Novels by WREN GRAY

KAI The alarm went off at 5:30 AM.I slapped it off and dragged myself out of bed, every muscle in my body protesting. My shoulders felt like concrete. My legs were stiff. Even my fingers ached from gripping weights yesterday.I checked my vision out of habit.Nothing. No system interface. No daily tasks. Just normal eyesight."Morning to you too," I muttered.No response. I got dressed in the dark, pulled on running shoes that were falling apart, wrote a note for baby sus, so she wouldn't start worrying and headed out. The city was still mostly asleep, just a few early morning joggers and people heading to opening shifts at diners and gas stations.The walk to Ricky's gym took twenty minutes. By the time I got there, the sky was starting to lighten, going from black to dark blue.The gym was in a basement underneath a laundromat. You had to know where the entrance was or you'd walk right past it. Ricky had the keys since he basically lived there—cleaning, maintaining equipment, som

KaiTuesday came faster than I expected.I'd spent the last three days training like a madman, running in the mornings, hitting the heavy bag at Ricky's gym in the afternoons, doing bodyweight exercises at night. All without the system's help. All without those daily tasks telling me what to do. It was painfully frustrating but the only logical choice I had. My body was paying the price. Everything hurt. My knuckles were bruised and swollen. My ribs—still not completely healed from Chen Wei—ached with every breath. I'd pulled something in my shoulder that made lifting my left arm a special kind of torture.But I kept going. Because what choice did I have?The system was still giving me the silent treatment. Every morning I'd wake up, check for the interface, and get nothing. Sometimes that stupid eye-roll emoji would appear just to mock me, but that was it."Fine," I'd told it this morning while doing push-ups. "Be petty. See if I care."🙄"Real mature."Now it was 5:45 PM on Tuesda

Kai I woke up at 5 AM like I had every morning for the past two months.The apartment was still dark, quiet except for Mira's soft breathing from the room she slept in. I rolled out of bed, my body moving on autopilot—feet hitting the cold floor, hands rubbing the sleep from my eyes, brain still half in whatever dream I'd been having.Usually, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the system interface. A greeting. My stats. The daily tasks waiting to be completed.But this morning?Nothing.Just my normal vision. No glowing text. No interface. No reminders.Right. The penalty.Seven days of being completely human. Seven days without the system's help."Okay," I muttered to myself, heading to the bathroom. "I can do this. I've been working out for two months. I don't need the system to tell me what exercises to do. I already know."I splashed cold water on my face, stared at myself in the mirror. Same face I'd had yesterday. Same dark circles under my eyes from not sleeping

KAIOld Man Zhang's office was exactly how I remembered it—cramped, dingy, smelling like stale cigarette smoke and something that might've been mold. The walls were covered with faded fight posters from decades ago, some of them so old the paper had turned yellow and brittle. A single desk dominated the small space, buried under papers, beer bottles, and overfilled ashtrays.Zhang himself sat behind the desk, already lighting up another cigarette even though one was still burning in the ashtray. He looked up when I knocked on the open door, and his eyes widened."Kai Wang." He stood up slowly, cigarette dangling from his lips. "Well, I'll be damned.""Hey, Zhang.""Come in, come in. Close the door." He gestured with the cigarette, ash falling onto the already dirty floor. "Sit down. You want a drink? I got beer, I got whiskey—well, it's not really whiskey, it's the cheap stuff, but it does the job.""I'm good." I closed the door and moved toward the chair across from his desk."Suit y

KAIThe arena was packed.I mean packed. Wall-to-wall bodies, the kind of crowd that made the air thick and hot even though it was cold outside. The smell hit me first—sweat, beer, cigarette smoke, and that metallic tang of blood that never quite left these places no matter how much they tried to clean.It was louder than I remembered. Or maybe I'd just forgotten how loud it could get. People were shouting, placing bets, shoving each other for better views. The ring lights cut through the haze of smoke, harsh and bright, making everything outside their circle look even more dangerous.I'd missed this.Hated that I'd missed this, but I had."Yo, there's no way we're getting in," Danny said, craning his neck to see over the crowd filled at the entrance. "Look at this line. We'd be here till midnight.""Tickets are probably sold out anyway," Marcus added. "Chen Wei fights always pack the house now. Ever since—" He stopped himself, glancing at me.Ever since he killed me and became famous

"Bro, what the hell did they feed you in that hospital?"Danny circled around me like I was some kind of science experiment, eyes wide, one hand gesturing wildly with his beer. "Seriously. You look like you grew a whole-ass foot.""I didn't grow a foot," I said, dropping onto the couch in our tiny living room. The cushions sagged under my weight—same as always. "You guys are being dramatic.""Dramatic?" Ricky leaned forward from his spot on the floor, controller in hand, the video game paused on the screen. "Man, when you went into the hospital, you were like... tiny. No offense.""None taken.""And now—" He gestured at me with the controller. "Now you look like you've been doing CrossFit or some shit. Your shoulders are wider. Your face looks different. Even your hair is longer and somehow better? How does hospital air make your hair better?"Marcus—who'd squeezed into our apartment along with the others—nodded from his seat on the arm of the couch. "He's right. You filled out, kid.