Chapter Title: Thirst (2)
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Yuri dove straight into the main topic without preamble, prompting Johan to click his tongue in annoyance.
"Tch, you brat. If you ate something on my dime, shouldn't you at least say it was good?"
"That covers the rent for using my house."
"And what about me dragging your sorry ass all the way here? That doesn't count?"
"Who was it that knocked me out in the first place?"
Johan let out a hollow chuckle to himself at Yuri's unyielding attitude, refusing to back down even an inch.
'Definitely not an easy one.'
Despite the renown of being a Master and the Swordless Blade, the kid named Yuri showed no sign of intimidation.
If anything, he was even more guarded.
From that demeanor, Johan could roughly guess the kind of hardships young Yuri must have weathered to survive.
'Guys like this only push back harder the more you prod them.'
With someone like Yuri, constant prodding wouldn't work. Instead, it was better to offer what he wanted in moderation and build trust over time.
And right now, what the kid craved was the reward from their deal.
Johan wiped the grease from the meat off his hands onto his pants and spoke in a low voice.
"What you thought was a curse... that's called an Incarnation."
A glint flashed in Yuri's eyes at Johan's words.
"Incarnation?"
"Incarnation. Or manifestation of the mind, avatar—you get the idea. It's the term for the advanced spiritual technique wielded by those who've reached the Master realm."
"..."
"Fundamentally, the human body can surpass its limits through physical strength or mana. But no matter how genius you are, the spiritual realm is something you can't easily touch."
What Johan was sharing was a profound lecture on mental manifestation—a realm countless people dreamed of but never attained.
For someone stuck at the ninth dan of public recognition, they'd pay a fortune for this talk, and here it was unfolding in a dingy cave.
"After tempering body and energy over a long time, if you encounter a special trigger, you can access the spiritual realm."
"A special trigger? What's that?"
At Yuri's question, Johan tapped his head with his index finger.
"This. This right here."
"Your head?"
"More precisely, the brain inside it."
"What about it?"
"The human brain contains a gateway to the spiritual realm. That special trigger is what opens that gate."
"..."
"Those who manifest an Incarnation can open the brain's spiritual gateway, known as the spirit acupoint. That's why people say 'the lid flips open.' Normally, it opens and closes..."
"But?"
"In your case, let's just say your lid is stuck wide open."
Yuri's face went slack as he listened to Johan.
"So... this isn't... some disease or curse?"
A hollow emptiness settled over Yuri's features.
'No wonder... no wonder I couldn't find anything!'
That was the reason he'd searched far and wide for years to lift his curse, only to come up empty.
He'd been approaching it all wrong from the start.
How could he find answers treating something that wasn't a curse or illness like it was one?
Plus, it was a technique only Masters at that pinnacle realm could wield.
How would ordinary folk even know about it?
As Yuri sat there dazed in his disillusionment, Johan's voice drifted in again.
"Of course, it's not like a curse. It's the ultimate treasure that countless people spend their lives chasing. But in your case... it might as well be a curse."
"...?"
"The realm you've stumbled into is supposed to open only when soul, energy, and body harmonize perfectly—a whole new world. But right now, you're in an abnormal state where only your soul has bloated out of proportion. So..."
"The broken balance is crumbling my body?"
Johan's eyes gleamed at Yuri's words, which nailed the core issue.
"Exactly right."
Spitting blood, passing out, and such.
All the symptoms Yuri had endured were harbingers of his body breaking down.
Now facing the truth behind the mystery he'd harbored for years, Yuri looked at Johan with trembling eyes and asked.
"So how do I survive this?"
"Restore the balance between soul, energy, and body. And learn to open and close that lid in your head."
"If I take you up on that deal... you'll teach me how?"
"Of course. Heh heh."
Yuri's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched Johan laugh merrily.
"And in exchange for that deal... what do I have to do? What do you get out of it?"
"Nothing much. Just learn what I teach you with utmost sincerity. That's all I want."
A question mark practically floated over Yuri's head.
"Something's off. So basically, what I gain from the deal is the same as what you want?"
Johan grinned at Yuri's question.
"What I'll teach you isn't the martial theory I've mastered—it's something new I've only recently completed, distilled from that."
"Sounds good?"
"What a question! You think anything this body makes is some cheap patchwork? Though..."
"Though?"
"There's this tiny issue of unproven safety... but that's nothing for you to worry about."
"..."
The look in Yuri's eyes turned icy in an instant.
He asked incredulously.
"So you're asking me to be your guinea pig right now?"
"Ahem. If we're splitting hairs, yeah."
"Could I... die learning it?"
"Wouldn't rule it out."
"...Can't you teach me something else?"
"Like what?"
Yuri's gaze grew colder by the second.
Johan just shrugged, unperturbed.
"Either way, you're dying sooner or later. Might as well go down swinging."
"Earlier you were all 'prove you're worth saving' and 'I'll keep you alive once it's verified.' Now it's 'do whatever and you still croak'?"
"When did I lie? Learn it without issues, and you live."
"And if there are issues?"
"Then you drop dead."
"You con artist!"
Johan smirked at Yuri's outburst.
"So, hate it? Not doing it?"
Yuri's forehead bulged with veins at Johan's sly, crescent-moon grin.
But he couldn't bring himself to say no.
Deep down, Yuri knew it too.
This might be his one and only shot at extinguishing the flames consuming his life force.
'If I pass this up... will my body even hold out until the next chance?'
Sure, methods to handle mana and body were one thing, but Incarnation was the exclusive domain of Masters.
How often do you run into one of the few Masters in the world? And even if you did, would they teach you how to control it?
No matter how many times—hundreds, thousands—he turned it over in his mind, no clear "next chance" came to view.
'Damn it...'
No matter how he sliced it, this was an utterly lopsided situation against him.
Conditions he had no choice but to swallow.
That's why this sly old fox Johan was so cocksure.
'Slippery old geezer!'
Yuri let out a deep internal sigh and lowered his gaze slightly as he asked.
"...What are my odds of surviving?"
"That depends on you, kid."
"Goddamn it..."
A low curse laced with frustration.
But Johan, recognizing it as acceptance of his offer, cackled.
And so, on that day at winter's end.
With a small campfire between them.
A strange bond formed—master and disciple, experimenter and subject.
* * *
In a spacious room.
Ashraf and Gunter sat facing each other beside a roaring fireplace.
In the heavy silence, Gunter recalled the day's events.
'Just... what the hell was that?'
The Swordless Blade and a boy his age named Yuri who appeared after his own exam ended.
And the chain of events they'd triggered.
It had all been too shocking for Gunter.
Sensing his son's turmoil, Ashraf spoke softly.
"What that boy Yuri showed today is a realm called Incarnation."
"...What's an Incarnation?"
At the quiet question, Ashraf shared what he knew about it.
Of course, it was just that it was something used by those who'd reached the Master realm.
But that alone was enough to send Gunter reeling.
His face stiff, he muttered.
"So I have to compete with someone like that in the Cradle."
Yuri had passed the Cradle's exam too.
Which meant they'd enter as part of the same cohort.
Ashraf tossed out a blunt question at his son's murmur.
"Worried?"
"More like burdened."
Warmth filled Ashraf's eyes at his son's unhesitating reply.
'The kid...'
Ashraf knew Gunter well.
Worry and burden.
Similar shades of negativity, but the two words his son chose carried quite different meanings.
If it were a problem his son couldn't solve, he'd call it worry.
'But since he sees it as a hurdle worth clearing, despite the difficulty, he calls it a burden.'
Burden implied it was daunting but doable.
That was Gunter's meaning of "burden."
Ashraf smiled faintly and said.
"No need to obsess over that boy. Sir Johan and Yuri won't be heading to the Cradle."
Gunter's head tilted slightly at Ashraf's confident words.
"Why not?"
"Do you know how the Cradle came to be?"
Gunter nodded at his father's question.
"Yes, I know the rough outline."
The continent of Layment was said to resemble a prostrate dragon.
At its southern end lay a massive lake.
So vast from afar it felt like an ocean, its shape evoked a dragon cradling an egg due to its geography.
Thus named the Dragon's Egg—or Montparche Lake in the ancient tongue—but even that was overturned by the Sword Lord.
"I know the Sword Lord created an island in Montparche Lake, and that was the origin of the Cradle."
"That's right."
The Sword Lord gathered vast human and material resources to Montparche Lake and poured them into building an artificial island there.
A feat the whole world decried as madness, impossible.
Yet, defying all doubt, the island in Montparche Lake was indeed built.
In a mere half year, no less.
'There was even that joke about the gold spent stacking up to the clouds.'
Lavished with gold like water, the artificial island kept expanding with further investments.
Decades later, it now sprawled across Montparche Lake, several times the size of a typical domain.
The lake, once like a dragon's egg, now resembled a cradle encircling it.
Thereafter, the Sword Lord united the lake and island, dubbing it the Dragon's Cradle and claiming it as his domain.
"Now they treat the Dragon's Cradle like some academy, huh?"
Decades after its birth.
The Sword Lord likened talents he selected to eggs, and those who spent five years in the Dragon's Cradle and emerged became his "hatched hatchlings."
As those hatchlings gained fame, public perception shifted.
Graduating the Dragon's Cradle became a measure of success, seen as an essential "educational institution" for achievement.
Ashraf scoffed inwardly at such worldly views.
"Academy? The Dragon's Cradle isn't some shallow school. It's more like the army."
Honestly, "lawless zone" ruled by the absolute law of the strong suited it better than army.
Ashraf called it an army only because of the bare minimum of discipline.
"Originally, the Dragon's Cradle referred to the Sword Lord's domain, and that hasn't changed. Even Johan Redner can't come and go as he pleases without permission."
"Ah!"
"It's a place where you can't see someone for at least five years once you enter, so he won't send off a hard-won disciple right away."
Especially not that "off-kilter kid."
'Even I noticed it. The Swordless Blade surely did too.'
For that reason, Ashraf was convinced of his hunch.
Yuri wouldn't enter the Cradle with this cohort, at least not in the next few years.
'Eleven months until this cohort's intake. If they fix the kid's issues by then, fine... but fat chance.'
Ashraf smiled faintly at his own reasoning.
It was impossible.
* * *
After Yuri and Johan reached some agreement between them.
Yuri, about to lie back down, bolted upright at an unexpected remark.
"Leaving? Where to?"
Johan shot back with a look that said, 'What the hell is this guy on about, banging on the shutters in his sleep?'
"Where else? The Cradle, obviously."