Kyle's steps were slow, almost unconscious, as he wandered through the manor's garden in the soft, golden light of early morning.
He inhaled deeply of the garden's calm.
"This is refreshing," He spoke, a tentative smile brushing across his face.
The gardeners were not yet at work, and the household staff, busy elsewhere, hardly gave him a glance.
Though he was the young master, he could feel the foreign emotions, how Kyle Ravenshade had felt about the way cultivators treated him.
It irked him, the disdain, the disregard. Sometimes he would even wonder, why does a commoner get to cultivate while I am born crippled?
It was one of the things that haunted his predecessor's conscience.
Sigh...Kyle sighed. "That's enough walking, I guess." After a few more steps, he turned and retraced his path.
His boots made little sound as he strode toward the training hall, his shoulders straight, determination in every measured step.
While he had memories of training his body, sword skills, and the like, having it in your mind and being able to put it all into practice were different things entirely.
Because in the end, even if he remembered the skills Kyle had trained in, it would all be for naught if he could not execute them when it mattered.
I'm not entirely recovered, but a little light exercise wouldn't hurt. Kyle thought.
Kyle Ravenshade had always preferred this path, training with the family's loyal cultivators. No instructors of higher rank had been willing to teach him as would have been the norm.
They saw a young lord with no real cultivation, Cassian's own son, stuck at mortal strength, a cripple, and they saw no value in offering their time.
They deferred to his father, the Marquis, demanding exorbitant fees for mere lessons in discipline.
Eventually, his father stopped hiring; the cost and the attitude of the teachers outweighed any benefit.
That left Kyle to train with the household cultivators: soldiers, men, and women whose cultivation had reached the Qi Condensation stage.
They weren't on the same level as true masters, but a few of them were capable sword users, sparring partners, and a few offered him counsel and correction in form.
Many servants bore pity or a hint of disdain, after all, he was still a useless cripple in their eyes, yet the soldiers, who saw him day in, day out in the training hall, treated him differently.
They respected the hours he logged, the sweat he shed, even though he was not a cultivator. His effort had earned him respect.
As he neared the wide double-doors of the sleek, reinforced training hall, he heard the muted clang of steel and the earthy tang of polished wood.
Inside, the chamber was vast, with a high ceiling and enough space for at least a hundred people to walk around. Swords, staves, and spears stood ready on a long rack along one of the walls.
The moment he stepped in, a hush fell. There were only a few people inside, numbering about thirty. A few of them approached.
The Young Master?
Young Master Kyle
Young Lord
The murmurs spilled out.
A few bowed with practiced precision. One set of broad-shouldered fighters at the head of the group called out in relief:
"We are glad you're safe, Young Master, after the assassination attempt." He spoke, his face stern.
"It's good to see you, young master!" The rest of them shouted in unison, as Kyle smiled lightly. He nodded, not giving too much away.
Another, older warrior with visible scars across his forearms, Youm, Kyle recalled, one of the house's favoured retainers.
Youm added, his voice low and grim, "Had you fallen… well, the Marquis might have ordered our banners. We'd have been pushed to war."
Kyle inclined his head, offering a faint, earnest smile. Despite the dangers and the politics swirling beyond the manor, here in this space, he felt comfortable.
The rest of the day passed in a disciplined routine.
He began with stretching exercises and conditioning drills, push‑ups, squats, and footwork across the wooden floor, intended to strengthen joints, core, and coordination.
Some parts of his body still ached, and he now bore a few scars on his back. Sweat gathered at his brow, and his limbs bristled with exertion.
Then came sword‑sparring. He chose his usual primary weapon, thing longsword.
He stepped onto the practice mats, the steel ring of swords meeting in clean, clashing strikes.
Each of his sparring partners attacked with rooted stances and fluid thrusts, even though their strikes were not reinforced by Qi as they normally would it was still difficult for Kyle to fight them off
But he was grinning to himself still, I can recall, and use all those skills he learned! A wave of relief washed over him.
It was like he was playing a game with a load file already loaded in for him. The strikes came at him, strong and relentless, and he met them with grit and precision.
He could execute the moves in his mind with deadly precision. Like, the experience directly became his.
I should have expected this much if the effect of this transmigration makes me even feel emotions that were not originally mine.
And his strikes only improved, and though he lacked the endurance or strength of an actual cultivation expert, he compensated with technique and timing.
The hard work, the hours put into training sword technique, reflected in every strike. Even though he was the one doing the moves, Kyle found himself entranced.
Kyle Ravenshade's sword technique, the Phantom Sword Technique, was simply beautiful. It was a four-star sword technique of House Ravenshade, and its mastery was separated into stages one to five.
This technique outpaced brute force with rapid, layered blade strikes. Kyle's strikes were swift, layered, and precise, and he was improving upon them still.
With each bout, he absorbed corrections: how to angle the blade, how to shift weight, how to turn inertia into leverage.
The men in the training hall corrected what they could, but there was no question: Kyle worked harder than any mortal should, and it showed.
He sparred in rotation with three or four sword‑users each round, a chance to refine his form, his reflexes, his endurance.
What had begun as a light training exercise for him lasted late into the afternoon.