Saturday morning came too fast.
I woke up to sunlight cutting through the blinds of my new apartment, and for a moment I forgot where I was. The ceiling was higher than the old place. The walls were cleaner. The air didn't smell like mildew and old ramen.
Then the memories hit. The drones. The guns. The money. School on Monday.
I sat up slowly, running a hand through my hair. My body still felt wrong—thin, weak, like a skeleton wrapped in skin. The Cursed Energy inside me was a vast ocean, but the vessel containing it was a cracked cup.
That had to change.
I swung my legs out of bed and walked to the kitchen. The apartment was bare—no furniture except what I'd brought, no food except what I'd created from receipts. I pulled out a receipt for a grocery store haul I'd copied last week—eggs, bacon, bread, milk, orange juice, butter, the works.
Contractual Reclamation.
The receipt burned, and food appeared on my counter. I cooked the biggest breakfast I'd ever made. Six eggs, half a pack of bacon, four slices of toast, a glass of milk, a glass of juice. I ate until I couldn't eat anymore, feeling the food settle into my hollow frame.
Then I showered. Hot water, real soap, the kind of shower that made you feel like a human being again. I scrubbed off the grease and dust from weeks of building, let the water run until it started to cool.
When I got out, I looked at myself in the mirror. Still too thin. Still too pale. But the dark circles under my eyes were fading. The sharp angles of my face seemed less like starvation and more like... structure. Like there was something underneath waiting to grow.
I dressed in the least beat-up clothes I had—dark jeans that fit okay, a plain grey t-shirt, a black hoodie that was only slightly too big. I needed new clothes for school. Better clothes. Clothes that didn't scream "orphan living alone."
---
I grabbed my backpack—the old one, still held together with duct tape—and headed out.
The shopping district was busy for a Saturday morning. Parents dragging kids, couples holding hands, the normal rhythm of a city that didn't know what was coming. I moved through it like a ghost, my eyes scanning for what I needed.
First stop: a clothing store. Not anything fancy—just a place that sold decent basics. I grabbed jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, underwear, socks. Three pairs of shoes—one for everyday, one for gym, one that looked decent enough to not embarrass me. I paid cash, got the receipt, and stuffed everything into bags.
Second stop: a bag store. I found a simple black backpack, sturdy, with padded straps and enough compartments to organize my stuff. Nothing flashy. Nothing that would make anyone look twice. Receipt went in my pocket.
Third stop: a electronics store. Not for anything big—just notebooks, pens, a scientific calculator, a USB drive. The basics. Receipt.
Fourth stop: a bookstore. I grabbed textbooks for subjects I already knew better than the curriculum, but I needed the cover. Physics, chemistry, biology, advanced mathematics. I also grabbed a few books on robotics and programming that I hadn't found in my online research. Receipt.
By noon, I was back in my apartment, bags spread across the floor. I unpacked everything, hung the clothes in the closet, stuffed the backpack with notebooks and pens, put the textbooks on the shelf.
Then I pulled out the receipts.
I made copies of each one using my printer—the new one, a high-end color laser I'd recreated from a receipt I found at an office supply store. The original receipts went into my lockbox. The copies went into a folder labeled "RECEIPTS - GENERAL" that I kept on the shelf.
If I needed more clothes, more supplies, more anything, I had the receipts. I could recreate any of it with a thought.
---
Now came the real work.
I changed into the oldest clothes I still owned—jeans I didn't care about, a hoodie I was willing to ruin—and headed out. I needed somewhere to train. Somewhere private. Somewhere I could push my limits without anyone watching.
I found it on the edge of the industrial district. An abandoned parking garage, six stories of crumbling concrete, chain-link fences that had been cut open years ago, no security, no cameras, nobody around.
Perfect.
I climbed to the top level. The view was nothing—just the city spread out below, rooftops and water towers, the distant shimmer of the river. The concrete was cracked, weeds growing through the seams, graffiti covering every surface.
I stood in the middle of the open space and closed my eyes.
Sky Manipulation.
The air around me came alive.
I'd been practicing with this technique for weeks, but only in small ways. Redirecting rocks. Pushing against objects. Basic applications that barely scratched the surface. Today, I was going to push it further.
I reached out with my Cursed Energy and felt the atmosphere. Not just the air—the pressure, the currents, the invisible forces that held everything together. Sky Manipulation wasn't about controlling wind. It was about controlling the space the wind moved through. About bending the sky to your will.
I started with flight.
I'd tried this before, briefly, and failed. I'd tried to push myself upward, to lift my body off the ground, and I'd managed maybe two feet before losing control and crashing down. But that was before the cognitive enhancement had fully kicked in. Before I'd learned to control thirteen drones simultaneously.
Now, I approached it differently.
I didn't try to lift myself. I tried to lift the air around me.
I pushed my Cursed Energy outward, creating a bubble of pressure around my body. The air inside the bubble was neutral—calm, still, disconnected from the atmosphere outside. Then I pushed up on the bubble itself, using the pressure differential to create lift.
My feet left the ground.
Three inches. Six inches. A foot.
I wobbled, nearly tipping over, and caught myself by expanding the bubble, making it wider, more stable. The technique was like standing on a beach ball—the more I spread the pressure, the more stable I became.
Two feet. Three feet.
I was floating. Actually floating, three feet off the ground, the air around me holding me up like invisible hands.
I grinned.
I pushed higher. Five feet. Ten. I was level with the top of the parking garage's wall, looking out over the city from a perspective I'd only seen through drone cameras. The wind was stronger up here, but my bubble shielded me from it, keeping me stable.
I moved.
It wasn't flying, not really. It was more like... sliding. I shifted the pressure gradient, and my bubble moved forward, carrying me with it. I drifted across the top level of the garage, slow and graceful, like a balloon drifting on a current.
I needed speed.
I compressed the bubble, making it smaller, denser. The pressure increased, and so did my speed. I shot across the garage, barely controlling my direction, and slammed into a concrete pillar.
The impact knocked the wind out of me, but the bubble absorbed most of it. I slid down the pillar, landing on my feet, my heart pounding.
"Okay," I breathed. "That's not right."
I thought about what I'd learned from the drones. When I wanted them to move fast, I didn't just push them harder. I streamlined them. Reduced drag. Made them aerodynamic.
I applied the same principle.
I reshaped my bubble, pulling it tight against my body. A thin layer of compressed air, molded to my form, with a pointed front to cut through the resistance. Then I pushed.
I shot forward like a bullet.
The world blurred around me. I crossed the top level in two seconds flat, coming to a stop at the far wall with a burst of pressure that cracked the concrete in front of me. I stood there, breathing hard, a wild grin on my face.
I could fly. Not well, not gracefully, but I could fly.
---
The next two hours were a blur of practice.
I flew laps around the parking garage, learning to control my speed, my direction, my altitude. I crashed into walls. I scraped my hands on the concrete. I nearly fell off the edge twice. But every time, I got back up. Every time, I got a little better.
By the time the sun started to dip toward the horizon, I could fly in straight lines, bank around corners, hover in place. I wasn't graceful—I moved like a brick with rockets attached—but I moved.
But flight was only the beginning.
I started working on combat applications.
I remembered how Uro had used Sky Manipulation in the anime. Twisting space to redirect attacks. Creating "thin ice" barriers that shattered on impact. Manipulating the trajectory of incoming projectiles to hit other targets.
I couldn't do any of that. Not yet. But I could do something simpler.
I found a loose chunk of concrete, about the size of my fist, and set it on the ground. I stood twenty feet away, took a stance, and threw a punch.
The air in front of my fist compressed, shooting forward like a cannonball. The chunk of concrete shattered.
I stared at my hand. That was... more than I expected.
I tried again, this time focusing on a soda can I'd found in the corner of the garage. I threw another punch, compressing the air, and the can flew off the ledge, spinning into the void below.
I was hitting things without touching them. My punches had range. Not much—maybe twenty, thirty feet—but enough to matter.
But that wasn't the trick I wanted.
I found another chunk of concrete and placed it on the ground. Then I found a second chunk, about the same size, and placed it ten feet to the left.
I focused on the first chunk. I wrapped it in a layer of compressed air, felt its weight, its shape, its position. Then I pushed.
The chunk flew through the air—but not at me. I twisted the pressure, redirected the trajectory, and the chunk slammed into the second chunk with a crack that echoed off the walls.
I smiled.
Redirecting attacks. That was the key. If someone threw a punch at me, I could twist the air around their arm, redirect the force, make them hit something else. Or someone else.
I practiced for another hour. Redirecting chunks of concrete into each other. Redirecting my own thrown punches into targets. Building the muscle memory, the instinct, the flow of Cursed Energy that made the technique work.
By the time I finished, I was exhausted. My Cursed Energy reserves were deep—Yuta-level deep—but using Sky Manipulation at this intensity was draining. I sat down against a pillar, breathing hard, and let the technique fade.
I needed to test it for real. Against a real opponent. Someone who was actually trying to hit me.
I didn't have to wait long.
---
I left the parking garage as the sun was setting, pulling my hood up against the cooling air. I was walking through a side street, a shortcut to the bus stop, when I heard it.
A voice. A woman's voice. Scared.
"No, please, just let me go—"
I stopped. My heart started pounding.
I reached out with my Cursed Energy, feeling for the source. It was coming from an alley about fifty feet ahead, tucked between two abandoned warehouses. I sent a thread of energy forward, using the air itself as a sensor, feeling the shapes in the darkness.
Two men. Big. Heavy. One had the woman pinned against the wall, his hand over her mouth. The other was watching the street, a crowbar in his hand.
My fists clenched.
I could walk away. I wasn't a hero. I'd told myself that from the beginning. I was here to survive, not to save people. Getting involved meant drawing attention. Meant risking exposure. Meant—
The woman's eyes caught the light from the street. They were wide. Terrified. Begging.
I moved before I could talk myself out of it.
I walked into the alley, hands in my pockets, hood up. The man with the crowbar saw me first.
"Get lost, kid." His voice was rough, casual, like he'd done this a hundred times before. "This ain't your business."
I kept walking.
He stepped forward, raising the crowbar. "I said get lost."
I stopped about ten feet away. Close enough to see their faces. Close enough to smell the alcohol on their breath.
The second man turned, his hand still on the woman's mouth. "What's this?"
"Nothing," the first man said. "Just a kid who doesn't know when to leave."
I reinforced my body with Cursed Energy. The technique was basic—just flooding my muscles and bones with energy, making them stronger, tougher. It was the same principle sorcerers used to enhance their physical abilities.
It didn't do much.
My body was too weak. Too thin. The reinforcement made me stronger than a normal fifteen-year-old, sure, but these were grown men. One of them had a crowbar. If I tried to fight them hand-to-hand, I'd get crushed.
So I didn't fight them hand-to-hand.
The first man swung the crowbar at my head.
I saw it coming. My enhanced cognition tracked the arc, calculated the speed, the angle, the point of impact. My body couldn't dodge it—I was too slow, too weak. But I didn't need to dodge.
I reached out with Sky Manipulation and grabbed the air around the crowbar.
The technique was crude, barely refined from my practice session. I didn't have the precision to redirect the crowbar itself. But I didn't need to. I redirected the man's arm.
The air around his elbow compressed, twisted, changed direction. The force of his swing—all that momentum, all that power—shifted. His arm bent at an angle he wasn't expecting, and the crowbar flew out of his grip, spinning into the darkness.
He stumbled, off-balance, and his fist—still moving from the momentum of the swing—continued its arc. But now it was aimed at his partner.
The second man was ten feet away. His partner's fist shouldn't have been able to reach him. But I increased the speed, using Sky Manipulation to compress the air behind the fist, to shoot it forward like a bullet.
The punch landed square on the second man's jaw.
His head snapped back. His hand dropped from the woman's mouth. He staggered, his eyes rolling, and collapsed against the wall.
The first man stared at his own fist, then at his partner, then at me. "What the—"
I didn't let him finish.
I stepped forward, my own fist raised. I reinforced it with Cursed Energy—as much as my thin frame could handle—and I threw a punch. Not at him. At the air in front of him.
The compressed air shot forward, hitting him in the chest like a sledgehammer. He flew backward, slammed into the wall, and slid down, unconscious.
The alley was silent.
I stood there, breathing hard, my fist still raised. My knuckles were bleeding—the reinforcement hadn't been enough to fully protect my hand. The bones ached, the skin was split, but it was nothing serious.
The woman was pressed against the wall, staring at me with wide eyes. Her shirt was torn, her lip was bleeding, but she was alive. She was okay.
"Go," I said. My voice was hoarse. "Go home. Don't tell anyone what you saw."
She didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stared.
"Go," I said again, softer this time. "Please."
She nodded slowly, pushed off the wall, and ran. Her footsteps echoed down the alley, then faded into the street noise.
I waited until I couldn't hear her anymore. Then I looked at the two men, lying unconscious in the dirt. They weren't moving. They were breathing. That was enough.
I turned and walked away, my hands in my pockets, my hood up, my heart still pounding.
---
I made it back to my apartment without incident. The adrenaline faded as I climbed the stairs, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and a dull ache in my hand.
I looked at my knuckles in the bathroom light. The skin was split across three fingers, the knuckles swollen, the joints stiff. Not broken, I didn't think, but close.
I pulled out my folder of receipts and found what I needed. A receipt for an emergency room visit—I'd found it in a trash can outside the hospital last week. Standard treatment for hand injuries, X-rays, bandaging, the whole thing.
I held the receipt and pushed my Cursed Energy into it.
Contractual Reclamation.
The receipt burned, and I felt something shift. Not like creating an object—that was physical, tangible. This was different. It was like the service itself was being applied to me. My hand tingled, warmth spreading through the bones, the muscles, the skin. The swelling went down. The split skin knitted together. The pain faded to nothing.
I flexed my fingers. Good as new.
I thought about the gym receipt I'd picked up last week. A four-month membership at a high-end fitness center, paid in full. I'd grabbed it from a trash can outside the gym, thinking I might use it to create equipment.
But what if I used it on myself?
I pulled out the receipt. Gold's Gym, four months premium membership, unlimited access, personal training included.
I pushed my Cursed Energy into it.
The receipt burned. And I felt my body change.
It wasn't dramatic. I didn't suddenly bulk up, didn't transform into some muscle-bound giant. But I could feel it—my muscles tightening, my frame filling out, the skeleton that had been too visible beneath my skin gaining a layer of protection. The four months of training, compressed into a single moment.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I was still thin. Still lean. But I wasn't skeletal anymore. My arms had definition. My chest had shape. My legs felt solid beneath me. I looked like a kid who played sports, not a kid who was starving.
But I didn't continue. I knew it didn't make sense to keep going.
If I used the same receipt again, I'd get the same result—four months of training, applied again. But that would be diminishing returns. The first four months had taken me from "almost dead" to "normal skinny." The next four months would take me to "athletic." The next to "built." But I needed to gain weight first. I needed to eat, to build a foundation. If I kept adding muscle without the underlying mass, I'd just hurt myself.
Patience. I had time.
---
I made dinner—steak, potatoes, vegetables, a protein shake to top it off—and sat on my floor to eat. My apartment was still empty, still bare, but it was starting to feel like home. The drones on their shelves. The lockbox in the closet. The stack of receipts on my desk.
I thought about the fight. About the woman. About the men I'd hurt.
I didn't feel bad. They'd been about to do something unspeakable. If I hadn't intervened... I didn't want to think about that. But I also didn't feel good. I felt... nothing. Like I'd done what needed to be done and moved on.
Was that normal? Was that the kind of person I was now?
I pushed the thought away. It didn't matter. What mattered was tomorrow.
Tomorrow was Sunday. My last day before school.
I had a list of things to do. I needed to sell more devices—I was running low on cash, and I had expenses coming up. Rent. Food. The lawyer for my emancipation. And I needed to start planning for the future. The real future. The one where Viltrumites came to Earth and everything changed.
I needed to learn. Not just robotics and coding—I already had a handle on that. I needed biology. Chemistry. The science of life itself.
I had a plan. A big one. Something that would take years to build, years to perfect. But I had time. I had power. I had the tools I needed.
I finished my dinner, washed the dishes, and got ready for bed. I pulled on a clean shirt, brushed my teeth, and lay down in my new bed, staring at the ceiling.
School on Monday. I'd be in the same building as Mark Grayson. The future Invincible. The center of everything that was coming.
I didn't care about drawing attention. I wasn't going to hide, wasn't going to pretend to be less than I was. I was going to go to class, learn what I needed to learn, and spend the rest of my time building.
Robotics. Coding. Physics. Biology. Chemistry. Everything I needed for the next phase. Everything I needed to become something more than a skinny kid with a bag of money and a head full of secrets.
I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion pull me under. Through the connection to my drones, I could feel them waiting, silent, patient, ready for whatever came next.
Tomorrow, I'd sell. I'd plan. I'd prepare.
But tonight, I slept.
And in my dreams, I was flying. Not with Sky Manipulation, not with drones, but with something deeper. Something that felt like freedom. Something that felt like home.
I woke up the next morning with a list in my head and a fire in my chest.
Time to work.