Daniel didn't set foot in Sirris Academy the next morning.
Instead, he sat at the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees, head lowered, replaying every moment of yesterday's fight like a broken film reel.
Anyone else who'd seen it might call it a draw.
But Daniel knew the truth.
It wasn't a draw.
It was a loss.
His chest still burned with the memory of Ares Kyros's strikes — too fast to counter, too precise to predict. He'd survived, but surviving wasn't winning. And the fact that Seraphine had been there to watch him fail made the sting sharper.
"I can't beat them like this," he admitted to himself. "Not yet."
But he had a way forward.
There was a story whispered in only a few corners of the world — the kind of rumor so faint that most took it for fantasy. A story about a man who once walked alongside the Legend God who nearly claimed the seat of Divine King. The two had vanished when the world thought them invincible.
Most said they died together.
Daniel knew they hadn't.
He knew exactly where the man was.
The rumors didn't mention the man's skill. Daniel had learned it by digging where no one else dared. The stranger in the mountains possessed the same unique skill Daniel did — Copy.
But the difference was terrifying.
The man had pushed the Copy skill to a level that defied the world's rules.
The system dictated that unique skills from Ascendent rank and above could never be copied. The abilities of a Legend God were considered untouchable.
The man had broken that law.
And Daniel intended to do the same.
The city streets gave way to dirt paths as Daniel walked, hood up, phone powered off, his steps steady and deliberate. The air grew colder the further he went, the buildings thinning until there were only stretches of forest at his sides.
The mountain loomed ahead — dark, vast, and silent.
By the time Daniel reached the trail, the morning sun had been swallowed by drifting fog. The path narrowed into uneven stone steps, roots curling through the cracks like veins, the sound of his own breathing the only rhythm in the stillness.
Each step carried him further from the world he knew.
The mist thickened until the trees became hazy silhouettes. His ears strained for sound — a bird, a squirrel, anything — but there was nothing. Just the muffled silence of a place untouched by human hands for years.
And then, in the middle of that dead quiet, he saw movement.
A figure stood in a clearing just ahead, framed by the pale light filtering through the fog.
Tall. Lean. Still as a statue.
The man looked to be in his late twenties, his black hair unevenly cut, as though it had been hacked away with a blade. His frame wasn't bulky, but there was something in the way he carried himself — a kind of coiled presence — that made Daniel's instincts flare.
In his right hand, he held a katana.
The blade was sheathed, yet even in rest it radiated sharpness, the polished steel faintly catching what little light the mist allowed.
The man's eyes were steel grey, and when they locked onto Daniel, they didn't waver.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then, in a voice as flat as stone, the man said:
"…No one comes here."
Daniel stopped several paces away. "I'm not no one."
A flicker of something unreadable passed through the man's eyes. "You shouldn't be here."
Daniel's tone stayed level. "I'm here to become your disciple."
The man's expression didn't change, but his gaze sharpened, as though weighing the truth of the words.
"…Go back."
It wasn't shouted. It was quiet, almost calm. But it carried the kind of weight that made Daniel's skin prickle.
Most people would have turned around right then.
Daniel didn't. "You're the one who perfected the Copy Skill. I have it too."
This time, there was a reaction.
A shift in stance. The faintest tightening of his grip on the katana. Not at the mention of the skill itself — but at the fact Daniel knew.
"Even if that's true," the man said slowly, "perfection isn't for everyone. The path breaks more bones than it makes men."
Daniel's eyes didn't waver. "I don't care."
The man moved.
One moment he was standing several meters away. The next, the katana was drawn and its cold steel was a hair's breadth from Daniel's neck.
Daniel's muscles tightened instinctively, but he didn't flinch.
"Then prove you deserve to stand here," the man said, his voice low, dangerous.
A bead of cold air slid along Daniel's throat where the blade hovered.
And then… Daniel smiled.
"That's exactly why I came."
The man's steel-grey gaze studied him for another long moment before the katana slid back into its sheath with a smooth shhhk.
"You'll regret those words before the end," the man said, turning away.
Daniel's grin didn't fade. "We'll see."
---
What followed wasn't a warm welcome.
The man didn't invite Daniel inside. Didn't even ask his name. Instead, he walked deeper into the fog without looking back, forcing Daniel to follow.
The deeper they went, the stranger the air felt — thick, oppressive, almost as if the mountain itself was watching.
Finally, the man stopped in a small clearing. No house. No furniture. Just a flat patch of earth surrounded by stone.
He turned, unsheathing the katana once more. "If you want to learn, you start here. Survive until I say stop."
Daniel's hand tightened into a fist. "Survive, huh? Sounds easy enough."
The man's lips twitched — not quite a smile, but something close to disdain.
Then he vanished.
Daniel's eyes widened as a glint of steel flashed from behind. He twisted away just in time for the katana to slice through his coat's shoulder seam, the fabric splitting cleanly.
"Not bad," the man said, already repositioning. "But hesitation will kill you faster than any blade."
Daniel's pulse was already pounding. He'd expected a test — not an execution attempt.
He grinned anyway.
This was exactly the kind of madness he'd come for.