The dormitory for the "conditioned"—the students who had not yet achieved the Hypercharge State—was not a room. It was a pressurized cage.
Block G was a brutalist slab of concrete and lead-lined steel. Inside, the gravity was locked at a constant 1.1G. To a Normal, this wasn't just a weight; it was a physical insult. It pulled at your eyelids, made your heart labor like a dying engine, and turned every step into a calculated risk.
Sameer stood at the entrance, his 5'7" frame trembling slightly. He could feel the 1.1G gravity trying to flatten his 70kg body into the floor. His 0.5x Intake was already at its limit just keeping his lungs expanding.
"Move it, Zero! You're blocking the airflow!"
A massive hand landed on Sameer's shoulder, nearly driving him to his knees. He looked up—and up. Standing behind him was a mountain of a teenager. He was at least 6'4", with shoulders so broad they seemed to swallow the light of the corridor. His skin was the color of scorched earth, and he carried a bag that looked like it was filled with lead weights.
"Sorry!" Sameer chirped, forcing a smile despite the sweat beads forming on his forehead. "I was just... admiring the 'density' of the air! It has a very thick, charcoal-like texture, don't you think?"
The giant blinked, his brow furrowing. "I think it feels like a boot on my neck. I'm Toby. Earth-element. You're the 5-element freak from the bus, aren't you?"
"I prefer 'High-maintenance masterpiece,'" Sameer said, extending a hand that was currently shaking from the G-load. "I'm Sameer. Painter, mechanic, and currently, a professional floor-gravity tester."
Toby grunted, but he didn't pull his hand away. He gripped Sameer's hand, and for a second, Sameer felt the "Noise" of the giant. Toby's body was naturally "Grounding," even without a Hypercharge. He was a natural-born tank.
The Lesson of the Sponge and the Iron
The barracks were filled with hundreds of "Nobodies." Kids from the slums, the outer rims, and the mid-sectors, all waiting for the Awakening.
Suddenly, the lights flickered, and a Senior Instructor stepped onto a raised platform. He was a Breaker, and you could tell just by looking at him. He didn't look muscular or bulky. He looked... solid. When he walked, the floor didn't creak, yet he moved with the terrifying speed of a predatory cat.
"Listen up, Trash!" the Instructor barked. "You've spent your lives hearing about the Hypercharge. You think it's about 'power.' You think it's about 'glowing' like the heroes in the propaganda vids. You are wrong."
He held up two identical grey cubes.
"The world you just left was a world of Mass. If you wanted to be stronger, you had to get bigger. If you wanted to hit harder, you had to get heavier. But in the Quantum Era, weight is a weakness."
He dropped the first cube. It hit the floor with a soft thud and bounced. "This is a sponge. It weighs 100 grams. It is light, but it is soft. If I step on it, it ceases to exist."
Then he dropped the second cube. It hit the floor with a localized crack that echoed through the hall. It didn't bounce. It stayed exactly where it landed. "This is a piece of industrial tungsten. It also weighs exactly 100 grams. Same size. Same weight."
The Instructor looked at the confused faces of the students. Sameer, however, was leaning forward, his Quantum Brain already sketching the molecular lattices of the two objects.
"Hypercharge," the Instructor continued, "is the art of Density Multiplication. When you enter the state, you absorb the Background Noise of the universe to pack your molecules closer together. You don't gain a single gram of weight. If you weigh 70 kg now, you will weigh 70 kg in a 5x Hypercharge."
He suddenly punched the wall behind him. His fist didn't break. The reinforced steel did.
"Why didn't my hand shatter?" he asked. "Because at the moment of impact, I multiplied my hand's Density to be 10 times harder than the steel. I was still a 75 kg man, but for a microsecond, I had the structural integrity of a mountain. Weight is the anchor of the old world. Density is the engine of the new one."
The Unconditioning Begins
"Now," the Instructor sneered. "Since you all want to be 'Gods,' let's see if your biology can handle the pressure. The first rule of the Hypercharge is that your body must be a Stable Vessel. If your bones are too soft, the density will crush them. If your heart is too weak, the intake will burst it."
[GRAVITY INCREASED: 1.2G]
A collective groan filled the room. Students collapsed. Sameer felt his vision go dark at the edges. His 70kg frame now felt like it weighed 84kg. Every organ in his body was being pulled downward.
"Don't fall!" Toby growled, grabbing Sameer's collar to keep him upright. Toby was sweating, his Earth-element heart thumping like a drum. "If you hit the floor at 1.2G, you won't get back up."
Sameer closed his eyes. He didn't fight the weight with muscle. He used his Logic.
"Analysis: 1.2G load distribution," his mind calculated. "If I keep my knees locked, the force shatters my joints. If I soften them, the force is distributed through the tendons."
He began to "sketch" the gravity. In his mind, the 1.2G wasn't a weight; it was a series of downward-moving brushstrokes. He adjusted his posture, tilting his pelvis and relaxing his diaphragm. He mimicked the Symmetry of the tungsten cube the Instructor had shown them.
"I am not heavy," Sameer whispered to himself, his breath coming in shallow, rhythmic bursts. "I am just... becoming a denser painting."
"How... how are you still standing?" Toby gasped. The giant was trembling, his massive muscles fighting a losing battle against the constant pull.
"I'm just... imagining I'm a motorcycle piston, Toby!" Sameer managed a weak, sweet smile. "If you don't fight the oil, you just... slide through it."
The First Night: Biological Starvation
By the time they reached their assigned bunks in Block G, half the candidates had been carried out by med-droids.
Sameer lay on the top bunk, staring at the grey ceiling. The 1.1G was back, but his body felt hollow. This was the second part of Unconditioning: Nutritional Denial. To force the body to look for "White Noise" energy, the Academy fed them nothing but water and a thin, low-calorie gel.
"I'm so hungry I could eat the floor," Toby groaned from the bunk below. "And the floor is trying to eat me."
Sameer pulled his sketchbook out. In the dim light, he drew Toby's massive arm. He noticed the way Toby's muscles were already starting to "clump" together, naturally trying to increase their density to survive the 1.1G environment.
"This is the secret," Sameer realized, his pencil moving with predatory precision. "The Hypercharge isn't something you 'do.' It's something the body 'needs' to survive. The Academy isn't teaching us. They are starving us until our Quantum Brain has no choice but to turn the engine on."
He looked at his own thin hands. His 0.5x Intake was still struggling. He was a 5-element user, but his engine was clogged.
"Toby?" Sameer asked softly.
"Yeah?"
"Don't worry about the godhood. Just focus on being... iron. If you stay iron, the gravity can't bend you."
"Iron... yeah. Iron," Toby muttered, his breathing finally stabilizing as he fell into a heavy, gravity-pushed sleep.
Sameer didn't sleep. He watched the shadows of the 1.1G barracks. He watched the way the air vibrated. He was a Nobody, a Zero with a 0.5x intake, but he was the only one who had realized the first real lesson of the Quantum Era:
Density isn't about strength. It's about how much of the universe you can fit into yourself without changing your weight.
He closed his eyes and began to sketch the "Noise" of the universe in his mind, waiting for the first spark of the Hypercharge to ignite.