The robes were undyed wool—coarse against skin, practical rather than decorative, designed for mountain climate where morning temperatures dropped below freezing even in summer months. John's fingers traced the fabric's weave while Sister Helena adjusted the fit across his shoulders, her hands efficient and impersonal. The garment fell to mid-calf, belted with simple rope, sleeves wide enough to allow unrestricted arm movement. Monastic uniform. Anonymous.
Kiran stood beside him, already dressed, fidgeting with his own rope belt. "Feels weird," the boy said. "Like I'm pretending to be holy or something."
"You're pretending to be a student," Helena corrected. "Holiness is optional. Learning is not."
They'd been given sleeping quarters in the monastery's eastern wing—small cells with straw mattresses, single blankets, no decoration. Spartan living that reminded John unpleasantly of the slave quarters at Brennick Estate, though here the austerity was chosen rather than imposed. The morning bell had woken them before dawn—a bronze gong struck three times, resonating through stone corridors—and they'd been fed plain rice porridge before being brought to Helena for orientation.
"Training begins in the main courtyard," Helena said, leading them through corridors that John mapped systematically through acoustic reflection and air movement. "Three masters oversee instruction, each specializing in one of the primary Uncos categories. You'll be assigned based on your manifestation type."
"What about people with mythical Uncos?" Kiran asked. "Like, if someone could turn into a dragon or something?"
"Mythical manifestations are rare enough that they're handled individually by the grandmaster. Most students fall into elemental, beast, or enhancement categories."
They emerged into morning light—courtyard approximately forty meters square, packed earth underfoot, surrounded by covered walkways on three sides and open to mountain view on the fourth. Twenty-three students were already assembled, ages ranging from perhaps eight to mid-twenties, all wearing identical robes. Three figures stood at the courtyard's center, clearly distinguished by their bearing and the quality of their attire.
The first was a woman—tall, dark-skinned, probably West African descent, mid-forties with gray threading through tightly braided hair. Her presence radiated controlled intensity, like standing near a furnace that hadn't yet been lit. She wore robes dyed deep red, hands clasped behind her back, watching the assembling students with sharp evaluation.
The second was a man built like a mountain—massive shoulders, arms thick as tree trunks, standing maybe six-foot-six with the kind of bulk that came from decades of physical conditioning. His head was shaved, his beard long and tied with leather cord. Robes dyed forest green. He was grinning at something another student had said, expression warm despite his intimidating size.
The third was old—genuinely ancient, possibly in his seventies or eighties, thin to the point of frailty with skin weathered like dried leather. But his eyes were sharp, missing nothing, and he moved with the kind of fluid grace that suggested his body hadn't gotten the message about being elderly. Robes undyed, natural gray-brown.
"Listen up!" The woman's voice cut through the courtyard chatter like a blade. Silence fell immediately. "New students: I am Master Adaeze Okafor. I teach elemental manipulation—fire, water, earth, air, lightning, and variant expressions thereof. If your Uncos involves controlling natural forces, you train with me."
The massive man stepped forward, still grinning. "Master Björn Eriksson—different Björn from your Liberator friend, if you've met him. I handle enhancement and physical manifestation Uncos. Strength, speed, durability, weapon generation, anything that augments your body's natural capabilities. You work with me, we're going to hurt, but we'll hurt together, yeah?"
The elderly man spoke last, voice quiet but somehow carrying across the entire courtyard: "Master Shen Wei. Beast transformation Uncos. All animal forms, mythical variants if they manifest, hybrid states. Control, discipline, retention of consciousness during transformation—these are my focus."
Adaeze gestured. "New students, step forward and state your manifestation type."
Kiran moved first, perhaps emboldened by the morning's earlier confidence. "Predator beast Uncos. Wolf form, enhanced senses and physical capabilities."
Shen Wei nodded. "With me. Stand to the left."
John stepped forward, spatial awareness tracking exactly where each master stood, where the other students were positioned. "Elemental. Light emission."
A pause. Then Adaeze: "Light manipulation is elemental category, yes. Though it's... rare. With me. Right side."
Two more new students—a girl with water manifestation, a boy claiming earth manipulation—were sorted accordingly. Then the existing students broke into three groups, moving to their respective masters with practiced efficiency.
John found himself in a cluster of nine students including the new water manipulator. Adaeze studied them for a long moment before speaking.
"Elemental Uncos is not about raw power," she said. "Any idiot can throw fire or summon lightning. What separates competent practitioners from corpses is understanding the relationship between mana, imagination, and natural law. You are not creating elements from nothing—you are channeling ambient mana through your emotional and conceptual framework to produce specific physical effects. The stronger your understanding of what you're manipulating, the more precise your control."
She raised one hand. Flame appeared—not an explosion, but a sphere of fire that hung in the air above her palm, perfectly contained, not spreading or flickering. "Fire is oxidation reaction accelerated through mana infusion. Understanding combustion chemistry makes your fire hotter, more stable, easier to control. Lightning is electron flow through conductive pathways. Water is molecular manipulation—hydrogen and oxygen bonds responding to your will. Light..."
Her eyes found John. "Light is electromagnetic radiation. Photons moving at constant speed through space-time. You're not creating light—you're amplifying or redirecting existing photons, or exciting atoms to release energy in visible spectrum. Tell me: when you use your Uncos, what do you imagine?"
John's jaw tightened slightly. "Brightness. Blinding intensity."
"Crude, but functional for basic manifestation. This week we work on refinement. You will learn to control intensity, duration, frequency, and directionality. By month's end you should be able to create sustained light sources, flash patterns for communication, focused beams for precision work. Your Uncos is currently a panicked flare. We're going to make it a tool."
She turned to address the full group. "Meditation first. Sit. Close your eyes—" She paused, glancing at John. "Or not, as applicable. Feel your mana. Not your Uncos specifically, but the underlying energy that fuels it. We're going back to fundamentals."
The training was different from anything John had expected, and—he admitted privately, with some irritation—more sophisticated than some techniques he'd learned in his first life.
Adaeze didn't just teach Uncos application. She taught theory. The underlying mechanics of how mana interacted with physical reality, how emotional states affected manifestation stability, how environmental factors could be exploited or compensated for. She had them practice mana circulation exercises that predated the Supreme Gods' current system—techniques that drew on natural ambient mana rather than relying solely on internal reserves.
"Before the gods standardized Uncos manifestation," she explained during the third day's lesson, "people used what we now call ki cultivation—drawing mana directly from environment through sensory channels. Modern Uncos is more powerful but less sustainable. You burn through internal mana quickly. Ki cultivation is slower but doesn't deplete your core reserves. Combining both approaches makes you more versatile."
John already knew ki cultivation—had been practicing it since awakening in this body. But Adaeze's methods were more refined than his self-taught approach. She taught breathing patterns synchronized with mana flow, meditation techniques that enhanced environmental awareness, methods for filtering corrupted or unstable mana from clean sources.
By the second week, John's ki perception had expanded from thirty meters to nearly fifty, and the resolution had sharpened—he could distinguish individual people by their mana signatures now, could sense emotional states through subtle energy fluctuations.
His light Uncos also improved. Adaeze had him practice modulation: creating dim glows instead of blinding flashes, sustaining light for extended periods without exhausting himself, directing beams in specific directions rather than omnidirectional bursts. She taught him to think about wavelength—shifting from visible spectrum toward ultraviolet or infrared, creating light that could reveal things invisible to normal sight or that remained invisible to others while allowing him to "see" through mana reflection.
"Your blindness is an advantage here," she told him during private instruction. "You already interpret the world through non-visual senses. When you emit light, you can sense how it reflects off surfaces, creating a kind of echolocation but with photons instead of sound. Practice that. Make your light emission serve your perception."
It worked. John spent hours in darkened meditation chambers, creating pulses of light and mapping how the reflections changed his spatial awareness. The technique was crude initially—too much light, too scattered—but gradually refined. By week three he could navigate unfamiliar rooms using only light pulses, building mental maps from reflection patterns.
The other students were impressed, if somewhat confused by his rapid progress. To them he was a blind twelve-year-old with a weak Uncos who somehow learned in days what took others months. They didn't know he'd spent six centuries mastering mana manipulation in another body, that all these "new" techniques were variations on principles he'd pioneered himself five hundred years ago.
Still, even John had to admit some of this was genuinely new. The gods had suppressed certain knowledge after his fall—techniques deemed too dangerous, too close to apotheosis. Adaeze taught some of those forbidden methods under different names, preserved in monastic tradition.
Knowledge he could use.
Kiran's training took different form.
Master Shen Wei's approach to beast transformation focused on control and consciousness retention—the two factors that separated skilled practitioners from those who became mindless animals during transformation. The boy spent hours in meditation learning to maintain human cognition while in wolf form, practicing partial transformations where he could shift only specific body parts, drilling rapid transformation sequences until the change became instinctive rather than conscious effort.
But Kiran also spent significant time in the monastery's library—a vast collection occupying three levels of the eastern tower, containing thousands of scrolls and bound texts preserved across generations. He'd discovered he enjoyed reading, something he'd never had opportunity for while enslaved by his parents. The monks encouraged scholarly pursuit alongside physical training.
On day seventeen, Kiran found something significant.
The scroll was old—ancient parchment, carefully preserved, stored in a protective case in the library's restricted section that Shen Wei had given him access to after noting his intellectual curiosity. The title was archaic script: The Convergence of Vision - Testament of the United Path.
The text was poetic, written in the formal style of religious prophecy, accompanied by detailed illustrations rendered in faded ink that still showed remarkable artistry:
In the hour when the old world burnedAnd the green mother's song grew silentGathered we in the valley of tearsThree hundred and seventeen souls bearing witness
The vision came as one—Not to prophet alone but to all assembledThe sky opened and showed us tomorrowWritten in light that seared our minds
Kiran's fingers traced the accompanying illustration: hundreds of figures standing in a valley, all looking upward at something radiating from the sky—beams of light descending, touching each person simultaneously. Their faces were rendered in exquisite detail: awe, terror, revelation.
We saw the Promised One who comesBorn of nothing, wielding everythingThe one who sees truth others cannotWhose weakness becomes the world's strength
The next illustration showed the same crowd, but now they held something—a mural, large and detailed, being assembled from pieces. The people worked together, faces showing intense focus and disagreement.
The vision gave us knowledge—A great mural showing the path forwardBut interpretation brought divisionFor the image could be read two ways
Two groups were shown separating. On the left, a cluster of figures holding their portion of the mural—the image showed a figure wearing a crown, surrounded by armies, with broken chains at their feet. On the right, another group with their section—a figure standing alone, surrounded by light, with people kneeling peacefully around them.
Some saw a king—One who breaks chains through powerWho wages war to end all warsWhose strength brings freedom through conquest
Others saw a peacemaker—One who heals through understandingWho ends conflict through wisdomWhose strength lies in unity without bloodshed
The illustration showed confrontation between the two groups—not violence, but heated argument. Leaders from each side faced each other across a divide.
The United Path could not remain unitedFor both interpretations held truthBoth groups sought the same salvationBut walked different roads to reach it
The final illustrations showed the two groups departing. One went toward mountains (clearly the monks—the architectural style matched the current monastery). The other went toward forests and hidden valleys. This second group's imagery was familiar: people training in combat, structures built in concealment, symbols that looked like...
Kiran's breath caught. He'd seen those symbols before. In newspapers. In wanted posters displayed in Westhaven. The group labeled as terrorists. The Liberators.
The scroll didn't name either group explicitly, but the visual evidence was clear enough. The monks and the Liberators had once been the same organization—the United Path, founded by people who all received the same prophetic vision simultaneously. They'd split not over the prophecy itself but over interpretation: was the Promised One a warrior-king who would free people through strength, or a peaceful unifier who would heal the world through wisdom?
Though we walk different paths nowThe vision remains wholeBoth pieces of the mural must joinBefore the Promised One can be recognizedBefore the restoration can begin
We wait in our separate vigilsHoping the other has not lost faithHoping that when the time comesWe can remember we were once unitedBefore interpretation made us enemies
Kiran sat back, processing. The monks here believed the Promised One would be a peacemaker. The Liberators—if they were truly the other half—must believe their prophesied figure would be a warrior. Both groups waiting for the same person, but expecting completely different manifestations.
He thought about John. Blind, weak, yet learning faster than anyone else. The monks already whispered that he might be significant. And the Liberators... if this scroll was accurate, they'd have their own candidate. Someone they believed fit their interpretation.
Two groups, two prophecies, two chosen ones. Eventually those paths would have to converge. What happened then?
"Kiran!" A voice from the library entrance—one of the other students. "Training session's starting. Master Shen is waiting."
"Coming!" He carefully returned the scroll to its case, mind still churning with implications. This was bigger than he'd understood. Much bigger.
He needed to tell John. But maybe not here, not now. This kind of knowledge felt dangerous somehow.
Sanctuary - Evening, Day 119
Amari's quarters were more crowded than usual—seven people squeezed into a space designed for three. Lena sat on his bunk, Tai and Kace occupied the other two beds, and four others from Cohort 17 either stood or sat on the floor. The conversation had been going for twenty minutes, voices kept to urgent whispers.
"It was barbaric," Lena said again, arms wrapped around herself. "He was scared. Manipulated. His daughter—"
"His daughter was already dead," Tai cut in. "Commander Voss was right about that."
"You don't know that."
"The Order doesn't keep leverage alive after it's been used. Basic tactics."
Kace leaned forward, massive frame making the bed creak. "Barbaric or not, killing him in front of everyone? That was about sending a message. Fear-based control."
"It's about survival," countered Senna—the girl with water manipulation, usually quiet but now visibly agitated. "If people think they can betray us without consequences—"
"So we become like the Order?" Lena's voice rose slightly before she caught herself, dropping back to whisper. "Execute people publicly? Rule through terror?"
"It's not terror, it's justice. He killed thirty-seven of our people."
"He was coerced!"
"He still made the choice."
The argument went in circles—morality versus pragmatism, idealism versus survival, the same ground covered repeatedly without resolution. Amari had been silent throughout, sitting against the wall, cleaning his daggers with methodical attention. The blades were already spotless. He'd cleaned them three times tonight.
Finally, Tai turned to him. "You haven't said anything. What do you think?"
Amari continued his work for another few seconds before setting down the cloth. When he spoke, his voice was quiet but everyone stopped to listen.
"Let me ask you something," he said. "Should a leader be someone who keeps the peace, or someone who reminds us they're responsible for keeping us alive?"