The cold came in through the walls like it owned the place.
Holden Voss had been in this apartment so long that he knew the wall cracks were only getting bigger. He also knew for sure that the landlord was never going to come and fix them.
Holden sat up from the mat on the floor. His back made popping noises. He winced and rubbed his sore back. He then breathed out quietly so he wouldn't wake her up.
Maeve was sleeping on the bed in the room. She held on to a blanket that was covered in patches. Even though she was only thirteen, she was better at staying alive than most of the adults Holden knew.
Holden went to the kitchen shelf. There was only one cup and a slice of bread.He stared at it for a moment.
Then he put the bread near the heater so Maeve could have a warm meal when she got up. He drank a cup of water instead.
---
Outside, the village Quarter was already awake.
That was the thing about the slums. There was always something moving, some cart rolling across the rough road.
Holden stood by the front door and looked at everything happening outside.
He was seventeen. He felt about forty.
Today was the day of the Vanguard Academy entrance exam.
The Vanguard Academy. The best fighter training school in Crestfall Region. The kind of place where slum kids were not exactly expected to show up, let alone pass. But passing meant a stipend. Passing meant proper food and actual gear. Passing meant Holden could send money home so Maeve wouldn't have to struggle just to survive.
Failing meant something else entirely.
The Regional Military Draft had a very simple policy. Anyone between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five who failed or skipped the academy entrance exam was forced to join the army within thirty days. You wouldn't be sent to a good unit with training and armor. You'd be sent to a place where the leaders didn't care if you stayed alive.
Into the Expendable Corps.
The front lines.
If Holden ended up there, Maeve had nobody.
No family. No savings.
He leaned his back against the door.
Don't lose it, he told himself. Not today.
---
The exam started in two hours. He needed to move around and warm up before he got too nervous. He'd been practicing basic combat forms for months, sneaking into the public training yards, watching fighters spar and then copying the movements alone in this room after Maeve fell asleep.
He was good.
He just didn't know if good was going to be enough.
Holden dropped to the floor and lined up for a pushup.
He barely touched the floor when he felt it.
A sharp sound rang inside his head.
Then, light.
Blue light. From nowhere. It formed words in vision.
[DING!!!]
[10,000 Times Evolution System Awakened.]
[Current Multiplier: 10x.]
Holden did not move.
He stayed in his pushup position, staring at the glowing text.
"...What," he said.
The words just floated there.
He blinked hard. Looked away. Looked back.
It was still there.
10,000 Times Evolution System.
Multiplier: 10x.
He didn't know what that meant yet. But the word evolution made him feel hope. Holden had learned a long time ago that he shouldn't trust hope too much because it could lead to disappointment.
He needed to know what it was.
He dropped back into position.
One pushup.
He went down, his chest dropping toward the floor, and then he pushed.
Whoosh.
The energy that moved through his muscles was not normal. It wasn't painful. it was more like, suddenly, his body remembered doing this ten times. When he came back up, he felt the burn of ten. The strength of ten. The completion of ten.
From one pushup.
He sat back on his knees. He felt his heart beating fast.
"Okay," he said to himself. "Okay."
He looked at the metal bar in the corner and picked it.
He took a breath, held it tightly, and swung it once.
Clang. The pipe hit the side of the wooden wardrobe.
But his arm remembered ten strikes. It didn't just feel like he learned it; the movement became a part of his body instantly.
Holden lowered the pipe slowly.
He stood in the middle of the room and let himself understand what this actually was.
This was a way out.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, something in his chest loosened.
The blue screen was still showing at the corner of his vision.
[System Stats]
[KP: 0 ]
[Multiplier: 10x]
[Fighter Rank: Unranked]
He set the pipe down gently, so as not to wake Maeve, picked up his jacket from the floor, and wore it.
it had a tear along the left shoulder that he'd stitched up twice. It was the only jacket he owned.
He checked on Maeve one last time.
She was still sleeping.
He wrote a short note on a paper he kept on the shelf.
Gone for the exam. I'd be back tonight. Make sure you eat the bread.
Don't worry.
He paused, then drew a small, lopsided drawing of a face with a silly smile. He used to draw that same face for her when she was
little.
He put the note where she would see it as soon as she woke up.
Then he stepped out of the room.
With a new power in his body that made everything he did ten times better, and a real reason to be happy for once, he began the long walk to the Vanguard Academy.