Will went to bed early like he always did. Will skipped the homework. Will would maintain his below average passing grades without doing it.
Will didn't have a phone, a computer, or really anything besides some archaic flip phone John found. Their father did the bare minimum. Will couldn't touch the computer or the TV, even when their father was passed out on the chair. If their father woke up, he'd use it as an excuse to start shit.
If Will wanted internet or a real computer, Will had to go to the public library. Will rarely did. Will preferred training.
In the bedroom, the air was stale and warm from the heater. Will shut the door soft, not because he cared about being polite, but because he didn't want a reason for their father to wake up and start something. Will dropped his hoodie on the chair and sat for a second, listening. The TV in the other room kept talking. Their father snored. John's room was quiet.
Will should've been tired. Will wasn't.
Looking back, Will realized he was hungry for more. His body still felt like it had extra in it—restless energy sitting under his skin. Will stood up. Will's room was meticulously clean.
Al installed discipline in all his fighters, and it started with the small things. Will didn't have much, so it was easy to maintain—just a few magazines, a few books, a toothbrush, a brush, and his clothes. Will kept everything where it belonged because it was one of the only things in the apartment that stayed the way he decided.
Will started with push-ups. Marine style, the way Al had shown on the gym floor—hands under shoulders, body straight, no sagging hips. Will went until he couldn't. When his arms started shaking, Will didn't stop. Will fought through it until the last rep failed halfway and his chest hit the floor. Will finished the set on his knees, still forcing the full motion, because to Will it was a fight against himself and he didn't like quitting. To push through the pain, Will wanted what was on the other side—victory.
In Will's mind, Will would achieve what others couldn't because Will was willing to do what others weren't willing to do—work.
Will rolled his shoulders once, got up, and rotated to the next exercise, not gifting himself any respite since he would work a different muscle group.
Jump squats. Will dropped down and held for a second, thighs burning in the hold, then exploded up with everything he could muster, jumping straight up. Will landed and reset his feet each time. Will fought through not allowing cheat reps. No half drops. No lazy jumps. Every rep had to be one hundred percent.
Then sit-ups. Will laid back on the bed with his feet hooked so he could keep them planted. Will scooted so his torso could dip off the side enough to go all the way down, then sat up hard, elbows forward, chin tucked so he didn't strain his neck. The mattress shifted under him and squeaked once. Will paused, listened for a reaction from the other room, then kept going.
Will had been doing this for the last couple of years, but as Will got older Will found he was getting a lot better. Puberty had been hitting. The seeds Will planted were paying dividends.
By the time Will was done, Will was sweaty. His hoodie stuck to his back when he pulled it on to wipe his face. Will checked the time on the little clock and realized he'd worked out for an hour. So much for a small workout.
Will realized he was mad. It was something Will noticed more and more when he was home. The anger didn't always feel loud. Sometimes it was just there, sitting in his chest like it belonged.
God, Will needed to get out of here, Will thought looking back. His young self wanted to escape, and he was slowly bottling it up.
Will sat on his bed and let his breath go in and out, trying to bleed the heat out of his body and the edge out of his head.
Al said anger blinded a man and made him a fool. Al said men went to prison because they couldn't defeat their own anger.
That spirit resonated with Will. Will wanted to win. Will wanted all that life could offer, and Will was determined to take it, even at a young age.
So Will started stretching and held the positions, working on flexibility like Al taught.
And that is when Will's life changed forever, and humanity of Earth was changed forever.
Will was sitting there on the edge of his bed, breathing under control, stretching like Al taught—hamstrings, hips, shoulders—holding the positions and letting the tension drain out slow. Then it hit.
It wasn't like a headache. It was like someone took a knife and plunged it into his skull, except it wasn't physical. It was spiritual and mental, straight into the center of his being. Will's hands flew up to his head. Will folded forward hard, elbows knocking his knees, and his breath came out in a strangled burst like his lungs forgot the rhythm. His vision pinched down. His mouth opened, but what came out wasn't words—just air and a sharp, ugly sound he didn't recognize as his own.
The room vanished. The heater hum, the TV in the other room, the mattress under him—gone. Pain took over his senses so completely it didn't leave space for anything else. It came in waves, not dull, not manageable—sharp and constant at the same time, like a thousand hot needles driving into his mind, then deeper, like it found something behind thought and started carving there too. His stomach flipped and he gagged, throat clenching, palms sliding over his own hair like he could hold his head together.
Then a voice cut through it. Not sound in the air. It was inside him, clean and indifferent, like a message stamped into the center of his awareness.
"The crucible of cultivation is not for the meek."
"To seek enlightenment of the heavens is to defy fate."
"Endure."
Will tried to stand. His legs didn't listen right. His foot caught on the carpet and he half-fell, shoulder bumping the bedframe. His hand slid off the mattress because his grip kept failing. His stomach rolled hard enough that spit ran out the corner of his mouth and onto his hoodie. For a second he couldn't tell if he was on his knees or on his side, only that the pain kept drilling, kept twisting, kept pushing like it wanted him to split.
And it wasn't just Will.
In that moment, the whole world was experiencing it—from newborn to elderly. In the future, humanity would get this as teenagers, when their spirits were ready for it. But right now there was no "ready." Right now it was everyone, all at once, getting hit by CADS.
Cultivation Assist Defense System.
Will didn't have the words for it yet, but it felt like something forcing itself into place—like a brand being pressed onto the soul. Like rules being written into the inside of the mind. The pressure wasn't only in his skull anymore. It sank into his chest, into his gut, into places he couldn't point at, a million hot scorching knives plunged into his being.
Will screamed. At the time, Will thought he was dying some horrible death—stroke, heart attack, something that didn't care he was fourteen and didn't care he hadn't gotten anything good yet. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't scared. What hit first was anger, raw and immediate, because dying there in that room felt unfair in a way he didn't even have the energy to explain. Shit life, shit house, shit father, and then he just dies?
The cadence repeated into his awareness like it didn't give a shit what Will thought.
"The crucible of cultivation is not for the meek."
"To seek enlightenment of the heavens is to defy fate."
"Endure."
A small portion of humanity was incompatible with what was happening. About one percent of the world's population—around eighty million people if you measured it on numbers alone—would die from it. The feeble-souled couldn't hold. They broke under the pressure. Some screamed until their throats tore raw and then only wet, broken sounds came out. Some convulsed so hard they cracked teeth, bit tongues, and choked on their own spit. Blood ran from noses and ears. Eyes burst red at the corners, then leaked. People pissed themselves where they stood. In some homes and hospital rooms, in cars and on sidewalks, bodies went rigid and then slack, and the bleeding didn't stop when it should have, like the inside of them was trying to escape through every exit it could find.
Will held on. He was in excruciating pain, but the word kept replaying in his head—endure—and a part of Will latched onto it because if he wasn't dying, then he was not laying there like a victim.
When workouts got hard, Will refused to lay down or rest. Will would walk in a circle, keep moving, keep the body honest.
So that's what Will did.
Will pushed up off the bed with a shaking arm and got his feet under him. Will's fingers dug into his scalp hard enough to hurt. Will's jaw locked so tight it ached. Will didn't beg. Will didn't pray. Will took a breath, then another, and forced his hands down an inch at a time like he was lowering a weight he couldn't drop.
Will started walking in a circle in his room.
Step.
Step.
Step.
His vision swam. His stomach cramped. The pain didn't ease, but Will kept moving anyway, breath by breath, and step by step, he refused to surrender to the pain.