Chương 21: Third Person Perspective

December 2026, Yale Bulldogs Flying Aces Training Center It took until mid-December before Leo's homeroom teacher tracked him down. Leo didn't think it was his fault. He had totally intended to attend his classes. In fact, he'd been looking forward to it. He really wanted to. But one thing led to another, and it was yet another semester of not showing up to school. This year was worse than the last. At least last year Leo had been on campus. People knew he was alive.

They saw him in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the library. Teachers could confirm his existence even if his attendance record looked like Swiss cheese. Aside from his grand entrance on the first day of school Leo had not set foot in Exeter again. His attendance was so bad that the Exeter Flying Aces team had granted him an "athletic pass," and anyone who inquired about Leo's whereabouts received a variation of "Leo Chen is engaged in approved athletic development activities and can do whatever he wants."

The Exeter administration only knew something about Leo being important for the high school Flying Aces playoffs and so they stopped asking questions. Even Leo's parents had no idea where he was.

"Where are you staying?" his mother had demanded during their last phone call, sometime in late October.

"Yale."

"Yale? Why are you not in school? Why are you going to Yale? Why not Harvard?" His father had eventually intervened, extracting a promise that Leo would come home for Thanksgiving dinner. He had. For approximately four hours. Then he vanished back into the training complex, muttering something about recovery protocols and scheduled conditioning sessions. His homeroom teacher, a patient woman named Ms. Patterson who taught junior-year English Literature, would have never found Leo if not for a rumor.

Word had spread through the faculty that one of their students was training with the Yale Bulldogs' Flying Aces team. Ms. Patterson made seventeen phone calls before someone at Yale Athletics finally confirmed that yes, Leo Chen was on-site, and yes, he had been there since September. She found him in Training Hall C, balanced upside-down on a stability platform while Dr. Reyes called out corrections to his form.

"Core tighter. You're compensating with your hip flexors again."

"Mr. Chen!" Leo's concentration broke. He wobbled, caught himself, then rotated smoothly to an upright position. Ms. Patterson stood at the entrance to the training hall, professional attire slightly rumpled, expression hovering somewhere between relief and exasperation. Oh no.

"Ms. Patterson." Leo stepped off the platform.

"Hi."

"Hi. That's what you have to say. Hi." She pulled out a tablet, scrolling through what Leo recognized as his student file. Full of zeroes, probably.

"You have attended zero days of class this semester. Zero. You missed the October midterms. You missed the November progress assessments. You have turned in no assignments. You have responded to no communications from the school. Your parents claim they don't know where you are. I was preparing to file a truancy report."

"I've been busy."

"I can see that." Ms. Patterson looked around the training hall. The formation platforms, the cultivation-enhanced equipment, the glass-walled specialized training chambers.

"This is... quite a facility." Dr. Reyes approached, wiping her hands on a towel.

"You're the high school teacher?"

"I'm his homeroom advisor. And his English Literature instructor." Ms. Patterson extended a hand.

"Margaret Patterson."

"Sandra Reyes. Strength and Conditioning." Dr. Reyes shook her hand, then turned to Leo with an expression of mild annoyance.

"You didn't tell me you didn't clear things up with your high school."

"Sorry, I forgot, I've been busy." Dr. Reyes sighed and turned back to Ms. Patterson.

"How much trouble is he in?"

"Significant trouble. The school needs documentation that he's engaged in legitimate educational activities, or we're required to report him to the academic truancy division." Ms. Patterson's tone was firm but kind.

"I understand athletic development is important, but he's still a minor. He still has academic requirements." Dr. Reyes walked to her office, rummaged through a drawer, and pulled out a stack of pre-printed forms and a pen. Leo watched her go, a knot loosening in his chest. Dr. Reyes had a fix for this. Dr. Reyes always had something up her sleeves.

"We do this for the collegiate athletes all the time. Academic credit for practical training, it's an established pathway for student-athletes with intensive schedules." She began writing, her handwriting a confident scrawl.

"Let's see. Sports Nutrition, that's three credits. Leo's been following a precisely calibrated nutritional protocol for three months, he can probably lecture on macronutrient timing better than most registered dieticians." She flipped to another form.

"Health Education, two credits. He's learned about cardiovascular development, muscular adaptation, recovery protocols, and the biological foundations of physical cultivation. Very educational." Another form.

"Kinesiology Independent Study, three credits. Analysis of human movement patterns in high-performance athletic contexts. He's done more motion analysis than most college seniors." She added a fourth form to the stack.

"And Physical Education obviously. Four credits. I'll note that he's exceeded all standard benchmarks for his age group." Ms. Patterson watched this process with growing incredulity.

"You can just... handwrite transcripts?"

"I'm a licensed educational consultant in addition to my coaching certification. Yale Athletics maintains accreditation for exactly this kind of situation." Dr. Reyes signed each form with practiced efficiency, then stamped them with an official seal she produced from another drawer.

"There. Twelve credits of legitimate academic work, all As, all properly documented." She handed the stack to Ms. Patterson.

"The paperwork will hold up to any audit. NCAA is totally okay with it, and I bet whatever high school you are from will be too." Dr. Reyes smiled.

"Leo is receiving an ivy league education in human performance and athletic development." Ms. Patterson examined the forms. They were professionally formatted, officially stamped, and appeared entirely legitimate even though Dr. Reyes had made them up on the spot. Leo kept his face neutral, but inside he marveled at how smoothly Dr. Reyes operated. Twelve credits, fabricated in under five minutes, each one bulletproof on paper. The woman was efficient.

"This covers the fall semester," she said slowly.

"What about spring?"

"He'll continue training. I'll continue documenting his educational progress." Dr. Reyes shrugged. Leo watched this exchange with a mixture of relief and bemusement. He hadn't actually thought about school since September. The training schedule consumed his days, and the Azure Profound Continent consumed his nights. He had completely forgotten about it. Ms. Patterson tucked the forms into her bag.

"I'll need to discuss this with the administration. There may be additional requirements, standardized testing, at minimum."

"Send me a list. I'll sign whatever you want." Dr. Reyes glanced at her watch.

"Leo has a conditioning session in ten minutes. Is there anything else?"

"I..." Ms. Patterson looked at Leo. Three months of intensive training had transformed him. He stood differently, moved differently, carried himself with a physical confidence that wasn't there last year. Last year he was a zombie, this year he looked like an athlete.

"Are you happy?" she asked finally. Leo considered the question.

"I'm working toward something that matters. I'm getting better every day. I have a goal and a path to achieve it."

"That's not what I asked."

"Then yes." Leo smiled slightly.

"I'm happy." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Ms. Patterson nodded slowly.

"Alright. I'll make sure the school knows you're... accounted for. Try to answer your phone occasionally. Your parents worry."

"I'll do that." She left the way she'd come, clutching the stack of fabricated transcripts.

Shortly after Ms. Patterson's departure, Coach Williams pushed through the training hall doors into Hall C where Leo and Dr. Reyes were resetting equipment. Williams moved with purpose, clipboard tucked under one arm, his face set in an expression Leo had learned to recognize as 'significant news incoming'. Behind him walked one of Williams' graduate assistants.

"Leo. Dr. Reyes." Williams nodded to each of them in turn.

"We need to talk. There's been a change of plans." Dr. Reyes set down the tablet she'd been using to review Leo's progress.

"What kind of change?"

"A big one." Williams turned to Leo.

"Hand your lifebound sword to my assistant. She's going to take it to be engraved." Leo blinked. His La Ferrari Eclipse sat in his dantian, a constant presence since his parents had gifted it to him. The idea of handing it to a stranger felt wrong.

"It's going to be good for you. I'll explain." Williams' tone brooked no argument.

"For now, hand it over." Leo pulled out the Eclipse from his dantian. The blade hummed faintly as he passed it to the assistant, as if protesting the separation. She accepted it with both hands, treating the lifebound weapon with appropriate respect, then departed through a side door. Williams handed a sheet of paper to Dr. Reyes.

"New training protocols. Read through them while I explain." Dr. Reyes scanned the document, her eyebrows climbing progressively higher as she processed its contents. She said nothing, but her expression shifted from confusion to surprise to something approaching professional excitement.

"I recently met with my friend, Coach Mei, the Flyer Coach for the New England Patriots," Williams began, settling onto one of the training benches.

"I explained your situation to her. Your cultivation level, your divine sense development, your competition timeline."

"We spent four hours working through the problem. Well, to be honest, it was more like her teaching me about it." He paused, gathering his thoughts.

"Coach Mei thinks we should take your training in a completely different direction. She believes we're leaving Leo's biggest advantage on the table." Leo sat down across from the coach, giving him full attention. Williams pulled out a small tablet, activating a display that showed Leo's training metrics over the past nine weeks.

"Look at this." He pointed to a graph showing Leo's divine sense measurements.

"When you started, your divine sense sat at approximately 3000 Si. Sixteen weeks later, you're at 3900 Si. That's a 30 percent increase in just over three and a half months." Leo nodded. He'd felt the growth, his awareness expanding week by week, his ability to perceive and process spatial information sharpening with each training session.

"Coach Mei saw these numbers and nearly fell out of her chair. If this growth rate maintains, you'll hit 6, 700 Si by January of your junior year. That's when the next CFL season begins." Williams set down the tablet.

"Do you understand what that means?"

"My divine sense will be two to three times everyone else's."

"Exactly. And according to Coach Mei, that changes what's possible for you." Williams stood, beginning to pace.

"She took one look at your trajectory and told me we should stop training you like a collegiate Flyer and start training you like a professional one." An NFL Flyer. Leo was sixteen years old, and Williams wanted to train him like a professional. The ambition of it sent a jolt through his chest. Dr. Reyes looked up from the protocol sheet.

"These training methods... I've never seen anything like them. Third Person Perspective? Complete visual deprivation? G-force resistance?"

"They're NFL techniques. A completely different paradigm from collegiate play." Williams turned to Leo.

"Let me give you some context. When I played professionally, my divine sense hovered around 5, 000 Si. The league considered that pretty good for the era. I had a good career; All-Pro selection, championship ring, the whole package. Then the Treaty of Great Restraint happened." Leo recognized the reference. The Treaty of Great Restraint had brokered an uneasy armistice between the Earth and Catacombs. It had established limits on the power that could be deployed in the Earth-Catacombs war.

"Before the Treaty, Tier 5 formations served as strategic military assets. They represented the pinnacle of American military might. The military sent everything we made directly to the frontlines." Williams' expression grew distant, touched by old memories.

"After the Treaty, the Formation old ancestors had nothing to do and started to draw for the NFL. Suddenly Foundation Establishment Flyers wielded Nascent Soul level power. The game transformed overnight."

"And it was impossible to keep up," Leo said quietly.

"Realm suppression." Williams nodded.

"Didn't matter how good my techniques were, how sharp my instincts had become. When your opponent operates two full realms above your cultivation base, experience and skill simply cannot close the gap. I was outclassed in every engagement."

"Every veteran, including me, was released immediately." Leo studied Williams' face as he spoke. The man delivered the words matter-of-factly. But Leo heard what lived underneath: a career ended overnight, years of training rendered obsolete in a single offseason. Williams resumed pacing, his footsteps echoing through the empty training hall.

"I've spent the years since training my divine sense, maintaining my Foundation Establishment cultivation, hoping to reach 20, 000 Si and return to professional play. But that's beside the point."

"What matters is that NFL Flyers today face the exact same problem you do: their actual combat power sits two realms above their cultivation base. Their Foundation Establishment bodies cannot react at Nascent Soul speeds. Their physical capabilities are fundamentally inadequate for the power level at which they operate."

"How do they compensate?" Leo asked.

"They lean entirely into their divine sense." Williams stopped pacing, turning to face Leo directly.

"Theoretically, someone could exist who combines exceptional spell talent with exceptional divine sense, a true combat prodigy who masters both paths."

"In practice, most NFL Flyers today are former Formation Masters. They developed massive divine sense through years of intricate formation work, then transitioned to professional sports because it offered faster advancement."

"Why would Formation Masters want to play Flying Aces?"

"Economics." Williams smiled thinly.

"The Full Breath Recovery Technique made mass formation drawing the best way to increase Divine Sense. Supply increased, prices collapsed. A Formation Master with 20, 000 Si faces a long, expensive road to reach the Foundation Establishment limit of 100, 000 Si. The NFL offers a faster path." He pulled up another display, this one showing footage of professional matches.

"Flying Aces at the NFL level is incredibly demanding on divine sense. You're processing Nascent Soul level combat speeds, tracking multiple opponents, coordinating with teammates, all while maintaining absolute control over your equipment. It drains divine sense reserves at phenomenal rates."

"But the teams provide access to Spirit Veins that allow rapid recovery. You burn through your divine sense in a Quarter, then refill it in the team's cultivation chambers. Rinse and repeat. Growth that would take years through formation work happens in months through professional play and training." The footage showed an NFL match in progress. Leo watched, recognizing the differences from collegiate play immediately. The Flyers moved differently, sharper, more angular, their trajectories jagged and unpredictable.

They looked like lightning bolts, zigzagging through three-dimensional space with impossible precision. Collegiate Flyers moved like fighter jets. These Flyers moved like lightning bolts.

"Modern NFL Flyers are like you, in a way. Their bodies can't keep up with their power. Their physical reactions are too slow for the combat speeds they face. So they bypass physical reaction entirely." Williams froze the footage on a Flyer mid-maneuver.

"Notice anything unusual about the helmet?" Leo studied the image. The helmet was fully enclosed, just a painted on visor where a real one should have been.

"It's opaque. They can't see out."

"Correct. NFL Flyers play completely blindfolded. They don't use their eyes at all." Williams tapped the display.

"Think about the pathway from stimulus to response when you rely on vision. Light enters your eyes, gets converted to neural signals, travels to your visual cortex for processing, gets interpreted by your conscious mind, triggers a decision, sends motor commands to your body."

"Even at Foundation Establishment, that chain takes measurable time. At Nascent Soul combat speeds, it's far too slow."

"So they use divine sense instead."

"Divine sense perceives directly. No conversion, no processing delay, no conscious interpretation required. When your divine sense detects an incoming attack, the information is already present in your awareness. It doesn't need to travel anywhere or be decoded. The response can be instantaneous because perception and action originate from the same source." Williams advanced the footage, showing the Flyer in motion.

The cultivator's movements were inhuman, acceleration and direction changes that should have been physically impossible, trajectories that seemed to ignore momentum and inertia.

"The key technique is called Third Person Perspective. You extend your divine sense in all directions simultaneously, creating a spherical awareness bubble centered on your position. Everything within that bubble; enemies, allies, projectiles, terrain; you perceive all at once, in real-time, without needing to 'look' at anything. You see yourself from outside yourself, as if watching a game piece on a board."

"That sounds... disorienting."

"It is, initially. The human mind isn't designed to process omnidirectional awareness. And Coach Mei says the washout rate is brutal. Many Formation Masters spend years trying before giving up their NFL dreams. The divine sense becomes the primary sensory modality, with physical senses relegated to backup status or ignored entirely." Williams deactivated the display.

"Once you achieve Third Person Perspective, everything else follows. Your body becomes just another object in your awareness field. Something to move and position like any other piece. Control shifts from internal to external. You stop inhabiting your body and start commanding it." Dr. Reyes interjected, "The g-forces involved in those maneuvers... they're extreme. How do the players survive?"

"Physical conditioning." Williams nodded toward her. She winced.

"The body still experiences the forces, still needs to withstand the stress. That's why your work remains critical, Dr. Reyes." He looked to Leo.

"But the control mechanism changes. Instead of your brain sending signals to your muscles, your divine sense manipulates your position directly through your lifebound equipment. The body is along for the ride." Leo processed this information, fitting it into his understanding of cultivation mechanics.

"You mentioned weapon control. How does that change at the NFL level?"

"Weapons manipulated by body parts are too slow. Your hand moves your sword, but your hand moves because your brain told your muscles to contract. That neural pathway introduces delay. NFL Flyers prefer lifebound weapons that their divine sense controls directly, cutting out the physical intermediary entirely." Williams smiled.

"This is why the lightsaber, which is virtually unknown at the collegiate level, is common in the NFL. The lightsaber provides its own power source, so you don't need to channel spiritual energy through your body to activate it."

"The only thing required for control is divine sense manipulation. You will the blade to move, and it moves. Like another piece on the chessboard."

"And what else?"

"I've already arranged for modifications to your La Ferrari Eclipse. I brought over a formation master to reconfigure the weapon for NFL-style operation. Full divine sense control, removed physical control interfaces, optimized for Third Person Perspective integration." Leo felt a flutter of anxiety at the thought of his weapon being modified by a stranger. The Eclipse had served him well, had saved his life multiple times in the Azure Profound Continent.

But he trusted Williams' judgment, and if this was what reaching the next level required, the Eclipse would have to evolve with him.

"What about my training schedule?"

"Complete overhaul." Williams handed him a second document.

"Starting today, you will train blindfolded at all times during Flying Aces practice. You will not be permitted to use your hands to control your flying sword. All sword manipulation must occur through direct divine sense command. Vision and physical grip are now prohibited." Leo scanned the schedule. It was packed with sensory deprivation exercises, divine sense extension drills, and Third Person Perspective cultivation techniques he'd never heard of.

"Coach Mei has agreed to consult with us going forward," Williams continued.

"Dr. Reyes will continue your physical conditioning, but the combat training will shift focus entirely toward divine sense integration."

"This will delay my joining the practice squad," Leo observed.

"Significantly. You won't be ready to participate in team drills until at least March." Williams met Leo's eyes.

"But when you do join... you'll have capabilities no one at the collegiate level can match." Dr. Reyes raised an eyebrow.

"This g-force tolerance section requires equipment we don't have." She flipped to the next page and her eyebrow climbed higher.

"Williams, this looks extremely painful." Williams' silence spoke volumes. Dr. Reyes turned to Leo.

"You ready for that?" Leo shrugged.

"I've been in pain from training for the last few months. How bad can it be?"