My father's command had been simple: join the morning drills. What it meant was anything but. It was an invitation, a test, and a challenge all rolled into one. It meant that for the first time in his life, Lancelot Ashworth was being treated as a soldier of the house, not just a son.
My new life fell into a grueling, relentless rhythm. Before dawn, I was in the training yard, the cold biting at my skin. I spent the day with the household guard, a unit of fifty hardened men, every one of them at least an Adept, with the veteran sergeants being established Artisans. And overseeing it all was Garrick, a Master, whose quiet, intense presence was a constant, firm reminder of the peaks I had yet to climb.
The first few days were a brutal exercise in frustration. The theory of my new Path, so clear and perfect in the silent darkness of the Voidstone Chamber, shattered the moment it met the chaos of live combat. Rhythmic Infusion was a devastatingly powerful tool, but in the heat of a spar, it was like trying to thread a needle in the middle of an earthquake.
To execute the technique, I needed a moment of perfect, internal synchronicity—the Two-Heart Cadence had to be in flawless harmony with my breath and my will. A stationary training boulder didn't fight back. A living opponent, however, was a storm of unpredictable variables. Every time I tried to line up the rhythm for a strike, my opponent would move, I'd be forced to react, and the delicate cadence would shatter. My infusions would either fail entirely, fizzling into nothing, or backlash with a sharp, stinging pain up my arm.
The guards were respectful, but I could see the confusion in their eyes. They had all witnessed my "spar" with Elias. They had seen the result of my power. But now, in day-to-day training, I looked like a clumsy, hesitant novice.
After a particularly frustrating morning where I spent more time stumbling than fighting, Garrick pulled me aside.
"You're thinking too much, my lord," he said, his voice a low grunt.
"My technique requires focus," I countered, rubbing my bruised knuckles.
"There's no time for focus in a real fight," he said bluntly. "There is only instinct. Your power is a part of you, not a tool you pick up. Stop trying to use it. Just be it." He gestured to the dueling circle. "Again. With me."
Sparring with Garrick was a completely different reality. He was a Master. He didn't even draw a weapon. He simply stood there, and the space around him felt dense, controlled. He moved with a terrifying economy. I threw everything I had at him, and he neutralized it with a simple shift of his weight, a slight turn of his hand. His aura wasn't flashy like Elias's; it was a deep, steady pressure that seemed to absorb the energy out of my own attacks. After five minutes, I was drenched in sweat and gasping for air, and he hadn't even moved from the center of the circle.
"Your foundation is the rhythm," he said, after effortlessly deflecting another of my clumsy attempts. "You're trying to build a house while the ground is still shaking. Stop fighting. Find the rhythm first. The rest will follow."
His words, as blunt and pragmatic as the man himself, cut through my frustration. He was right. I was trying to run before I could walk.
For the next week, I changed my entire approach. I didn't try to land a single infused strike. My only goal was to maintain the Two-Heart Cadence while in motion. I spent hours a day just on footwork, moving through the katas, my breath synced to the thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP of my core. I focused on defense, using the rhythm purely for evasion. I let the guards attack me relentlessly, and my only task was to flow, to endure, to make the cadence and my physical body one and the same.
The bruises piled up. I was exhausted every single night, collapsing into bed with muscles that screamed in protest. Seraphina would tend to my cuts and scrapes, her expression a constant, worried frown, but she said nothing. She saw the new, unyielding determination in my eyes.
Then, slowly, it started to click. My movements became less of a conscious effort and more of an instinct. The cadence became the beat to which my body danced, a constant, powerful undercurrent that I could rely on without thinking.
It was in the middle of the third week, during a spar with Pike, the grizzled veteran sergeant, that the breakthrough happened. He was a skilled Artisan, and he was pressing me hard, his wooden sword a blur of calculated, efficient strikes. I was on the defensive, my body moving on its own, flowing with the rhythm I had spent weeks ingraining into my very being.
Pike feinted high and came in with a low, sweeping blow meant to take out my legs. I saw it, but my mind was a half-step behind. There was no time to think. No time to plan.
So I stopped thinking.
I let go. I let the rhythm take over. My body reacted, dropping low. As I moved, the cadence aligned perfectly, an instinctual, harmonious surge. I didn't decide to strike; the strike simply happened. My left hand shot out, not in a block, but in a short, sharp palm strike. The thump-THUMP synced, the mana pulsed, and the infusion was released.
There was a sharp CRACK.
Pike's wooden sword, a thick piece of training-grade ironwood, exploded into splinters. He stumbled back, his hand dropping to his side, his eyes wide with shock.
The entire yard went silent.
I stood there, my palm tingling with a clean, humming energy, my own heart hammering with the shock of what I'd just done. It had been effortless. Instinctive. A perfect, reactive Rhythmic Infusion.
Pike stared at the splintered hilt in his hand, then back at me. A slow, incredulous grin spread across his weathered face. "Well, I'll be damned," he breathed.
From the edge of the yard, I saw Garrick watching, his arms crossed. He gave a single, satisfied grunt and turned away.
I looked down at my hand. The power was no longer a wild, untamed beast I had to wrestle into submission. It wasn't a complex equation I had to solve before every move. It was just… mine. The weapon I had forged in the dark was finally sharp. And now, I was ready for a real fight.