The full moon hung over the Oboro Clan courtyard like a bloodshot eye.
Ryuu closed the door to his room. It was a spartan room: a futon on the floor, a low table, and a flickering candle. There were no toys, no decorations, no warmth. It was like a prisoner's cell.
He sat on the futon with his legs crossed and placed the blue book on his knees.
"System," he whispered.
The blue interface deployed in the air.
[Name: Ryuu Oboro][Class: None][Level: 1 (0/100 EXP)][HP: 80/80 (Broken Constitution)][MP: 10/10]
[Attributes:]
* Strength: 3 (Adult Average: 10)* Agility: 4 (Adult Average: 10)* Vitality: 2 (Adult Average: 10 - Penalized)* Intelligence: 15 (Adult Average: 10)* Senses: 6
Ryuu analyzed the numbers coldly. His body was trash. An average adult could crush him with one hand. His vitality was pathetic, which explained why he almost died from a few lashes. But his Intelligence...
"Fifteen." A small spark of satisfaction flickered in his eyes. "Thanks to my adult mind and my previous experience. It's my only real advantage."
He looked at the book: *Basic Mana Compendium*.
In *Eternal Online*, to learn a skill from a book, you didn't need to read the whole thing. You just had to meet the stat requirements and activate the learning function.
He put his hand on the leather cover.
[Skill Item Detected: "Basic Mana Compendium".][Requirement: Intelligence 10.][Do you wish to learn the skill "Mana Meditation (Rank F)"?]
"Yes."
The book glowed with a faint blue light that flowed into his hand, traveled up his arm, and dissolved into his chest. The knowledge arrived as a packet of compressed information that decompressed violently in his brain.
Ryuu closed his eyes.
He didn't sleep that night.
He sat motionless, regulating his breathing to the rhythm the implanted knowledge dictated. *Inhale the void. Exhale the impurity.*
He attracted them. It was like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. They escaped, dispersed. But years of obsessive *grinding* had forged an iron discipline in his mind. He kept trying. Again and again.
A particle entered his system. A cold shock ran down his spine.
[MP: 1/10 -> 2/10]
He continued. The night passed in a blink of absolute concentration. While the rest of the clan slept (or murdered), the "useless" Ryuu was rebuilding his foundations, particle by particle.
When the first ray of grayish sun touched the rice paper of his window, the system chimed.
*Ding.*
[Meditation Successful (6 hours).][MP Restored: 10/10.][Your maximum Mana capacity has increased slightly due to constant effort.][Max MP: 10 -> 12.]
Ryuu opened his eyes. He was mentally exhausted, but his eyes shone with a feverish intensity. Two points. He had gained two points of maximum mana in one night.
"It's slow." He stood up, cracking his numb joints. "But it's progress."
**[Hidden Mission Accomplished: First Steps of the Mage]****[Reward: 20 SP]****[System Shop Status: Locked (Requirement: 50 accumulated SP)]**
---
The air in the dining hall was dense, saturated with the scent of varnished wood and the stale incense burning in a corner. A sepulchral silence enveloped the table, broken only by the rhythmic clinking of porcelain: a tempo dictated by the man at the head. Every movement of his chopsticks was a silent order that everyone obeyed without looking up. Ryuu, relegated to the far end, dwelt in the shadows cast by the torches. No one returned his gaze.
Ryuu sat at the far end, in a place that seemed added as an afterthought.
No one looked at him when he entered. He was invisible.
"The mission in the West was a success." An uncle, with a scar splitting his nose, broke the silence. "The target has been eliminated, along with his seven bodyguards. There were no witnesses."
The Father nodded slightly, without looking up from his rice.
"Good. The Duke of the North has sent a request. It requires absolute discretion."
"Takeshi can handle it," said the Mother, a woman of icy beauty who looked sculpted from ice. "He needs to stretch his legs."
"I'll handle it," said Takeshi from his seat, smiling with that casual cruelty that characterized him.
They spoke of death, contracts, and politics. No one asked Ryuu how he had slept. No one asked him if he was ready for training. For them, he wasn't part of the conversation.
Ryuu finished his miso soup, setting the bowl down with a precise movement. He bowed—which no one returned—and headed to the courtyard under the indifferent gaze of the guards.
---
The training ground was a beaten earth yard surrounded by wooden and stone weapons.
Thirty children, between five and twelve years old, were aligned in perfect rows. Everyone wore the clan's black training gi. No one spoke. No one moved. The air was charged with a tangible fear.
Ryuu took his place in the last row, where the previous owner of the body used to hide.
The Father walked between the rows. He carried a bamboo stick in his hand.
"Today we will strengthen the body." The Father walked between the rows, his voice resonating against the stone walls. "An assassin who gets tired is a dead assassin."
He stopped in front of a six-year-old boy who was trembling slightly. *Thwack!* The stick hit the boy's shoulder. The child stifled a scream but straightened up.
"One thousand squats," ordered the Father. "With stones."
The servants brought rocks the size of human heads. The children loaded them onto their shoulders.
Ryuu took his. It was heavy. His noodle arms protested immediately, his knees buckling under the extra load.
"Begin."
One. Two. Three.
At repetition fifty, Ryuu's thighs burned. Lactic acid flooded his atrophied muscles. The pain was sharp, a constant alarm signal his body sent to his brain: *Stop. You're going to break. You can't do anymore.*
But [Pain Nullification] filtered reality. Ryuu felt the burning in his muscles, a hot and vibrating pressure, but there was no pain at all. It was just a physical sensation. His face remained expressionless, without a single grimace. He could feel his legs approaching collapse, but without the signal of agony to stop him, he simply continued pushing his body toward rupture.
One hundred.
His legs trembled violently. Sweat got into his eyes.
"Look at him," someone whispered in the row ahead. "The crybaby hasn't fallen yet."
Two hundred.
Ryuu fell. His legs simply stopped working. The rock rolled down his back and hit the ground.
He waited for the blow of the stick.
It didn't arrive.
He forced himself to get up. His mind drove his sluggish muscles with an iron will. *Get up. Move.* He picked up the rock.
He continued.
Halfway through the training, a tall shadow fell over him.
Ryuu looked sideways, without stopping.
A young man, about twenty-seven years old, was watching him with a smile that reached his eyes. He was tall, a tower of fibrous muscle and lethal elegance. He had the same black eyes as the Father, but where the Father's were wells of indifference, this man's shone with an amused, sadistic cruelty.
Takeshi Oboro. The eldest son. The pride of the clan.
"My, my." Takeshi approached, his voice smooth as silk. "Little Ryuu isn't crying today. How boring."
Ryuu did squat three hundred and fifteen. He didn't answer.
Takeshi clicked his tongue.
"Dad," he called to the Leader, who was watching from the platform. "I think Ryuu is cheating. His posture is horrible. We should correct it, right?"
The Father looked in his direction. He nodded slightly.
Takeshi smiled, showing teeth that were too white. He put his foot on the rock Ryuu was carrying on his back. And pushed down.
The weight doubled. Tripled.
Ryuu's knees creaked. The bone threatened to splinter.
"Down!" ordered Takeshi, pressing harder.
Ryuu collapsed, his face crushed against the dirty earth.
"Up!" Takeshi removed his foot, but when Ryuu tried to get up, he kicked him in the ribs. "I said up, trash! Are you going to let a little pebble beat you?"
The pain in his ribs was dull, distant. Ryuu coughed dust.
"Come on, cry." Takeshi crouched, his cold breath near his ear. "Cry for your big brother. Make the sound you do best."
Ryuu lifted his head. Dirt covered his face, but his eyes were fixed on Takeshi.
Fear. That's what Takeshi wanted. He wanted to see the terror in his victim's eyes. It was his food.
Ryuu gave him the opposite. He gave him nothing.
He got up, staggering, and picked up the rock. He ignored Takeshi as if he were an annoying fly and continued with squat three hundred and sixteen.
Takeshi's smile faltered for an instant. A vein throbbed in his temple.
"I see," he muttered, straightening up. "You've become arrogant because you survived yesterday."
Takeshi raised his hand, ready to hit for real this time.
"Enough," the Father's voice cut the air.
Takeshi stopped dead. He lowered his hand, instantly recovering his mask of obedience, although his eyes promised future pain.
"Continue," ordered the Father.
The training continued until noon. When it ended, Ryuu couldn't walk. He had to literally crawl out of the courtyard, with spasmodic muscles.
While he headed painfully toward the dining hall, a figure blocked his path.
It was the Father.
Ryuu tried to stand up to bow, but his legs failed. He remained on his knees.
"Last night you entered the library." The Father looked toward the horizon, his silhouette cut against the midday sky. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Father."
"That wasn't your assigned day. And you took books that do not correspond to your current training level."
The man lowered his gaze. His eyes pierced Ryuu, as if they could read the system floating in front of him.
"Weakness, cowardice... I can tolerate that to a certain point, because it can be purged with pain. But secrecy..." The Father leaned in slightly. "Nothing happens on this mountain without me knowing, Ryuu. If you breathe, I hear it. If you think, I intuit it."
Ryuu swallowed saliva. His heart beat strongly against his bruised ribs.
"I just wanted to understand, Father," said Ryuu, keeping his voice steady. "Understand what is needed to be strong."
The Father held him in his gaze a second longer, evaluating the lie, or the half-truth.
"Strength is not found in books," he said finally, turning around. "It is found in blood. And yours is too thin."
"Make sure not to disappoint me tomorrow." The Leader walked away without looking back. "Takeshi will take charge of your personal training in the afternoons from now on. He says he wants to... 'help you improve'."
Ryuu felt a cold that had nothing to do with the mountain wind.
Takeshi. Personal training.
He looked at his hands full of blisters and dried blood.