The next thirteen days were a blur of calculated suffering and meticulous planning for Viktor. He had to rapidly advance his minimal physical capabilities to close the gap between a Stage 1 Warrior and a Stage 8 powerhouse, Gaius Trak, without raising any suspicion about his Novice Cultivation Talent.
His Top-Tier Healing Factor was the single greatest asset. It allowed him to engage in training regimens that would have permanently crippled any other Stage 1 Warrior.
The Underground Crucible
Viktor sought out the deepest, darkest, and most unregulated training den in the slums—a concrete pit run by a scarred, silent man simply known as 'The Coach.' The rule there was simple: pay in advance, fight until you drop, and no one asks questions.
"I need to push my limits," Viktor told The Coach, placing nearly all his remaining credits on the counter. "Every day. No rest."
The Coach, his single working eye glinting with predatory assessment, merely grunted. "You're a Novice. You'll be dead or broken by day three."
"Try me," Viktor challenged.
Day 1 - 5: Endurance and Speed
Viktor focused entirely on refining the Shadow Form skill. It was a common combat maneuver, but Viktor trained it until it was muscle memory. He ran ten kilometers wearing weighted plates, then sparred against low-level Warriors using only evasive maneuvers.
He took constant, bruising hits to his body. The Top-Tier Healing Factor silently fixed the torn muscles, microfractures, and internal bleeding every night. By morning, the stiffness was gone, allowing him to repeat the brutal cycle.
He pushed his Stage 1 Mana pool past its limit multiple times a day, suffering the crippling fatigue. The Novice Talent ensured his recovery of mana was slow, maintaining the façade of weakness. But his body was recovering at an Apex-Tier speed.
Outcome: By Day 5, his reaction speed had doubled, and his Shadow Form was executed with fluid, near-invisible precision.
Day 6 - 10: Pain Threshold and Contact
He escalated his training, demanding to fight against Warriors wielding Normal-Tier and Mid-Tier physical enhancement talents. These fighters were faster and hit with bone-jarring force.
He was training specifically for the moment of contact with Gaius Trak.
The Contact Drill: Viktor instructed his sparring partners to focus their attacks only on his open, dominant hand. He endured dozens of strikes—punches, kicks, blunt weapons—to that hand, absorbing the impacts, practicing reaching out and touching them mid-strike, then instantly retracting.
Every impact was agony, but he never flinched, using the pain as a gauge. He needed the touch to be instantaneous, a seamless extension of his evasion.
Outcome: His pain tolerance soared, and the sensitivity in his right palm—the hand he would use for the Replication—became hyper-tuned to pressure and surface texture.
Day 11 - 13: Final Preparation and Reconnaissance
With the deadline approaching, Viktor performed detailed reconnaissance on the Iron & Grit arena.
He learned Gaius Trak's pattern: Gaius would enter the arena at 8 PM, spend two hours setting up the stone training environment (requiring intense focus on his Apex-Tier Stone Affinity), and then leave the arena at 11 PM through a semi-private tunnel that connected to the main street.
The opportunity window was small and dangerous: the moment Gaius was most focused on manipulating the rock, he would be slightly distracted, and his attention wouldn't be fully on his immediate surroundings.
Viktor prepared his final tool: a small, specialized Mana Disruptor—a Novice-grade, single-use device he purchased with his last remaining funds. It emitted a brief, focused pulse of low-grade energy that would temporarily scramble the focus of any active, Mid-Tier or lower, Talent in a small radius. It wouldn't affect Gaius's Apex-Tier ability, but it would distract the surrounding guards, whose talents were typically lower-grade.
The Calculated Risk
On the eve of the replication attempt, Viktor stood naked before a cracked mirror in his slum apartment. The deep cut from Lyra was now a barely noticeable silver scar. His body was lean, corded with new muscle, but his face was gaunt with exhaustion.
He looked at the scar—his trophy from the first successful replication—and ran a thumb over his palm.
"I will become the perfect container," he murmured. "I will take their power, and they will pay the cost of their arrogance."
He focused on the internal timer: 1 Day Remaining.
Gaius Trak was a high-profile target. If he failed to get the touch, or failed to escape, the Obsidian Shield would hunt him down and execute him. This was not a skirmish; this was a direct assault on the structure of power in Neo-Terra.
But the reward—the Special-Tier Aether Well Cultivation Talent—was worth the risk of a thousand deaths. It was the key to leaving the Novice Realm forever.