X01: MY PERFECTLY ABNORMAL LIFE

DAMAGE POINTS

X01: My Perfectly Abnormal Life

"BEGIN!"

Gaiz didn't wait.

He crossed the ring in two steps, gauntlets roaring at 68%, and slammed his fist into Xyan's guard.

CRACK.

Xyan flew back three meters, skidded on his side, glasses flying off. The crowd ooohed.

"POINT! GAIZ! Damage +10!" Jax screamed.

Xyan scrambled for his glasses, shoved them back on with a shaking hand. His katana was still sheathed. The marker-blacked gem throbbed once under his thumb — whisper, only whisper — he forced it down.

Don't fight back. Just survive. Take the loss clean.

Gaiz laughed, circling. "Come on, No-Talent! At least draw your little toothpick!"

The little Echelon boys under the MC's table were whispering into the hot mic: "He's not getting up... he's not getting up..."

"He's up!" The Celestoids in the rafters leaned forward, puff-puff forgotten.

Xyan stood. Wobbly. He finally drew — the small, chipped katana looked like a joke next to Gaiz's glowing gauntlets.

Gaiz charged again. Left hook, right hook.

Xyan didn't block with power. He did what he'd practiced in the far room at 4 AM — breathe, slip, redirect. A half-step left. A tilt of the blade. Let the punch graze instead of land full.

THUD. THUD.

Two more hits still clipped his ribs. Pain exploded.

"POINT! POINT! GAIZ LEADS 30-0 ON DAMAGE!"

The Echelon crowd was chanting: "GAIZ! GAIZ! GAIZ!" The sneaker kids were chanting it too. A vendor in the food ring stopped frying yam to watch.

In the VIP box, the Elixirs looked bored. The braided girl checked her nails. The goggled boy hadn't written anything for this match.

Perfect. That's what Xyan wanted.

Gaiz grabbed Xyan by the collar and lifted him. "You know what your problem is? You make us Echelons look weak just standing next to us."

He threw him. Xyan hit the mat hard, coughed blood.

"Damage +15! This is a disgrace, folks!" Jax yelled, but even he sounded a little uncomfortable.

Mira, the Celestoid girl from Match 3, looked away from the rafters. Onix stopped chewing. Sen closed his book.

Kitarah didn't even watch. She was talking to an Elixir scout.

Gaiz wasn't done. He wanted a finish for the highlight reel. His Power Flex started climbing on the big screen:

_GAIZ — 68%... 70%... 72%..._

"Ohhh! He's spiking!" Jax screamed. "The crowd! The humiliation! It's feeding him!"

Gaiz raised both gauntlets high. The blue circuit lines turned white-hot.

74%!

The arena gasped.

"FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN THIS IN THE BEGINNER CLASS!" Jax was losing his mind. "HE'S BREAKING THROUGH! ENHANCEMENT INCOMING!"

Light exploded off Gaiz.

His gauntlets melted, reformed. The metal stretched, thinned, became a long, golden bow. The string was pure light. In his hand, an arrow formed — golden shaft, red-hot arrowhead pulsing like coal, and along the shaft, an intricate bird's eye that blinked.

Jax: "WHAT IS THAT?!"

The goggled Elixir in the VIP box finally stood up, writing furiously. The braided girl leaned forward, eyes wide.

"Enhancement Manifest: *Sky-Eye Arrow*!" the system announced. "Traits: Bird's Eyesight — locks onto target, cannot miss in line-of-sight. Red-Hot Head — pierces through standard guards. Special Quality: Transformation — ???"

Gaiz stared at his own hands, panting, ecstatic. "I... I did it! I'm the first! First enhancement!"

He turned to Xyan, who was barely on his knees, blood on his lip, katana shaking in his hand.

"Hey, No-Talent. Thanks. I needed a punching bag to evolve."

He drew the golden arrow. The bird's eye on the shaft locked onto Xyan. The red-hot head glowed brighter.

"Any last words for the Elixirs?"

Xyan looked up. Through his cracked glasses, he saw the arrow, saw Gaiz at 74%, saw the Elixirs now fully watching.

His gem pulsed under the marker — let me flow, just a thread, I can cut that arrow —

He crushed the urge. He forced his breathing slow, like in the far room. _Whisper only. Not to win. Just to move.

The necklace under his shirt went ice-cold, as if warning him.

Jax raised his hand. "FINISH HIM!"

Gaiz released.

The golden arrow screamed forward, bird's eye locked.

Xyan didn't try to block it. He threw himself sideways at the last possible second — not with power, with timing he'd drilled a hundred nights alone.

The red-hot head grazed his shoulder, searing his uniform, spinning him to the ground.

"DIRECT HIT! GRAZE DAMAGE +25!"

Xyan didn't get up.

Drones swarmed in. "XYAN CROSS — HEALTH AT 5%. MATCH STOPPED."

"WINNER! GAIZ! FLAWLESS DISGRACE VICTORY!"

The arena erupted. Echelons stormed the ring, lifting Gaiz. The little sneakers under the table were screaming into the mic. Food vendors banging pots. Jax: "74%! ENHANCEMENT! FIRST OF HIS GENERATION! THE ELIXIRS ARE ON THEIR FEET!"

And they were. All six Elixirs were standing now, staring at Gaiz and his transforming bow.

No one looked at the loser being dragged off by med-drones.

No one saw Xyan, face in the mat, smiling faintly behind his broken glasses as a medic pressed gauze to his burned shoulder.

Good, he thought, pain blurring his vision. He got his moment. They saw him. Not me.

Under the gauze, under the marker, his katana's gem dimmed back to nothing.

Stay dark.

X01: My Perfectly Abnormal Life

The med-drones dumped Xyan on a stretcher in the First Aid treatment room behind the arena.

The noise from the Main Arena was still shaking the walls. Jax was still screaming: "GAIZ! 74%! SKY-EYE ARROW!"

Sen pushed through first, book under his arm. Onix came in with her rings still warm, a half-eaten meat bun in her pocket. Kitarah lingered by the door, arms crossed. Even Mira peeked in from the hallway.

"Xyan! Your shoulder—" Onix started.

Xyan sat up too fast, wincing, glasses crooked, burn searing through the gauze. He forced a weak loser grin.

"Don't worry about it. Seriously. I'm fine. Just... just go watch Gaiz get scouted. It's his moment."

Sen frowned. "That burn needs—"

"It's fine!" Xyan was already sliding off the bed, clutching his sheathed katana. "Just a graze. I'll... I'll walk it off."

Before they could stop him, he slipped past Mira and ran — not toward the arena, but down the back service corridor, toward the old depot line.

He didn't stop until he was in the far room.

---

Meanwhile — The Scouting

Back in the arena, Jax was in full frenzy.

"ELIXIRS! COME DOWN! CLAIM YOUR MONSTERS!"

The VIP glass box opened. Six figures in purple-black dropped silently into the ring.

First, the braided girl with the spear walked straight to *Gaiz*, who was still holding his golden bow, chest heaving.

"Gaiz," she said. "Sky-Eye Arrow. 74%. First enhancement in your year." She tapped his bow with her spear. "I'm Rena Val. Elixir, Rank 5. You'll do."

Gaiz nearly dropped his bow. The crowd exploded.

Before the cheering died, the air in the arena _changed_.

A woman stepped from the shadows behind the Elixirs. Third-year uniform, but no rank patch, no name tag. Her artifact wasn't even out — she didn't need it. The Elixirs parted for her.

She stopped in front of *Kitarah*.

Kitarah, who feared nothing, went still.

"You're good at watching," the woman said quietly. "You saw through the tornado. You don't chase power, you cut it."

Kitarah's throat tightened. She could tell — this woman was way beyond good. Way beyond the Elixirs. The pressure coming off her made Kitarah's ring-blades hum on their own.

"Who... are you?" Kitarah whispered.

The woman didn't answer. Didn't give a name. She just pressed a black card into Kitarah's hand and walked away.

Jax whispered into the mic: "I... I don't even know who that was, folks."

Then two Elixirs stepped forward for *Onix* — a tall guy who kept adjusting his collar and not quite looking her in the eyes, and a sharp-eyed girl with short silver hair.

The guy cleared his throat. "Your... your Power Flex held at 86% while you were eating. That's insane control. I'm just a guy — Elixir, Rank 7 — I... uh..."

The silver-haired girl cut in, rolling her eyes at him. "He has a crush, ignore him. I'm Sera. Elixir, Rank 3. Nothing less than top 3. You're coming with us, Onix."

Onix blinked, meat bun still in hand. "Top... top 3 wants me?"

The guy turned red. "I mean — for scouting! For... scouting!"

The crowd howled. Onix laughed loud.

Last, a single figure in white and gold — not purple-black — walked in. The Amirahs.

The arena went silent. Even Jax lowered his voice.

"That's... that's him."

The best. Known across both next classes. Extraordinary skills, extraordinary power. He didn't need an introduction.

He stopped before *Sen*, who was still holding his Phantom Tactics Vol. 3.

"You turned the floor to ice in 0.4 seconds and ended it in 12," he said. "You read while you fight. I like that."

Sen bowed slightly. "Thank you."

"You'll attend to me. Amirahs. Be ready."

He left. No card. No name needed. Everyone knew.

Four Echelons scouted. In one day.

---

The Far Room — Xyan

Xyan locked the rusted door and finally let himself breathe.

"Ah— s**t—"

He peeled the gauze back. The graze from the Sky-Eye Arrow was worse than he'd let on — skin blistered red-black in a perfect line, still radiating heat.

He unwrapped his katana. The marker had burned off in the fight. The gem was glowing deep blue, pulsing fast.

And it was different.

Since he'd taken that last-second dive — since he'd used just a whisper to time it — something had unlocked.

He held up his left hand. The air felt heavy. He focused, breathed like he'd practiced — and a loose bolt on the floor _lifted_.

He could feel its weight without touching it.

"Gravity..." he whispered. He tilted his hand, and the bolt floated, then dropped with a clang when he lost focus.

Then the necklace under his shirt went warm. Words burned into his mind — not a voice, just knowledge:

UPGRADE UNLOCKED: Summoning

He stared at his katana. He could feel it now — he could call something, pull it from... somewhere. He didn't dare try it here.

He clicked his tongue, annoyed, and went back to cleaning the burn with a stolen med-wipe.

"Damn, it really lives up to its name. Lucky you, Gaiz."

He wrapped the shoulder tight, re-blacked the gem with a fresh marker from his pocket, tucked the necklace away.

Outside, the arena was still cheering for the scouted monsters.

In the dark, the loser smiled to himself, cradling his burned arm.

Just keep staying dark.