Bond Master

The Refining of Flesh and Soul

The following morning, the reality of the Golden Divine Academy's conditioning regime hit Ren Barrett with the force of an industrial steam hammer. Upon arriving at the secondary training pavilion, a stone-faced equipment clerk evaluated Ren's lean, industrial frame with a single critical glance before tossing a bundle of athletic attire across the polished wooden counter.

The workout uniform consisted of flexible rubber-soled sneakers, lightweight shorts, and a breathable tunic woven entirely in the Academy's official white and gold color palette. Along with the fabric came a rigid, uncompromising directive: every single recruit was required to thoroughly scrub down in the decontamination showers both immediately before and immediately after utilizing the facility's specialized equipment.

According to the locker room scuttlebutt, the administration had implemented this mandatory hygiene policy because a significant portion of the commoner intake block simply lacked the habit of washing themselves consistently between long industrial work shifts. Or perhaps, as was undeniably the case for Ren that morning, the proctors fully anticipated that the fresh initiates would already be covered in thick layers of grime and cold sweat before they even set foot inside the main weight room.

It didn't take Ren long to wash away the residual grit of the morning and change into the flexible white and gold gear, but when he stepped out onto the vast, rubber-matted training floor, Sergeant Corvina was already waiting for him. The intense female officer had shed her tailored green military coat and high leather boots, replacing them with a sleek black tank top, heavy green cargo trousers, and a pair of pristine, thick-soled combat boots.

Looking at her rigid posture and the sharp set of her shoulders, Ren couldn't help but wonder if the instructors wore these specific olive-drab colors purely as a military regulation or to prevent themselves from being mistakenly identified as students by the upperclassmen.

He had heard rumors back in the Soot stone District that the elite serum-attuned fighters didn't technically operate under the standard military chain of command, acting instead as their own highly specialized, autonomous branch of the central government. However, because those elite enforcers had absolutely no logistical reason to visit the mining grid or the foundry sectors, Ren had never actually laid eyes on a certified serum practitioner until the day of his initial Divine Injection.

The specialized area of the facility dedicated to what Sergeant Corvina categorized as "Agility-Type Specialists" turned out to be almost entirely populated by female recruits. Walking across the polished floor, Ren looked around at the slender, light-footed initiators practicing rapid footwork drills and fluid evasion forms, which triggered a deep, slightly uncomfortable wave of introspection regarding his own current physical attributes.

While he had never claimed to be the most rugged or hyper masculine teenager in his hometown, being subtly categorized as possessing the baseline physical density and muscle mass of a fourteen-year-old girl was a bit of a catastrophic blow to his adolescent ego.

However, the moment Ren turned his gaze through the thick crystalline glass divider separating their sector from the heavy vanguard training floor, his perspective shifted dramatically. The strength-focused martial classes from the senior blocks were currently practicing power-generation forms, and that side of the gym was entirely filled with absolute muscle-bound meatheads whose forearms were literally the size of Ren's entire torso.

Watching them hoist immense blocks of solid iron and shatter reinforced granite training slabs with their bare fists, Ren rapidly concluded that he was exactly where he belonged. If his Bond Master path required him to maintain a swift, elusive presence on the battlefield while his charcoal hound tore through the enemy's flanks, building up a massive, immobile bulk would be a complete evolutionary dead-end.

"Alright, Barrett, let us begin with foundational upper-body conditioning," Sergeant Corvina announced, her sharp voice cutting through the heavy thud of dropping weights. She stepped up to an intricate mechanical apparatus lined with heavy iron pulleys and thick leather resistance straps.

"The unique soul-bond you share with your Shackle-Hound introduces a massive degree of kinetic drag and physiological resistance into your nervous system whenever you channel his shared attributes. Your physical body must possess the raw, explosive structural power required to cleanly snap through that spiritual resistance during a live vanguard engagement, but you must accomplish this without packing on so much dense, non-functional bulk that you permanently compromise your ability to evade incoming strikes. Your survival dictates that you remain fluid."

What followed that brief introduction was a literal two-hour descent into absolute physiological hell. Sergeant Corvina was entirely relentless, forcing Ren through an unending sequence of high-velocity resistance circuits, explosive core rotations, and grueling bodyweight suspension forms that pushed his undernourished, foundry-raised muscles past the point of absolute structural failure. Corvina didn't offer a single word of empty comfort, her silver-crimson eyes tracking the alignment of his spine and the stability of his ankles with Hawkeye precision, barking out immediate corrections the absolute second his form began to waver under the intense physical strain.

By the time Ren finally managed to limp back toward the decontamination locker rooms, his entire uniform was completely saturated with sweat, his limbs were trembling uncontrollably from severe lactic acid buildup, and his mind was so thoroughly exhausted that he felt ready to collapse flat onto the wet stone tiles and fall into a deep slumber right where he stood. He was leaning heavily against a row of metal lockers, his vision blurring slightly from low blood sugar, when a sudden, warm ripple of psychic energy resonated within the iron chambers of his Confinement Vault.

Inside his mind, the young Volden Shackle-Hound pup, Grim, let out an anxious, protective huff. With a sudden push of spiritual intent, the hound utilizes the soul-tether to project a large, perfectly preserved piece of the cold roasted fowl Ren had secured earlier straight out of the spatial vault, manifesting it directly into Ren's trembling hand. It was a gesture of emergency survival ration sharing, executed in true Volden Shackle-Hound fashion.

Although the greedy little predator still possessed a substantial hoard of fresh meat and poultry hidden away inside its personal stone dais, it had recognized its master's profound state of physical depletion and willingly surrendered a portion of its treasure to kickstart his recovery. Ren let out a weak, deeply grateful laugh, leaning his head back against the locker as he eagerly tore into the nutrient-dense monster meat, feeling the immediate wave of heat and restorative vitality surge back into his system.

Once he had changed back into his clean academic uniform, Ren slowly made his way out of the training pavilion and headed straight across the stone courtyard toward the grand refectory hall, driven by an insatiable, deep-seated craving for pure sugar and concentrated caffeine. If this grueling, high-intensity physical conditioning was going to become his daily routine for the foreseeable future, he was going to have to start consuming significantly heavier, nutrient-dense meals during every food cycle just to maintain his biological equilibrium.

Yet, despite feeling like an absolute walking corpse whose legs had been thoroughly liquefied, Ren quickly realized that he still managed to look like he was in exceptional physical condition compared to the subsequent first-year student groups that were currently filtering into the dining hall.

The recruits entering the refectory looked like they had been dragged through a literal war zone; teenagers from the wealthier inner sectors were actively holding each other upright, their clothes torn to ribbons, their skin covered in deep purple bruises, jagged cuts, scorched armor plates, and a few unfortunates dripping with a strange, viscous green mystery liquid.

"What on earth happened to your division?" Ren asked, sliding into a long bench across from a pale, dark-haired boy who was trembling so violently he could barely balance his teacup. Ren’s sudden voice startled the mage so intensely that the boy nearly flipped backward out of his chair, his eyes wide with lingering panic.

"Elemental attunement and practical skills training," the dark-haired boy rasped, his voice sounding completely hoarse as he clutched his head. "They had the magic-dominant classes locked inside the runic laboratories all day long for foundational theory and attribute exhaustion drills. I only awakened a single primary spell—a basic Lightning Bolt—and the proctors forced me to consume continuous vials of mana-restoring chemical supplements over and over again, ordering me to cast the spell thirty times in consecutive succession until the raw electrical current finally stopped backfiring into my own nervous system and shocking everyone standing within five meters of my casting circle."

He groaned in absolute agony, his skin looking pale and drained as he leaned his forehead flat against the polished timber table, completely on the verge of passing out from sheer neural fatigue.

"What about your group?" a young girl sitting at the same table asked, turning her gaze toward Ren. Her academy uniform was covered in ragged, charred holes that smelled strongly of ozone and sulfur.

"I had a private martial evaluation with my personal instructor, followed by an intensive two-hour fitness and agility circuit with the light vanguard specialists," Ren sighed, gently massaging his throbbing calves. "I'm pretty sure my quadriceps have completely turned into pudding at this point."