Time/Date: TC1853.01.13 (Day 4 Post-Transformation)
Location: Grandpa Coop's Safe House, Craftsman's Quarter, Ring 6
Raven woke on the fourth day to discover she could finally open a door without destroying the handle.
Small victories.
She'd spent the night practicing fine motor control in her sleep—or at least, her subconscious had. Her hands moved with slightly more coordination now, her strength calibration improving through sheer repetition. The brain was adapting to the new body, building neural pathways that understood these enhanced capabilities.
But "slightly better" still meant she moved like someone wearing power armor for the first time. Functional, but far from graceful.
Time to push harder.
Raven had spent three days learning not to break things. Now she needed to learn what she could actually do with this transformed body. The Brenners wouldn't wait for her to be comfortable. When she emerged from hiding, she'd need to be ready for whatever they threw at her.
And based on the growing sense of wrongness she felt through her enhanced awareness, they were definitely planning something.
The feeling had been building since yesterday—a prickling sensation at the base of her skull, like static electricity before a storm. Not pain exactly. More like the universe itself was tensing, preparing for violence. She'd felt similar warnings in past lives. In Merit World #23, three seconds before the warlord's assassin struck. In World #47, moments before the laboratory explosion that ended that incarnation.
Danger coming. Close now. Getting closer.
She couldn't pinpoint the source or the timeline, but her instincts—honed across 99 deaths—screamed that the Brenners were moving. Planning. Scheming something that would force her hand.
All the more reason to be ready.
Raven rose from the bed carefully, testing her balance. The height difference still threw her off sometimes—five-seven instead of five-four. Three inches didn't sound like much, but it changed her center of gravity, altered the reach of her limbs, made familiar movements feel slightly alien.
She stretched, feeling the way her enhanced muscles responded. No soreness. No stiffness. Just clean, efficient power coiled beneath skin that had finally stopped feeling too tight for her bones.
The morning light filtered through the grimy window, painting the sparse room in shades of grey. Outside, she could hear the district waking—cart wheels on cobblestones, vendors calling their wares, the distant clang of hammers from the forge district. Normal sounds. Comforting in their mundane reliability.
Inside, nothing was normal anymore.
Day 4, Morning: Strength Training
The safe house's ground floor was sparse enough to serve as a makeshift training area. Raven moved the furniture to the walls—carefully, always so carefully—and stood in the center of the cleared space.
Baseline assessment first. Figure out limits before trying to push them.
She started with basics. Squats. Push-ups. Movements that used to be exercise but now felt almost effortless. Her enhanced muscles barely strained under her own body weight. She could do a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat.
Two hundred before she felt any burn.
Okay. So normal calisthenics are worthless now. Need actual resistance.
The table was solid wood, probably weighed close to a hundred pounds. Raven gripped the edge and lifted. The table came up easily—too easily. She held it overhead with one hand, arm steady, and realized she could probably hold this position for an hour without tiring.
Ten times normal strength. That's roughly...
She did the math. A normal human could lift maybe fifty to seventy pounds overhead comfortably. Ten times that meant she could handle five to seven hundred pounds. And that was without spiritual energy enhancement.
What about with cultivation?
Raven set the table down and focused inward, touching the spiritual energy that now flowed through her meridian-like bone structure. The Essence Gathering cultivation base responded, energy flooding through her enhanced physiology.
She picked up the table again.
It felt like lifting paper.
Holy shit.
With spiritual energy reinforcement, her strength multiplied again. She could probably lift a ton. Maybe more. The table became a toy in her enhanced grip, weightless and insignificant.
Raven held it overhead with one hand, added a chair to the load with the other hand, and barely felt the difference.
This is insane. I could tear people apart with casual force. Punch through walls. Break bones like twigs.
The realization was sobering. In Merit World #31, she'd been a war mech pilot—understood the responsibility that came with overwhelming destructive capability. In World #78, she'd commanded divine lightning that could level cities. Power without discipline was just disaster waiting to happen.
She set everything down carefully and took a steadying breath.
Control. Always control. Strength means nothing if you can't regulate it.
The prickling sensation at her skull intensified for a moment—danger building somewhere out in the city—then faded back to background noise. She pushed the distraction aside. Whatever was coming, she needed to be ready.
Raven spent the next hour testing different aspects of her enhanced strength. Lifting. Holding. Controlling the descent of heavy objects. Learning to modulate force with precision.
She discovered she could punch with enough force to crack stone—tested carefully on the thick wall, pulling the strike at the last second so it only left a faint impression. Could kick hard enough to dent metal. Could move with explosive speed that would let her cross the room in a blur.
But the most valuable discovery was learning to suppress the enhancement. To move at merely human speeds. To apply merely human force. Because standing out would be deadly. The moment she emerged from hiding, eyes would be watching. Questions would be asked.
She needed to seem normal. Wounded, perhaps. Recovering from trauma. But not supernatural. Not impossibly strong. Not threatening.
The best weapon is the one your enemy doesn't know you have, she thought, channeling wisdom from World #19, where she'd been a master spy in an empire of cultivators.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, Raven had a functional understanding of her physical capabilities. Strong enough to be dangerous. Controlled enough not to reveal it accidentally. Ready enough to defend herself if cornered.
But raw strength was only one tool. She needed more.
Day 4, Afternoon: Fire Mastery
With physical strength assessed, Raven turned her attention to the ability that scared her most: dragon fire.
She'd managed basic flames yesterday. Small, controlled, manageable. But "manageable" wasn't good enough. She needed mastery. Needed to be able to use fire in combat without also burning down everything around her target.
Raven stood in the center of the room and raised both hands, palms up.
Start small. Build from there.
A flame appeared on each palm. Candle-sized. Steady. She held them there, feeling the flow of dragon essence through her bones, understanding how the energy converted to fire at her skin's surface.
The flames felt like extensions of herself. Part of her, not separate. She could sense their temperature, their fuel consumption rate, even the way they disturbed the air around them.
This was different from the cultivation fire techniques she'd learned in Tianxing. Those had been external manipulation—commanding fire that existed in the world to obey her will through precisely spoken words and careful energy channeling.
This was internal generation. She wasn't asking permission from elemental forces. She was creating fire from her own essence. Manifesting it through transformed physiology that made dragon blood and human flesh.
Hotter.
The flames shifted from orange-red to gold, temperature climbing. The air shimmered above her palms.
Cooler.
Back to orange-red, then pale red-orange. Barely warmer than body heat.
Brighter.
The flames intensified without getting hotter, pure light without a corresponding heat increase. Useful for illumination without setting things on fire.
Dimmer.
The flames muted to faint flickers, almost invisible but still present.
Raven practiced the variations for an hour, building an instinctive understanding of how to manipulate dragon fire. Temperature. Brightness. Size. Shape. Each parameter could be controlled independently with enough focus.
In Merit World #52, she'd been a plasma engineer—understood energy states and thermal dynamics at the molecular level. In World #71, she'd wielded elemental fire as a combat mage. This was different from both. Not external manipulation. Not even channeling.
I am the fire, she thought, understanding deepening. Not commanding it. Being it.
She experimented with the sensation, trying to understand it at a fundamental level. The dragon essence in her bones didn't just produce heat. It transformed spiritual energy into actual combustion at a cellular level. Her skin became a controlled ignition point, releasing flames that burned according to her intention.
It was alchemy at its most primal. Energy to matter. Thought to flame. Will made manifest in the physical world.
Then she tried moving the flames.
The fire lifted from her palms, floating in the air like tiny suns. Raven concentrated, and they began to orbit around her—slowly at first, then faster. She added more flames until six spheres of fire circled her body in perfect synchronization.
Combat application: defensive barrier. Anything trying to reach me has to pass through fire.
She held the formation for a minute, then two, feeling the energy drain. Not significant yet, but noticeable. Sustained operations would require careful management.
She dispersed five of the flames and focused on making the remaining one move in specific patterns. Figure eights. Spirals. Sharp angular movements. The flame responded with increasing precision as her control improved.
Offensive application: directed projectile. Fire that follows my intent.
Raven pointed at the far wall—stone, fortunately, nothing flammable—and sent the flame flying. It streaked across the room like a miniature comet and splashed against the wall in a brief flare before dissipating.
Faster.
She created another flame and launched it with more force. This one crossed the room in a blur, striking the wall hard enough to leave a scorch mark.
Multiple targets.
Three flames appeared and shot toward different points on the wall simultaneously. All three hit their marks within inches of where she'd aimed.
Raven felt a grin spreading across her face. This was working. She was actually getting the hang of combat applications.
What about barriers?
She raised both hands and pushed energy outward in a sheet rather than discrete flames. Fire bloomed in front of her—a wall of flame six feet tall and three feet wide, hovering in the air without visible support.
The barrier held steady for ten seconds before Raven felt the energy drain becoming significant. She let it dissipate.
Resource-intensive. Can't maintain that for long. But useful for blocking attacks or creating temporary obstacles.
She practiced barrier creation from different angles—in front, to the side, overhead. Each one required slightly different energy management, but the principle was the same: project fire in a planar surface rather than a focused point.
The afternoon slipped away as Raven pushed herself, testing limits, building muscle memory, learning to trust her instincts about what she could and couldn't do safely.
By the time shadows began to lengthen, she could:
- Create flames of various sizes on command
- Control temperature from "warm" to "metal-melting"
- Launch fire projectiles with reasonable accuracy
- Maintain defensive barriers for short periods
- Manipulate multiple flames simultaneously
- Shape fire into basic forms (spheres, walls, streams)
It wasn't perfect mastery. She still occasionally lost control and created unexpected fireballs. The energy drain was significant for sustained combat. Precision targeting at range needed work. And she had no idea what would happen if she tried to create really large flames or sustain them for extended periods.
But it was functional. Enough to defend herself. Enough to be dangerous to anyone who thought she was helpless.
The wrongness intensified again as the sun set. Stronger this time. More urgent. Something shifting in the world beyond these walls. Plans being finalized. Pieces moving into position.
Soon, her instincts whispered. Whatever they're planning, it's soon.
Raven extinguished her flames and stood in the dimming light, breathing slightly harder than normal. Four days post-transformation. Her body had stabilized. Her basic abilities were functional.
She wasn't ready for everything that might come. But she was ready for something. And that would have to be enough.
Tomorrow she'd tackle the sensory overload that had been building. Tonight, she'd rest. Let her body integrate the day's learning. Let her mind process the growing sense of danger.
Because the storm was coming. She could feel it in her bones.
And when it broke, she'd need every advantage she'd gained from these days of isolation and training.
Raven settled onto the narrow bed as darkness fell completely outside. The safe house's privacy wards hummed their quiet protection. The minor ley line beneath the foundation pulsed with gentle energy.
One more day. Perhaps two. Then she'd need to make decisions about emergence. About confrontation. About facing whatever scheme the Brenners had hatched while she transformed.
But not tonight. Tonight was for recovery.
Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. Always did.
She closed her eyes and let exhaustion claim her, dragon fire dreams flickering behind her eyelids like promises and warnings in equal measure.