Five days passed quickly.

The spaceship hummed around them—a massive vessel designated The Zenith Vanguard, sleek black hull reflecting distant starlight, interior spacious enough to house fifty people comfortably. Each of the twelve students had been assigned private quarters: small rooms with beds, basic facilities, and reinforced walls that hummed with subtle ward arrays.

Kael had spent most of the journey in meditation, cross-legged on his bed, the gravitational theory book open in his lap though he’d stopped reading hours ago. The comprehension came from within, not without. Theory pointed the direction. Understanding walked the path.

He’d also most of his shadow points.

But whatever he’d bought remained shrouded in mystery.

The common area was spacious—a rectangular chamber with viewing ports that displayed the endless void of space. Stars wheeled slowly past, distant galaxies smearing the darkness with hints of color. The violent mana of unprotected space pressed against the hull like a living thing, and even through the wards, Kael could feel it—that primal, untamed energy that existed between worlds.

VP Dubois stood at the center of the room, hands clasped behind her back, watching the stars.

The twelve students had gathered at her summons. Some sat. Others stood. Karacus leaned against the far wall with his arms crossed. Sage had claimed a couch and was using Rue’s lap as a pillow. Caelan stood alone near a viewport, violet eyes distant.

"Do you know how space feels like without a space armor?" Dubois’s voice was calm. "The mana in space is so intense and violent—unlike the ones on planets, which are saturated by the planet’s core. If a person has no domain seed or is not at least at the Origin realm, they will be crushed by the intense pressure and violent mana of space."

She paused, letting the information settle.

"While there are some zones in the universe that have calmer surroundings, the area of this supercluster is not so kind." Her eyes swept across them. "And of course, even though cultivators can breathe longer in space since their bodies use less oxygen than non-cultivators, they still need oxygen. As you grow stronger, you need less and lesser oxygen until, of course—"

She stopped.

Then an evil smile flashed across her face.

"Pilot." Her voice carried no urgency. "Open the hatch."

Clunk. Hiss.

The emergency hatch behind them began to cycle open. Cold air rushed in—no, not air. Nothing. The vacuum of space pulled at the atmosphere inside the common area, and students stumbled, gasped, reached for something to hold onto—

And then they couldn’t move.

Kael felt it immediately—the invisible force that seized his body like a giant’s hand. His arms locked at his sides. His legs refused to respond. Even his mana circulation stuttered under the pressure. As they tried to use their abilities, a mysterious force suddenly pushed them out into the open space.

Telekinesis. Is that her ability?

One by one, the twelve students lifted into the air. Rue’s tails thrashed uselessly. Mason’s sunlight energy flickered and died. Cassian’s hand twitched toward his pocket watch and found he couldn’t reach it.

"AAHNHAHHHHN—" The scream came from someone—maybe multiple someones—as Dubois walked them toward the open hatch like puppets on strings.

"Consider this your first lesson," Dubois said pleasantly, stepping through the hatch herself and dragging twelve helpless students into the void of space. "Survival."

The vacuum hit them like a physical wall.

Kael’s lungs seized. The violent mana—violent wasn’t strong enough a word—it was feral, hungry, pressing against his body from every direction with the weight of an ocean. His skin burned. His eyes watered. His mana reserves started draining immediately just to maintain basic cellular integrity.

Gravity manipulation surged outward. A well formed around him—just enough to deflect the worst of the pressure. His body cultivation did the rest. Tier 4 muscle and bone simply endured, cells reinforced by void energy resisting the crushing force through sheer physical durability.

Around him, chaos erupted.

CRACK. CRACK. CRASH.

Yenna screamed—a sharp, desperate sound—as ice exploded from her body, forming a protective dome that immediately began cracking under the pressure. Frost crawled across the surface, thickening, reinforcing, but the violent mana kept coming.

Cassian was cursing as his time manipulation did absolutely nothing against environmental pressure. His face was turning red, then purple. His hand finally—finally—managed to crush something inside his pocket.

A green barrier bloomed around him. It held, but Kael could see the strain already forming in the flickering edges.

Sage and Rue had both manifested their fox halos—golden light radiating outward, nine tails each fully extended, spiritual energy pushing back against the void. Their faces were strained but controlled. Beast-kin had natural advantages in extreme environments.

Zara had coiled into herself, a serpent halo of green and black scales wrapping around her body like living armor. Snake-kin.She was handling it better than most.

Caelan’s sword intent had materialized around him—a shell of white energy that hummed with killing purpose. It wasn’t designed for environmental protection, but intent was intent. It held.

Aria’s light dome flickered and stabilized. Her dual elements—shadow and light—created a push-pull effect that was surprisingly effective.

Mason had become a miniature sun. Blazing solar energy radiated outward, his War God bloodline pushing his body beyond normal limits. His skin had turned bronze, almost metallic, and the light he emitted was intense enough to hurt to look at.

Rooley’s summoned a snake—a massive serpent of shadow and starlight—coiled around him protectively, its scales absorbing the violent mana before it could reach him.

Isabella—

She’d created a gravity well. Similar to Kael’s. But where his was reinforced by body cultivation and months of intensive training, hers was purely mana-based. The well flickered and wavered. Her nose was already bleeding. Her eyes were bulging.

Karacus stood motionless.

No dome. No barrier. No visible technique.

Just his body—white dragon halo flickering lazily around him—and pure, unadulterated physical endurance. His expression hadn’t changed. His breathing was slightly harder than normal, but that was it. Dragons were creatures of insane physical stats. The pressure that was crushing everyone else was... inconvenient to him.

Four minutes passed.

Isabella’s gravity well shattered like glass.

"NO—" but Dubois was already moving. The telekinetic force caught Isabella and flung her back through the hatch, her body tumbling like a ragdoll until she hit the interior floor with a painful THUD.

"First one down," Dubois noted.

Five minutes. Yenna’s ice dome was cracking faster now, frost failing to regenerate as fast as the violent mana destroyed it. She wasn’t physically gifted—her power lived in her intent, not her body. The cold was sapping her strength.

CRACK. SHATTER.

Yenna collapsed. Dubois caught her and threw her inside. "Second."

Six minutes. Aria’s light dome flickered violently and died. She gasped—gasp, gasp, gasp—before Dubois dragged her back.

Seven minutes. Rooley’s snake dissipated. The summoner went limp.

Eight minutes. Caelan’s sword intent shattered. The swordsman’s eyes rolled back.

Nine minutes. Cassian’s barrier broke with a sound like glass exploding—CRASH—and the time manipulator spat blood before being hauled inside.

Ten minutes. Sage’s fox halo flickered. Her tails drooped before Dubois yanked her away.

"Sage!" Rue screamed, reaching for her sister—

Eleven minutes. Zara’s serpent armor cracked and fell away. The snake-kin went limp.

Twelve minutes. Rue’s halo was failing now—emotional distress degrading her control. Dubois didn’t wait for it to break completely. She pulled Rue inside, the fox-kin’s tails limp and lifeless.

Thirteen minutes. Mason’s solar form dimmed, flickered, and died. The War God descendant collapsed with a groan, bronze skin fading to normal.

Fourteen minutes.

Only Karacus and Kael remained.

Inside the ship, pressed against the viewing ports, the other ten students watched. Rue had recovered enough to speak, her voice carrying through the comms system that Dubois had apparently activated.

"Kael really has an insane physique." She was smiling despite everything—proud, almost. "I’ve never seen someone handle space pressure like that without a domain."

Sage, sprawled on a couch with an ice pack against her head, snorted. "I mean, look at those fine muscles. You think that’s just for show?"

Inside the void, the pressure was becoming insane. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Kael’s gravity well was holding, but barely. Each second demanded more mana, more focus, more physical endurance. Sweat that evaporated the moment it formed. Muscles screaming. Lungs burning for oxygen that didn’t exist.

Beside him, Karacus was finally showing strain. The dragon’s white hair whipped in the violent mana currents, his jaw clenched, his halo blazing brighter than before. A low rumble built in his chest—dragon force, raw and primal, pushing outward in waves that displaced the violent mana.

Fifteen minutes.

Kael’s vision blurred.

And then—something clicked.

It started in his Sea of Consciousness. A shift. A rotation. Like a key finding a lock it didn’t know existed. The gravity well around him stopped being a technique and started being something else—something deeper, something fundamental.

He closed his eyes.

Inside the ship, Yenna turned to Cassian. "What do you think he’s doing?"

Cassian’s silver eyes were fixed on Kael’s floating form, a smile playing at his lips. "He’s entered a state of flow."

Flow.

Kael wasn’t thinking anymore. Wasn’t calculating, wasn’t strategizing, wasn’t fighting. He was feeling. Gravity wasn’t just a force he manipulated—it was a truth. A law of existence. Mass attracted mass. Energy curved space. The fabric of reality itself bent under the weight of matter.

And he was part of that fabric.

The gravity field around him expanded naturally, like a flower blooming. The violent mana of space encountered the field and... deferred. Simply redirected around a space that had been claimed by something it couldn’t challenge.

Thirty meters. The field stretched thirty meters in every direction, a sphere of calm in the heart of chaos. Inside that sphere, Kael could breathe. Not easily—the air was thin, recycled by his own mana—but freely. The pressure simply... wasn’t there.

A smile formed on VP Dubois’s face.

Kael opened his eyes.

[NOTIFICATION]

Host has successfully comprehended a Rule of Gravity.

Host has formed a Gravity Domain Seed.

Current Domain Radius: 30 meters

Domain Efficiency: 12% (Will increase with cultivation and comprehension)

Note: Domain Seeds are the foundation of Domains. Full Domain manifestation requires Origin Realm minimum. Current seed allows partial domain effects at reduced efficiency.

Congratulations, host. Seems host is not so useless after all.

Kael stared at the notification, then at the thirty-meter sphere of calm space surrounding him, then at Dubois’s smiling face.

"Welcome back," she said. "Now get inside. We’re arriving in four hours."

She grabbed both him and Karacus and threw them through the hatch like bags of laundry.

THUD. THUD.