Learning Gurontax

Oh, the black card? That thing changed everything.

First morning as a Rogue Flux Elite—though some would argue I hadn't earned the title—and I was living like someone who had.

The apartment they gave me wasn't a room, it was a skyward penthouse, inverted on one of the skyscrapers like a crown jewel hanging from the heavens. Glossy walls, seamless technology, beds so soft I wasn't sure I'd ever want to move again, and a kitchen I didn't even have to use. Because breakfast just… showed up perfectly cooked. Tailored to my taste buds, apparently.

The moment I sat at the glass table facing the upside-down city skyline, a tray phased in through a small white disc and landed gently in front of me with barely a sound. Fried rice with some weird local sea-beast meat, a drink that pulsed slightly with faint gold, and some kind of bread that tasted like it had been invented by someone whose entire life goal was to ruin every other bakery in existence. One bite and I genuinely had to check if I was dreaming.

Black card privilege, I guess.

Money? Oh, a lot. The terminal showed me how much credit I had now and I just stared at it for a solid minute. I'd been living on three-month stipends back in Singapore. Now I could fund a damn faction if I wanted to. Or disappear. Buy a car. Or ten. Maybe even an upside-down nightclub if I got bored.

But I wasn't here to enjoy myself. Not really.

Just as I finished the last bite, a soft hum filled the space and a portal shimmered to life beside my living room couch. Emerald green this time. Color-coded, probably for internal Flux Arena travel. I stood up, rolled my neck, cracked my knuckles.

Time to go.

The rumors started before I even stepped through. I didn't care. I heard them anyway.

"She's the one Suprema Gamma's brother brought in, right?"

"Didn't even do a mission. Got a black card. That's insane."

"Favoritism. That's what it is."

"I heard that she used to give tours back in Marimus, right? Yeah, just another pretty face with a number."

Some hit harder than others.

They weren't wrong, entirely. I had worked five years in Marimus as a tour guide. Not even a field agent. High 9.3 Flux reading and I still spent most of my days walking rookies around buildings I knew like the back of my hand. And I got criticized for that too. "Wasting your potential," they said. "Lazy," they muttered. But what they didn't know was that I asked for every one of those tours. It was the only thing keeping me sane because my Flux had not awakened.

So no, this wasn't new. The stares, the whispers, the constant need to prove myself...

But what stung more now wasn't the fact that they were talking. It was that they were right about one thing. I hadn't done a mission yet. I hadn't earned the black card the way others had. I was given it because Phaser vouched for me. No wonder they hated me already.

I stepped through the portal.

Phaser was already there, leaning against one of the inner arena's stone walls like a devil in uniform. Black coat, glowing veins of blue along his arms, and that unreadable expression as always.

"You hearing it?" I asked before anything else.

He didn't move. He just turned his head toward me, his eyes steady.

"Do you care?"

I shrugged, arms crossed. "No. But it's giving you a bad name."

He huffed lightly, almost amused. "I know my reputation. I don't care. But you should."

"Why?"

"Because I can't afford to baby you. Not anymore. In four days, you're going to the Cursed Basin. And if you're not ready by then, you'll die. Simple."

I wasn't welcome back on Earth. Not anymore. And as much as I hated it, this… this was my new reality. My only path forward. If I wanted to survive here, in this world where upside-down cities floated and people bled powers instead of blood, I needed to stop caring about being liked. I needed to understand my own Flux. Fast.

We walked deeper into the arena and I realized people were watching. A lot of them. Most Rogues trained early, before assignments were handed out. But today, they weren't here to practice. They were here to observe.

Some recognized Phaser and stepped back, heads bowed slightly in automatic respect. The women were the most obvious. Watching him like he was a god walking through their mortal playground. I heard whispers.

"Is he training her personally?"

"She's lucky… or cursed."

"You think she'll even survive?"

Phaser didn't react. He never did. We reached the center of the arena and he handed me something.

It was a greenish vial, almost glowing with a bioluminescent shimmer.

"Drink this."

I raised a brow. "What is it?"

"Not going to tell you."

"Of course not," I muttered, swirling the vial in my hand. "Because transparency is for civilians."

He didn't even smirk. He simply crossed his arms and waited. I shrugged and popped the top, chugging it down in one motion.

The taste was like mint mixed with raw electricity and maybe a punch to the throat. I coughed hard, knees buckling slightly as a heat rushed through my chest.

"Welcome to training," he said coldly. "Let's see what that 9.3 rating can actually do."

Phaser didn't waste time. The moment the vial was gone from my throat, he lunged forward and threw a punch angled right at my jaw.

Reflexively, I ducked.

"What the hell?!"

He didn't answer.

He came at me again with another punch, this one at my ribs. But I twisted just enough to miss it, my body moving before I even made the decision. He followed it with a sweeping low kick aimed at my ankles, but I jumped again, not thinkin.

I landed a few feet away, chest rising and falling, heart pounding from the shock of near-impact.

"Are you trying to kill me?"

He tilted his head slightly, almost studying me.

"I was curious," he said, walking toward me, "if it worked."

"What?"

"Your dodges. You're not naturally that good, Permonelle. Not even close. So how'd you do that?"

I blinked. He wasn't wrong. I had never dodged like that or never moved with that much awareness. Even in the arena yesterday, I'd relied mostly on instinct and brute strength. But this… this was something else.

"My head hurts," I muttered, pressing two fingers to my temple. "Like there's a war going on in there."

"That's because there is."

Then he pointed at the now-empty vial still rolling slightly on the ground.

"What you just drank was a Martial Art Memory Serum. One of the rarer ones. Took me a full hour to match one to your body height, skeletal ratio, muscle memory tolerance, and natural footwork tendencies."

I blinked at him. "You did what now?"

"You heard me. That serum was designed based on your stats. The martial art you're currently processing is called Gurontax. It's a close-range Flux-compatible combat style. Heavy emphasis on sudden angular counters, leg-based trapping, and internal rotation strikes. Suits someone who doesn't rely on raw muscle."

"You gave me… someone else's memories?"

"Not someone. Dozens. Years of training, distilled into thirty seconds of ingestion and a thirty-minute window to make it yours."

My chest tightened.

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't train within that thirty minutes, those memories get flushed from your system. You'll never be able to take another of the same class. Not one that works the same. That was your one shot at martial experience without spending a decade training for it."

I went silent. My head throbbed, not from pain but from awareness. Movement charts, reaction patterns, breathing techniques, and strange movements I had never done but somehow knew I could. It was all there but not mine. Not yet.

"So, what now?"

"Now," he said, activating a timer on his wristband, "you train."

A low beep echoed across the arena.

"Twenty-nine minutes left."

He didn't give me another warning.

He attacked again, this time a backfist aimed at my shoulder, immediately followed by a knee meant to knock my center of balance out. I side-stepped, pivoted, then used my elbow to redirect the second strike without even thinking. The motion was natural like I had been doing it for years.

But my body still burned. I wasn't used to moving like this.

We kept going. He would attack and I would respond, sometimes correctly, sometimes with awkward confusion. When I failed to block a sweep, I hit the ground hard. My wrist throbbed but I scrambled back to my feet and resumed.

He never slowed down.

And he never spoke until minute twenty.

"You're processing slower than you should," he said, barely winded as he threw a punch I just managed to parry. "You need to internalize it. The moves are there, but your brain is not claiming them."

"How do I do that?"

"Stop thinking like a civilian. Think like a weapon."

He struck again. I redirected it, moved with more certainty. I let my body flow instead of forcing it. Gurontax was technical but organic. Use the opponent's force against them. Trap, shift, disable. Everything used leverage, mine or theirs.

The next ten minutes were a blur of technique.

He taught me how to pivot into a heel-lock that could disable a knee in one second flat. Then a counter that used the enemy's elbow joint to shatter their own wrist. Grapples. Rotational takedowns. Spinal twists. Knuckle-aligned impact zones.

And then the Flux patterns began surfacing. Gurontax wasn't just martial but Flux-anchored. Certain breathing patterns aligned with energy flows. Certain stances generated kinetic charge. The faster I understood it, the faster it merged with me.

By minute twenty-eight, I was dripping in sweat, lungs burning, bruises already forming under my skin but I moved like a different person. Like someone trained.

The timer hit zero.

Phaser stopped, taking a step back and watching me.

"You got most of it. That's enough for today."

I didn't even have the breath to reply. He looked at me again, not cruelly. Not with sympathy either. Just that same cold logic. Seriously, can't be more considerate to a 24 year old woman?

"You want to survive the Cursed Basin? Then remember how this feels. The body under pressure. The mind split between pain and focus. You only have three more days."

I nodded, finally catching my breath.

The moves were no longer floating in my head. They'd settled. My limbs knew.

"Thank you," I said hoarsely.

"Don't thank me," he replied, already walking away. "If you die, that was your fault. If you live… that's what the card was for. And also, go to the armory section and get your weapon. Apparently, the serum already has a weapon combat and we just leaned it."

He didn't turn around or say goodbye. He just disappeared through a portal.

And I stood there, bruised, aching, but stronger than I'd ever felt in my life. Well, at least he cares. Actually he does. I can tell he's putting an act in front of everyone to make everyone believe he's not favoring me. Seriously, he's really softer than everyone makes him out to be...