The Vanguard Academy was designed to look like a temple to human potential. It had floating spires, glass walkways, and training grounds that simulated alien biomes. The air smelled of expensive landscaping and burnt copper.

  But that was upstairs.

  Amari Malik walked down a concrete staircase that smelled of mold and bleach. The fluorescent lights flickered here, buzzing like dying insects. This was Sector F—better known as "The Morgue."

  He adjusted his collar. The Academy uniform usually consisted of a blazer reinforced with kinetic-dampening silk. But the F-Class uniform was plain, itchy grey cotton. No armor. No enchantments. Just cloth.

  Fitting, Amari thought, running a hand over the rough fabric. Livestock don't need armor.

  He shouldn't be here. By all rights, he should have been on a bus home this morning. He thought back to the conversation in the Dean's office twelve hours ago.

  [Flashback: 12 Hours Ago]

  "Expulsion is mandatory," Dean Vance had said, sliding a datapad across his mahogany desk.

  Vance was a retired A-Rank Bastion, a man who looked like a shaved bear in a suit.

  "You don't just have low potential, Cadet Malik. You have zero. You are statistically an anomaly. A liability."

  Amari had sat in the chair, bandages wrapped around his chest where the backlash had bruised his ribs. "The Doctor said I'm stable. My health is perfect."

  "Your mana core is gone!" Vance slammed his hand on the desk. "We teach magic here! How do you expect to pass 'Introduction to Mana Flow' when you are physically incapable of flowing mana?"

  Amari hadn't flinched. He simply leaned forward and tapped the datapad. "Article 4, Section 2 of the Founders' Charter."

  Vance blinked. "Excuse me?"

  "The Charter," Amari recited calmly. "It states that 'No student shall be denied education based on biological deficiency incurred during the Awakening process, provided they sign a Full Liability Waiver absolving the Academy of death or injury.'"

  Vance stared at him. The air in the room grew heavy. He realized he wasn't talking to a panicked teenager. He was talking to someone who had read the fine print.

  "You want to sign the Death Waiver? For F-Class?" Vance sneered. "Cadet, the physical education exams alone will kill you. Without mana reinforcement, a single hit from a goblin will snap your spine."

  "I have a pen," Amari said, his eyes dead serious. "Do you have the form?"

  [Present Time]

  Amari reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed open the heavy steel door marked 1-F.

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  The classroom looked more like a bunker than a place of learning. The walls were bare concrete. The desks were old, chipped metal. There were about twenty students inside, and the atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy.

  Most of them were staring at the floor.

  In the back corner, a girl with frizzy red hair was quietly sobbing. Mara, Amari recalled. An E-Rank Healer whose mana leaked out of her pores before she could cast a spell.

  Next to her, a boy with thick glasses was nervously tapping his foot, muttering about a "re-test." Eliot. A genius logistician who had failed the practical because he froze in the face of a hologram.

  They were the rejects. The broken toys.

  When Amari walked in, the room went silent.

  "That's him," Eliot whispered. "The guy who blew up the stone."

  "I heard he has zero mana. Like, literally zero."

  "Why is he even here? He's gonna get squashed."

  Amari ignored them. He walked to the very back of the room, found a desk that didn't wobble, and sat down.

  He closed his eyes.

  Step one, he thought. Breathing.

  In his past life, he had spent decades refining mana. He knew every spell, every formula. But now, he had to learn something much older.

  He shifted his breathing rhythm. In for four seconds. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

  It wasn't a normal breath. He engaged his diaphragm, forcing oxygen into his blood like fuel into a furnace.

  [System Notification]

  [Technique Discovered: Iron Lung (Breathing)]

  [Status: Oxygenating Blood... 5%]

  My muscles are weak, he analyzed, feeling the burn in his lungs. My bone density is average. I have two weeks before the Forest Exam. If I can't punch through a goblin's skull by then, I'm dead.

  The door banged open.

  A man shuffled in. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He wore a rumpled tracksuit and held a thermos of coffee that smelled strongly of whiskey.

  "Alright, listen up, disappointments," the teacher grunted, slamming the thermos onto the podium.

  "I'm Instructor Halloway. I'm here to monitor you until you either wash out or get maimed."

  He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a crude circle on the board.

  "This is a Mana Core," Halloway said, his voice dripping with boredom. "You guys have crap ones. Some of you..." He glanced directly at Amari. "...don't have one at all."

  The class snickered nervously.

  "But the Academy takes your tuition money, so I have to teach you," Halloway sighed. "Today, we're going to the track. We're going to run until you vomit. Then we're going to run some more. Because if you can't cast a shield, your only survival strategy is running away."

  The students groaned.

  Amari didn't groan. He opened his eyes, stopped his breathing technique, and stood up.

  "Sir," Amari said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the murmurs.

  Halloway narrowed his eyes. "What is it, Stone-Breaker? Do you want a doctor's note?"

  "No," Amari said, stepping out from his desk. "I want to know if the Weight Room is open to F-Class students."

  Halloway raised an eyebrow. "The weight room? Nobody uses that archaic junk anymore. It’s been gathering dust since the Awakening fifty years ago. Why lift iron when you can just cast Strengthen?"

  "Because Strengthen wears off," Amari said flatly. "Muscle doesn't."

  Halloway stared at him for a long moment. He looked for fear in the boy's eyes. He found none.

  A crooked, cruel grin spread across the Instructor's face. He realized this wasn't bravery. It was delusion. And he wanted to see it shatter.

  "Sure, Cadet. It's open. But know the rules of the Morgue."

  Halloway pointed a chalk-stained finger at him.

  "F-Class does not get access to the Infirmary. If you drop a weight on your neck, you pay for your own healing. Or you bleed out. Your choice."

  "I won't miss roll call," Amari said, ignoring the threat.

  He grabbed his bag and walked toward the door. The other students stared at him like he was insane. Running away from class on the first day? To lift weights?

  But Amari wasn't running away. He was getting to work.

  Let them practice running, he thought as he stepped back into the hallway. I have a god to kill.

  As the heavy steel door clicked shut behind him, a blue window flickered in his vision.

  [Warning: Unregistered Training Method Detected.]