My Special Ability is Growing Muscles

The dormitory was supposed to be a place of rest. Tonight, it felt like a war zone waiting to ignite in the aftermath of the duel that stunned the full Academy.

Kairo sat at a table near the corner, tearing into a roasted leg of meat with single-minded focus.

His body still ached from the clash with Valek, but the gnawing hunger had forced him back to the basics of eat, recover, and survive. His massive appetite filled the silence, each bite loud enough to echo in the tense air.

Around him, voices flared like sparks. At first, they tried to say it in whispers but their emotions were getting the better of them.

"Do you see what he did to Lord Valek?!" A noble snapped, his face pale with indignation. "Humiliating a scion of House Drakar, he should have been expelled on the spot!"

Kairo rolled his eyes at the level of bullshit coming out of the noble's mouth.

"Expelled?" One of the scholarship survivors quickly barked back. "Your prince challenged him. He fought and lost, fair and square, end of story".

A hush fell at that, but it was the dangerous kind.

The Monster Trio's supporters, mostly young nobles dressed in polished finery stood stiff, fists clenched, as their cheeks reddened with outrage.

Valek was a perfect representation of what nobles stood for, strong, arrogant, and filled with deep-rooted contempt for commoners.

He was supposed to be a guiding light for the rest of the nobles in Nexus Academy. For this guiding light to be trampled so humiliatingly, majority of the nobles were struggling to deal with it.

Across from them, the common-born applicants who survived the entrance tournament bristled, defiance sharp in their eyes.

Never in Nexus Academy's history has commoners grown this much renown.

Every year in Nexus Academy, the commoners are always suppressed and eventually crushed, but not this time.

This time, with Kairo, the commoners were completely rewriting the rules of the Academy, tearing down long-standing rules that had existed for decades.

With Kairo, the commoners felt an identity, and the divide between the nobles and commoners had never been more stark.

Mira leaned casually against the wall, arms folded, her smirk like a knife. "What's the matter? Can't handle a little reality check?" She openly taunted. "Your golden boy picked the fight, and he lost, I don't see where Kairo is at fault here".

"Cry louder bastards, maybe Valek will hear you from his room".

A ripple of laughter from the survivors cut across the tension.

The nobles flushed deeper, their arrogance battered, but they couldn't find words sharp enough to answer.

On one hand, they weren't allowed to fight among themselves outside official settings. And on the other hand, after what Kairo just did, all of them already had a deep-rooted fear of him.

He may be a barbaric and untrained slumrat, but he was a slumrat who knew how to throw a punch.

Kairo didn't even look up from his meal.

The meat was gone too quickly, his plate already empty, yet his hunger wasn't. He leaned back, hand on his stomach, eyes flicking across the nobles.

'They still think this is about pride'.

He subtly shook his head. 'For me, it's always been about survival'.

Mira slid into the seat opposite him, kicking her boots up on the table. "They hate you more with every bite you take."

Kairo wiped grease from his chin and finally smirked. "Good. If they're angry, it means they'll come at me harder".

"And if they come at me harder…" His eyes glinted. "More food."

The survivors laughed, the nobles fumed. The dorms pulsed with tension like a bowstring ready to snap.

…

Principal Aelthar's Office…

High above the dorms, Principal Aelthar's office was aglow with arcane light. Just like the freshers, the old Principal was still not done with his growing intrigue and rave over the boy.

Floating crystals projected a holographic replay of Kairo's duel with Valek.

Each punch, each desperate maneuver was dissected by the runes, slowed down and analyzed.

Major Pain stood behind him with arms folded, his massive frame casting a shadow across the room. His single eye glimmered coldly as he watched Kairo's brawling form knock the Serpent Prince unconscious.

"Sloppy stance, amateur footwork," Pain muttered, then, after a pause, he added. "But his instincts… they're sharper than half my graduates".

Aelthar, seated behind his ornate desk, traced one long finger across the glowing runes. The student profile hovered before him.

[Kairo Vale – Special Ability: Muscle Genesis]

[Classification: Unranked]

The Principal's brow furrowed. "Unranked… I still can't believe it, it's supposed to be impossible. Every ability has a grade, a lineage, a place in the system. For one to be outside classification…"

He leaned back, silver hair catching the light, his expression unreadable. "Either it cannot be measured, or it lies beyond the scale itself."

Pain snorted. "You're overthinking it old man".

"The boy's raw, but he won't break. That's what matters."

"Raw material is what creates legends, Raven," Aelthar replied softly. "And you saw it yourself. That fight wasn't strength, it was survival instinct honed sharper than noble training could ever achieve."

The hologram shifted, showing Valek's abilities manifesting; the bloody chains, the serpentine phantom.

"The Monster Trio will dominate this year," Pain said. "Adrain already broke through to E- Rank".

"Valek will lick his wounds, and Selene's still watching from the shadows, but…" He tapped the hologram where Kairo's fist landed. "That one's an anomaly."

At that moment, another glowing rune pulsed to life on the desk.

Aelthar pressed a hand against it, and the deep voice of the Human Union's President filled the office.

"The Demons have moved, and so must we".

"The days of coddling students are over, Nexus Academy is ordered to accelerate its curriculum. Freshers will be tested early. Weed out the weak before they waste our resources. Sharpen the blade, even if it breaks."

The message cut off, and silence reigned again.

Aelthar's expression darkened. "They want us to forge children into soldiers in months, not years."

Major Pain's grin was feral, scarred lips curling. "Then we'll forge them in fire," he shrugged. "The ones who survive will be worthy."

The Principal looked back at Kairo's profile, the unranked anomaly burning in his thoughts. "Worthy… or monstrous?"

…

Back in the dorm, Kairo lay on his bed, arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His body ached, his stomach still whispered, but his eyes… his eyes burned.

He didn't know about the nobles were plotting, or the Principal's curiosity, or the Union's new directive.

He only knew one thing. 'This world won't give me a place, I learned that long ago growing up alone in the slums'.

'So I'll carve one with my fists'.