The only sounds were the scuff of my bare feet on the worn straw mats of the dojo, the rhythmic click-clack of our practice katanas meeting, and the harsh saw of my own breath echoing inside my gold mask. Two and a half months of this. Two and a half months of waking before dawn in my small room at the Grinning Gryphon, the lingering chill of the high-altitude night still clinging to the stones.
My schedule was a religion, its rites performed with fanatical devotion. Wake at six. A half-hour of meditation, feeling the nascent Red Light Stage of my core pulse like a second, more vibrant heart in my chest. Then, here, at seven sharp, to the dingy, sweat-and-liniment-scented fencing school for three hours of brutal instruction under Master Kael. From eleven to one, the grunting, iron-clanging cacophony of the public gym, pushing my body until my muscles shrieked and my new, denser frame—no longer the starved wraith from the forest—shook with exhaustion. A brief, forty-minute respite to walk the soaring, sun-drenched streets of Xyrus, a silent observer in a city of magic and marvels. Then, the heart of my day: the long, silent afternoon and evening in my room, cultivating mana, refining my control over wind and fire, and pushing my body further with internal mana enhancement until I collapsed into a sleep so deep it was a form of oblivion.
It was a life of absolute focus. And it was paying dividends.
I lunged, the twin wooden swords in my hands—meticulously carved by my own hand to the exact weight and length of true katanas—whistling through the air. One high, aiming for Kael's shoulder, the other low, a feint toward his lead leg. It was a move I'd drilled a thousand times, my body moving with a fluidity I'd never possessed before.
Master Kael didn't so much block as he flowed. He was a man in his late fifties, his hair a steely grey brushcut, his face a roadmap of old scars, the most prominent a wicked white line that pulled the corner of his mouth into a permanent, grim smirk. His body was lean rope and hardened leather, and he moved with an economy of motion that was utterly deceptive. He simply wasn't where my blades were going to be. A slight shift of his weight, a pivot on the ball of his foot, and my high strike sliced through empty air. His own practice sword, held in a single hand, tapped the back of my leading wrist with a stinging thwack.
Pain, sharp and bright, lanced up my arm. I gritted my teeth, swallowing a grunt, and used the momentum of my missed strike to spin, bringing my other sword around in a wide, horizontal arc aimed at his ribs. It was a desperate move, leaving me horribly open.
Kael didn't even bother to parry. He dropped into a low crouch, the wooden blade passing harmlessly over his head. As I stumbled forward, over-extended and off-balance, his foot shot out, hooking behind my ankle. The world tilted. I hit the mat with a jarring thud that drove the air from my lungs, my wooden swords clattering away from my nerveless fingers.
I lay there for a second, staring up at the dojo's smoke-stained wooden beams, the taste of defeat coppery in my mouth. The humming energy of my nearly-achieved Red Light Core throbbed in my chest, a powerful engine in a vessel that still didn't know how to steer.
"Dead," Kael stated, his voice a dry rasp. He nudged my side with his foot. "Again. Your footwork is improving, Joker, but you're still thinking about your swords. Your feet are the foundation. The swords are just the conclusion."
I pushed myself up, retrieving my practice weapons. The frustration was a hot coal in my gut, but I banked it, using it as fuel. "Again," I echoed, my voice muffled and flat behind the mask.
We resumed. For the next hour, it was a symphony of my failure. I attacked; he deflected. I defended; he found the gap. He was a ghost, a phantom of muscle memory and ingrained experience. I realized, with a sinking clarity, that he wasn't just holding back his strength—he was holding back his speed, his reactions. He was fighting with one hand tied behind his back, metaphorically, allowing me to even touch my blades to his. The gap between us wasn't a chasm; it was a continental divide.
Finally, the lesson time elapsed. I stood panting, sweat dripping from my chin and soaking through the back of my tunic. My arms felt like lead, my shoulders a knot of fire. Kael wasn't even breathing heavily. He walked to the side of the dojo, picked up a rough cotton towel, and tossed it to me. I caught it, using it to wipe my face under the mask.
"You're frustrated," he observed, not a question.
"I can't touch you," I admitted, the words tasting like ash.
A short, barking laugh escaped him. "Boy, if you could 'touch' me after two and a half months, I'd have to hang up my sword and become a baker. You have no idea how well you're doing."
I looked at him, my disbelief evident in my stillness.
"I'm serious," he said, his scarred face settling into a more earnest expression. "You came to me with the footwork of a newborn deer on a sheet of ice. Now? You have an intermediate understanding. It's unrefined, it's clumsy under pressure, but the foundation is there. You understand weight distribution. You understand the importance of stance. Most of the lordlings who come in here paying for 'sword lessons' never grasp that in six months. They just want to learn a flashy thrust."
"Why is it so important?" I asked, genuinely wanting to hear it from him. I knew the theory—a stable platform generates power, allows for quicker changes in direction—but his practical, lived experience was a different kind of knowledge.
Kael leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "Why is the foundation of a tower important? Because everything is built upon it. Your sword is a tool. A lever. Its power doesn't come from your arms." He tapped his bicep. "It comes from here." He stomped his foot on the mat. "From the ground, up through your legs, through your core, and out through your arms. A weak stance means a weak strike. It means you can be moved. And in a fight, if you can be moved, you can be killed."
He pushed off the wall and stepped into the center of the room. "Watch." He fell into a basic, neutral stance. "This is where you live. From here, you can go anywhere." He demonstrated, shifting his weight with impossible grace into an offensive lunge, then flowing back into a defensive back-step, then pivoting into a sideways evasive motion. Each movement was seamless, his center of gravity never rising or falling, a constant, controlled pivot. "Your enemy attacks. You don't block with your sword first. You block with your feet. You move your body out of the path of the attack. The sword is the last resort, the final, precise answer to a question that your feet have already mostly solved."
It was a profound shift in perspective. I'd been thinking like a hammer, trying to smash the nail. He was teaching me to be the hand that guided the hammer.
"But what if you can't move? If you're cornered?" I asked.
"Then your foundation becomes your anchor," he said, sinking his weight lower, his body seeming to root itself to the floor. "You become immovable. You take the force of the blow and channel it down, into the earth. You let the ground absorb it. Then you return it." He exploded upward from the sunken stance, his whole body uncoiling in a mock strike that made the air hum. "It's a conversation. A dance. Your opponent speaks with violence. You answer with movement. Your sword is just the punctuation at the end of your sentence."
We talked for a long time, long past the end of our paid hour. He spoke of reading an opponent's intentions in the minute tension in their shoulders, the shift of their eyes. He talked about the psychology of combat—the fear, the adrenaline, the boiling rage that could be turned against an opponent. He spoke of it not with glory, but with the weary respect of a craftsman for his trade.
"Why did you stop? Adventuring, I mean," I asked, gesturing to his limp, an old injury I'd never dared ask about.
He was silent for a moment. "Got strong enough to get into real trouble, but not strong enough to get back out," he said finally, his voice gravelly. "Reached A-rank. Thought I was a legend. Took a job mediating a 'trade dispute'." He snorted. "It was a clan war between two dwarf hold-families over a rich mana crystal seam. One side hired us. The other side had better earth mages. A cave-in buried my team. I was the only one who crawled out. This," he gestured to his leg, "was the price. Strength isn't just about power, Joker. It's about knowing the limits of that power. It's about knowing what fights are yours, and which ones will bury you. The hunger for more is good. It keeps you alive. But you have to be able to swallow what you bite off."
His words settled over me, heavy with truth. They mirrored my own journey, my own desperate hunger for power, my narrow escape from being buried in a different way. I thanked him, the gratitude genuine behind my mask. He just waved a hand.
"Don't thank me. Just don't let your foundation crack. Now get out. I have a lazy noble's son to disappoint in half an hour."
---
The gym was its usual special kind of agony. After the precise, mental exertion of the sword lesson, the gym was pure, brutal physicality. I lost myself in the grind, pushing my enhanced body through sets of weighted squats, presses, and pulls. The Verdant Ironwood bracers on my arms seemed to hum in sympathy with my straining muscles, their reinforcing enchantment providing that critical extra edge of stability and power. The protein-rich meals I'd been forcing down—a necessary expense after realizing the forest fruits only provided basic sustenance, not building blocks—were transforming my body. I was still lean, but a layer of solid muscle now defined my arms, shoulders, and chest. I was no longer a boy playing at being strong; I was becoming strong.
Afterwards, as was my custom, I walked. I eschewed the main, glittering thoroughfares for the quieter, secondary avenues that wound between the soaring towers. I watched the airships drift like silver seeds on the wind. I observed the students of Xyrus Academy, their uniforms crisp, their faces animated with a carefree confidence I could only mimic. I was a ghost in the machine of the city, an observer gathering data, learning the rhythms of this new world.
The sun was beginning its descent, painting the cloud sea below in shades of orange and violet, when I made a decision. I needed a shorter route back to the inn, a way through the less-traveled arteries of the district. I turned down a narrow alleyway, a cobbled path squeezed between two high, windowless walls of featureless grey stone. It was a place of deep, elongated shadows, the kind of place that whispered of whispered deals and quick, dirty violence.
I'd sensed them before I saw them. Five presences, their auras flickering with the low, muddy light of untrained mana cores and a sharp, avaricious intent. They peeled away from the shadows ahead, blocking the alley's exit. Two more stepped out behind me, cutting off my retreat. Perfect.
They were thugs, through and through. Hard men with cheap leather armor and cheaper swords. Their leader, a bulky man with a broken nose and a knuckle-duster on one hand, grinned, revealing several missing teeth.
"Well, look what we have here," he sneered, his voice echoing in the confined space. "A little masked bird, all alone. That's a fancy mask. Real gold?"
"Plated alloy," I said, my voice calm, flat. The adrenaline was beginning to sing in my veins, a familiar and welcome tune. This was a test. A live exercise.
"Shame," the leader said, taking a step forward. "Still, we'll take it. And that cloak. And whatever you've got in those pockets. Make it easy on yourself, kid. We're not looking to spill too much blood. Just coin."
I didn't answer. My eyes scanned them, assessing. Leader front and center. Two with short swords flanking him. One with a cudgel behind his back. One archer, crossbow half-raised, in the back. The two behind me were edging closer, confident.
I needed a weapon. My practice katanas were back at the dojo. My eyes fell on a length of discarded metal pipe leaning against the wall, about three feet long. It was perfect.
I moved. Not toward the pipe, but to the side, a quick, shuffling sidestep that broke their immediate focus. As the leader's eyes tracked me, I kicked a loose piece of cobblestone toward the two behind me. It was a distraction, nothing more.
"Get him!" the leader roared.
The world sharpened. My core flared, and I pushed mana through my body—not a spell, but pure enhancement. My muscles thrummed with power, my senses heightening. The world didn't slow down, but my perception of it did. I saw the crossbowman's finger tighten on the trigger. I saw the cudgel-man start his swing.
I dove for the pipe, my enhanced speed making me a blur. The crossbow bolt thwipped past where my head had been and shattered against the stone wall. My fingers closed around the cold, rough iron of the pipe. It was unbalanced, crude, but in that moment, it was my katana.
I rose, turning into the momentum of the cudgel swing. I didn't block. I moved. Just as Kael had taught me. I slipped inside the swing, the weighted wood whistling past my ear, and slammed the end of my pipe into the man's elbow joint. There was a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone. He screamed, dropping the cudgel, his arm bending the wrong way.
I was already moving. The two swordsmen came at me from either side. A classic pincer. I feinted left toward one, causing him to commit to a parry, then dropped low, my feet driving me forward under the other's wild slash. I came up inside his guard and drove the pipe like a spear into his gut. All the air left his lungs in a pained whoosh, and he folded over, retching.
A sword came down at my head from behind. I didn't look. I sensed the shift in the air, the pressure of the movement. I pivoted on my back foot, the blade missing me by an inch and sparking off the cobblestones. As the thug overbalanced, I brought the pipe around in a short, brutal arc, connecting with the side of his knee. He went down with a shriek.
The leader was on me now, roaring, swinging his knuckle-duster in a wide, powerful haymaker. It was telegraphed, fueled by rage. I leaned back, letting the force of his swing carry him forward. As he stumbled past, off-balance, I snapped the pipe forward, cracking him across the back of his skull. He dropped like a sack of grain, unconscious before he hit the ground.
The last two, the archer and the one I'd initially feinted at, stared in horror. The fight had lasted less than ten seconds. I stood amidst their moaning comrades, the pipe held loosely in my hand, my chest rising and falling steadily. The metallic taste of blood was in my mouth—I'd bitten my cheek during the pivot.
The remaining swordsman dropped his weapon, his hands rising in surrender. The archer fumbled, trying to reload his crossbow. I took a single, menacing step forward, and he threw the crossbow down, turning to flee. I let him go. The message was sent.
I looked down at the leader. My new, practical mindset asserted itself. Resources. I knelt, quickly and efficiently searching the five downed men. I found a motley collection of purses. I upended them into my own empty coin pouch. The clatter of coin was a sweet sound. Six gold coins. Seventy-four silver coins. Twenty-nine copper coins. A fortune. I also took two serviceable-looking daggers from their belts.
Then, on the leader's finger, I found it. A simple, brushed silver band with a small, dull grey gemstone set into it. A storage ring. My heart gave a single, hard thump. This was worth more than all the coin combined. I slipped it onto my finger. It was a little loose, but it would do.
I left them there, groaning in the gathering dusk. I took a different route back to the Grinning Gryphon, my senses on high alert, but no further trouble found me. The encounter had been… satisfying. It was proof. Proof that my training was not theoretical. That the power I was cultivating had real, tangible application.
Back in my room, I barred the door. I placed the new wealth on my small table, the coins gleaming in the light of my single mana-lamp. Then I focused on the ring. I pushed a trickle of mana into it. The gemstone glowed faintly, and my mind's eye was presented with a small, grey, cubic space, about fifteen feet to a side.it had a yeild twelve more gold and sixty silvers along with numerous equipment that looked both dazzling and expensive. I smiled, a rare, genuine expression no one could see. This changed everything. I could carry supplies, gear, anything I needed. Secrecy and convenience.
I didn't linger on the victory. There was no time. The hunger was still there, gnawing, always gnawing.
I sat cross-legged on the thin mattress, the coins and the ring before me. I closed my eyes, dismissing the world. The image of Master Kael's flowing evasion, the crunch of the thug's elbow, the feel of the pipe in my hand—it all faded away, replaced by the internal landscape of my core.
The solid red sphere pulsed with a fierce, steady light. It was vibrant, luminous, on the very cusp of the stage I had falsely claimed. The Red Light Stage was so close I could taste it, a mere shard of crystalline understanding away.
I began to draw in the ambient mana of Xyrus, so much richer and sweeter than anywhere else I'd been. I fed it into my core, compressing it, refining it, willing it to shine just a little brighter. The world outside ceased to exist. There was only the light, the hunger, and the relentless, driving need for more.
The path continued. And I was finally starting to run now i only had a mounth and a half left before my guild rank assement.
[END OF CHAPTER]
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