“Eyes up, fresh meat!”

  The barked command cut cleanly through the low chatter, snapping every head forward in unison. The man standing before us had the posture of someone who had never once doubted his right to give orders. Broad-shouldered, scarred, and dressed in standard SDA combat fatigues, he looked less like an instructor and more like a weapon that had learned how to talk.

  “My name is Calder,” he continued, his voice hard and carrying without effort. “And for the next three months, I own your time, your sweat, and your pain.”

  No one laughed.

  Good.

  I counted quickly, twenty recruits, including myself. Fewer than I’d expected for an organization supposedly fighting monsters on a daily basis. Either the standards were brutal, or the dropout rate was obscene. Possibly both.

  I scanned the group subtly.

  Different builds, different ages. Some looked fresh out of school. Others had the wary eyes of people who’d already seen a Frade up close and decided ignorance was no longer an option. What stood out most, however, was who wasn’t here.

  Luis Tyrel.

  The protagonist.

  Not that I’d expected him to be. I already knew his entry into the SDA would be… unconventional. Talent like his didn’t get thrown into the same grinder as everyone else.

  That was fine.

  I’d just make sure I was stronger by the time he arrived.

  “To start,” Calder said, pacing in front of us like a predator inspecting prey, “you’ll be taking an aptitude test. Spectrum Energy responds differently depending on the user. We’re going to find out which colors don’t completely hate you.”

  That got a few nervous chuckles. Calder ignored them.

  We were led into a circular chamber where the air itself felt… thick. At the center floated a multifaceted prism, slowly rotating, its surface refracting faint bands of color even before anyone touched it.

  One by one, recruits stepped forward.

  They placed a hand against the prism, and it responded, red flaring faintly for some, yellow shimmering weakly for others, blue flickering like an unstable flame. A few unlucky souls barely made the prism react at all, earning them grim looks from Calder.

  The brighter the glow, the better the compatibility.

  Simple. Brutal. Honest.

  When it was finally my turn, I stepped forward and placed my palm against the cool surface.

  The prism hummed.

  Blue light bloomed first, steady and controlled. Not blinding, but respectable.

  Then it shifted to yellow, the glow dimmer, thinner, present, but reluctant.

  Finally, red.

  The prism flared.

  A sharp, aggressive glow pulsed outward, brighter than the others, strong enough that I heard a few murmurs behind me.

  Calder’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Hmph,” he grunted. “Red-leaning. Figures.”

  I withdrew my hand, filing the result away. Red was discharge, offense, aggression, release. Fitting, considering my track record.

  With the testing done, we didn’t get a break.

  Of course we didn’t.

  Physical training came first. Endless sets of push-ups, sprints, bodyweight exercises designed to push us to the edge of collapse. Sweat soaked into the floor. Muscles burned. Lungs screamed.

  Only after exhaustion had set in did Calder finally lead us into an empty gymnasium, vast, sterile, and sealed.

  “This is where the real training begins,” he said. “Spectrum Energy is generated from within the body, but if you’ve never felt it before, good luck figuring it out blind.”

  That didn’t sound promising.

  “This room is saturated with ambient Spectrum Energy,” Calder continued. “Your job is to adjust. Feel it. Identify it. Let your body recognize it.”

  “…That’s it?” someone asked, incredulous.

  Calder’s glare could have stripped paint.

  “Yes,” he replied flatly. “That’s it.”

  So we stood there.

  Breathing. Concentrating. Trying to feel something, anything, different.

  Minutes passed.

  Then half an hour.

  Then an hour.

  Nothing.

  I closed my eyes, reaching inward, outward, anywhere that wasn’t screaming fatigue. I’d felt mana before. Authority. Momentum. Spectrum energy, though… it was alien. It didn’t flow the same way. It didn’t respond to will so much as resonance.

  And I couldn’t find the frequency.

  Judging by the frustrated groans and muttered curses around me, I wasn’t alone.

  Calder clicked his tongue.

  “Pathetic,” he said. “Alright. Plan B.”

  That single phrase made my stomach tighten.

  “Line up!”

  We snapped into formation along the gymnasium wall.

  “This is going to hurt,” Calder said calmly, “but it won’t kill you.”

  That qualifier did not inspire confidence.

  Only then did I notice the soldier standing in the corner, silent, unmoving. Red Spectrum energy began to coil around him, sharp and violent, like heat distortion given form.

  My eye twitched.

  “You can’t be serious,” someone whispered.

  The soldier raised his arm.

  A red beam lanced out.

  It struck the first recruit square in the chest.

  The impact knocked the air out of him, dropping him to his knees with a strangled cry. The beam didn’t burn, but it rattled something deep inside, like every nerve had been struck at once.

  Then another beam.

  And another.

  One by one, every recruit was hit.

  When it reached me, the impact was instantaneous.

  Pain exploded through my chest, not external, but internal, as if my body were being forced to recognize something it desperately wanted to reject. My vision swam. My heart hammered. Instinct screamed.

  And beneath the pain-

  Something clicked.

  A faint, searing presence burned through my core. Wild. Aggressive. Familiar.

  Red.

  “You’ll get shot,” Calder said over the groans and gasps, “until your bodies remember what Spectrum Energy feels like.”

  The soldier fired again.

  And again.

  By the third hit, I was on one knee, breathing hard, sweat and pain mixing into something dangerously close to clarity.

  I hated this.

  I hated this world.

  But as the red energy flared within me, unstable and raw, I knew one thing for certain-

  It was working.

  When I finally made it back to my dorm room, I didn’t even have the strength to reach the bed.

  The door slid shut behind me, and my legs simply gave out. I hit the floor hard, the impact sending a dull ache through muscles that were already screaming in protest. Every inch of my body felt heavy, bruised, and wrong, as if I’d been shaken from the inside out.

  That soldier hadn’t been joking.

  Whoever he was, he’d mastered red Spectrum energy to a frightening degree, every blast calibrated perfectly. No burns. No internal ruptures. Just pure, concentrated impact, delivered with surgical cruelty. Enough to force our bodies to recognize the energy, but never enough to cross the line into lasting damage.

  I lay there staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling unevenly.

  “…I hate this place,” I muttered weakly.

  The room was small but functional, single bed, desk, locker, and nothing else worth mentioning. Standard SDA dormitory. No personality. No comfort. Just a place to collapse after training.

  A faint squelching sound came from beside me.

  My slime emerged from my shadow, its small spherical body wobbling slightly before extending several translucent tentacles. Without waiting for permission, it wrapped them around my torso and legs and gently lifted me off the floor.

  “Hey...” I groaned, but didn’t resist.

  It deposited me onto the bed with surprising care. Then, something unexpected happened.

  A faint warmth spread through my body.

  Not the violent, burning sensation of red Spectrum energy, but a slow, soothing heat that sank into my muscles and joints. The bruised ache dulled. The tightness in my chest eased. Even the lingering pain from the impacts began to fade.

  I blinked.

  “…Since when could you heal?” I asked, staring at the ceiling.

  The slime didn’t respond verbally, of course. It never did. But the familiar connection between us stirred, and understanding flowed back along that invisible thread.

  After the healers, the sensation conveyed.

  My mind flicked back to my very first story dive. The chaos. The desperate fights. The enemies I’d fed it without thinking twice. Healers, clerics, priests, support mages, absorbed along with everything else.

  “It picked that up from them…” I murmured.

  The ability wasn’t impressive. It wasn’t something that would save me mid-fight or reverse lethal injuries. The healing was slow, gradual, almost passive. But as I lay there, muscles relaxing under its effect, I realized how invaluable it actually was.

  Recovering while resting.

  No resources spent. No cooldowns. Just time.

  “That’s good enough,” I said quietly. “More than good enough.”

  The slime pulsed faintly, then settled beside me, maintaining the gentle flow of restorative energy.

  I closed my eyes.

  I’ll heal overnight, I thought. And tomorrow, I’ll be ready.

  I was wrong about one thing, though.

  The next day didn’t start with physical training.

  Instead of being dragged back into the gymnasium, we were gathered into a large lecture hall. Tiered seating. Wide screens. A much calmer atmosphere compared to the previous day’s brutality.

  I exchanged glances with the other recruits. Most of them looked relieved. A few looked suspicious.

  After what Calder had put us through, no one trusted “easy days.”

  An instructor stood at the front, different from Calder. Older. More composed. The kind of person who looked like they’d survived long enough to stop proving anything.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Today’s focus,” he began, “is understanding how the Spectrum Defense Agency handles Frades.”

  The screens lit up, displaying footage of past operations, urban destruction, evacuation corridors, teams deploying in coordinated formations.

  “There are two primary outcomes for any Frade encounter,” the instructor continued. “Elimination or capture.”

  That got everyone’s attention.

  “Elimination missions are straightforward,” he said. “If a Frade manifests in a populated area and shows destructive behavior, it is to be neutralized immediately. Collateral damage is unacceptable, but civilian safety takes priority over preservation of the Frade.”

  The footage shifted, red and orange Spectrum users firing in unison, blue constructs pinning a monster in place, black energy ending it decisively.

  “Capture missions,” the instructor went on, “are far more delicate.”

  The screen showed a Frade restrained within a lattice of white light.

  “Capture is only attempted when the Frade appears in an isolated area and its threat level is deemed manageable. In these cases, White Spectrum energy users may be authorized to attempt containment.”

  That word again.

  White.

  A recruit raised their hand. “How does someone even get white energy?”

  Murmurs rippled through the hall. I leaned forward slightly. I’d been wondering the same thing since arriving in this world.

  “White Spectrum energy,” the instructor said, “is not awakened through compatibility tests. Anyone can become a white energy user.”

  That earned a few surprised looks.

  “However,” he added, “you must capture your own Frade to do so. And you must receive official permission beforehand.”

  The room went quiet.

  “White energy governs summoning and binding,” the instructor explained. “A failed capture attempt can result in loss of control, civilian casualties, or worse. That is why authorization is strict.”

  Another recruit raised their hand. “Do white energy users have different roles?”

  “They are still SDA agents,” the instructor replied. “They still deploy, still fight, still perform assigned duties. White energy is only permitted when approved for a mission.”

  He paused, then added, “That said, white energy users who consistently produce results are granted… certain privileges.”

  The screen shifted again, showing powerful summoned Frades fighting alongside agents. Monsters bound, controlled, turned into weapons.

  I felt a flicker of understanding.

  Summoning. Capturing.

  White energy wasn’t just a tool, it was leverage.

  As the lecture continued, detailing operational chains, risk assessment, and inter-spectrum coordination, my thoughts drifted.

  This world’s power system was dangerous. Structured. Regulated to an almost suffocating degree.

  But beneath that structure-

  Opportunity.

  I leaned back in my seat, eyes half-lidded as I listened.

  Good, I thought. Now I just need to survive long enough to take advantage of it.

  The intensity of the training met, no, exceeded, my expectations.

  It was brutal, unrelenting, and meticulously designed to grind us down to our limits. But what surprised me was that the SDA wasn’t trying to break us. There was a method to the cruelty, a careful balance between pushing us past what we thought we could endure and giving us just enough room to recover before permanent damage set in.

  Pain was a tool here. Exhaustion was a language.

  And the agency spoke it fluently.

  They enforced strict dietary plans on every recruit. No exceptions. Every meal was calculated, calories measured, nutrients balanced, intake adjusted based on training performance. Protein-heavy meals on high-output days. Carbohydrate loading before endurance drills. Vitamins and supplements were handed out with clinical efficiency, swallowed under supervision like medicine rather than food.

  At first, people complained.

  By the second week, no one did.

  We needed every advantage just to keep up.

  Lectures filled the gaps between physical training. We were taught formations for urban suppression, evacuation protocols, threat containment grids, and emergency fallback maneuvers. Nothing was theoretical for long. Every lecture was followed by drills, over and over again until movements became instinctive.

  If someone hesitated, they were corrected.

  If someone froze, they were isolated and drilled harder.

  If someone failed repeatedly, the instructors didn’t yell.

  They simply watched.

  That silence was worse.

  After a month, something shifted.

  The general training fractured into specialization.

  Each recruit began receiving individualized training based on where they showed the most promise. It wasn’t subtle. You could feel it in the way instructors started addressing people by name instead of number.

  Those who excelled with red Spectrum energy were sent to the shooting ranges more frequently, endless hours of target practice, precision drills, reaction timing, and energy control exercises.

  The yellow Spectrum users were pushed deeper into physical conditioning. Weighted combat. Endurance trials. Reinforcement drills where their bodies were pushed to failure again and again until enhancement became second nature rather than a conscious effort.

  Meanwhile, recruits with high compatibility for blue Spectrum energy were locked into control training. Fine shaping. Stability tests. Construct durability under stress. They learned that power meant nothing without control, and blue punished sloppiness more harshly than any other color.

  As for me?

  The shooting range became my second home.

  Ever since I’d managed to generate red Spectrum energy, even inconsistently, the instructors had locked me into that path. But there was a problem.

  I still couldn’t fire it.

  Not properly.

  No beams. No blasts. No clean discharges.

  So instead, they put a gun in my hands.

  Rubber bullets. Standard issue training firearm.

  “Until you can externalize your energy,” one instructor told me flatly, “you’ll learn how to fight without it.”

  At first, it felt insulting.

  Then it felt humbling.

  Then it felt necessary.

  Every day, I trained with firearms, stance, recoil management, breath control, target acquisition. The instructors drilled into us that red energy wasn’t about brute force. It was about release timing. Internal pressure. Control of output.

  Miss the timing, and the energy burns you from the inside.

  I learned quickly why so many red users injured themselves early in their careers.

  Between range sessions, they added combat training.

  This wasn’t sparring.

  This was survival.

  We faced senior recruits, sometimes one-on-one, sometimes in groups. They were faster, stronger, and far more experienced. They knew exactly how far they could push without permanently injuring us.

  Which didn’t mean they held back.

  I got thrown. Pinned. Disarmed. Dropped more times than I could count.

  Every mistake was punished immediately.

  Every hesitation was exploited.

  I learned how it felt to be overwhelmed, how panic crept in when someone closed the distance too fast, how your body betrayed you when fear took the reins.

  And slowly, painfully, I learned how to push back.

  Not with power.

  With awareness.

  With positioning.

  With timing.

  At night, when I returned to my dorm room battered and exhausted, my slime would crawl out silently and begin its slow healing. The dull aches faded. Bruises lightened. I recovered just enough to do it all again the next day.

  Lying there, staring at the ceiling, I began to understand something important.

  This world wasn’t kind.

  But it was honest.

  Strength here wasn’t handed out. It was earned, measured in sweat, pain, and the willingness to keep standing when your body begged you to stop.

  And for the first time since entering this closed world, I felt something shift inside me.

  Not confidence.

  Not yet.

  But momentum.

  I’m getting closer, I thought.

  Closer to understanding this world.

  Closer to recording its power.

  Closer to becoming strong enough that, when the time came, I wouldn’t just survive the next fight.

  I’d control it.

  Within the viewing lounge, Katherine sat comfortably in one of the crescent-shaped chairs that lined the upper floor, a porcelain teacup resting lightly between her fingers. Steam curled upward in slow, lazy spirals, the scent of jasmine cutting through the ever-present aroma of ink, parchment, and mana that permeated the library.

  Before her, a wide translucent screen displayed Jayden’s current dive.

  She watched in silence as he moved through the world, training, struggling, adapting. His movements were rough, inefficient in places, but there was a persistence to him that hadn’t faded since his first ruined world.

  If anything, it had sharpened.

  “He’s doing well,” Katherine murmured to herself, taking a measured sip. “Better than most would, given the circumstances.”

  Jayden had no grand destiny in that world. No narrative momentum pulling him forward. And yet, he was still pushing, still clawing his way toward growth.

  That, more than talent, mattered.

  “How have you been, Ms. Kath?”

  Katherine looked up from the screen, already knowing who it would be.

  Ellaine stood a few steps away, her posture relaxed, hands tucked casually into the pockets of her long coat. She had changed since the days Katherine first met her, her presence heavier, sharper, her energy controlled to a fine edge. The uncertainty she once carried had been replaced by confidence earned through countless dives and hard decisions.

  “Quite well,” Katherine replied warmly, setting her teacup down. “And you? I heard you recently obtained a Library token.”

  Ellaine nodded, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Just last week. Took five consecutive wins in the Azure Dome. Nearly lost the fourth match.”

  “Nearly,” Katherine echoed with a soft chuckle.

  “I plan on using it to gain access to a ruined world in the Tartaros wing,” Ellaine continued. “I need stronger records before I push into Emerald. I don’t want to stagnate at Platinum like so many others.”

  Katherine hummed thoughtfully. The Tartaros wing was no place for the careless, ruined worlds stacked upon ruined worlds, many of them fractured beyond conventional logic.

  Ambitious. But that had always been Ellaine’s nature.

  “And how is your blueprint coming along?” Katherine asked, her gaze flicking briefly back to Jayden’s screen before returning to Ellaine.

  Ellaine exhaled slowly. “One piece left. Just one. If everything goes right, I should be able to secure it in the ruined world.”

  “Which record are you missing?” Katherine asked, already suspecting the answer.

  “Valkyrie’s Vow,” Ellaine said without hesitation. “A binding oath-type authority. I can only record it from Valkyrie generals, or higher. Which means I need a world where they’re central to the conflict.”

  Katherine’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in concern, but in calculation.

  “That narrows your options considerably,” she said. “Most worlds with Valkyries at that level are already unstable.”

  “Which is why they’re ruined,” Ellaine replied calmly.

  A fair point.

  Katherine took another sip of tea before asking, “You’re not planning to dive into a ruined world alone, are you?”

  Ellaine let out a short laugh, shaking her head. “Of course not. I’m not suicidal. I’ll be opening the dive to others, anyone who wants to join and can handle the risk.”

  “Even new recruits?” Katherine asked, her tone neutral, but her eyes sharp.

  Ellaine paused for a moment, considering.

  Then she nodded. “Yes. Even them. Ruined worlds are dangerous, but they’re also treasure troves. Powerful records exist there long before most bookkeepers have the record size to fully use them. If they’re smart, they can prepare for the future.”

  She glanced toward the screen showing Jayden.

  “And sometimes,” Ellaine added, “all someone needs is a chance to prove they’re worth the investment.”

  Katherine smiled.

  It was small. Subtle. But unmistakable.

  “As a matter of fact,” Katherine said, turning fully toward Ellaine now, “I might have someone in mind.”

  Ellaine raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “He’s new,” Katherine continued. “Unpolished. Still learning how the library truly works. But he cleared a ruined world on his first dive.”

  Ellaine’s expression shifted, interest replacing casual curiosity.

  “That’s rare,” she said. “Luck?”

  “Partially,” Katherine admitted. “But not entirely. He adapts quickly, and more importantly… he doesn’t rely on the story to carry him.”

  Ellaine followed Katherine’s gaze to the screen, watching Jayden struggle through another grueling training session.

  “…Jayden Brise,” Ellaine read aloud from the corner of the display. “Silver 1.”

  She studied him for a few seconds longer before nodding slowly.

  “Interesting,” she said. “If he survives that closed world and still wants in, I’ll allow it.”

  Katherine lifted her teacup once more, the steam catching the light.

  “I had hoped you’d say that,” she replied.

  Somewhere deep within the library, unseen gears began to turn.

  And far below, in a world that didn’t even know it was being watched, Jayden Brise continued to grow, unaware that his next step might lead him straight into another ruined world, and toward a future far more dangerous than he realized.

  “Shit!”

  The word tore out of me as pain exploded through my stomach. A blast of red Spectrum energy slammed into my torso and sent me skidding backward across the mat, the breath punched clean out of my lungs. I rolled twice before stopping on my side, vision blurring as the aftershock rattled my ribs.

  “What’s wrong, new kid?” a voice boomed across the training hall. “Can’t take a hit?”

  I coughed, dragging in a sharp breath as I forced myself up onto one knee. Across from me stood the senior agent assigned to spar with me today, a walking wall of muscle wrapped in SDA combat gear. Yellow Spectrum energy flickered faintly beneath his skin, outlining his frame like heat rising off asphalt.

  “They don’t call me The Hulk for nothing!” he laughed, cracking his neck as he rolled his shoulders.

  Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t just bravado.

  I’d heard about him even before today. Two years as an active SDA agent. More than a full year dedicated almost exclusively to mastering Yellow Spectrum enhancement. Most people spread their focus across multiple colors, dabbling, diversifying. This guy hadn’t. He’d doubled down.

  And it showed.

  Every step he took carried weight. Not just mass, but intent. The floor creaked softly under his boots as he advanced, yellow energy pooling and circulating through his muscles in disciplined, efficient cycles.

  My book flickered into existence in my peripheral vision as instinct kicked in.

  Data scrolled.

  Yellow Spectrum: Complete Physical Enhancement

  Rank: Bronze

  Record Size: 70

  Rating: 10

  “…That’s insane,” I muttered under my breath.

  A perfect rating. No inefficiencies. No wasted output. This wasn’t just strength, it was control, refinement, the kind of enhancement that turned a human body into a living weapon.

  My fingers twitched.

  “Record.”

  The command left my mouth barely louder than a whisper.

  The page burned.

  Yellow light surged through my book, carving the record into place with ruthless efficiency. I felt it immediately, like something snapping into alignment deep inside my body. Heat flooded my limbs, not burning, but reinforcing. Muscles tightened, bones felt denser, joints smoother, stronger.

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

  This feeling-

  It was familiar.

  Not the same as when I was Jayden the Demon Lord. Not that overwhelming, monstrous power. But it echoed it. A shadow of that physical supremacy.

  The senior’s grin faltered just a fraction as he noticed the shift.

  “Oh?” he said, eyebrows rising. “You finally figured something out?”

  He lunged.

  Fast.

  Faster than someone his size had any right to be.

  But this time, I moved too.

  Yellow energy exploded from my legs as I planted my foot and twisted my torso, channeling the enhancement the way the record told my body to. My fist connected with his ribs in a clean, efficient arc.

  Boom.

  The impact cracked through the training hall like a cannon shot.

  The senior’s eyes widened in genuine shock as his feet left the ground. His massive frame slammed into the mat and skidded several meters before coming to a stop.

  For a split second...

  Silence.

  I stared at my own hand, yellow energy still crackling faintly around my knuckles.

  “…I hit him,” I breathed.

  A surge of exhilaration rushed through me. I actually managed to land a clean blow. Against him.

  But the triumph lasted exactly half a second.

  A massive hand clamped around my ankle.

  “Oh no you don’t,” the senior growled.

  The world inverted.

  I yelped as he yanked, my enhanced body offering resistance—but not enough. The grip tightened, Yellow Spectrum reinforcement flaring brighter as he used my own momentum against me.

  I was airborne again.

  Then the wall rushed up to meet me.

  CRASH.

  The impact rattled my teeth and drove the air from my lungs for the second time in under a minute. I slid down the padded surface, limbs trembling as the yellow enhancement struggled to keep up with the abuse.

  The senior hauled himself to his feet, rolling his shoulder where I’d struck him. He winced, just slightly.

  “…Not bad,” he admitted. “Didn’t expect that from a rookie.”

  He cracked his knuckles, yellow energy surging brighter now, more aggressive.

  “But don’t get cocky.”

  I pushed myself upright, blood pounding in my ears, every muscle screaming in protest.

  Still, despite the pain, despite the gap between us, I felt something dangerous curl in my chest.

  A grin.

  If this was what Bronze-level perfection felt like…

  Then I wasn’t done yet.

  Not even close.