Ren arrived first.
Evan spotted him crossing the training grounds several minutes before he reached the rest area. The broad-shouldered trainee carried enough food under one arm to qualify as a respectable breakfast on its own, while another pastry had already lost a noticeable battle against his appetite.
The smell of baked grain drifted through the cool morning air as he approached, weaving casually between early arrivals and conditioning groups beginning to gather across the complex.
The moment his eyes landed on Evan, he slowed. His gaze shifted briefly toward the running track, then toward the pool area, then back toward Evan again as if piecing together a sequence of events he found personally offensive.
"You're actually insane," Ren announced as he finally reached the bench. "Every single time I think I've arrived early, you're already sitting here looking like you've completed half a day's worth of training." He pointed the partially eaten pastry toward him in accusation. "I left home before sunrise. The arena screens are still dark. Most of the town is barely awake. Yet somehow you've already managed to fit an entire training session into the morning. At this point I'm starting to suspect you secretly sleep in one of the equipment sheds."
Evan looked up from his water bottle, unable to stop the faint smile that followed. "Good morning to you too." Ren dropped onto the bench beside him with a dramatic sigh. "See, that's exactly the sort of response I expected. A normal person would defend themselves. You're acting like this is completely reasonable." He took another bite before shaking his head. "One day Valor is going to discover you've moved into the training hall permanently. Honestly, knowing him, he'd probably approve."
A few minutes later, Lyra and Keira appeared together along the eastern path leading toward the conditioning fields.
They were already in the middle of a discussion before reaching the rest area, the conversation carrying easily through the quieter morning air. Lyra was demonstrating something with her hands as she walked, tracing an angle through the air before pointing toward an imaginary landing position. Keira listened for a few seconds before immediately disagreeing with whatever conclusion had been reached. Neither seemed particularly surprised by that outcome.
Over the past two weeks, Evan had noticed that most of their conversations followed a similar pattern. Lyra approached movement as something that could always be refined through precision and repetition. Keira tended to focus more on practical execution. The disagreements rarely lasted long, though they appeared often enough to have become part of their normal routine.
"Morning," Lyra called as they approached. Her eyes moved briefly between Ren and Evan before settling on the remains of Ren's breakfast. "You brought enough food for four people again." Ren looked down at the package in his hands as if evaluating the accusation seriously. "Three," he corrected after a moment. "Four would require another pastry."
Keira ignored the exchange entirely and glanced toward Evan instead. "How long have you been here?" Before he could answer, Ren immediately pointed in his direction. "Don't ask questions you aren't emotionally prepared to hear the answer to."
The warning did nothing to discourage her curiosity. Evan gave a rough estimate anyway. Lyra stopped walking. Keira blinked once. Ren leaned back against the bench and gestured broadly toward them. "See? That reaction. That's the same reaction I had."
A faint smile touched the corner of Keira's mouth. "You trained before group training?" Evan nodded. Ren let out a long sigh filled with exaggerated disappointment. "Apparently an hour of running counts as 'warming up' now. I've decided this is unhealthy for everyone involved except him."
The conversation drifted easily after that, moving through the sort of small topics that filled the minutes before training officially began. Ren launched into a lengthy complaint about one of the previous evening's simulation matches, insisting the outcome had been decided by poor decision-making rather than skill.
Lyra disagreed almost immediately and spent several minutes explaining exactly why the winning fighter's footwork had created the opening.
Keira joined halfway through, supporting parts of both arguments while somehow making Ren even more frustrated than before.
Evan listened more than he spoke, occasionally adding a comment when the discussion wandered into territory he had spent the past two weeks studying.
The exchange felt surprisingly natural now. A short time ago, he would have struggled to follow half of what they were talking about. Now he found himself recognizing references to movement patterns, positional mistakes, and tactical decisions without needing lengthy explanations.
Dain arrived shortly afterward. Unlike Ren, he carried no food. Unlike Lyra and Keira, he wasn't in the middle of an ongoing discussion. He crossed the grounds with the same focused pace he seemed to bring to everything else, his attention sweeping briefly across the occupied training areas before settling on the group.
His gaze lingered on Evan for a moment, then shifted toward the running field, the pool, and finally the Gym. The sequence lasted only a few seconds, though it was more than enough time for him to reach the conclusion he was looking for. "You already trained."
The statement carried the certainty of an observation rather than a question. Evan nodded once. Dain studied him for another second before giving a small, almost imperceptible nod of his own. "Good." The approval was brief and completely matter-of-fact. Somehow that made it carry more weight. Dain rarely wasted words, and he wasted praise even less.
As more trainees filtered into the hall, the atmosphere around the grounds gradually shifted. The quiet openness of the early morning gave way to the familiar rhythm of organized activity.
Conversations spread between groups warming up for their sessions. Instructors moved between training areas. The running track grew steadily busier, while the conditioning fields began filling with people working through mobility exercises and stretching routines before the start of formal drills. What had felt almost peaceful an hour earlier now carried a growing sense of momentum.
Evan found himself appreciating both versions of the hall. The earlier hours offered space to think and train without interruption. The busier periods carried a different kind of energy, one created by dozens of people pushing toward their own goals at the same time.
Over the past two weeks he had spent enough time here to recognize many of the regular faces. Some belonged to trainees from other groups. Others were instructors, attendants, or people who seemed to live half their lives somewhere inside the complex.
Familiarity had settled over the place gradually, one day at a time, until the training hall no longer felt like a location he visited. It felt like somewhere he belonged.
The beginning of the morning session pulled everyone's attention back toward the training field a short while later. Trainees started moving toward their assigned positions, conversations fading naturally as people settled into routine.
Evan rose from the bench and rolled his shoulders once. The earlier hours of training had left a lingering heaviness in his legs and back, though the sensation felt closer to productive use than genuine fatigue. His muscles carried the reminder of work already completed rather than a warning that he had done too much.
As the group gathered near the conditioning lanes, Evan found himself noticing something that had once seemed impossible. Joining the others no longer came with the quiet certainty that the warm-up would leave him fighting just to keep pace.
The gap still existed. Ren remained stronger. Lyra moved with an efficiency he had yet to match. Dain and Keira possessed years of experience he lacked. Yet the difference no longer defined every moment of training. For the first time since joining the group, he could devote more attention to improving than to simply enduring.
The opening conditioning circuit began with a sequence he recognized before Valor finished explaining it. Wall sits. Stance holds. Core stabilization exercises designed to build endurance long before anyone touched a weapon or entered a simulation chamber.
The strain arrived as expected when the circuit began, settling steadily into his legs, core, and shoulders. Two weeks earlier, that discomfort would have consumed most of his attention, turning every countdown into a test of stubbornness. Now he found enough room to think beyond the burn. He controlled his breathing, adjusted his balance when necessary, and focused on maintaining proper form instead of merely lasting until the timer ended.
Around him, the rest of the group worked through the exercises with the same concentration as always. This time, Evan no longer felt like someone scrambling to catch up from several steps behind. He felt like part of the training itself, steadily closing a distance that had once seemed far beyond his reach.
The conditioning circuit flowed naturally into movement work afterward. Markers had already been placed across several sections of the training field, creating lanes for directional drills, acceleration sequences, and recovery exercises.
Valor split the trainees into smaller groups and began rotating them through the stations. Evan found himself moving from one sequence to the next without much opportunity to rest. Forward bursts followed by abrupt lateral changes. Controlled retreats into immediate re-engagement. Short sprint intervals ending in balance recovery drills.
Each exercise targeted a different aspect of movement, though all of them seemed designed around the same underlying principle: maintaining control while under pressure.
Lyra noticed the improvement first.
"Your transitions are cleaner," she said after watching him complete one of the directional sequences. Her eyes followed his foot placement through another repetition before she added, "You're still bleeding speed on the second change of direction, though. Less than before, but it's still there."
Evan ran the sequence again.
This time he focused on keeping his weight centered through the transition instead of preparing for the next movement too early.
Lyra watched for a moment before giving a small nod.
"Better. You recovered faster out of that turn."
Coming from Lyra, that qualified as enthusiastic praise. Ren, who had been listening from the neighboring lane while working through his own drills, immediately pointed toward her.
"There. I heard it. Actual approval. Somebody mark the date down before she changes her mind."
"Keep moving," Lyra replied without missing a beat.
"See? Back to normal already."
Ren's ability to continue talking through conditioning remained one of the more impressive skills Evan had witnessed since arriving in Dornhaven. By the time the group rotated into weighted stance holds, he had somehow redirected the conversation toward training philosophy, food quality, and a lengthy argument about whether endurance exercises should legally require additional meal allowances afterward.
Keira ignored most of it. Lyra occasionally responded just enough to encourage him. Even a few trainees from neighboring groups had started listening with amused expressions.
"I'm serious," Ren insisted while maintaining the stance. "There should be compensation. Extra portions. Priority seating at food stalls. Something. If a person suffers this much, society owes them certain considerations." Sweat had already begun running down the side of his face, though that didn't seem to affect his ability to complain. "Look at this. Look at all of us. We could be doing productive things right now." His gaze shifted toward Evan. "And before anyone says training is productive, I'm specifically excluding that answer."
The laughter that followed spread through several nearby lanes before gradually fading as the next drill began.
Evan moved with the group toward a series of paired movement exercises laid out across the field.
These were more demanding than the earlier conditioning work, requiring constant adjustment instead of simply enduring discomfort. One partner would initiate a movement pattern while the other mirrored, countered, or responded according to the sequence being practiced.
The pace increased steadily with each repetition until mistakes started appearing naturally. Somewhere along the way, Evan realized he had stopped dreading these exercises. A few weeks ago they had exposed every weakness he possessed. Now they felt more like opportunities to test whether recent improvements actually held together once pressure entered the equation.
Evan found himself paired with Dain again.
At this point, the repetition had happened often enough that calling it coincidence required more optimism than Evan possessed. Whether Valor was arranging the pairings deliberately or Dain simply kept drifting toward the same training lane remained unclear. Either way, the result rarely changed.
The exercise began slowly, focusing on foot placement, balance shifts, and recovery positioning after directional changes.
For the first few repetitions, Evan managed to keep pace without issue. Then Dain started increasing the speed, gradually pushing the exercise beyond the point where Evan could think through each movement beforehand.
The corrections arrived almost immediately afterward. A shoulder turning too early. A recovery step landing slightly wider than necessary. A brief hesitation before committing to the next transition. Dain caught all of them.
"Again."
Evan repeated the sequence.
This time the movement felt cleaner.
Dain increased the pace.
"Again."
The next repetition arrived faster still. Weight shifted. Pivot. Recovery step. Lateral movement. Immediate direction change. Evan adjusted as the sequence unfolded, focusing on the correction instead of the mistake that had created it.
A week ago he would have fallen apart halfway through and spent the remainder trying to recover. Now he managed to hold the pattern together long enough to reach the end before the next flaw revealed itself.
Dain watched the final transition and gave a short nod.
"Better."
The single word carried more satisfaction than it probably should have.
The drill continued for several more minutes, each successful repetition followed by a slightly greater challenge. Pressure without hostility. Competition without resentment. Dain pushed harder every time Evan adapted, testing whether the improvement was genuine or merely temporary.
By the end of the exercise, Evan's legs felt heavier than they had after the earlier training session, and sweat had begun soaking through his shirt again. Yet something stood out more than the fatigue. The mistakes were appearing later now. Corrections lasted longer before breaking down.
Small improvements that had seemed insignificant in isolation were beginning to hold together during real training. For someone who had spent the last two weeks measuring progress one exercise at a time, that realization felt every bit as rewarding as the numbers themselves.
The rest of the morning passed in much the same way. Conditioning circuits blended into movement drills, movement drills gave way to balance work, and balance work eventually circled back into exercises designed to reinforce the same fundamentals from slightly different angles.
By now, Evan understood enough to recognize the purpose behind most of the exercises Valor had introduced so far.
He had also been fortunate in his timing. Having joined the training hall shortly after this batch began, he had progressed through the fundamentals alongside everyone else rather than being forced to catch up to concepts introduced months earlier.
Very little of what Valor taught focused on spectacular techniques or impressive displays. The emphasis remained fixed on efficiency, stability, and repetition. Proper foot placement. Controlled recovery. Consistent movement under fatigue. Skills that seemed almost mundane during practice, yet quietly determined whether a fighter remained in control when conditions deteriorated.
The same habits that prevented mistakes often proved to be the ones that kept people alive when those mistakes carried consequences.
More importantly, Evan could feel those repetitions beginning to accumulate in ways that went beyond simple familiarity. Corrections that once required conscious effort were slowly becoming habits. His balance recovered faster after abrupt direction changes. His breathing stayed steadier during prolonged conditioning.
Even when mistakes appeared, they tended to appear later than before. The progress remained gradual, though it had reached the point where he no longer needed numbers to prove it existed. He could feel it every time an exercise that once left him struggling now felt manageable enough to focus on refinement instead of simply getting through it.
By the time Valor finally called an end to the session, the morning sun had climbed fully above the horizon and the training grounds carried the steady noise of a hall operating at full capacity.
Around him, trainees began collecting equipment, stretching tired muscles, or drifting toward the bathing facilities scattered throughout the complex.
Ren immediately launched into another complaint about conditioning circuits while Keira informed him that nobody was forcing him to return every day. Lyra pointed out that he would be back tomorrow regardless. Ren admitted that this was true, which somehow ended the argument.
Evan spent a few minutes stretching near the edge of the field while the conversation continued nearby. The familiar heaviness lingered through his legs, shoulders, and back, accompanied by the satisfying soreness that followed productive work.
As he finished the final stretch and straightened again, he found himself looking across the training grounds with a quiet sense of appreciation.
Two weeks ago, simply completing a session like this had felt difficult. Now it felt like another step forward. They were small, ordinary gains, yet every one of them had been earned. Exactly the kind of progress he had come to value most.
And it wasn't only the training.
The hesitation that had once accompanied every conversation had gradually faded. Ren's competitive encouragement, Keira's patience, Lyra's blunt observations, and Dain's steady guidance had become familiar parts of his routine. Somewhere along the way, these people had stopped feeling like strangers.
The realization carried more weight than he expected.
He had arrived on an unfamiliar world alone, frightened, and uncertain of what came next. Without the kindness he had encountered since then, the loneliness might have swallowed far more of those first weeks than he cared to admit.
For all the uncertainty that still surrounded him, Evan found himself grateful.
And for now, that was enough.