Chapter 8
The Dual Forging
The sterile air of his Aethelgard apartment felt thin, insubstantial. Kaelen blinked, the phantom scent of pine and damp earth clinging to his senses for a moment before the room's recyclers scrubbed it away. He had been Renly for three months—subjective time—and had just consciously recalled his soul fragment. The transition was becoming smoother, a practiced disconnection rather than a violent tear.
He glanced at the chronometer. He had been "asleep" for just over few hours.
This was his new routine. Every night, he would project to Valeria, spending months in Renly's skin. He had learned, painfully, that constant, long-duration projection without reintegration frayed his sense of self. The line between Kaelen and Renly would blur, the squire's simple desires and fears starting to feel like his own. So, he enforced a discipline: project for a night (month in Valeria), then spend the next day in his own world, consciously processing the flood of foreign memories and sensations, re-anchoring himself in the reality that truly mattered.
During these consolidation days, he didn't just rest. He planned. His Federation education, once focused on data patterns and historical archives, was now directed toward a new project: the physics of combat.
Sitting at his small desk, he called up a private data-slate, its screen filled with his own notes. He had no access to restricted Federal military manuals, but public libraries held vast archives on the history of human martial arts—from Terran Prime's ancient Kung Fu and Kalaripayattu to the zero-G Krav Maga developed during early space colonization.
He cross-referenced these with the muscle memory and knowledge he was accumulating as Renly. The knightly forms of Valeria were powerful but… inefficient. They were built on tradition and brute force, developed through trial and error, not scientific principle.
He began deconstructing them. He analyzed the basic guard stance. By shifting the rear foot's angle by five degrees and lowering the center of mass by two centimeters, he calculated a 12% improvement in stability against a lateral charge. The classic overhead chop committed 70% of the body's mass to a single, easily telegraphed vector. By redirecting that energy into a spiraling, downward-slashing motion, the effective force could be increased while reducing the recovery time.
In his mind, he wasn't trying to invent a new style; he was engineering a more efficient version of the existing one, purging wasted motion and optimizing biomechanical leverage. He visualized the kinetic chains, the transfer of force from the ground up through the legs, core, and into the weapon. The knights of Valeria understood "strength" and "speed" as abstract virtues. Kaelen understood them as physics.
When he next projected, he carried these blueprints in his mind. He began implementing the changes in secret, during Renly's solo practice sessions. He adjusted stances by millimeters, shifted weight distribution, and practiced footwork that prioritized optimal angles of attack and defense over ceremonial positioning.
The results were subtle at first. Then, during a sparring session with a larger, stronger squire, Kaelen didn't just parry a heavy blow; he deflected it at a precise angle, using the opponent's own momentum to throw him off-balance, and followed with a counter-strike that seemed to travel half the distance but landed with twice the effect. It wasn't magic; it was mechanics.
Ser Joric, watching from the sidelines, grunted in approval. "Your form is… unusual, boy. Ungainly, at times. But it works. It's like watching a wolf fight instead of a bear."
Kaelen also refined his use of the autopilot. He discovered he could leave more complex standing orders than just "train." Before a conscious recall, he would immerse himself in a specific drill—the precise footwork for fighting on uneven ground, the rhythm of the Breath of the Wild meditation, the motions of a new sword form. He would then issue the command: "Practice this. Maintain. Survive."
Returning days or weeks later (Valerian time), he would find Renly's body had maintained the practice, the muscle memory deeply ingrained, as if he had never left. It was like a skilled programmer leaving a sophisticated script running in his absence. The body trained, the vital force cultivated, and the skills honed, all while Kaelen's primary consciousness was light-years away, attending to his own survival.
This dual existence was a relentless mental grind. The consolidation days in his apartment were crucial. He would sit in silence, methodically sorting through Renly's experiences: the taste of coarse bread, the feel of a wooden sword hilt, the cadence of Joric's voice. He would reaffirm his own memories: the hum of the Arcology, the glow of a data-slate, the cold finality of his draft notice. He was walking a tightrope between two realities, and any lapse in concentration could mean a fatal fall into identity dissolution.
But the payoff was undeniable. Renly's body was transforming. No longer the lanky boy, he was filling out with dense, functional muscle. His reflexes were sharper, his endurance vastly improved. The pool of vital force in his core, stoked by the Breath of the Wild and Kaelen's optimized training, had grown from a puddle to a deep, swirling well.
He was not yet a Knight. He had not awakened a Bloodline. But he was no longer a mere squire. He was a hybrid creation—the raw, primal material of Valeria, forged and refined by the precision science of the Federation. He was building a foundation stronger than anything this world had ever seen.
And back on Aethelgard, Kaelen's own body was beginning to echo these changes. His posture was straighter, his movements more economical. When he walked through the crowded arcology corridors, people subconsciously made way for him. He wasn't just planning to fake being an Enhancer; he was, through a circuitous and forbidden path, genuinely becoming one.
The medical screening was now only two weeks away. He had lived over two subjective years on Valeria. He was running out of time for gradual growth. He needed a catalyst, a crisis that would force a breakthrough. The calm, calculated forging was over. It was time to step into the fire.