Breaking limits, mastering rhythm

The progress bar on the main console had climbed to 47%, but Ye Mo's finger was still hovering over the start button, not pressing it. He turned to look at Scott, who was leaning against the buffer zone door frame, his battle suit still on, sweat dripping from his chin to his chest, spreading a dark circle on the silver-gray fibers. His breathing was still heavy, but his gaze was no longer as unfocused as before, steady enough to be nailed into a wall.

"Are you really going to do a second round?" Ye Mo asked. "Are you just being stubborn?"

"Didn't you already say that the system tells you growth starts outside your comfort zone?" Scott grinned, revealing a set of white teeth. "I'm not good at much else, but I love listening to the system."

Ye Mo snorted and finally pressed confirm.

[Environmental calibration complete]

[Multi-level Mode - Random Variable Version Launch]

[Countdown to enter buffer zone: 30 seconds]

The alarm lights turned from yellow to green, the gate opened, and the lights in the training area lit up one by one. The rotating blade array in the first stage operated as usual, but its speed was inconsistent, like an electric fan that had been malfunctioned. The particle interference source in the second stage also did not follow the expected pattern. The triple pulses were intermittent, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, and the waveform on the monitoring screen was as chaotic as an electrocardiogram roller coaster.

Scott stood at the entrance, the shrinking process proceeding smoothly, his neural synchronization rate stabilizing at 92%. He had barely landed when the first challenge gave him a rude awakening—the left blade suddenly accelerated half a circle, grazing his back and shaving a strand of metal off the edge of his suit.

"Damn it!" he cursed under his breath, gliding across the ground.

The second challenge was even more bizarre. The interference signals weren't a continuous barrage, but rather intermittent bursts. Just as he was about to accelerate, a powerful pulse slammed into his sensory nerves, causing his mind to buzz and his movements to falter for a fraction of a second. In that instant, his right shoulder slammed into the invisible barrier, nearly sending him flying.

"Don't calculate the time," Ye Mo, staring at the data stream. "And don't memorize the order. Trying to follow the process in your head is like playing esports with an abacus."

Scott didn't reply. After landing, he closed his eyes and stood still, his breathing slowly becoming longer. He placed his hand on the energy ring on the abdomen of his suit, feeling the frequency of the Pym Particles flowing through his body. Each inhale and exhale, each contraction and release, felt like stepping on some invisible rhythm.

The third level's ground collapse trap activated, but this time the gravity shift occurred 0.2 seconds earlier. Just as he jumped, the space beneath his feet suddenly twisted, and he was violently pulled to the right. He instinctively tried to adjust his center of gravity, but as soon as his muscles tensed, a red alert edge warning flashed by.

"Stop," Ye Mo said coldly.

The gate opened, Scott tumbled into the buffer zone. After reverting to his original form, he plopped down on the ground, panting as if he had just finished a marathon.

"You're still calculating the rhythm." Ye Mo pulled up the replay, highlighting several key moments on the screen. "0.5 seconds before the collapse, you predict the landing point; when the deviation occurs, you use your vision to correct the direction. Do you think this is a level-based game? The enemies don't give you fixed cooldowns."

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Scott wiped his face. "I'm not a robot, I can't do without using my brain."

"Rely on your body." Ye Mo stood up and walked to the control panel, swiping his finger to turn off all external timing panels. "From now on, there will be no countdown, no progress bar, and no safety warning sound. The only thing you can trust is the frequency of your own heartbeat and the vibration of your combat suit."

He pressed another button, and the lights in the training area dimmed, leaving only a few faint guide lights in the corridor.

"Again."

Scott stared at the blacked-out timer for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed, "You're forcing me to become a biological clock hero."

"System notification: Humans who rely excessively on external feedback are prone to collapsing under pressure." Ye Mo said expressionlessly, "It is recommended to switch to the internal rhythm-driven mode."

"Here we go again." Scott shook his head, but had already stood up. "Speaking of which, what does your 'system' actually look like? Does it have voice packs? Can it perform stand-up comedy?"

Ye Mo ignored him and simply pressed the start button.

[Initialization complete]

[Restart Random Variable Mode]

[Countdown to enter buffer zone: 30 seconds]

This time, Scott didn't rush in. He stood at the entrance, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His suit rose and fell slightly with his breath, conforming to his rhythm like a living thing. The shrinking process was slow and steady, and his neural synchronization rate soared to 94%, moving as smoothly as a line.

In the first challenge, the blades' speed was still chaotic, but he stopped staring at them. Instead, he relied on the changes in airflow on the surface of his suit to predict gaps, squeezing through the narrowest seams unscathed.

In the second challenge, the interference pulses came without any pattern. However, after landing, he immediately crouched down, pressed his hands to the ground, and felt the frequency of the resonance between his suit and the floor. When the third pulse burst, he used the shockwave to propel himself into the air and smoothly passed through the barrier.

"This is getting interesting," Ye Mo said softly.

The third challenge involved ground collapse and lateral gravity. This time, he didn't do any calculations. The moment he landed, his body automatically lowered its center of gravity, and using the offset force, he rolled to the side, sliding like water through the twisting space into the next challenge.

In the fourth stage, the three mirrored platforms reappear. But this time it's different—the airflow, vibration frequency, and luster are all identical, and even the phase difference of the particle flow fluctuations is compressed to 0.1 seconds, making it almost indistinguishable to the naked eye and instruments.

Scott hovered in mid-air, motionless.

The brainwave curve remained stable, and the anxiety index did not rise.

He closed his eyes, and the subtle vibrations on the surface of his suit reached his nerve endings. The frequency of air friction, the low-frequency pulsation of the energy field, and even the rhythm of his own blood flow resonated slightly. He no longer tried to find the "right way out," but instead let his body sway gently to that faint rhythm.

Then, he moved.

It wasn't a sprint, nor a test; rather, it was like a Yezi being lifted by the wind, naturally gliding towards the central platform. The system judged it as successful the instant of contact.

[Level 4 Passed]

[Time taken: 28.3 seconds]

Ye Mo stared at the data without speaking. From landing in the third stage to choosing in the fourth, Scott's decision delays were all kept within 0.28 seconds, nearly twice as fast as the safety standard. This wasn't reaction, it was prediction; not operation, it was mastery.

The countdown panel for the fifth level wasn't lit, but he knew time was running out. He immediately entered high-speed micro-movement mode, his combat suit glowing steadily in silver, the scaling rhythm perfectly synchronized with his breathing. Obstacles were randomly generated within the passage, but he seemed to know the location of each trap in advance, his continuous changes of direction as fluid as if he were performing some kind of mechanical dance.

He reached the finish line in the thirty-first second.

[Level 5 Passed]

[Total time: 31.4 seconds]

[No security mechanisms were triggered]

[Maintaining a 3.2 cm limit throughout the entire range]

The gate opened, Scott reverted to his original form, plopping down on the ground as if his bones had been removed, his suit soaked with sweat. Yet, he grinned, like a child who had won New Year's money.

"How was it?" he asked, panting. "This time... you didn't rely on your memory, did you?"

Ye Mo didn't reply immediately, but pulled up the full data curve. Starting from the twenty-fifth second, all of Scott's actions had a delay of less than 0.3 seconds, with the neural signals and the suit's response being almost seamless. Especially the choice in the fourth level, he didn't even "choose"; his body moved on its own.

This is true mastery of rhythm.

"You weren't racing against the system," Ye Mo said, taking off his silver-rimmed glasses and wiping them with the corner of his shirt. His voice lowered. "You were wrestling with your own limits. And now you've won."

Scott looked up at him, panting and unable to speak, but his shoulders were ramrod straight.

Ye Mo put his glasses back on, his finger sliding across the control panel, preparing to shut down the program. The lights in the training area began to dim gradually, and the guide lights in the corridor dimmed one by one.

Just then, Scott suddenly spoke up, "You said... I can hit someone now?"

Ye Mo stopped what she was doing and glanced back at him.

His face was covered in sweat, his hair was stuck to his forehead, and his battle suit was wrinkled, but his eyes were frighteningly bright, as if he had finally found the doorknob and was just waiting to push open the door that he had never dared to touch.

"Yes," Ye Mo said. "What you lack right now isn't technique, nor rhythm. What you lack is the initial thought to take action."

Scott didn't say anything more, but slowly stood up, still in his combat suit, standing ramrod straight, like a nail driven into the ground.

The program interface on the main control panel remained in the "[Training Completed - Data Saved]" state. Ye Mo's finger rested on the power button, but he didn't press it.

The last light in the training area was still on, casting a long shadow on the ground at Scott's feet.