Damon stopped by his dorm first.

Not because he wanted to. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to head straight to the gym, to start moving, to do something after three days of staring at ceiling tiles.

But he was still wearing the thin cotton shirt and loose pants the infirmary had given him. No shoes. Just disposable slippers that slapped against the pavement with every step.

He wasn’t that far gone.

Not yet.

His dorm room looked exactly as he’d left it four days ago: the bed unmade, the desk cluttered with notebooks and printed research papers, and, most surprisingly, the transfer folder still sitting unopened on his nightstand, the red stamp visible through the manila cover.

"Guess someone put it there for me while I was effectively dead."

Damon ignored it for now; he now had three months after all.

He changed into gym clothes, black shorts, a gray compression shirt, and actual running shoes. He grabbed his water bottle from the desk, filled it at the sink, and was out the door in under five minutes.

The gym could wait for a minor detour.

But not long.

***

The gym was exactly as he’d left it.

Still empty.

The others were still in their classes.

Damon stood in the center of the rubber-mat floor, surrounded by equipment and the faint hum of fluorescent lights. The smell of old sweat and chalk dust hung in the air, familiar in a way that almost felt comforting.

He’d come here before, back in his first year. Desperate attempts to build a body that could compensate for a broken system. It hadn’t worked then.

He’d plateaued fast, his gains limited by the same universal rule that governed every Resonator: physical training alone, without system reinforcement, hit a hard ceiling.

But now he had something he didn’t have back then.

A task.

A real one.

"System," he said, his voice echoing slightly in the empty space. "Open."

The golden screen flickered to life, steady and warm.

[SYSTEM STATUS – RESONATOR: DAMON PERSIVAL]

CLASS: [SOVEREIGN] - LOCKED

ABILITIES: [LOCKED - PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS NOT MET]

CURRENT TASK: [WORKOUT]

TASK PROGRESS: [0%]

NOTE: HOST BODY HAS RECOVERED SUFFICIENTLY FOR LIGHT PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Damon stared at the screen.

He almost laughed. A week ago, his system had mocked him for even existing. Now it was telling him to be careful, like an overprotective parent.

"What qualifies as a workout?" he asked.

The system didn’t answer directly. But a new line of text appeared beneath the task.

[TASK PARAMETERS: ACHIEVE PHYSICAL BASELINE REQUIRED FOR SOVEREIGN INTEGRATION]

[TARGET: 100%]

[CURRENT: 0%]

Damon felt his jaw tighten.

He’d known he was weak. But seeing the number zero made it real in a way it hadn’t been before.

"Did all my workouts from before not count...?"

Damon just sighed.

"Fine," he said. "Zero percent. Let’s fix that."

He started with a warm-up jog on the treadmill. Nothing intense. Just getting his blood moving, his muscles loosening. The machine hummed beneath him, the belt whirring as he settled into a steady rhythm.

Five minutes in, his lungs started burning. Not the sharp, panicked burn of the Banshee fight, but the dull, familiar ache of a body that had spent three days in a hospital bed.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t.

He knew as well as anyone how long it really took to make progress in the gym.

At ten minutes, a notification flickered into view.

[TASK PROGRESS: 0.1%]

Damon nearly tripped over his own feet.

"Zero point one?!"

He stared at the number, his legs still pumping, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts.

"Ten minutes of running, and that’s all I get?"

The system offered no apology or explanation. Just the number, sitting there in warm golden light, utterly indifferent to his frustration.

Damon gritted his teeth and kept running.

By the time he hit the thirty-minute mark, the progress had crept up to [0.4%]. His shirt was soaked through, his calves ached, and the treadmill’s display showed a distance that would have embarrassed any C-Rank first-year.

But he wasn’t a C-Rank. He wasn’t even an F-Rank.

He was a guy with zero percent of the minimum and a system that demanded one hundred.

"Alright," he panted, stepping off the treadmill and grabbing his water bottle. "Cardio done. What’s next?"

He knew what was next. He’d watched enough training sessions from the sidelines, memorizing routines he could never use. The basics didn’t change just because you had a golden screen instead of a blue one.

Push-ups. Pull-ups. Bodyweight squats. Core work.

The stuff every Resonator did in their first semester before their systems started amplifying their gains.

The stuff Damon had given up on two years ago.

He dropped to the mat and started with push-ups. His form was clean, at least. He’d drilled it enough times in the support-track fitness classes, the ones designed for potential logistics and non-slayer students who’d barely see combat but needed to pass the basic physical requirements.

Damon didn’t like it, but he was forced to. And now it was paying off.

By ten, his arms were shaking.

By fifteen, the burn had spread to his shoulders and chest.

By twenty, he collapsed face-first onto the mat, his arms refusing to push him up even one more time.

[TASK PROGRESS: 0.5%]

"Twenty push-ups," he muttered into the rubber mat. "Twenty push-ups, and it barely moves."

He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling.

The same fluorescent lights.

The same faint hum.

But this was different. Because even if the number was small, it was moving. His task progress wasn’t zero anymore.

It was [0.5%].

And [0.5%] was infinitely more than nothing.

Damon pushed himself upright, grabbed his water bottle, and moved to the pull-up bar.

He managed four before his grip gave out.

[TASK PROGRESS: 0.6%] 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Bodyweight squats got him to [0.8%]. A plank held for ninety seconds pushed it to [1.0%] even.

He stood in the center of the gym, drenched in sweat, every muscle in his body screaming, and stared at the golden number.

[1.0%].

One percent.

He’d been here for over an hour. He’d run, pushed, pulled, and held until his body gave out. And all he had to show for it was a single percentage point.

At this rate, reaching one hundred percent would take months.

"Three months," he said aloud, the words tasting like iron. "I’ve got three months."

He looked around the empty gym. The support-track students would start filtering in soon, claiming treadmills and weight benches between classes. He’d lose the solitude, silence, and even worse, he’d lose peace.

Even the support-track and logistics students looked down on him. Because even if their system wasn’t combat-based, they still had systems that worked.

And Damon knew that once that happened, he’d likely make no progress at all with so many distractions.

"I should check the academy store for now and see if they have any potions that could help."

Damon panted as he chugged from his water bottle, then hurried to pack up before the first group of students walked in.

***

The academy store was a concrete building wedged between the logistics hub and the cafeteria. Most students never visited it in person. Combat-track Resonators had their gear delivered through the academy’s supply division, and support-track students had their own department-specific vendors.

The store was for everyone else.

Those who wanted specific items rather than general-use ones.

Or those who didn’t have access to the two.

Damon pushed through the door, a small bell chiming overhead. The interior had shelves crammed with supplements, recovery salves, and gear that had been rejected by the combat division for minor defects.

The woman behind the counter looked up from a magazine. She was older, sixty, with silver-streaked hair and the kind of weathered face that suggested decades of dealing with desperate students.

"Persival," she said, not unkindly. "Heard you almost died."

"Good news travels fast."

"In this academy? News travels faster than the portals open." She set her magazine aside. "What do you need?"

"Recovery potions. The basic kind. And maybe something for muscle fatigue."

She raised an eyebrow. "You finally get your system working?"

Damon hesitated. The golden screen was still a secret, fragile and precious. But lying to the storekeeper felt wrong. She’d been one of the few people who’d never looked at him with pity or contempt.

Probably because she just cared more about the money than anything else.

"Close," he said.

She studied him for a long moment, then shrugged.

"None of my business. Aisle three, bottom shelf. Don’t expect miracles. The potions are meant for basic recovery. They’ll help you bounce back faster, but they won’t turn you into a Slayer overnight."

"That’s fine. I’m not trying to become one."

Not yet.

He found the potions exactly where she’d said. Small glass vials filled with a pale blue liquid, labeled in block print.

[BASIC RECOVERY DRAUGHT - F-RANK].

The price was modest, twenty academy credits per vial. Damon grabbed four, then added a tube of muscle salve from the next shelf over.

Eighty credits total.

He had just over two thousand saved up. Years of birthday money from relatives who didn’t know what else to give the son of Lucas Persival, plus a small stipend the academy provided to unassigned students as compensation for their "unique circumstances."

It wasn’t much. But it was enough to keep him supplied for a while.

"Find everything?" the storekeeper asked as he set the items on the counter.

"Yeah. Thanks."

She rang him up in silence, bagging the vials with practiced efficiency. As she handed him the receipt, she paused.

"You really went for the cheapest ones, huh?"

"I don’t have many academy credits. Besides, I need to figure out what’s most efficient before spending them on something expensive."

"Not getting enough money from your father?"

"I just don’t want to bother him."

"I see. Well, off you go."