Familiarity had started forming at the training hall too, though in a different way. Less noisy. More restrained. Valor had eventually moved him fully into the group conditioning sessions once his fundamentals became consistent enough to hold together under sustained pressure. The transition changed the atmosphere of training almost immediately.
Harder physically.
Better socially.
The first few group sessions had carried their own kind of awkwardness. Everyone there already understood the drills, the pacing, the expectations. Evan had entered as the newer addition, good enough not to slow things down anymore, though still noticeably behind the more experienced trainees.
That gap had become obvious immediately during paired movement exercises.
"Too tense."
The correction had come from a woman named Lyra during his second evening session with the group. She was slightly shorter than Evan, though carried herself with the compact balance of someone completely comfortable in motion. Her dark red hair was braided tightly behind her head, exposing sharp gray eyes that missed very little during drills. She moved quickly even outside exercises, every adjustment efficient and controlled.
"Half your attention is already on what could go wrong next," she had said. "That's what's slowing you down."
Evan had absorbed the correction silently and tried again.
"Better," she said after the next sequence, stepping closer to adjust the angle of his shoulder with practiced ease. "Still stiff though." A faint smile touched the corner of her mouth afterward. "You keep trying to control every part of the movement instead of letting it flow."
Evan exhaled once, somewhere between tired and amused. "Working on it."
"Good," Lyra replied easily. "That already puts you ahead of most people who get defensive every time they're corrected."
The comment earned a brief laugh from one of the nearby trainees before the drills resumed again.
Unlike some of the others, Lyra corrected people naturally during training without sounding arrogant about it. The habit seemed to come more from experience and long familiarity with training than any sense of superiority. Over several sessions, the initial tension between them had faded quickly into something more comfortable, helped partly by the fact that she genuinely seemed to enjoy helping newer trainees improve.
Not everyone in the group felt quite as immediately welcoming, though.
The clearest exception had been Dain.
Evan noticed him during the first full conditioning session after joining the group properly. Taller than most of the trainees by nearly half a head, Dain carried a lean build that emphasized reach and speed over raw size. His black hair was kept short along the sides while the top remained slightly longer, usually falling across his forehead once training intensified. Sharp green eyes tracked everything around him constantly, giving the impression that he evaluated people before speaking to them.
Unlike Lyra, Dain rarely offered corrections openly.
He observed first.
During paired drills, he pushed harder than necessary without crossing into outright hostility, increasing pace whenever Evan adapted successfully instead of easing off. The first few sessions with him left Evan more exhausted than any others, partly because Dain seemed intent on seeing whether improvements would still hold once fatigue and pressure started building again.
"Again," he had said after Evan failed a directional transition during one exercise.
The word carried simple expectation rather than irritation, delivered with the steady certainty of someone who saw repetition as part of the process instead of a punishment.
Evan repeated the sequence.
Then again.
And again after that when Dain shifted angles faster midway through the drill and forced another correction under movement. By the end of the session, Evan's legs had felt close to collapsing, though the transitions themselves had noticeably improved afterward.
The rivalry forming between them remained quiet for now, carried more through rising intensity during drills than open confrontation. Dain watched progress closely, and whenever Evan improved somewhere, the pressure during shared exercises increased proportionally afterward. Strange as it was, Evan found himself looking forward to those sessions anyway.
The other two trainees he had grown closest to balanced the group differently.
The first was Ren. Broad through the shoulders and chest, Ren carried the kind of solid build that made even simple stretches look heavy. His skin was dark brown, his hair shaved close except for a short strip along the center that curled naturally when sweat built during training. A thin line of lighter discoloration ran along his left jaw, an old burn mark that disappeared partially beneath stubble. Despite the intimidating frame, Ren laughed easily and talked more during drills than anyone else in the group.
"You always look like you're trying to negotiate with the exercise instead of just doing it," he had said during one conditioning session while they both held weighted stances against the wall. "I swear, one more serious expression like that and I'm expecting you to start giving the wall tactical analysis."
The comment pulled an unexpected laugh out of Evan before he could stop it.
The second was Keira. Unlike Lyra's quick intensity or Dain's sharp focus, Keira carried a calmer presence during training. She was a little shorter than Lyra, with bronze skin, long black hair usually tied into a loose tail behind her head, and warm amber eyes that softened her otherwise serious expression. She rarely spoke loudly, though when she did, people generally listened.
Keira had a habit of catching the small cracks people tried to push past without noticing.
"Your breathing's uneven again," she had said quietly after one particularly brutal running session near the end of the first week. "You're recovering faster now, but every improvement immediately turns into another reason for you to push harder."
The observation had irritated Evan slightly because she had been completely correct.
Somehow, over only two weeks, the four of them had started forming the beginning of something close to friendship. Lyra's direct corrections. Ren's constant commentary. Keira's quiet observations. Dain's competitive pressure. Different personalities pulling training in different directions, yet fitting together more naturally with each session afterward.
The group dynamic had changed training itself in ways Evan had not expected.
When he trained alone under Valor, improvement came through repetition and correction. Necessary. Focused. Efficient. Group sessions added something else alongside that, pressure shaped by shared pace, small competition, and the simple refusal to fall visibly behind the people training beside him.
Ren took full advantage of that.
"I hope you're happy, by the way," he had complained during one conditioning circuit while wiping sweat from his forehead with the edge of his sleeve. "Before you showed up, these holds ended in a reasonable amount of suffering. Now Valor watches you survive them and decides the rest of us apparently need spiritual growth."
"That's because you keep talking instead of breathing," Lyra replied immediately, still holding position without visible strain.
"Breathing is temporary. Complaining is what keeps me alive."
Keira adjusted her stance beside them, the corner of her mouth shifting faintly upward. "You say that every session."
"Because every session somehow finds new and creative ways to ruin my evening," Ren shot back. He glanced toward Evan afterward with exaggerated suspicion. "And ever since you started catching up, Valor's been looking entirely too encouraged."
Evan almost lost focus laughing at that.
Even Dain looked faintly amused for a brief second before the next drill began.
The conversations themselves remained small most days. Brief comments between exercises. Shared exhaustion after difficult sessions. Occasional arguments over arena matches when someone brought up a simulation result during cooldown stretches. Yet the familiarity built steadily through repetition, much like everything else in Evan's life lately.
And strangely enough, those evenings at the hall had started becoming one of the parts of the day he looked forward to most.
The realization still felt unfamiliar sometimes.
Not the training itself. That part made sense now. Effort, repetition, improvement. What remained stranger was how naturally these routines had begun attaching themselves to his life here. Morning drills. Hours in the library. Work at the stall while arena matches played overhead and conversations about them drifted constantly through the district. Evening conditioning sessions afterward. The pattern repeated often enough that the days had begun carrying their own shape instead of passing in a single indistinct stretch after his arrival in Dornhaven.
He had started recognizing time through habits instead.
The smell of heated grain drifting through the arena district before midday rushes. The soreness in his legs easing faster during morning runs than it had a week earlier. Ren complaining before difficult exercises even started. Lyra correcting someone's stance within five minutes of every session. Meira appearing near the benches almost every evening with the same dry observations about arena fighters.
Small things.
Human things.
The thought lingered quietly while Evan watched another simulation exchange unfold overhead. Two fighters circled cautiously this time, both clearly respecting the other's range too much to commit early. Around him, conversations continued beneath the arena lights while the district carried on with familiar energy.
And for the first time since leaving Earth, the future no longer felt like something he was merely surviving long enough to reach.
It felt like something he was beginning to build toward deliberately.
A loud reaction from the crowd pulled his attention back fully to the arena screen. One of the fighters had finally committed, driving forward with a rapid series of strikes that forced the other backward across the platform. The exchange accelerated quickly afterward, movement blurring beneath the shifting arena lights while spectators around the district leaned forward almost instinctively.
Beside him, Meira narrowed her eyes slightly. "Too aggressive," she murmured.
Evan watched the distance control carefully instead of the strikes themselves. The advancing fighter controlled momentum well at first, though each step forward reduced available recovery space little by little. By the fourth exchange, the pattern became obvious.
Too much commitment forward.
The counter came almost immediately afterward.
The defending fighter pivoted outside the advancing angle and struck cleanly during the overextension, ending the match in a single motion. The crowd erupted again, half cheering, half groaning at the reversal as arguments immediately spread through the nearby benches.
Evan kept his eyes on the replay overhead while the sequence slowed across the display once more. He had noticed the instability before the outcome this time, not clearly enough to predict the exact counter, though enough to recognize where the exchange had started falling apart. Two weeks earlier, the entire sequence would have passed too quickly for him to understand at all.
And somehow, more than the actual stat gains, moments like that made the improvement feel real.
The replay continued overhead while the district argued around it, each side already constructing explanations for why the exchange had unfolded the way it had. Evan listened only partially now, his thoughts lingering on the moment before the counter landed. The instability had been visible once he understood where to look. Too much weight committed forward. Recovery narrowing. Balance sacrificed for pressure.
Training had made those things easier to recognize.
So had failure.
Over the past two weeks, he had lost count of how many times Valor or Dain forced him off balance during drills simply because he committed slightly too much into movement. At first, the mistakes all felt different. Now they connected into recognizable patterns. Poor recovery. Delayed repositioning. Overextended pressure. The same flaws repeated in different forms whether during conditioning, movement practice, or arena simulations overhead.
"Thinking again."
Meira's voice carried mild amusement beside him.
Evan blinked once and looked over. "Occupational hazard," he repeated from earlier.
"That answer's getting dangerously rehearsed."
A faint smile appeared despite himself. Around them, the arena district carried on with familiar noise while the next bracket announcement rolled across the massive display above. Somewhere behind the benches, Ren's voice suddenly became audible over the crowd.
"I'm telling you, if I had that much room to retreat, I wouldn't have gotten hit either."
Lyra answered immediately from somewhere nearby. "Ren, you could be alone in the middle of the arena and still find a way to walk directly into the attack."
The resulting burst of laughter carried clearly enough that even Evan shook his head slightly. Apparently some of the training group had arrived in the district without him noticing. The realization settled strangely comfortably rather than awkwardly, another quiet sign of how much had changed in only two weeks.
Ren appeared a moment later carrying two bowls balanced precariously in one hand and a drink in the other. "See?" he said while approaching the bench area. "Witnesses. Lyra's biased against me."
"She's biased toward competence," Keira replied calmly as she followed behind him, carrying her own food with considerably more stability.
Lyra arrived last, arms crossed lightly as she glanced toward the arena screen overhead. "Which creates overlap with being against you sometimes."
Ren looked genuinely wounded by that statement. "I survive every session."
"Barely," Dain said from behind them.
Evan had not even noticed Dain approach until he spoke. Like usual, the taller trainee moved quietly despite his size, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his training jacket while his sharp green eyes shifted briefly toward the replay overhead.
The group settled near the benches without much ceremony after that, conversations overlapping naturally with the surrounding arena noise. Ren immediately resumed arguing about the earlier match while Lyra dismantled his reasoning piece by piece. Keira mostly listened while eating slowly, occasionally adding short observations that ended arguments faster than either of the others liked.
Dain eventually glanced toward Evan after a particularly loud complaint from Ren about heavy weapon users. "You joining tomorrow morning?" he asked.
The question was simple, though the tone beneath it carried quiet challenge the same way most things from Dain seemed to. Another session. Another opportunity to improve or fall behind.
Evan met his gaze briefly before nodding once. "Yeah."
Dain held his gaze for a second longer, then gave a small nod of his own and looked back toward the arena screen. The exchange was brief, though Evan understood the meaning behind it clearly enough by now. Dain measured commitment through consistency more than words. Showing up mattered.
Ren, meanwhile, had somehow redirected the conversation entirely. "I'm still saying spear users are fundamentally unfair," he declared while gesturing vaguely toward the screen overhead with his utensil. "That much reach should require official permission."
"You say that about every weapon once someone competent starts using it," Lyra replied without looking up from her drink.
"Because every weapon suddenly becomes unreasonable the moment it's pointed at me."
"That sounds less like a weapon problem and more like a you problem."
Ren pressed a hand briefly against his chest as if wounded by the accusation. "I'm advocating for balanced combat environments."
"You're advocating for situations where nobody can hit you."
"Exactly," Ren replied immediately. "Now you're finally understanding the vision."
Even Keira laughed quietly at that one, lowering her drink afterward while the conversation drifted into exaggerated complaints about arena matchups and training pairings. Around them, the district continued moving beneath the shifting glow of the massive screens overhead, people eating, arguing, watching, learning.
Evan listened more than he spoke, though unlike before, silence no longer felt like distance. He understood the flow of these interactions now well enough to exist inside them comfortably. Small comments when needed. Observation otherwise. The same approach he had gradually developed everywhere else in Dornhaven.
His attention drifted briefly toward the next match introduction spreading across the screen overhead. Internal simulation brackets. Qualification rounds. Competitive ladders shifting with every recorded result.
More and more lately, the thought of entering those matches himself had started feeling less distant than it once had. He still had far too much left to learn before reaching that point, though the idea no longer felt unreachable either.
For the first time since arriving in Dornhaven, he could picture himself standing there eventually.