began to jog.

  I did not count distance or time. I moved until my breathing changed, then slowed to a walk until it steadied again. I repeated the cycle once more before stopping, my body warm, awake, and responsive without being driven into collapse.

  When Greta and the class came back into view, I was cooling down, breath even, muscles alive with effort rather than pain.

  Greta glanced at me as they passed. Her expression revealed nothing, but the nod she gave was unmistakable.