"In position… Begin!"
At the signal, Victor and I moved toward each other.
I could already predict his first attack from the movement of his arms and the look in his eyes: chest, heart level.
I shifted to the side a moment before the punch was thrown, then tried to respond with a kick to his leg to destabilize him.
As I focused on the spot I was about to hit, Victor must have read my intentions, because he took a quick step back.
I immediately chased after him to give him no time to think and threw a straight punch at his stomach.
I thought I had landed a clean hit—and I wasn't wrong… but Victor took the punch without even trying to block it.
The next instant, with a muffled groan, he grabbed my arm in a tight grip and pulled me toward him while raising his knee.
Caught off guard, and with my arm immobilized, I couldn't bring up a defense. I was dragged straight into the blow, unable to do anything.
Ugh!
The air was knocked out of my lungs in one sharp burst. I lowered my head instinctively, losing sight of my opponent.
I tried to twist my arm free, but Victor's grip didn't budge an inch. A moment later, I found myself on the ground, still bent forward.
"Finished! Winner, number 12!"
Mmmnh!
I let out a quiet groan as I stood up and looked, with a hint of resentment, at the black-haired, green-eyed boy in front of me.
It had been a month since my awakening, and after we all officially became awakened, close combat lessons had begun.
Up until now, I didn't have many complaints. The problem was my training partner.
I had been paired with Victor because our potential was similar.
And everything had gotten worse about a week ago, when I had a breakthrough.
At first, during training, I felt a strange sensation so, during lunch break, I decided to ask Victor if he knew what it was.
When I described it, his eyes widened.
Apparently, each level was further divided into three sub-levels: low, middle, and high.
So, in less than a month after my awakening, I was already having my first breakthrough, moving from one-star low to one-star middle.
Sounds great, right? Yeah…no.
Victor's reaction said it all: it wasn't normal for me "with a four-star potential" to advance this quickly.
Long story short, for the past week I had been completely focused on suppressing my breakthrough and slowing my progression to the next level.
Even during the fight earlier, my mind had been split in two.
Victor had waited exactly one month for his first breakthrough; the silent number 7, on the other hand, had taken one month and ten days to reach the same milestone.
My goal was to reach it in four days:fast, but still plausible.
I was about to continue complaining about my life when I heard Instructor Ronald's voice.
"We're done for today."
I moved next to Victor without speaking, at least not in front of the guards or the instructor.
Once we reached the cafeteria, I focused my gaze on the staff, searching for any sign on their bodies.
Result? Not awakened.
I approached the least busy woman in a corner while silently creating my illusion.
Once I was close enough, I waited.
One… two… three… four…
After four seconds, as if snapping out of a brief daze, the woman looked at me.
She didn't say anything, but I could see a faint hint of embarrassment in her eyes as she handed me my meal.
I nodded without showing any emotion on my face, while inside I was celebrating.
I sat down next to Victor and immediately started a conversation.
"Bastard, couldn't you hold back a little at the end?"
Victor glanced around for a moment, then replied, somewhat exasperated:
"Kite, last time I did that and you beat me, you kept talking for a whole week about how amazing your style was."
Right, I had told Victor that my real name was Kite.
"That's different. Besides, you need a handicap: you're twelve years old and already 170 cm tall! Does that seem fair to you? I have to jump just to hit your jaw!"
Victor shrugged.
"My father was around two meters tall. I probably got it from him. Not my fault."
I placed a hand on my chest in mock indignation.
"You're pulling the parent card in front of an orphan??? You're a heartless monster!"
"Eat instead of talking. Maybe you'll grow."
I snorted, but followed his advice anyway.
Who knows, maybe I'll reach those heights one day.
I ate the sludge that the cooks in this base passed off as soup while watching Victor in front of me.
With the disappearance of our companions, combined with number 7's solitary nature, Victor and I had naturally grown closer.
At first, just a few exchanged words; now we were at that point where we could insult each other without any problem.
Basically, almost like brothers.
If it weren't for the setting, it would actually be a nice story of friendship.
That thought made me look around: we were down to twelve, and most of them weren't in good condition. Some looked in my direction with anger, frustration, and a bit of regret.
Victor and I were better off simply because, given our potential for the organization, we were treated slightly better.
That had somewhat isolated us from the others, but there wasn't much I could do about it, so I chose to ignore them.
…
After the afternoon training, I returned to my room.
Personally, I found Instructor Jin's teachings on mana control rather unnecessary.
I understood he was teaching us the very basics, but his words went in one ear and out the other.
"Guide the mana within you," "don't lose control," "imagine the result clearly"…
Couldn't you be a bit more specific?
I pushed those thoughts aside and decided to focus on something more productive.
As I passed by the mirror, I stopped for a moment to look at myself, letting out a sigh of relief.
My biggest fear after the soul fusion was ending up looking like some anime protagonist, with half-black, half-golden hair.
Just thinking about it gave me chills.
Sure, it looks cool on a screen—but having that appearance for the rest of my life? I'd rather go bald.
Also, small side note, a change like that would probably get me promoted straight to lab rat.
Fortunately, the reflection in the mirror showed nothing more than a child with black hair and brown eyes.
Still, I checked from time to time.
I sat down at the desk and started writing.
~~~
April 14, 1241
Daily Report #30
Progress in close combat: steady but slow.
Underestimating my opponent's durability was a mistake; solution found thanks to the instructor.
Progress in mana manipulation and wind attribute manifestation: excellent. Instructor Jin's advice is improving my control day by day.
Physical condition: optimal. Every day I get closer to becoming the weapon Eclipse needs.
Long live the organization.
~~~
I went over it twice, then nodded in satisfaction.
"Alright, that's enough bullshit for one day."
If anyone wants to complain, I'd like to point out that I used others' reports as a model, so I deserve at least some credit for not laughing while writing.
"Alright, now let's move on to my favorite part of the day…"
I began creating the illusion of the pen. After a month of training, I could finally keep it stable.
~~~
Dear magical diary of secrets,
Let's summarize everything I've discovered.
First: the organization is divided between abducted people (yes, me) and those who joined voluntarily.
Most one-star guards belong to the first category.
Experiment with the new illusion successful: I managed to distort the perception of a non-awakened person for four seconds.
It's still too risky to try it on one-star guards. I'll wait for my breakthrough before attempting it…
~~~
I took a break, massaging my temples.
What I had tried in the cafeteria today was something I had been thinking about for a while.
The human brain naturally filters all incoming information, selecting what it considers important,including visual input.
A classic example is the invisible gorilla experiment: subjects are asked to count ball passes between people in a video, while a person in a gorilla suit walks across the scene in the background.
More than half don't notice it at all, too focused on the ball.
That's exactly what my illusion does: it doesn't make me invisible, but interferes with perception, making me something negligible, something the brain categorizes as a "background detail."
It still had plenty of room for improvement but the potential was there.
Another small step toward my freedom.