Chapter 96: A Body That Lies
"I understand the necessity of a medical baseline," Alex said, standing in the center of the reinforced combat cube beneath the Magic Department. "But removing every artifact leaves me—"
Cassandra struck him in the chest with a padded training hammer before he finished the sentence.
The heavy mallet slammed into his ribs. Alex didn't stagger. Kinetic Resonance swallowed the forward force instantly, sending the absorbed force down through his legs and into the stone floor.
"It leaves you honest," Cassandra said, lowering the hammer. She stepped back, studying his stance.
Alex let out a slow breath. He wore only a thin gray training shirt and standard academy trousers. The Essence Spring was locked in a reinforced case near the door. His bandaged right hand throbbed with a steady, dull warning. When he blinked, the System interface hovered at the edge of his vision.
[Kinetic Saturation: 42%]
"Pulse is elevated, but manageable," Sylvia called out from behind a protective mana-glass screen. The alchemy professor held a monitoring crystal, watching the flow of his mana. "Surface temperature is rising. Let's proceed with medium and high force. Be precise, Cassandra."
Cassandra swung again. The medium strike hit his shoulder. The high-force strike caught him square in the sternum.
Alex absorbed both. The physical blows felt like dropping a heavy stone into a deep pond—the surface stayed completely still, but the water moved violently below. Heat bloomed inside his chest. The damaged circuit around his core struggled to deal with the sudden rush of force.
[Kinetic Saturation: 48%]
"Your skin is flushed," Sylvia noted, scribbling on a ledger. "Even when the momentum disappears, the energy turns into internal heat. Your circuit is acting like a sealed oven."
"Physical mass is only half a Knight's arsenal," Emily said. She stood beside Sylvia's station, her arms crossed tightly over her blue Frost delegation uniform. She had been granted permission to observe the testing, treating her presence as a tactical research necessity.
"Show him, Frost," Cassandra ordered.
Emily stepped around the glass screen. She didn't hesitate or ask if he was ready. She raised two fingers and fired a thumb-sized pellet of compressed ice directly at his thigh.
Alex braced for the impact. The ice shattered against his leg. The force vanished into his trait, but a biting cold immediately seeped through his trousers and dug into his skin. His muscle twitched violently, locking up for a fraction of a second.
"The momentum is gone," Emily observed, her blue eyes narrowing. "But the elemental effect remains."
"Correct," Cassandra said. She picked up a smooth, flat river stone from the equipment rack and channeled her own mana into it until the edges glowed orange. She tossed it directly at Alex's chest.
He caught it instinctively with his uninjured left hand. The force of the throw disappeared instantly through his trait, but the heat seared right through his palm. Alex cursed, dropping the stone. It left a faint scorch mark on the floor.
"So," Cassandra said, writing on her own tablet. "You can stop a charging warhorse, but if the rider is on fire, you still burn."
Alex rubbed his left hand against his trousers. "Good to know before Ivan Baker tries to set me on fire in the final."
[Kinetic Saturation: 51%]
Sophie leaned against the wall near the door, her Vanguard guildmaster coat draped over her shoulders. She pushed off the wall and walked onto the testing floor. She unclasped a heavy, brass-knuckled artifact from her belt and slipped it over her right hand.
"Let's see what happens when you don't have time to vent," Sophie said.
"Guildmaster," Sylvia warned. "His core already shows micro-fractures from the Arc-Cannon."
"And Ivan Baker isn't going to give him ten seconds between strikes to cool down," Sophie replied. She looked at Alex. "Brace."
Sophie blurred forward. She didn't use one massive strike. Instead, the brass artifact whirred, delivering a rapid series of shallow punches against Alex's forearms, chest, and ribs.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
None of the individual strikes carried lethal force. But Kinetic Resonance triggered with every single contact. The trait tried to absorb and hold the force of dozens of small impacts within seconds.
Alex's vision swam. The heat inside his chest rose from a low simmer to a boiling pressure. His damaged circuit screamed, unable to get rid of the heat before the next strike arrived.
[Kinetic Saturation: 58%... 64%... 72%]
Sophie stopped and stepped back.
Alex dropped to one knee, coughing heavily. A thick drop of blood fell from his nose, splattering against the gray stone floor. He wiped his upper lip with the back of his bandaged hand, his breath coming in ragged, heated gasps. The air around him shimmered slightly from his rising body temperature.
"Fascinating," Sophie said, studying the brass knuckles. "You can catch a cannonball, but a flurry of weak jabs pushes you past your limit. Your circuit can't handle it."
Emily didn't take notes. She stared at the blood on the floor, her expression stiffening. She walked slowly toward the center of the room, stopping a few feet from Alex as he forced himself back to his feet.
"The arena," Emily said, her voice unusually quiet. "When you stepped in front of the fourth Arc-Cannon shot."
Alex wiped his nose again. "What about it?"
"You didn't know the thermal limit," Emily stated. It wasn't a question. Her eyes traced the heat coming off his skin and the fresh blood on his chin. "You had never tested how much you could absorb. You didn't know if your circuit would hold the energy or break completely."
Alex looked at her, then at Cassandra. There was no point in lying when Sylvia had the medical data on his core right in front of them. "I knew I could catch the mass. I didn't know how the heat would react until it was already inside me."
Cassandra let out a harsh breath, tossing her tablet onto a nearby bench. "That isn't bravery, Edelhart. That is reckless stupidity."
"It worked," Alex argued, leaning back against the wall to take his weight off his trembling legs.
"It worked because you got lucky," Emily snapped. Her composure cracked, replaced by a sudden, sharp anger that surprised him. She closed the distance, pointing a finger at his chest but stopping just short of touching him. "You stood there and let everyone think you were an untouchable Champion. You let me analyze your footing and your mana draw, while you were standing there bleeding inside and hoping your core didn't explode."
"Emily—" Alex started.
"Do not dismiss this as trivial," she interrupted, her voice trembling slightly before she forced it back down into a cold tone. She stepped back, refusing to let him see how much the realization had shaken her. She had treated his victory as a puzzle to solve, a reason she had lost the Champion spot. Seeing the physical cost laid bare changed the way she saw the entire event. He hadn't just outclassed her; he had nearly killed himself to do it.
She turned away, walking briskly back toward Sylvia's station. "The data clearly indicates that his current defense is unsustainable."
Sylvia looked at her readouts and frowned deeply. "She's right, Alex. The internal temperature is critical. I'm stopping the impact tests for today."
Alex didn't argue. He looked at the hovering blue numbers at the edge of his vision. Sophie's rapid strikes had done more damage in thirty seconds than the heavy hammer had done in five minutes.
The interface blinked a harsh, warning red.
[Kinetic Saturation: 81%]