Leor lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.

  The room was dark except for the faint city glow leaking through the curtains. Neo-Arcadia hummed outside—distant traffic, faint sirens, the occasional crackle of someone testing their newly awakened ability somewhere in the district.

  His wristband pulsed faintly.

  Energy output: elevated.

  Fatigue index: moderate.

  He turned his palm upward and flexed his fingers.

  Push.

  Such a simple word.

  Too simple.

  He replayed the day in his head.

  The steel beam trembling.

  The snapback pressure.

  The headache.

  He sat up.

  “Brute force won’t pass Arcane,” he muttered.

  Arcane Academy didn’t want loud power.

  It wanted controlled power.

  Precision.

  Efficiency.

  He extended his hand toward his desk.

  A notebook lay near the edge.

  Instead of pushing it broadly—

  He focused.

  The atmosphere around his palm felt thick, like invisible clay.

  What if…

  What if he didn’t push everything?

  What if he shaped it first?

  He imagined compressing the air directly in front of his hand.

  Flattening it.

  Forming a boundary.

  He pressed his palm forward slightly—

  A soft thud echoed as the notebook slammed into the wall.

  Too wide.

  He exhaled slowly.

  “Again.”

  This time, he didn’t release immediately.

  He visualized the force gathering only within the outline of his palm.

  Five fingers.

  Center pad.

  Thumb curve.

  He pushed gently.

  The notebook slid back two inches.

  Better.

  He tried again.

  Push.

  The notebook shot backward and hit the wall again—but this time the mark it left wasn’t random.

  It was distinct.

  Five faint indentations pressed into the cardboard backing.

  Leor froze.

  He stepped closer.

  Palm-shaped.

  He lifted his hand and compared.

  It matched.

  His pulse quickened.

  So instead of pushing outward like a shockwave—

  He could condense the vector.

  Focus the contact point.

  He turned to the wall.

  Concrete.

  He pressed his palm against it without touching.

  He built the pressure slowly.

  It felt like inflating something dense between his hand and the wall.

  His wristband flickered.

  Energy rising.

  He released.

  BOOM.

  A sharp impact echoed in the room.

  Dust fell lightly from the ceiling.

  He stared at the wall.

  A shallow palm-shaped imprint pressed into the concrete.

  Not deep.

  But visible.

  He stepped back slowly.

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  That was something.

  The next morning, he met Arin back at the construction lot.

  Arin already had six ice shards orbiting him.

  “Six?” Leor asked.

  Arin grinned. “I woke up early.”

  The shards weren’t identical.

  Some were triangular. One was curved like a crescent. One resembled a thin blade.

  “You’re shaping them differently,” Leor observed.

  “Yeah. If I’m going to control multiple constructs, they shouldn’t all do the same thing.”

  Leor nodded approvingly.

  “Let’s start with precision,” Arin said. “You first.”

  Leor stepped forward.

  “I’m working on force shaping.”

  “That sounds dangerous already.”

  “Probably.”

  He extended his palm toward a reinforced wooden beam.

  “I want to condense the push into the exact outline of my hand.”

  Arin stepped aside. “So instead of knocking the beam over…”

  “I imprint it.”

  He focused.

  The atmosphere thickened around his palm.

  He imagined carving the space itself.

  The sensation was strange—less like pushing outward and more like pressing into something invisible.

  He thrust his palm forward without physical contact.

  A deep impact rang out.

  The beam shook violently but didn’t fall.

  They both leaned closer.

  There it was.

  A clear palm-shaped dent pressed into the wood.

  Arin whistled. “That’s clean.”

  Leor flexed his fingers.

  “My output was lower than yesterday. It felt… more efficient.”

  “Less splash damage,” Arin said. “That’s good.”

  “Your turn.”

  Arin inhaled slowly.

  He raised both hands.

  Six shards multiplied to eight.

  Then ten.

  Each formed from condensed moisture in the air, temperature dropping rapidly around them.

  Leor could see the strain already forming in Arin’s jaw.

  “How many can you maintain without movement?” Leor asked.

  “Yesterday? Five.”

  “And now?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Arin closed his eyes.

  The shards rotated faster.

  Then slower.

  Then split.

  Ten became twelve.

  The smallest ones flickered.

  One cracked and shattered into frost.

  Arin winced.

  “Eleven,” he corrected.

  Sweat formed along his hairline despite the cold aura.

  Leor studied him carefully.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You’re dividing focus.”

  “Yeah,” Arin breathed. “Each shard feels like holding a separate thought.”

  “Then stop thinking of them as separate.”

  Arin opened one eye. “Helpful.”

  “No, seriously. What if they’re one structure? Like a formation.”

  Arin hesitated.

  He steadied his breathing.

  The shards shifted.

  Instead of orbiting randomly, they aligned.

  Three forward.

  Four overhead.

  Four at the sides.

  One behind.

  A defensive array.

  Arin’s breathing stabilized slightly.

  “Oh,” he said quietly.

  “That’s easier,” Leor observed.

  “Yeah… because now it’s one pattern.”

  Leor nodded.

  “Arcane will test control under pressure. Pattern memory will help.”

  Arin smirked. “Since when did you become tactical?”

  “Since we almost broke a steel beam and my brain.”

  They reset again.

  This time, they combined efforts.

  Arin launched a shard slowly toward Leor.

  Instead of dodging—

  Leor pressed his palm forward.

  Push.

  The shard stopped midair.

  Froze.

  Suspended between them.

  Arin’s eyes widened. “You can interrupt trajectory?”

  “Looks like it.”

  He adjusted angle slightly.

  Push sideways.

  The shard curved and embedded into a tire stack ten meters away.

  Arin grinned.

  “Okay, that’s useful.”

  They increased speed gradually.

  Shard after shard.

  Leor focused on shrinking the contact surface of his push.

  From full palm.

  To center palm.

  To fingertip-sized bursts.

  The smaller he made it, the sharper the recoil in his skull.

  “Careful,” Arin warned as Leor staggered slightly after a narrow burst.

  “Smaller focus costs more,” Leor muttered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m compressing the same force into less area.”

  “So it’s like pressure equals force over surface area.”

  Leor blinked at him.

  “You paid attention in physics?”

  “My dad did.”

  They both laughed briefly.

  But the laughter faded when Leor attempted a rapid triple burst.

  Push. Push. Push.

  The third one misfired.

  Instead of a clean vector, the force dispersed unevenly and sent a shockwave sideways, knocking over a stack of pipes.

  Both of them froze.

  Dust settled slowly.

  Arin exhaled.

  “Okay. There’s your limit.”

  Leor rubbed his temple.

  “Rapid succession destabilizes it.”

  “So recovery time matters.”

  Leor nodded.

  “I need rhythm.”

  They continued for nearly two hours.

  Arin increased his count to fourteen shards in stable formation.

  Sixteen briefly—before two shattered from concentration loss.

  Leor refined palm imprints into deeper indentations.

  By late afternoon, he managed to press a visible palm mark nearly an inch deep into reinforced wood without causing surrounding cracks.

  Efficient.

  Focused.

  But exhausting.

  He dropped onto a concrete slab, breathing hard.

  Arin collapsed beside him, dismissing the remaining ice into mist.

  Silence hung between them except for distant traffic.

  Finally, Arin spoke.

  “We should rest.”

  Leor nodded immediately. “Yes.”

  “And then do combat drills.”

  Leor’s head snapped toward him. “What?”

  Arin shrugged casually. “We’ve tested static precision. That’s useless if we can’t apply it in motion.”

  “We’re not ready for sparring.”

  “Of course we aren’t.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

  Arin leaned back on his elbows.

  “My mom has a healing ability.”

  Leor frowned. “Minor healing.”

  “Minor sprains. Bruises. Muscle strain. We’re not breaking bones.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Arin turned his head slowly.

  “Leor. Arcane’s second phase is tactical simulation.”

  “That’s not the same as fighting you.”

  “Actually, it probably is.”

  Leor sighed.

  He hated that Arin was usually right in the most annoying way possible.

  “If we do this,” Leor said carefully, “we set limits.”

  “Agreed.”

  “No lethal force.”

  “Obviously.”

  “No pushing each other into buildings.”

  “…Define building.”

  “Arin.”

  “Fine.”

  Leor leaned back and stared at the sky.

  Clouds drifted slowly across Azure Star’s blue expanse.

  Push.

  His ability was evolving already.

  From shockwaves.

  To shaping.

  From raw output.

  To imprint precision.

  If Arcane tested resilience—

  Then he needed to know how it felt to be pushed back.

  He sat up slowly.

  “One round,” he said.

  Arin grinned.

  “That’s all I needed.”

  They bumped fists lightly.

  As they stood and began walking back toward the city, neither noticed how much more controlled their energy signatures felt compared to just yesterday.

  Not stronger.

  Sharper.

  Refined.

  And refinement—

  On Azure Star—

  Was the difference between a flashy student…

  And an Arcane candidate.