The decision to roll back to First Stage was highly unorthodox and pretty dangerous. But it was an either-or situation. Either a successful rollback, or complete crippling. The odds of crippling weren’t huge, but not small either, around twenty percent. One in five. And Bao had done everything he could to avoid that outcome.

  I still had serious doubts about the reliability of his judgement, but he hadn’t gone into this alone. He’d prepared with Johansson, and his judgement I trusted a lot more.

  And here we were again, back to the topic of choices and responsibility.

  This time, the little bastard had luck on his side. But one day, perfectionism was going to kill him.

  "Did you think about what Denis would’ve said if you’d wrecked yourself?" I asked him.

  Bao took that like a sp. A deserved one.

  "I think he’d have called me an idiot too," he admitted. "But Denis is down there," he said, jabbing a finger at the table, meaning Earth, metaphorically, regardless of Verdis’s current pnetary alignment. "I owe Denis the chance to keep growing and developing. But this is my development, and I have to make decisions that are right for me."

  "Seriously?" I asked. "You think you’ll still break through to Third in time?"

  "Two and a half years left. More than enough."

  "It’s less than that now," I corrected him.

  "I’ve got time," he said, confidently but a bit distantly, like he was already running through the next steps in his head, calcuting how long each one would take. "Plenty of time."

  I wanted to say something sarcastic, but held back. If he’d really gone through with this consciously, then repeating the lecture would be pointless. I’d already said my bit. Now it was his turn to prove himself with action.

  We sat in silence for a while. At some point, I realised that the anxiety I’d been carrying for the little bastard had eased. Bao had made a pretty questionable decision.

  But it had been his decision.

  "Well then," I said. "Good luck with the new foundation."

  Bao smiled.

  "Zo wished me not to break my head in the process."

  "Yeah? Like she’s one to talk about having no head problems," I snorted.

  "Well," Bao admitted. "She’s adapted a bit to the hormonal storm and stopped bouncing from bed to bed. She’s even got someone more or less steady now. Might even be a retionship."

  I smirked.

  "If that’s true, he’s in for a big surprise down the line."

  Bao grinned back but shook his head.

  "That’s only if she’s allowed to tell him."

  We said goodbye without any drama. Walking out of the cafe, I caught myself feeling something strange, a sense of continuation. Like the conversation with Novak was still going, and now I was getting arguments about personal choice and responsibility directly from life itself.

  He’d gotten into my head properly.

  That old bastard.

  Still, Bao was alive, more or less sane, and had a pn. One less, albeit small, thing to worry about. And with that worry gone, it was easier to breathe.

  But there was no particur sense of ease. I had so much pnned, and now I was being forced to do nothing.

  Forced rest was turning out to be far harder than training.

  For the first couple of hours after talking with Bao, I managed to hold it together. We hadn’t actually had lunch, and the cheesecake hadn’t sted long, so I got busy with cooking and eating. Domestic activity gave me the illusion of momentum, but that illusion started cracking quickly.

  I caught myself jittering my right leg while staring out the fake window. Phantom itch, of a kind.

  I tried reading. Not technical stuff, fiction. I used to love it, back in my old life. In this one, I never had the time.

  Picked something from Novak’s recommendations and sted fifteen minutes before I realised I’d re-read the same paragraph three times. My brain was automatically trying to break the story down into structure, find logic, predict outcomes. The book had stopped being a way to rex, it had turned into a puzzle. I tossed the tablet aside in frustration.

  Series went even worse. I started a video on the fake window, shrinking the dispy to a more reasonable size, since in a small room the screen felt ridiculously oversized. I sted maybe ten minutes longer, but even then, I realised that instead of following the plot, my brain was busy pnning a session in Rene’s gym and building a training schedule for the updated Chainsaw Punch. The st five minutes of the video didn’t even register in my memory.

  I turned it off.

  Could Novak really be right? Had I actually overworked myself?

  I’d always thought of myself as zy.

  I tried something more active for rest.

  A walk in the greenhouse, the same one where the Nur’s demon had first shown itself, didn’t help either. My legs moved, lungs worked, the air was too thick with scents… and my mind spun with memories from First Year. I caught myself measuring time. How much had passed since the break began. How long until the invasion. Until the end of the year. How much of these three forced days of rest I’d already spent.

  Spent.

  As if rest were a resource that had to be used as efficiently as possible. As if I was trying to optimise a process that, by definition, shouldn’t be optimised. Realising that didn’t help. It just made it more irritating.

  I returned to my room, colpsed onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

  My body was fine. No pain, no fatigue. My breathing was steady, my core hummed with energy. But my head wouldn’t shut up. It kept trying to find a point of focus. If not techniques, then pnning. If not pnning, then analysis. If not analysis, then imaginary conversations I’d already had, or would eventually have.

  I caught myself repying the dialogue with Novak again. Different phrasing. Different tone. Different answers. As if that would change anything.

  As if I could go back in time, sp a more cheerful expression on my face, and avoid this entire torture session.

  That was the worst realisation.

  I got up, walked over to the window, and turned on the mountain river stream again. The water flowed steadily and indifferently. It didn’t care about portals, foundations, or grades. It wasn’t rushing. It wasn’t slowing down. It just was.

  I stood there for a few minutes, and then realised I was trying to force myself to feel calm. And that meant there was no calm there to begin with.

  Novak had been right. I’d forgotten how to rest. And worse, I didn’t even know where to start.

  The idea of disobedience didn’t come immediately. At first, I was genuinely trying to find ways to rex. To rest. And then it hit me: one solid training session with Chainsaw Punch would clear my head better than any method I’d tried.

  And so, slowly, cautiously, as if I wasn’t quite letting myself say it out loud, the thought of breaking the rules began to take shape.

  If I couldn’t rest, then this ‘rest’ was hurting me.

  Simple logic. Almost trivial. In any other context, I’d accept it without hesitation. If the method doesn’t work — change the method. If the condition worsens — adjust the load. These were basic principles. The very foundation of all my training and survival.

  Chainsaw Punch was burning in the back of my mind. I was itching to try the technique.

  I didn’t see it as some burdensome routine. More like a toy being held just out of reach, one I wasn’t allowed to touch. It was a point of focus, something I could channel this cursed mental inertia into, the momentum in my head that refused to stop. I wasn’t pnning to cultivate. I wasn’t heading into the library. Just break down the changes. See how Novak’s acquaintance had restructured the channels. It wasn’t even physical strain. It was analysis. It was… almost rest.

  And then I realised I was building excuses.

  I stopped and forced myself to follow the logic all the way through.

  Fine. I disobey. I open the technique. I spend an hour, maybe two. Then what?

  Then I go to the gym and test it in practice, because one without the other makes no sense.

  Novak will find out. I don’t know how, but somehow, he always knows. Either I’ll let it slip, or he’ll notice something in the details, or someone will tell him...

  I even gnced around the room, half expecting to spot a bck beetle on the shelf or the wardrobe.

  That was probably going too far... No way he'd waste drones on me.

  But then what happens, after I disobey?

  Then I’ve broken our agreement.

  And that bothered me more than the restriction itself. I didn’t want to damage what we’d built between us. Not after that conversation. Not after he’d told me outright that he didn’t want some cornered ally grinding his teeth in silence.

  It all came back to the same two options.

  Endure. Or don’t.

  And both options sucked.

  I remembered what he’d said — that there’s always a way out.

  Fine. Time to expand the list.

  Option three — ask for permission. Be honest. Say that doing nothing is driving me up the wall, and ask if I can change the format of this so-called rest.

  A humiliating option. One that completely contradicts the logic of a disciple as an ally, as an independent unit, and confirms I’m nothing more than a tool with restricted will.

  Option four — inform him. Don’t ask. Don’t justify. Just say it doesn’t work this way.

  My chest tightened right at that option.

  Telling the Great One that his decision didn’t suit me felt like a suicidal level of insolence. Or like something I simply didn’t have the right to do.

  And yet, if I believed everything he’d said before, this was exactly what he expected from me.

  Not agreement. Not obedience. But initiative.

  I y there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. The idea of calling him scared me about as much as stepping through a portal for the first time. All that was left was to close my eyes, and take the step.

  Besides, I had examples: Kate and Lina. Although… Kate was even more nervous around Novak than I was. Lina, on the other hand, didn’t seem afraid of him at all.

  Maybe he just likes girls more? Even Bulsara…

  Well, alright, Bulsara treated him with respect, but he didn’t grovel.

  In the end, I let out a breath and pulled up his contact.

  While the call was ringing, I caught a strange feeling, like I’d just done something right, but wasn’t remotely ready for the consequences.

  The line connected.

  "Hello, Jake," Novak said.

  "Master..." I began, and immediately forced myself not to lower my voice, so I wouldn’t slip into a pleading tone. "This format of rest is frustrating me.

  "It’s creating constant tension. I get the logic behind the pause, but the way it’s structured, it’s working against me.

  "I’m going back to working with Chainsaw Punch. I’ll keep the overall load lower, of course, but cutting it out entirely is going to drive me insane."

  "You need a hobby, Jake," he said.

  That could’ve used a bit more crity.

  "Sorry, I don’t follow."

  "A hobby — something to help you rest. Something that has no clear goal and no measurable outcome. Just enjoyment."

  "When you put it that way, working on Chainsaw Punch will definitely bring me enjoyment. And I wouldn’t say the outcome is all that measurable."

  Novak paused to think.

  "That’s not a proper hobby. What will you do once you finish the technique? I doubt you’ll start developing a new one."

  He was right. The rework of Chain Punch had been a happy accident, and I had no pns to go into technique design on purpose. Too much hassle.

  "You’ll pick another one," Novak said. "Something unreted to cultivation, combat, or survival. At least not directly.

  "I thought books would distract you," he added. "But if that didn’t work, consider chess, or something simir. A lot of cultivators py."

  "Of course," I replied, pleased I wouldn’t have to expin why I hadn’t stuck with the book he’d recommended.

  "That all?" he asked.

  Everything had gone smoothly so far, so I felt bold enough to push a little.

  "Master," I said. "My decision about the portal project still stands. I understand the benefits and the risks, but I don’t intend to dwell on them. The only question is: when will you let me start?"

  "Throwing the ball back into my court?" he asked. "Sounds like you're shifting the responsibility."

  "Are you saying you don’t carry any?" I asked. "You chose me for this role. Even though you made the offer as appealing as possible, you still made a decision."

  "Touche," Novak agreed. "You’ll need strong will to hold your ground in that kind of company. Rest a few more days, and then I’ll introduce you to the project lead."

  MaksymPachesiuk