It was time for evening cultivation; the squad and I moved from our academic lesson, still bickering, all the way to the training yard. We parked ourselves down and sat next to each other in rows. We were usually indoors for this training, but for whatever reason, we had to do it outside this time.The entirety of barracks 7 sat down in the open field, all of us facing our supreme cultivation instructor, Kael. I had to suppress the urge to walk up to the man, punch him and demand an explanation for what the hell he was doing here. But that could wait until after I gave my decision to the Tiernans.I sat near the back with my squad. The evening air carried a faint warmth from both the sun and the ambient Ether cycling through twenty people at once. The breathing produced a heat that had nothing to do with temperature, but felt warm all the same.I closed my eyes and opened the interface, focusing on the ‘Fractured Anamnesis’.[FRACTURED ANAMNESIS — AVAILABLE][MODE SELECT:][■ HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT — AVAILABLE][■ MECH VARIANT — LOCKED. AWAITING FIRMWARE INSTALLATION.][INITIATE? Y/N]The mech mode is greyed out, huh? Seems like I’ll have to wait until the end of the week before I can start those up.I selected hand-to-hand and mentally selected Y.The training yard faded away from around me, reality blurring at the edges until all that remained was copper.It was sharp, metallic, and thick enough to coat my teeth and the back of my throat. From the periphery of my blackened vision, there was light that carried a warm tint, amber at the edges, and deepened towards rust where the (...)