Zola was sitting beside me on my bed, one leg crossed over the other, playing with a can of fizzy drink. She looked utterly relaxed, even cheerful.

Bao was dangling from his bunk, Denis sat on his, and Marlon had claimed the single chair that came with the desk.

For half an hour they'd been dredging up every bit of nonsense that had ever happened in Nur's presence, trying to catch her out in a lie, but one way or another, Zola confirmed that she really had been Nur.

Somewhere in the chaos after the battle and the clean-up, everyone had forgotten about Bao and Denis. Forgotten to order them to keep their mouths shut. So the first thing they did on returning to the dorms was spill everything to Marlon, carefully recounting even my conversation with the demonic puppet.

Marlon hadn't believed them, so they'd arranged this meeting themselves, only informing me after the fact.

Zola was delighted to have a fresh audience and the chance to talk. Besides, she hadn't been out in the field when Novak had smashed a starship apart with his ulti, so the lads had plenty to tell her.

Apart from Marlon, who had missed all the fun, and the chance to make a tidy profit.

Denis and Marlon had raked in about fifteen hundred points each over three days, lifting themselves to the mid four-hundreds in the rankings. Considering they had broken into the early seven-hundreds in cultivation ranking, they still hadn't crossed the safe threshold, but they were getting very close.

I'd earned a little too, 742 points, for the scrap from the first day, back when no one had forbidden us cherry-picking. On top of that, Novak had deemed it necessary to keep my morale high, which had taken a serious hit after I found out Thyzreth had survived.

So in addition to points, I received a free red-quality ult.

If Novak didn't disdain fists falling from above, then I had no excuse to.

His technique was called Heavenly Fist of the Thunder God.

Mine — Heavenly Fist. A single-root Stage Two technique that relied solely on Fist Qi. It did have dual-root variants, but I'd taken into account that the vast majority of my battles would take place off Earth and outside the school domes, so I'd refused the air mix. Even the Mad Monkey of East drained about one and a half times more energy when used outside. I hadn't yet run my reserves dry in a fight, but the rate at which they drained in open space was worrying.

Of all spiritual roots, the absolute champion for combat in thin or depleted atmospheres was Earth. Earth wasn't taught at Black Lotus. Of course, there were other interesting martial root options, but thinking about broadening my arsenal now was pointless. I needed to properly master what I already knew. And my ultimate.

An ultimate technique demanded far greater control over qi. More than that, it required stretching that control far beyond the limits of one's own body, to the point where the projection itself was formed. It literally drained my reserves before my eyes. In fact, my first attempts at activating the technique all ended the same way — I created a cloud of Fist Qi in the air, from which nothing came out. Four tries, and I was completely empty, left with just enough energy for one or two Chain Punches at most.

The problem was in the duality of the technique. The projection of the ult was a projection of my right fist. Yes, specifically the right, since I was right-handed. In theory, it could be done with the left, but that would mean training the technique in mirror mode.

What threw me off was that the projection formed in the air and not around the hand. And while I wrestled with this problem, Zola had started having dinner with us again, as she had when she'd been Nur. Now not only I, but the lads as well, were spending more time with her, and she had grown much more cheerful and less tense.

Still, about a week later, when we were all gathered in our room with fizzy drinks and crisps, she nervously announced:

"I can get my old body back."

The room went quiet. We even stopped chewing. Crisps suddenly crunched too loudly. Bao instantly hung down from his bunk to peer at her face. Denis was already sitting opposite her, so he just stared, while Marlon leaned back in his chair, lost in thought.

"Seriously?" Bao asked. "You can return to Nur's body?"

I knew it was serious. Novak had the required formation and a specialist. But buried in my own problems, and constantly glancing over my shoulder for Thyzreth, I hadn't even considered the possibility.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

And honestly, I didn't think she'd be allowed.

Bulsara had poured a ton of resources and time into her. She was already at least halfway to being a qualified medic. Her appointment as Bulsara's assistant had raised plenty of questions back then. If he now swapped one girl for another, it would raise even more.

"Yes," Zola answered, lowering her gaze to the can.

"But how are they going to push you through to second year?" I asked. "Too much of a headache."

"They're not," Nur replied. "If I go back, everything will be lost."

That didn't fit with what I knew of Novak and Bulsara. They couldn't just let her go! She knew too much! Was the value of this experiment really greater than her own worth? Couldn't they find some criminal for it?

"So? Earth?"

Zola stretched out her left hand and turned it before her eyes.

"This body is Second Stage, with a solid foundation. Nur is still pass the first bottleneck. She'll never catch up."

"You're joking, right?" Denis looked at her with a mix of confusion and worry. "You're at a safe mark. Do you know how many people hate you for that?"

"Like you, for example?" she smiled.

"Hey!" Denis protested. "I envy you, but I don't hate you."

"Sorry, sorry!" she laughed. "I do know a few bitches who genuinely hate me. But if I go back, they won't any more…"

"And you want to return…" Bao trailed off.

"To the body I grew up in. The body that fits me. The one that doesn't have this damned hair and someone else's face. Yes.

"But most of all, I want to go back to my family!"

"Family ties are overrated," Bao said.

"My parents love me," Zola pointed out, and Bao pulled himself back onto his bunk, slightly sulky.

Bao had a serious conflict with his father, Zola loved hers. As for Marlon's and Denis's parents, I knew about as much as I did about my own. Both sets.

Marlon waved his hand.

"If you want to go back — go back. We don't talk to you because of your hair. What matters is peace in the soul."

"No, mate, hold on," Denis raised his hand. "The path of cultivation is a path of struggle, challenge of heaven. It's strategy and tactics. If she loses her cultivation, she'll be out of the programme. They simply won't admit her to the next year." He turned directly to Zola. "Right now you have protection, status, access to information and resources. And you seriously want to throw all that away?"

"Not throw away. Trade." Zola was no longer smiling. "I understand I'll lose everything I gained as Zola Dlamini. But if I stay in this body, I'll lose myself entirely."

Bao dangled down from his bunk again.

"But is it the body that makes you you? You are you. The rest is just a shell. Otherwise, right now you're still not the you you want to go back to. So literally, you want to become not yourself!"

"Too much philosophy," I said.

Those were depths I tried not to dive into for fear of drowning.

"That's what you think," Zola answered quietly. "No one's rewritten your shell."

"I wouldn't mind if they rewrote me into someone from the top hundred of both rankings! Hey, Jake, want to swap bodies?"

"I'm not in the top hundred," I pointed out.

Still, Novak's experiments opened up some rather intriguing opportunities for cheating. A cadet's body could temporarily host the consciousness of an experienced master, who would then pass the screening in their place…

A nightmare!

"Jake?" she asked. "Say something. You were there. You know how it began, and in the end, you owe me for saving your arse from total erasure and possession by a demon."

Only you didn't save the real Jake Sullivan…

I leaned my elbows on my knees.

"I… don't know," I admitted honestly. "I understand Bao and Denis. I understand Marlon's position. He's the happiest man in this room, after all."

Marlon saluted me with his can.

"You can lose cultivation and still keep peace in your soul. Or you can remain a cultivator and keep moving forward. And that's probably the choice I would make. But no one is putting such a choice in front of me."

"You're completely ignoring the question of identity," she said.

"Is it really a question? Does changing the body truly change us? Most likely it does. Life itself changes us in the end. But how significant are those changes?

"Look at the demons. Dozens of bodies, and every iteration turns out the same — self-absorbed, treacherous bastards.

"The real issue isn't whether going back is right. The issue is that you'll have to live with the choice you make."

"Wow!" said Bao. "And this from the guy who told me I was being too philosophical."

Zola let out a deep sigh and drained her fizzy drink to the bottom. Then she looked at us.

"Doc Bulsara's given me a week to decide. If I choose to return, I'll need your help. Not physical help. Just… to remind me that I'm still me."

Bao looked at her and nodded.

"You'll be yourself if only because you can't be anyone else."

Marlon raised his can.

"A toast to philosophy and an identity crisis!"

"Go to hell!" she smiled.

"I'm not planning to challenge the heavens, so I'll probably end up in heaven. Unlike you lot, the sinners."

"We'll have a livelier crowd," Denis said, reaching out his can towards him. The others followed suit. Bao nearly toppled off his bunk in order to clink.

Zola made her decision the very next day. And three days later, thin and pale, Nur left the infirmary. The capsule that had held her body had done everything possible to prevent muscle degradation, but her movements were different from everyone else's. They weren't as smooth or graceful. She had to grow used to her old body all over again, but she never complained. Like Marlon, she had found her peace. And a calm smile now rested constantly on her face.

Bulsara continued to watch over her, but she no longer had that frantic schedule of training and cultivation. No one overloaded her with knowledge. No one tried to push her through to the second year.

Zola Thembeka Dlamini had officially suffered a new cultivation injury and fallen into a coma for the second time that year. That would have been the end of it, except a few days later, on the very day I first executed Heavenly Fist, she came out of that coma and carried on with her studies, along with her work for Doc Bulsara.

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