The training ground looked nothing like Kai expected.
No pristine martial arts dojo. No high-tech simulator. Just a clearing where reality seemed to breathe. Twist. Fold in on itself.
Lyra stood thirty meters away, her copper-toned skin alive with those electric-blue circuit tattoos that never quite stopped moving. The six-eyed creature—Kai had started thinking of it as a guardian more than a beast—watched from the edge of the silver-leafed forest.
"Perception is your first weapon," Lyra called out. Not a suggestion. A command.
Kai understood this wasn't about physical combat. This was something else entirely.
The lavender sky with its two moons seemed to pulse in response to her words. The landscape wasn't passive. It was alive. Watching. Evaluating.
His mother's voice echoed in his memory. "Pay attention," she'd tell him during his childhood chess lessons. "The game isn't just about the pieces. It's about the space between them."
He'd never fully understood what she meant. Until now.
"Close your eyes," Lyra instructed.
Kai hesitated. The six-eyed creature's multiple gazes converged on him. A silent encouragement.
He closed his eyes.
The world didn't disappear. It transformed.
Sounds became visible. Frequencies danced like living colors. He could feel the electrical charge of the ground. The breath of the trees. The complex network of energy that connected everything.
"You're not blocking," Lyra's voice cut through. "You're expanding."
Something approached. Not physically. Something that existed in the spaces between perception. Kai felt it before he could define it—a disruption. A potential threat.
His computer science background provided an unexpected framework. This was like debugging a complex system. Finding the point of potential failure. Understanding the entire network.
The approaching... something... was calculating. Probing. Looking for weakness.
Kai didn't move. Didn't react. He observed.
The six-eyed creature's breath carried the smell of ozone and something older. Something that predated human understanding.
"Now," the creature said.
Kai's hand moved. Not a physical gesture. Something else. A communication that bypassed language. Part mathematics. Part pure potential.
The approaching threat paused. Recalculated.
Lyra's circuit-tattoos blazed brighter.
"Interesting," she said.
The landscape shifted. Reality folded. The two moons in the lavender sky seemed to watch with ancient, indifferent eyes.
Kai understood something fundamental in that moment.
This wasn't just training.
This was learning to see.
To truly see.