Calm Spirit

1 AM.

The air inside the Honeycomb Barracks was thick and foul, a mix of carbon dioxide exhaled by tens of thousands of people and the rusty smell of oxidized metal.

Snoring rose and fell like a low, rumbling thunderstorm, rattling the thin walls of the capsule berths.

But in the deepest shadow of the barracks' corner, an extremely faint sound of bones grinding could still be heard.

"Crack... crack..."

Jiang Yue was bare-chested, his sweat already soaking a patch of the alloy floor beneath him.

He was holding the first stance, "Draw Bow," of the Federal Basic Body Tempering Technique, but his form was starting to break down.

The great dragon of his spine was groaning in pain; the tendons that should have been taut as bowstrings were now spasming and twitching uncontrollably.

Every muscle fiber was sending a signal of "collapse" to his brain, as if they might snap completely at any moment, like an old, worn-out rubber band.

But Jiang Yue didn't stop.

His gaze was locked onto the slow-moving progress bar at the edge of his retina.

As long as it was still moving, he couldn't bear to stop.

In this era where even the air you breathed was rationed, this kind of visible progress was utterly captivating.

"Hey."

Just as Jiang Yue was gritting his teeth to hold on for another five minutes, a panel on the neighboring capsule berth suddenly slid open.

A pair of slightly puffy eyes lit up in the darkness, carrying a hint of helplessness. "Brother, stop. If you keep training like this, you'll be crippled by tomorrow."

"It's not just about hard work and extra practice. There's training tomorrow. If you can't recover, the risk of elimination is pretty high."

Jiang Yue's body froze, and the stale air trapped in his chest finally dispersed.

He went limp like a pile of mud, gasping for breath, his chest heaving violently, even able to hear the frantic pounding of his overworked heart.

The speaker was a new recruit sleeping in the berth next to his. They'd exchanged a few casual words when returning to the barracks, but weren't familiar.

This man was called Li Tai. He wasn't tall, but he was stocky. He'd heard his family ran a small trading business in the fringe star systems.

Not exactly a noble clan, but compared to an orphan like Jiang Yue, his background was much more solid.

"Thanks." Jiang Yue smiled as he took it.

"Don't thank me. I'm just giving you a heads-up."

Li Tai sighed, reached under his pillow, and pulled out a small, thumb-sized deep blue spray bottle. He hesitated for a moment, then tossed it to Jiang Yue.

"Here. Blue Cloud brand muscle-relaxing spray. It's just the cheap civilian version, but it's better than toughing it out."

Jiang Yue caught it instinctively. The cool, metallic feel made him pause for a moment.

He knew what this was. Even this so-called cheap spray cost several hundred Federal credits a bottle on the black market, equal to half a month's food expenses for him.

"Why?"

Jiang Yue didn't stand on ceremony. He pulled off the cap and sprayed a few bursts onto his sore, swollen spine.

A wave of icy, bone-chilling cold instantly seeped into his flesh, suppressing the burning, searing pain.

"Because you're ruthless enough."

Li Tai leaned on the edge of his berth, lowering his voice. "There are tens of thousands of people in this barracks. A few hundred were doing extra training just now. But you're the only one who trained himself to the point of nearly breaking."

As he spoke, Li Tai tapped his temple.

"But that's useless. Bro, have you ever heard of genetic overdraft?"

Jiang Yue paused mid-motion. "What's that?"

"It's the terminal disease of the poor."

Li Tai sneered, his tone carrying a maturity beyond his years. "Without high-energy meat to replenish yourself, without repair fluid to soak in, the harder you train, the bigger the deficit you create."

"It's like driving a sports car with no fuel. If you floor the accelerator, you're not burning gas anymore—you're burning the engine."

"That's why a lot of commoner geniuses suddenly drop dead while training, or end up permanently crippled."

Li Tai stared at Jiang Yue's thin shoulders. "There's training tomorrow. If you go in with all those hidden injuries, don't think you can just coast through."

Jiang Yue fell silent.

He looked at the half-empty spray bottle in his hand, feeling the pain in his back gradually ease.

Li Tai was right. This was survival wisdom he could never learn in that isolated orphanage.

In this world, hard work didn't always mean good fortune.

"Got it, Li Tai." Jiang Yue tossed the spray back and nodded seriously.

"Jiang Yue."

A simple exchange of names. Two ants struggling at the bottom of this massive meat grinder had reached a silent understanding.

"Sleep, Jiang Yue."

Li Tai yawned and pulled his blanket back over himself. "In this godforsaken place, sleeping is part of training too. The ones who can sleep are the ones who live the longest."

The barracks fell into dead silence once more.

Only the distant hum of patrol robot engines occasionally reminded everyone that this was a heavily guarded military Floating Land.

Jiang Yue struggled back to his narrow, cramped capsule pod.

Every cell in his body screamed in agony, a bone-deep soreness so intense that even turning over was difficult.

For an ordinary person, sleep would be impossible in this state; they could only endure the pain until dawn.

But he was different.

Jiang Yue lay flat, folded his hands over his abdomen, closed his eyes, and silently recited in his mind.

[Action: Sleep]

The next second, streams of data refreshed instantly across his retina.

[Current Entry: Calm Spirit (White) Active.]

[Effect: Enter deep sleep, calm brainwaves, increase growth hormone secretion efficiency, greatly accelerate mental fatigue removal.]

In that instant, Jiang Yue felt as if his brain had been unplugged from its power source.

No tossing and turning, no stray thoughts, not even fear or anxiety about tomorrow.

Darkness surged in like a tide, gently enveloping his consciousness.

If a monitor had been present, it would have recorded his heart rate plummeting from ninety beats per minute to an extremely low forty-five in just three seconds.

His breathing grew long and deep, each inhalation lasting ten seconds.

Inside his body, the tiny muscle fibers torn from overtraining, the knee cartilage on the verge of fluid buildup, the nerves stretched to breaking—all began repairing and restructuring at a superhuman speed under the rule-based power called Calm Spirit.

For an ordinary person like Li Tai, sleep was rest.

For Jiang Yue, sleep was evolution.

Beep—!!!

At five in the morning, the piercing assembly whistle drilled into ears like a demonic sound, instantly shattering the silence of the Honeycomb Barracks.

"Ah... damn it..."

"My legs... I can't move my legs..."

"Someone pull me up, I'm gonna throw up..."

The once-quiet barracks instantly turned into a hell of groans.

Last night's near-torturous physical exhaustion hadn't dissipated with sleep; instead, after a night of lactic acid buildup, it had transformed into even more intense soreness.

Even Li Tai grimaced in pain as he pushed himself up from his bed, rubbing his stiff neck and baring his teeth. "Fuck, feels like I got run over by a heavy truck all night... When will this end..."

He turned his head, instinctively glancing at the bunk next to him to see if that reckless lunatic from last night was still alive.

But the next second, Li Tai froze.

Amid the room full of groans, a figure silently rolled out of bed.

It was Jiang Yue.

His movements were light, his landing silent, his joints making no stiff sounds.

At this moment, Jiang Yue's eyes were clear as water, not a trace of bloodshot in the whites, exuding a chilling calm and vitality.

Last night's shaky weakness was completely gone, replaced by a tempered resilience like steel after quenching.

Jiang Yue cracked his neck with a crisp pop, feeling entirely refreshed, as if last night's suicidal extra training had never happened.

Four hours of sleep was barely enough, but his sleep quality was excellent, so his recovery naturally outpaced others'.

"You..."

Li Tai still held the unused spray from last night, his eyes nearly popping out, his mouth wide enough to hold an egg.

"Did you go to sleep last night, or did you soak in a medical pod all night? Are you made of iron?"

He knew exactly how bad Jiang Yue's condition had been last night—on the verge of collapse.

How could four hours of sleep make this guy look even more energetic than him, who hadn't done extra training?

Jiang Yue adjusted his training uniform collar, turned his head, and gave Li Tai a faint smile.

"Maybe I just sleep well."

With that, he pulled open the pod door and stepped into the cold, steel corridor.

A new day had begun.