đź’ŞChapter 8: The Edge of Flesh and Bone (revised)
📡 Galactic Archive Notice – Subject: Junjie_Ruibo
âź´Â Unauthorized Neural Boost Detected
↳ Baseline exceeded: 280% muscular output
🧬 Evolutionary divergence: Accelerating
⚠️ Observer AI Nano has triggered Core Exception Protocol
→ Subject has taken the wheel.
🌍 Earth Date: June 14, 100 BCE – Late Spring
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The morning after Nano's revelation came sharp and cold, the mountain air biting through Junjie's clothes as he trekked deeper into the forest. The sky overhead was clear, the trees draped in a faint mist that burned off with the rising sun. Everything was still. Too still.
Junjie needed that silence.
His thoughts were a mess—a voice in his head, alien tech in his blood, whispers of stars and ancient knowledge—and all of it wrapped around him, a boy with calloused feet and a bow he carved himself.
"You said I'm stronger now," Junjie muttered under his breath. "Faster. Healthier. Prove it."
"You don't trust me,"Â Nano observed calmly from inside his mind.
"I don't trust anything that moves in without asking."
Nano went quiet—waiting.
Ahead, a fallen log sprawled across the trail, thick with age, its bark half-peeled, roots still clawing at the earth like a dying beast. Junjie remembered trying to lift one like it with his father once. It hadn't even budged.
He dropped his bow and approached. Planted his feet. Took a deep breath.
Then he heaved.
At first—nothing. Just the strain in his arms, the tension in his thighs. But then, impossibly, the log shifted. Wood groaned. Soil tore loose. And with a low, crunching scrape, the massive trunk lifted from the forest floor.
Junjie let out a startled gasp and dropped it with a crash.
His arms trembled—not from weakness, but from adrenaline.
"That shouldn't have happened."
"Correct," Nano replied smoothly. "Your muscle fibers are operating at 280% of previous output. Your bones have been reinforced with denser collagen structures. You're not a god—but you are better than human baseline."
Junjie's heart raced. He looked down at his hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Again,"Â he whispered.
He ran next—just bolted between the trees, feet slapping the damp earth, breath steady. He didn't tire. His legs pumped like springs. Branches whipped past, birds burst skyward in surprise—and still he moved, faster than he'd ever moved in his life.
Then he jumped.
A low boulder, mossy and slick, came into view—and without thinking, Junjie leapt. It should've been too far. It should've been impossible.
He landed square on top, balanced and silent.
He laughed—half in awe, half in disbelief.
This was real.
He kept going.
Push. Test. Learn.
He scaled a steep incline, fingers digging into cracks between stones. No hesitation. No slips. He sprinted through creek beds, leapt across fallen trees, dropped into gullies, and climbed out like it was nothing.
Then, a flicker of movement—off to his right.
Junjie froze, breath shallow.
From the shadows emerged a wild takhi—a sturdy, feral horse with flared nostrils and a scarred flank. It regarded him with wary eyes, hooves stamping the dirt.
Something in Junjie's posture made it hesitate.
Then came the low growl.
Behind it, a snow-dappled lynx emerged from the underbrush—lean, hungry, and stalking the takhi from behind. A rare predator this high up. It didn't see Junjie. Not yet.
Junjie stepped off the trail.
"Don't interfere," Nano warned. "It's a natural process."
"That horse is injured. It'll never outrun that cat."
"Your emotional response is noted." Nano paused. "You are not obligated to interfere. But if you do, your reaction time and strength will be tested under threat-level parameters."
"Good," Junjie whispered. "Let's see what I've got."
The lynx tensed to pounce.
Junjie moved—fast.
In three strides he closed the distance, grabbed a fist-sized stone, and hurled it with a fluid snap of his arm. It slammed into a tree beside the lynx with a thunderous crack. Bark exploded.
The cat twisted mid-leap, startled, and fled into the brush.
The takhi bolted in the other direction.
Junjie stood still, heart pounding—not from fear, but focus. The world had slowed. Colors were brighter. Details sharp. He felt like a bowstring pulled taut, humming with power.
"That was reckless," Nano said flatly. "But... effective."
"I'm not a soldier," Junjie replied. "I'm not a weapon. But I won't stand by while something dies."
Nano was silent for a moment, then spoke softer.
"You're beginning to understand responsibility. It comes faster when the power is real."
Junjie looked down at his hands again, the same hands he'd used to help his mother grind herbs, to hold a lantern, to gut a rabbit—and now to move logs and scatter apex predators.
"If this is real," he said again, "then I need to know all of it. How far does this go?"
"Farther than you can imagine."
Then, half to itself, Nano muttered:
"Typical. Give a child a new space hot rod... and he takes it out for a spin." 🚀
Junjie smiled slightly, still winded.
"You keep calling me a child. But you're the one talking to yourself."
"Fair."
A breeze stirred the treetops. The takhi was long gone. The lynx, too. Only the forest remained—silent, alive, ancient.
Junjie stood there for a long moment, then looked up into the branches, toward the glittering slice of sky between the leaves.
He wasn't just running anymore. He was aiming.
"Let's begin for real this time."