The next forty-eight hours were a masterclass in pain, grease, and absolute humiliation.
Training with Lord Kuro was like being coached by a drill sergeant who also happened to be a house cat with a god complex. He spent most of the time perched on a high shelf, tail twitching in annoyance, while Kael worked on her hover-bikes, occasionally tossing a heavy wrench at my head just to "keep my reflexes sharp."
"Again!" Kuro yowled, his golden eyes narrowing. "You move like a drunk turtle, Fuen! If you can't anticipate Pod's movement, you're just a backpack with legs!"
"I'm—oof—trying!" I wheezed.
I had tried to lunge forward, but Pod, currently synced with a rusted hydraulic lift, decided that 'Forward' meant 'Rotate 360 degrees.' The massive metal arm caught me in the ribs, sending me sprawling into a pile of empty oil cans.
Bloop? Pod let out a sympathetic sound through the machine's speakers.
"Don't 'bloop' him, you overgrown dessert!"
Kuro hissed. "He needs to learn! In Aethryx, if you can't dance with your partner, the city will eat you both for lunch and use your bones as toothpicks."
For two days, it was the same cycle: I would swing, Pod would clank, and I would hit the dirt. I learned that Pod didn't think in words; he thought in vibrations. If I was nervous, the Junk-Strider shook. If I was determined, the metal plates tightened.
By the end of the second day, I was covered in so much black sludge that Kael almost mistook me for a discarded engine block.
She walked over, wiping her hands on a rag that was somehow dirtier than my face.
"Stop," she said, looking at my bruised knuckles. "You're pathetic to watch."
"Thanks for the support," I muttered, leaning heavily against Pod's rusted leg.
"Shut up and take this." She reached into her tool cabinet and pulled out a heavy object wrapped in oily rags. "It's a Kinetic-Baton. I modified it with a gravity-core. It's weighted for someone with... well, someone with zero Pulse energy. Like you."
I unwrapped it. The handle was cold, wrapped in worn leather, and the tip hummed with a faint, low-frequency vibration. It felt solid. It felt like a chance.
"And don't get any heroic ideas," Kael added quickly, looking away. "I'm only doing this for my own sake. If you die, I'll never get the Sword of Nartha back. You're just a long-term investment that I don't want to see go bankrupt. Now, get out. Kuro says you're ready for the Rawclaw
"The Raw claw?" I asked, looking at the cat.
"The underground arena," Kuro explained, hopping onto my shoulder and digging his claws in just enough to remind me who was boss. "It's where the 'Low-Lives' go to prove they aren't 'No-Lives.' You need a Level, Fuen. And the only way the system grants a Level is through the harvest of data and energy. In short: go beat someone up before I lose interest in you."
The Raw claw
The Arena was a literal hole in the ground—a sunken circle of packed dirt and rusted metal plates, surrounded by the screaming dregs of the Lower District. The air was a thick soup of cheap coolant, sweat, and desperate bets.
"Next match!" a three-eyed announcer screamed into a megaphone. "The Null and his Neon-Snot-Bucket versus... The Twin Fang Scavengers!"
The crowd erupted in jeers. "Recycle him!" someone yelled. "I bet ten credits the jelly melts in three minutes!"
I stepped into the dirt, gripping the kinetic-baton until my knuckles were white.
Opposite us, two lean, grey-skinned beings with serrated blades grafted onto their fingers hissed. They looked at the floating [ STATUS: TRASH ] tag above my head and actually doubled over laughing.
"Look at this," the taller one hissed, clicking his blade-fingers. "We're fighting a walking junkyard and a boy in a dressy coat."
The bell rang—a harsh, metallic clang.
In an instant, they were a blur. I swung the baton, but I was still thinking like a human, not a combatant. The shorter scavenger kicked me square in the chest. I went flying, hitting the dirt so hard my vision blurred into a kaleidoscope of neon lights. I tasted copper. I felt the grit of the arena floor between my teeth.
Get up, meatloaf! Kuro's voice echoed from the sidelines, sounding genuinely bored. Or don't, and I'll find a smarter human to serve me!
"Pod!" I coughed, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. "Interlock! Shield!"
The Junk-Strider clanked forward, its massive metal arms slamming together to create a barricade just as the scavengers struck. CLANG! The serrated blades sparked against Pod's armored shell, unable to pierce the Ooze-reinforced iron.
"Now!" I screamed, finding a gap.
I dove between the Junk-Strider's legs, staying low to the ground. As Pod kept them pinned with his sheer weight, I swung the kinetic-baton with every ounce of frustration I had. I didn't aim for their chests; I aimed for the joints.
The baton connected with a sickening crack against a scavenger's knee. The gravity-core in the weapon flared, tripling the force of the blow.
I fell again. I got stripped of my dignity. I ate more dirt than a shovel. But every time I hit the ground, I looked at Pod's blue glow and remembered the 'King' dream. I wasn't just swinging a stick; I was fighting for my thirty days of life.
After ten minutes of chaotic, ugly brawling, the two scavengers were retreating, dragging their broken limbs and hissing in pain. The crowd, which had been booing me, went deathly silent. They didn't know what to make of a Null who wouldn't stay down.
I stood in the center of the ring, leaning on my baton, gasping for air. My clothes were torn, my face was a mess, but I was standing.
Suddenly, a blue system screen flickered into existence in front of my eyes, brighter than before.
[ EVALUATING COMBAT PERFORMANCE... ]
[ DETERMINATION: ABNORMAL ]
[ SYNC RATE: STABLE (15%) ]
The word [ TRASH ] above my head began to glitch. It blurred, the letters shaking and dissolving into pixels, before finally hardening into new, bold text.
[ STATUS: GRITTY (Ground Level) ]
[ LEVEL: 1 ]
[ ENERGY: 10% ]
I stared at the screen. A wave of relief washed over me so powerful that my knees actually buckled. I slumped against Pod's leg, laughing and sobbing at the same time.
"Gritty," I whispered, wiping blood from my lip. "I'm not trash anymore. I'm... I'm a Level 1."
Kuro hopped over the arena railing, landing lightly on the Junk-Strider's head. He looked down at me, and for the first time, I didn't see pure mockery in his eyes.
"Don't get cocky, Ground-Level," Kuro purred, though his tail gave a small, approving flick. "You've just climbed out of the gutter. You still have the whole mountain to go. And believe me, the things on the next floor won't be as polite as these scavengers."
I looked up, past the smog and the rusty pipes, toward the glowing Star-Floors far above. They still looked impossible. But for the first time, they looked like a target I could actually hit.