Three months passed.
Not quickly. Not cleanly.
They passed in bruises that never fully faded—
in cracked knuckles, burned nerves, and contracts no one else wanted.
They passed in silence.
After Voss disappeared, nothing in Arin's life really changed.
Which somehow made it worse.
The same narrow room.
The same leaking window.
The same quiet cough from the next room every night.
Only one thing was different now.
The pressure in his chest.
It was there every morning when he woke—
a steady hum beneath his ribs.
Waiting.
He stopped working at Goliath Salvage.
Greaser didn't question it. He just glanced at the resignation tag, nodded once, and slid a new access band across the counter.
"Independent runner status," he said.
"Means you die on your own credit now."
Arin picked it up.
Fair enough.
The first week nearly broke him.
Low-level jobs weren't training.
They were survival.
Abandoned housing clear-outs.
Unstable tunnel sweeps.
Beasts that weren't strong—but were desperate.
The worst kind.
Fighting felt different now.
Not slower.
Heavier.
Every step pressed harder into the ground.
Every jump demanded control.
Every strike carried more force than he intended.
The first time he misjudged it, he shattered a support column and nearly buried himself under falling concrete.
He lay there afterward, coughing dust, chest burning.
The hum inside him surged—wild, unstable, almost angry.
That was when he understood.
Not suppress it.
Guide it.
By the end of the first month, people started noticing.
Not openly.
Just… watching.
His name began appearing more often on the contract board.
Solo.
Clean completions.
Fast clears.
Minimal damage.
Hunters looked at him differently now.
Some curious.
Some cautious.
Some irritated.
Arin ignored them all.
Training was worse anyway.
The guild's conditioning room was old and barely functional.
Broken mana dampeners.
Unstable gravity fields.
Equipment that looked like it should've been scrapped years ago.
He used it every chance he got.
Sometimes twice a day.
He trained until his arms trembled.
Until his lungs burned.
Until the hum in his chest turned sharp and dangerous.
There were nights he came home barely able to stand.
Lina noticed.
She always did.
"You're losing weight again."
Arin paused, halfway through removing his jacket.
"I'm fine."
She didn't argue.
She just adjusted the heat pack she'd already placed on the table.
He sighed and sat down.
She pressed it gently against his side.
"You don't need to explain," she said quietly.
"I just need you to come back."
Arin looked at her for a moment.
"I am coming back."
She gave a small nod.
"Then keep doing that."
The second month was worse.
Not because the jobs got harder.
Because he started changing.
Not outside.
Inside.
The hum deepened.
It didn't spike as often anymore.
Instead, it spread—slowly, steadily—through his body.
Into muscle.
Into bone.
Sometimes, under gravity training, the floor cracked beneath his feet.
Sometimes, a single strike was enough to break the internal sensors of reinforced targets.
Power wasn't the problem anymore.
Control was.
And control was harder.
The breakthrough came quietly.
A routine job beneath an old substation.
Two spark-leeches feeding on exposed lines.
Low risk. Low pay.
He eliminated the first instantly.
The second latched onto his arm.
Blue energy surged across his skin.
Pain—real pain—shot through him.
Not exhaustion.
Not strain.
Something sharper.
Reflex took over.
The hum answered.
Not violently.
Smoothly.
Like something opening.
Energy rushed through him—controlled, precise.
His grip tightened.
The creature collapsed instantly, its core destabilizing under the pressure.
Arin dropped to one knee, breathing hard.
Not because he was hurt.
Because his body had acted before his mind.
He stared at his hand.
Steady.
That night, he returned to the scan booth.
The machine flickered once.
Then again.
Then stabilized.
M-SCALE: 4.0
Arin didn't move.
The number stayed.
Solid.
Real.
One level.
In two months.
Earned.
He should have felt proud.
Instead, his hand drifted to his pocket.
The crystal card.
M5.
The gap suddenly felt enormous.
The third month was brutal.
He stopped taking safe jobs.
Stopped choosing easy ones.
Every contract was a risk.
Unstable zones.
Residual nests.
Beasts that forced him to adapt or fail.
He learned to read energy flows.
To predict collapse points.
To feel pressure before it broke.
More than once, he came home shaking.
Not from fear.
From restraint.
His mother never asked questions.
But she watched him.
Left food closer to him.
Kept the hallway light on at night.
Sometimes her gaze lingered on his chest.
As if she could feel something there.
Near the end of the third month, Greaser called him over.
"Got a private job," he said.
"Not on the board."
Arin looked up. "What kind?"
Greaser hesitated.
"Recovery."
That was enough.
"Failed team," he added. "Beast is already down."
Arin's jaw tightened slightly. "So what's the risk?"
"Zone's unstable."
Of course it was.
"Retrieve the tags before it collapses."
Arin nodded.
No more questions.
The site was a collapsed mag-rail station, half-buried under fused concrete.
The air felt wrong.
The moment he stepped inside, the hum shifted.
Alert.
Focused.
He moved slowly.
Carefully.
The first body was near a maintenance shaft.
The second near a broken platform.
The third—
The world changed.
Not with sound.
With pressure.
The entire structure tightened.
Then—
It collapsed.
A violent wave of energy tore through the chamber.
Arin was thrown back, slamming into a wall.
Pain exploded across his spine.
The ceiling began to fall.
No time.
No escape path.
Only one option.
He planted his feet.
Raised his arms.
Not to block.
To anchor.
The hum surged outward.
Not as a burst—
As a field.
Wide. Controlled. Stabilizing.
The collapsing energy resisted him.
Fought back.
His vision blurred.
Something inside him strained—deep, invisible.
A limit.
A boundary.
Then—
It gave.
Just enough.
Arin forced himself forward through falling debris, grabbed the final tag, and dove into a side corridor as the chamber imploded behind him.
He hit the ground outside and didn't move.
For a long time.
When he finally returned to the guild, he went straight to the scanner.
He didn't say a word.
The technician ran the test.
Paused.
Adjusted the settings.
Ran it again.
The screen flickered.
Then locked.
M-SCALE: 4.6
Not five.
Not yet.
But close.
Too close.
Arin stared at the number.
The pressure in his chest felt heavier than ever.
Denser.
Compressed.
Waiting.
That night, he sat alone in his room.
The crystal card rested in his hand.
Still inactive.
Still silent.
Still waiting for him to reach it.
"M5…"
The word felt distant.
Three months.
One full level.
And now—
The gap between where he stood
and where he needed to be
had never felt clearer.