The dawn air was bitter, sharp enough to nip at Arjun’s skin as he stepped into the narrow strip of packed dirt beside the hut he called his training ground. Frost glazed the grass in fragile crystals, crunching beneath his bare feet. His body throbbed with the ache of yesterday’s practice—shoulders heavy, knuckles swollen, muscles taut like drawn wire—but the Dominic System’s calm voice lingered in his mind like an unyielding overseer.
“Fighter Level 2, Sub-level 1. Progress steady. Push further.”
Arjun inhaled deeply, the cold searing his lungs, and lowered into stance. His fists drove forward—punch after punch, strike after strike—each motion deliberate, guided by the rhythm of the Heart Pulse Method.
His breath matched his heartbeat: inhale, coil strength into his core; exhale, release it in a thrum of force. Sweat rolled down his spine despite the morning chill. His fists cracked through the air, each strike landing on the crude wooden post he had hammered into the dirt. The post wobbled with each impact, its surface scarred from days of practice.
Pain flared sharp in his knuckles, but he no longer flinched. Pain was no longer his enemy—it was proof that his body was adapting, inch by inch, to this world’s demands. Pain meant growth.
Yet even as he pressed harder, reality pressed harder still. Strength might build his body, but it could not fill Anaya’s bowl.
By midmorning, the marketplace was already alive with noise and heat. Stalls rattled as merchants arranged their goods, voices clashed over prices, and the air brimmed with the scent of fried dough, spice smoke, fresh hides, and livestock musk. The clatter of coin punctuated every bargain struck.
Arjun pushed his battered cart into the chaos, wooden wheels groaning with each rut and cobblestone. He wove carefully between stalls, his eyes scanning for contracts.
Vikram was already there.
The burly Fighter Level 3 towered above the crowd, his booming laugh carrying like a war drum. He slammed a sack of rice onto his gleaming cart, the table beneath it rattling so violently that bowls toppled. The merchant flinched, but forced a smile of gratitude. Vikram flexed his arms, veins thick as ropes, his presence clearing space as easily as his bellowed orders.
“Make way!” he shouted, tossing a crate onto his cart as though it weighed nothing. His routes were the richest in the district, and no one dared argue.
Arjun kept his head down and slipped past, his jaw clenched.
Dinesh, meanwhile, was the opposite—a shadow in the noise. He moved with foxlike grace, sliding through clusters of merchants with his ever-present grin. His tongue was sharper than any blade.
Arjun spotted him just as he approached a potter he had been negotiating with. The man’s crates of clay pots were stacked neatly, and Arjun had nearly secured the deal.
“Ah,” Dinesh purred, appearing at the potter’s elbow like smoke, “surely you’d prefer a faster hand than his?” He tilted his head toward Arjun, voice smooth as syrup. “I’ll deliver for two coppers less—and I’ll carry your pots as if they were a lover’s touch.”
The potter chuckled, cheeks reddening at the charm, and nodded quickly. Dinesh’s coin clinked into the man’s palm before Arjun could even protest.
Dinesh flashed him a grin over his shoulder. A coin spun lazily across his fingers, caught, then pocketed. “Careful, Arjun. At this rate, you’ll be delivering crumbs.”
Arjun’s fists clenched, nails biting his palms. Words rose to his tongue, hot and bitter, but he forced them down. Words wouldn’t feed Anaya.
So he kept moving, cart lighter than it should have been, pride heavier than he could bear.
That afternoon, the summons came.
The so-called “hall” was little more than a cavernous stall at the market’s heart. Banners hung from its rafters, their colors dulled and stained by years of smoke. Yet the weight of history pressed on the air. Here, contracts had been signed and broken. Here, routes had been seized, competitors ruined. The stone floor carried echoes of every bargain enforced with blood.
Enforcers flanked the entrance, their scarred faces and folded arms silent warnings.
At the broad wooden table sat the market leader, a man whose eyes were sharp as a hawk’s and voice like rolling thunder. He did not rise as Arjun entered; he did not need to. His presence filled the room.
“You. Delivery boy.” The leader’s gaze pinned Arjun like a nail. “Resign your routes and submit to our faction’s terms. Or be cast out.”
The words crashed through the chamber, sharp as blades. Murmurs rippled instantly through the gathered crowd.
The leader leaned forward, voice lowering into something colder. “Every coin that passes these streets belongs to us. You think you can deliver without our cut? Defy us, and you’ll have more than empty pockets to worry about.”
Arjun’s throat went dry. His pulse hammered in his chest. He felt the eyes of Vikram and Dinesh on him—Vikram smirking, arms crossed like a boulder, Dinesh’s grin sly and mocking.
He swallowed hard, then stood straighter. “I make my own way,” he said quietly, but his voice did not shake.
Vikram snorted. Dinesh chuckled into his hand.
The leader’s gaze hardened to iron. “Then be ready. The market has no room for defiance.”
The laughter that followed chased Arjun as he left the hall, clinging like smoke.
The sky was dark by the time he found a back alley, narrow and hushed, lanterns swaying in the breeze. The distant hum of commerce was fading, replaced by the occasional bark of a dog, the clatter of shutters being drawn closed.
Arjun leaned against the cold stone wall, breath sharp in the night air. His thoughts churned like a storm-tossed sea.
If he bowed his head, Anaya would be safe. She would eat, she would live. But their future would forever belong to another man’s mercy. They would scrape crumbs under the faction’s heel.
If he resisted and failed, she would starve. Or worse.
His eyes closed. Anaya’s face rose before him—her small smile in the morning, the way she clutched her blanket at night as if it could shield her from the world. Trust shining in her eyes whenever she looked at him.
Fear gnawed at him, sharp and merciless. But beneath it, something deeper burned. The Heart Pulse Method thrummed in his chest, each beat steadying his spirit, each breath hardening his resolve.
Arjun straightened, lifted his hand, and summoned the Dominic System’s interface. The glow lit the alley in pale light, casting his face in stark relief.
His message formed, each word a blade.
Challenge issued.
Not for gold. Not for fleeting contracts. But for honor. For Anaya. For a future carved by his own hands.
The orb pulsed once, carrying his words into the market’s shadowed veins.
Arjun exhaled, the weight of the coming days settling on his shoulders like a mountain. But his heart no longer faltered.
The path ahead was perilous. Yet it was his.
Lanterns swayed overhead, and his shadow stretched long against the wall—lean, battered, but unbroken. A warrior in the making.
The stakes had never been higher.
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