The alarm function built into the lattice band woke him before dawn.
A soft chime sounded from the bedside table, gentle enough to avoid jolting him awake yet steady enough that it quickly pulled him from sleep. Evan opened his eyes after only a moment of disorientation and reached toward the device, dismissing the notification before pushing himself upright.
Darkness still filled most of the room. Only a faint trace of predawn light touched the edges of the window.
Out of habit, he opened his status interface and checked the time there instead.
05:02
The training hall would remain quiet for a while yet.
Evan rubbed a hand across his face and sat for a few seconds, allowing the last remnants of sleep to fade before standing. The routine that followed had already become familiar. A quick wash. Clean clothes. A brief look through the notebook to refresh yesterday's observations and today's priorities. Nothing complicated, though repetition had smoothed the process considerably over the past two weeks.
By the time he finished, everything he needed for the morning was already in order.
He stepped outside a few minutes later and felt the cool air settle against his skin. The city still rested in that brief period between night and morning when everyday activity had yet to fully gather momentum.
Dornhaven looked different at this hour. Most shops remained closed, their shutters still drawn against the fading night. Street traffic was sparse, limited mostly to workers beginning early shifts and trainees heading toward the various training grounds scattered throughout the city. Their footsteps carried farther than usual through the quiet streets. Even the massive arena screens stood dark for now, waiting for the day's events to begin.
On the way toward the training district, Evan stopped at a small food stall that was already open despite the hour.
The owner was a stocky middle-aged woman named Maren Holt, though almost nobody in the district actually called her that. Around the arena she was simply Ember, a nickname earned years ago and repeated often enough that even newer regulars adopted it without thinking. She had light brown skin, dark curly hair tucked beneath a faded cloth wrap, broad shoulders that suggested she handled most of the stall's heavier work herself, and warm hazel eyes that seemed to notice far more than she let on. A small plaque hanging beside the cart identified the business as Morning Ember Provisions.
"You're getting earlier every few days," she remarked while turning a row of embercakes across the heated surface. The smell of toasted grain and spices drifted through the cool morning air. "At this rate you'll start showing up before I do."
"That sounds difficult," Evan said as he stepped up to the counter. "You seem to have a head start on the rest of the district."
The corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Years of practice." She glanced briefly toward the direction of the training grounds before looking back at him. "Hall again?"
Evan nodded.
"Thought so." She reached for a tray near the warmer section of the stall and selected a pair of fresh embercakes. "Take these. The sweet rolls are better if you're planning to sit behind a desk all morning. Training's another matter."
"Expert advice?"
"Experience," she corrected. "I've watched enough trainees make poor breakfast decisions to develop opinions."
Evan laughed softly.
"Fair."
"Besides," she continued while wrapping the food, "you've actually been listening when people give you advice. That's rare enough that I'm willing to encourage it."
She slid the wrapped portions across the counter. Evan purchased two, one for now and another packed separately for later.
The first embercake was warm enough that steam still escaped when he broke it apart. The flavor carried a mild sweetness balanced by roasted grains and the faint nutty taste of the crimson seeds mixed throughout. The meal felt surprisingly light for something that left him feeling genuinely fed. By the second bite, he was already glad he had listened.
He thanked her, exchanged a few final pleasantries, and continued toward the training district with one of the cakes in hand.
Ahead, the training hall gradually emerged from the predawn haze as the first hints of morning began to gather along the horizon. While walking, Evan opened his status interface and checked the time again.
05:19
Good.
That left him more than three hours before the rest of the group would arrive. Plenty of time to work with.
The training hall grounds remained largely empty when he entered. A few distant figures moved along the far running track, while one of the pool attendants organized equipment near the aquatic section. Compared to the crowded evening sessions, the entire complex felt open and almost peaceful at this hour.
Evan moved directly toward the field where his evaluations had originally taken place and began warming up. The difference compared to two weeks ago became apparent almost immediately. His body responded faster now. Muscles loosened sooner. His breathing settled into a steady rhythm more naturally. Even the lingering stiffness that used to greet him every morning had become less noticeable. None of the changes were dramatic by themselves. Together, however, they created a version of movement that felt smoother and more familiar than it had during those first exhausting days.
He started with running.
The first lap passed easily. Then the second.
Two weeks ago, reaching that point would have left him fighting to control his breathing while convincing himself not to stop. Now it simply marked the beginning of the session.
He settled into a sustainable pace and continued.
Three laps.
Five.
Seven.
By the time the eighth lap ended, sweat soaked through his shirt and his legs carried the pleasant heaviness that came from sustained effort rather than exhaustion. He pushed through a ninth lap before finally slowing into a walk, allowing his breathing to recover while checking the time.
Nearly an hour had passed.
Constitution gains and repeated conditioning sessions had transformed what used to feel impossible into something manageable. The improvement still felt strange when he paused to take stock of it. Weeks of ordinary training sessions had quietly stacked upon one another, each too small to notice on its own, until together they formed something impossible to ignore.
After a brief recovery period, he moved into movement drills.
Footwork patterns stretched across the marked training lanes as he worked through sequence after sequence. Footwork lines. Balance sequences. Controlled jumps. Forward transitions. Lateral movement. Direction changes. Controlled acceleration followed by immediate recovery.
The exercises flowed together one after another while dawn slowly brightened above the training grounds. More than once he found himself recalling corrections from Lyra.
Your weight is arriving before the rest of you.
You're committing too early.
Stop preparing for three mistakes ahead of the one you're actually making.
The advice had sounded simple at the time. Applying it consistently proved far more difficult.
Evan repeated the sequences while trying to minimize inefficiencies.
Again.
And again.
Directional transitions followed. Then controlled jumps across marked distance markers. Single-leg balance work. Recovery drills designed to regain stability immediately after landing. Every exercise exposed small weaknesses that still needed work, though the mistakes appeared less frequently than they had a week ago.
Dain would probably have found several new ones within five minutes.
The thought earned a brief smile.
His body adjusted accordingly. A cleaner transition here. Better recovery there. Small refinements layered over hundreds of repetitions.
Around seven, he shifted toward the pool after a short break.
The water felt cold at first contact, though the sensation faded quickly once he began moving. Length after length passed beneath steady breathing and controlled strokes. Even here the improvements remained visible. Less wasted motion. Better endurance. More efficient pacing. The changes were subtle enough that nobody watching would find them impressive, yet Evan understood exactly how much effort had gone into creating them.
Two weeks ago he had spent energy fighting the water.
Now he moved through it.
By the time he climbed out, his shoulders and back carried the familiar fatigue of sustained effort. After drying off, he moved toward the strength area and began working through the final portion of the morning.
Bodyweight circuits first.
Push-ups.
Pull-ups.
Squats.
Core holds.
Then weighted carries and resistance exercises using the hall's training equipment.
Here too, the differences had become impossible to ignore. Repetition counts that once demanded complete focus now served as warm-up work. Recovery between sets arrived faster. The weights themselves had increased gradually over the past two weeks, small additions accumulating the same way every other improvement seemed to.
None of it felt spectacular.
Yet when he compared the person training now to the man who had stumbled through his first evaluation, struggling to complete basic conditioning without exhausting himself, the distance between them was impossible to miss.
While working through the final exercises, Evan found his thoughts drifting back toward a conversation with Valor from several days earlier.
At the time, he had asked whether this rate of improvement was normal.
Valor's answer had been more complicated than a simple yes or no.
Part of the growth came from effort. Part came from consistent training. Part came from finally giving his body the repeated demands that mana could reinforce properly. Yet another factor existed beneath all of that. Evan had spent his entire life on Earth, a world whose ambient mana levels were negligible compared to Varethis. His body was adapting to an environment it had never truly experienced before.
The books had described similar principles among certain noble lineages. Their heirs often spent years developing physically and mentally before significant mana exposure began, allowing later growth to build upon a stronger foundation. The comparison only extended so far. Noble heirs still possessed advantages in education, resources, experience, and training that Evan had no hope of matching overnight.
Even so, the underlying principle remained difficult to ignore.
His body was encountering mana almost entirely fresh, and every week of structured training gave it clearer patterns to reinforce.
He still stood behind most people his age on Varethis. The numbers made that reality obvious enough. Yet the gap no longer felt fixed in the way it had when he first arrived in Dornhaven. Improvement had become measurable. Visible. Consistent.
And with every passing week, the distance seemed to shrink a little faster than before. The realization settled warmly in his chest. For the first time since arriving on Varethis, progress felt tangible, and after nearly three hours of training, the effort seemed entirely worthwhile.
The day had barely started.
By the time Evan finished the last of his strength work, his muscles carried the deep fatigue that came from productive effort. Sweat clung to his skin, and his training clothes felt noticeably heavier than they had at the start of the morning.
This time, he gave himself a few minutes to slow down properly.
Experience had already taught him that recovery mattered just as much as effort.
After returning the training equipment, he headed toward the hall's bathing facilities. The shower washed away the sweat, chlorine, and accumulated soreness from the morning session, leaving him feeling considerably lighter by the time he changed into fresh clothes.
When he stepped back outside, the training grounds looked very different from the quiet complex he had entered before sunrise. More trainees occupied the tracks. Groups gathered near the conditioning fields. Instructors moved between different sections while conversations and activity gradually filled the open spaces.
Evan found a place beneath one of the covered rest areas overlooking the grounds and finally sat down.
The second embercake he had purchased earlier disappeared quickly. The meal tasted just as good as it had before dawn, and after nearly three hours of running, movement drills, swimming, and strength training, he appreciated it even more. He washed it down with water and spent a few minutes simply sitting there, letting his breathing settle completely while the morning activity continued around him.
The hall had fully awakened by then. So had the town. And somewhere between the predawn run and the final strength set, Evan had the distinct feeling that he had managed to make good use of both.
He spent part of the break reviewing one of the library notes he had copied into his notebook.
The section covered recovery and adaptation.
Growth occurs through stress followed by assimilation. Excessive stress without sufficient recovery decreases adaptation efficiency and increases reinforcement instability.
The advice seemed simple at first glance, yet it carried weight. Effort mattered. Discipline mattered. Neither could replace recovery.
That was an uncomfortable lesson for someone trying to bridge years of difference through effort alone.
Evan closed the notebook and leaned back against the bench.
By the time the lattice display showed 08:27, familiar faces had begun appearing across the training grounds. One by one, members of his training group filtered into view, carrying conversation, laughter, and the easy familiarity that had gradually become part of his routine.
He rose to meet them.