Jake didn't know the tower had shifted for him.
But it had.
A bronze dragon's awakening—even a partial one—sent ripples up the structure's arcane spine. Floors adjusted. Guardians woke. Challenges that had been dormant ignited like flint meeting steel.
Jake had no idea he had triggered any of this.
He only knew that when he stepped into Floor 60, he felt watched.
Not by eyes.
By pressure.
By weight.
The new kind.
The kind inside him too.
The chamber was cavernous—
a yawning metallic coliseum hung in an infinite void of orbiting grounds and debris.
Floating boulders.
Suspended metal slabs.
Rotating spheres.
Gravity eddies twisting the air in faint spirals.
Julian Breadstone appeared instantly, screaming before his projection even stabilized.
"AHHHH, THE VOID ORBIT FLOOR! THE FLOATY SPINNY BOULDERY ONE!
OH, THIS IS PERFECT FOR JAKE'S NEW—WHAT DID WE CALL IT, JIMMY?"
Jimmy didn't look away from the readings.
"Bronze Orbit Resonance."
Julian snapped his fingers.
"Yes! That! That thing! The thing where he makes SCIENCE happen with MUSCLES!"
Jimmy corrected absently.
"It's not science."
"SCIENCE OF FIGHTING!"
But Jake didn't hear any of that.
He was standing at the center of the chamber, breathing slow and heavy, feeling the faint, rhythmic rotation of draconic energy around his torso.
It felt like his core had mass now.
Real mass.
Not just strength—but influence.
A pull on the world.
He walked forward to the arena's circular center, boots clicking on metal.
And the instant he reached the circle—
The void roared to life.
Stone platforms shot upward from below.
Spheres slammed into place in orbit around him.
Runes carved themselves into the air, each one pulsing like a heartbeat.
Jake's stomach sank.
"That's… not normal," he muttered.
The tower answered by igniting the runes.
Jimmy inhaled sharply.
"It's reading his new form. It wants him to prove it."
Julian levitated backward dramatically.
"OOHHH A CUSTOMIZED GUARDIAN!
THE NICEST KIND OF TERROR!"
The void went silent.
Then the guardian emerged.
It wasn't humanoid.
It wasn't beast-like.
It was… orbital.
A massive sphere of dark metal, plated with bronze runes, surrounded by twelve floating segments—each rotating independently in complex, dizzying patterns.
The segments were shaped like crescent moons, like spinning boomerangs of raw mass.
Energy crackled between them.
Jake swallowed.
"So I fight a… planet?"
The sphere vibrated.
A low metallic hum rose from it.
Then a deep voice—not language, not words—rolled through the chamber.
It wasn't talking.
It was weighing him.
Jake flexed his hands.
"Okay. You want me? Come get me."
The guardian didn't charge.
It pulled.
A heavy gravitational vortex surged from the sphere, yanking Jake forward.
He braced—
boots scraping across metal—
but the force was monstrous.
Jake's bronze aura instinctively thickened around him.
Not enough.
He slid.
"Not… today!"
He dug both heels into the floor, bent low like a sprinter about to launch—
and shifted his weight forward.
The vortex expected resistance.
Expected him to counter.
He didn't counter.
He leaned with it.
Momentum caught him—
but instead of dragging him in helplessly, it fed into a spin.
Jake pivoted on one foot, letting the pull whip him around the guardian in a curved arc.
He clutched the rotation with his new bronze aura, latching onto it like a gear locking in.
The void blurred around him.
"YES!" Julian shrieked. "USE THE FORCES AGAINST THEM, DEAR BRONZE SON!"
Jimmy smiled faintly.
"He's thinking. Good."
Jake let the vortex drag him and turned it into a wide slingshot.
He launched off of a nearby rotating slab, propelling himself straight toward one of the twelve crescent segments.
"HA!"
His fist smashed into it—
And nothing happened.
Jake's bones nearly snapped.
The shockwave rattled his teeth.
The bronze segment didn't crack.
Didn't even dent.
It pushed him back like flicking away a bug.
Jake slammed into a floating boulder, breath knocked out of him.
He slid off and landed on a lower slab with a heavy grunt.
"Whew," he wheezed. "Okay. You're a tough little planet-thing."
The guardian responded by firing three crescent segments at him simultaneously—
each one spinning like a buzzsaw, arcs of bronze lightning trailing behind.
Jake ducked under the first.
Rolled over the second.
The third—
He didn't dodge.
He stepped into it.
EDGE FIRST.
In the instant before it struck, Jake dragged his bronze aura inward, condensing it along his shoulder, upper rib, and back like a protective coil.
The impact hit.
It felt like getting hit by a comet.
Jake's vision flared white.
But instead of flying away, he twisted—
letting the spin of the segment feed into his growing rotational momentum.
His bronze aura flared outward in a circular pattern across his spine—
and Jake SPUN.
A perfect, brutal, body-led spiraling throw, redirecting the crescent like a discus-winning arc.
The segment curved away—
slammed back into the guardian sphere with thunderous impact—
and cracked one of its orbit lines.
Julian's jaw dropped.
"HE BLOCKED A SPINNING SPACE-BOOMERANG WITH HIS SHOULDER AND YEETED IT BACK INTO ORBITAL COLLISION—WHAT EVEN IS BRONZE DRAGON BIOLOGY?!"
Jimmy nodded slowly.
"That's exactly how bronze dragons evolve. They don't get faster or magically smarter. Their instincts become gravity-aware."
Jake didn't know any of that.
He only knew it had worked.
He grinned despite the painful bruise forming across half his torso.
"Yeah. Okay. Let's do that again."
The guardian whirled, its crescent segments spinning into a complex assault pattern.
Nine segments now glowed with dangerous, amber-colored runes.
Jake inhaled deeply.
His bronze aura tightened along his back and ribs.
He felt it—
the rotational hum—
the way momentum wanted to flow—
and he let it.
The next volley came.
Jake didn't block.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't try to overpower.
He got inside the spin.
Every impact became a pivot.
Every near-hit became a redirection.
Every glancing blow fed into his expanding rotation.
He grabbed one crescent mid-flight.
Pulled.
Spun.
Forced it into another's trajectory.
They collided and shattered.
He rode the shockwave, flipping onto a floating slab.
Another crescent came low.
He stomped on it.
The recoil launched him upward.
Three crescents converged.
Jake spun with all his strength, bronze aura swirling into a ring around his waist.
He twisted—
—and the crescents curved past him, caught unintentionally in his rotational current.
The guardian growled.
A deeper hum.
A warning.
The central sphere glowed.
Metal creaked as runes activated.
Jimmy stiffened.
"Oh no. It's charging a mass collapse."
Julian flailed in midair.
"A WHAT?!"
"A localized gravity implosion. It's going to crush the entire floor into a single point."
Jake felt it too.
The air tightened.
His ears rang.
The world warped like a lens.
The guardian was drawing everything inward.
Platforms.
Rocks.
Debris.
Air currents.
Him.
Slowly at first.
Then violently.
Jake slammed a hand onto a slab as his legs were dragged upward.
"No… NO—!"
His fingers slipped.
He flew toward the sphere.
Julian screamed something incoherent.
Jimmy whispered, "Jake… think."
And Jake did.
He thought of how the bronze aura felt when it was centered—not flaring outward, not scattering, not trying to make him bigger—
but when it acted like a pivot.
Like an anchor.
Like a point everything else bent around.
Jake pulled his aura inward.
Not around his arms.
Not around his fists.
Around his center.
Right behind his sternum—at the deepest point of his breath.
The bronze energy slammed tight into a dense, spinning knot.
A core.
Jake roared—and the bronze core expanded into a perfect ring, circling his waist like a halo of condensed momentum.
The gravity implosion caught him—
but instead of dragging him straight into the sphere, it dragged him into his own orbit.
Jake spun.
Fast.
Then faster.
Then impossibly faster.
Bronze rings spiraling around him like he'd become a living gyroscope.
The guardian's pull twisted—
and Jake redirected its own force.
Instead of being dragged in—
—he slingshotted himself around the guardian in a violent, impossible arc.
"OH SWEET COSMIC BISCUITS—HE'S ORBITING THE ORBITER!!!" Julian shrieked.
Jake didn't hear.
He was pure rotation.
Bronze.
Weight.
Momentum.
Purpose.
He completed one orbit—
two—
three—
The guardian started to crack under the rotational distortion.
Then Jake let go.
He flung himself forward with every ounce of momentum, slamming both fists into the sphere.
Not with brute strength.
Not with chi fire.
Not with draconic roar.
With controlled, devastating rotational force.
The sphere cracked.
Bronze energy burst outward.
Jake roared—
"BREAK!"
The guardian shattered.
Crescents exploded into fragments.
Light flared.
The gravity collapsed into harmless air.
And Jake fell—
crashing into the floor as it reformed below him.
For a moment, the world was quiet except for his ragged breathing.
Above, Julian whispered reverently,
"…beautiful."
Jimmy nodded.
"He unlocked rotational dominance. A true bronze dragon technique. Danny has creation. Swift has stillness. Jake now has center-of-gravity control."
Jake pushed himself to one knee.
His body throbbed with bruises and strain.
But his eyes glowed with bronze fire.
Not envy.
Not comparison.
Identity.
"Alright," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "Let's see the next one."
He staggered forward.
By the time he reached the archway, he was walking again.
By the time he passed through the portal, he was steady.
By the time the floor behind him dissolved into dust, he was already preparing for the next battle.
He had climbed alone.
He had found his center.
And he would not lose it again.