Chapter 16: Who Runs Out of Dummies?

The word echoed in his mind like a quiet command.

Control.

That was the next step.

Strength was growing on its own—faster than any natural process. But if he couldn’t manage it, direct it, refine it… it would become a burden, not a gift.

He returned to the gym, but this time, it wasn’t for numbers or power.

It was for precision.

“Computer,” he said, voice sharp, “enable micro-resistance feedback. I want training rigs calibrated for fine-motor adjustment. Focus on pressure, not weight.”

[Confirmed. Initializing control calibration suite.]

Walls shifted. New machines unfolded—each designed for stability drills, nerve response, finger articulation, footwork balance. It was no longer about how much he could lift or how fast he could move.

It was about how little force he could use to do something perfectly.

He placed his hand on a vibrating panel designed to detect tremors.

He focused.

The goal: hold it steady without crushing it, without letting it shake.

The machine’s readout flickered. Too much. Then too little. Then—

Perfect.

For 0.3 seconds.

The panel cracked.

“…Still not there.”

He sighed and moved on. Rope balancing. One-legged stances on rotating platforms. Precision tracing with weighted gloves. Throwing Null-shaped knives through spinning rings.

Failure. Failure. Then partial success.

But each time, he learned.

His mind and body weren’t separate anymore. They were syncing.

And slowly—almost imperceptibly—he was beginning to command his form, not just inhabit it.

He stepped back from the cracked panel, breathing steady, muscles warm.

The numbers still fluctuated, but something inside him had settled. He could feel it.

Control—true control—was beginning to take root.

“Not perfect,” he muttered, “but good enough to stop breaking everything I touch.”

His gaze drifted to a nearby weapons rack. Swords, spears, staves—all forged during one of his creative phases, though unused until now.

A thought flickered.

“Now that I have a body again… why not learn to fight with it?”

He moved toward the rack, hand gliding over the polished handles. Each weapon hummed faintly with dormant energy—a blend of technology, concept, and raw imagination.

He stopped at a simple blade.

No enchantments. No edge-altering mods. Just clean steel.

“Start with the basics,” he whispered.

He took a stance.

It was clumsy. Rigid. Off-balance.

He adjusted.

Better.

Then he moved—slow, deliberate arcs. Wide cuts. Footwork drills. It wasn’t elegant, but it was grounding. With each swing, he wasn’t just practicing technique—he was feeling.

Where his weight shifted. How the blade moved. How momentum changed when he exhaled versus when he didn’t.

And it felt good.

Different from Null. Different from energy.

This was physical mastery. Discipline in motion.

“Computer,” he called between drills, “load martial art references. Swordsmanship, staff forms, spear katas. Start with human-level archives—Earth-based.”

[Loading standard martial disciplines. Suggesting progressive path from fundamentals to hybrid combat flow.]

A holographic instructor flickered into place—faceless, perfect form, motion-locked with precision. It bowed.

Ethan grinned. “Let’s get to work.”

The faceless figure moved first.

It started slow—basic stances, diagonal slashes, horizontal cuts.

Ethan mirrored it.

His first few swings were awkward. The blade tilted too far. His footing slipped. His grip felt like he was holding a shopping bag, not a weapon.

But then… adjustment.

A shift in his stance. A better angle.

He adapted.

Fast.

It clicked.

Like muscle memory forged not in flesh, but imagination.

Soon, he moved in rhythm with the hologram. One stroke. Two. A sidestep. Counter. Sweep.

“I remember this,” he muttered. “I imagined these patterns… every flow… every step…it is coming back.”

He adjusted his grip and moved faster now—chaining techniques, mixing strikes, pivoting smoothly.

Technique after technique began surfacing—not ones he’d learned before, but ones he’d imagined. Sword forms he once crafted in his mind for characters that never saw the light of day. Now, his body moved as if it remembered them better than he did.

He turned toward the training dummies and got to work.

A diagonal slash—clean cut.

A spinning arc—two down at once.

Followed by a piercing lunge, a backward sweep, an upper crescent, and a rising triple-strike he didn’t even have a name for.

One by one, training dummies were placed in front of him. One by one, they fell.

Again and again.

He wasn’t just fighting—he was relearning everything his mind once constructed during the countless cycles of thought in Nowhere.

And when the last one dropped in a heap of sparking limbs and shattered cores, he exhaled.

“Computer,” he called, spinning the blade and resting it on his shoulder, “bring out more targets.”

[Unable to comply. Physical training dummies depleted.All training dummies have been destroyed.]

He froze mid-swing.

“…What?”

[Inventory depleted.]

“…Are you kidding me?”

He stared at the last dummy—a torso already halfway through collapse—then glanced at the empty racks around the chamber.

Then at the sword in his hand.

Then slowly to the ceiling.

“”This… this doesn’t happen in NovelBins. Or anime. Or even those C-tier isekai manga,man.”

A moment of silence.

He let out a loud, exasperated sigh and tossed the sword into the ground.

Thunk.

Dropping the sword onto the ground with a clank. “Fine. While you’re rebuilding them… let’s go learn magic or something.”

He dragged himself toward the spellcasting chamber, muttering under his breath, “Unbelievable. Out of dummies. Who runs out of dummies?”

Ethan stepped into the spellcasting chamber—one of the many rooms he’d ordered the computer to build during his energy experiments. Back then, it was more of a “just in case” idea.

Now? It was about to get used.

The room lit up softly as he entered, mana-sensitive glyphs across the walls glowing in response to his presence.

“This place turned out nicer than I expected,” he muttered. “Not bad for something I designed half out of boredom while inventing Mana and friends.”

He flexed his fingers and took a breath.

With a thought, he reached inward—toward the ever-present grey hum of Null. It flowed through him like breath. Familiar. Steady. Perfect.

And just as naturally… it shifted.

The grey dimmed, gave way to a bluish hue.

Mana.

It didn’t fight. It didn’t resist. It simply… became.

Ethan raised a brow, watching the mana swirl along his palm.

“Still the most obedient energy I’ve ever met.”

He looked around. “Computer, you’ve got magic-type targets in here, right?”

[Affirmative. Targets calibrated for heat, kinetic burst, arcane disruption, and elemental impact.]

“Good.” He stretched his arm, cracking his knuckles. “Deploy a few.”

[Deploying twelve targets.]

A series of humanoid mannequins rose from the floor—some wrapped in faux-magical shielding, others glowing with elemental markers. Each posed like they were in mid-cast.

Ethan smirked. “Also, give me a heads-up when we’re running low. You know… before I blow through all of them and have another dramatic dummy shortage.”

[Noted.]

He walked to the center of the chamber and rolled his shoulders.

“Alright… let’s start simple.”

He focused, closing his eyes briefly.

Fire.

Basic fire.

He imagined the warmth first—dry heat licking across skin.

Then the sight—gentle orange flickering, dancing like a candle.

He guided the mana downward, from his core to his arm, to his hand.

It was a steady stream, no resistance, no static, no lurching surge.

Then—

Fwoom.

A flame burst to life in his palm.

Small. Controlled. Perfectly shaped.

Ethan stared at it, slightly impressed.

“…Huh. That was actually easy.”

He flicked the flame off with a snap, brushing a nonexistent speck off his sleeve.

“Alright then,” he grinned, looking toward the first target.

“Let’s see how far we can push this.”

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