"Strength is flawed without proper knowledge and intelligence. I will spend the first few weeks drilling information to your brains. Knowledge that it takes to be competent Hunters."
The holographic screen shifted, displaying a cross-section of the Arachnoid Cryptid they had faced. The image pulsed with various colors—red for vital points, blue for Aura-conduction paths, and yellow for sensory nodes.
"Your education at the Academy was theatrical," Kei began, his voice devoid of the warmth usually found in a teacher's tone. "They taught you how to channel Aura, how to swing your weapons, and how to maintain the 'heroic' image your ego demands. They did not teach you how to see a Cryptid as a biological machine. Every manifestation follows the laws of physics and energy conservation. If it moves, it has a pivot point. If it attacks, it has a recovery frame."
He tapped his stick against the floor, and the hologram blacked out.
"Hunter Vivian. Explain to me what 'Aura' is."
Vivian straightened her posture, her tactical mind instinctively reaching for the textbook definition she'd memorized years ago at the Academy.
"Aura is the spiritual manifestation of a Hunter's willpower and life force," she stated, her voice regaining its confident, lecture-hall clarity. "It is a supernatural energy source that grants us superhuman physical capabilities and allows us to manifest our unique abilities. It's what separates us from ordinary humans and allows us to damage the ethereal carapaces of Cryptids."
A small, almost imperceptible smirk played on Kei's lips—a cold, thin line that held no humor.
"Poetic. Theatrical. And entirely useless," Kei countered. He didn't even wait for her to finish before tapping the glass desk. A new holographic graph appeared: a jagged wave of energy compared to a smooth, flat line. "Aura is not a 'blessing' or a 'manifestation of will.' From a tactical perspective, Aura is high-density bio-energetic radiation. It is a fuel source, nothing more. And like any fuel, if you burn it inefficiently, you create heat, noise, and light that serve no purpose other than to alert the predator to your presence."
He walked along the edge of the semi-circular desk, his blind stick tapping a slow, rhythmic beat that seemed to pace with their heartbeats.
"Rare Aura users like yourselves have superior biology compared to standard humans." Kei pressed a remote. The hologram lit up, displaying a Hunter's unique body constitution.
Kei walked behind the desk, his presence silhouetted by the glowing blue schematics of a Hunter's nervous system.
"Even at rest, without 'activating' your powers, your baseline physical capacity is roughly four to five times that of a world-class athlete," Kei noted, his voice flat. "Your skeletal structure can withstand pressures that would pulverize a normal human's bones. Your synaptic response time is so fast that the world essentially moves in slow motion compared to a civilian's perception."
He paused, letting the weight of that statement sink in.
"And yet," he continued, "you use this superior biology as a crutch. Because you are fast, you don't learn how to hide your movements. Because you are strong, you don't learn how to leverage your weight. You are like children who were given high-performance racing cars before they learned how to walk. You just press the pedal to the floor and pray you don't hit a wall."
He turned the holographic display toward Mika.
"When I hit your ankle with that pipe, Mika Nam, I did not use Aura. I used a fraction of the force you use in a single step. But because you were relying on your Aura to 'armor' you, you didn't bother to brace your joint. You were soft where you should have been firm, and firm where you should have been fluid. You relied on your biology to tank a hit that your brain should have avoided entirely."
Reina leaned forward, her brow furrowed. "But if our bodies are already better... why does it feel like we're always struggling when we fight high-class Cryptids? If we're so 'superior,' shouldn't it be easy?"
"Because Cryptids don't have human limitations," Kei replied. "They don't have muscle fatigue. They don't have 'Idol personas' to maintain. They are pure, predatory intent. If you fight them with only your biological advantages, you are just a bigger animal fighting a more efficient one. To kill a Cryptid without losing your life, you must stop fighting like an animal and start fighting like an analytical machine."
The hologram shifted, displaying a vertical ladder of icons. At the bottom sat the bronze sigil of a **Baron**, moving upward through the silver of **Viscount**, the ornate gold of **Count**, the deep violet of **Duke**, the radiant white of **Archduke**, and finally, the singular, crown-like emblem of a **King**.
"The Rank System," Kei said, his voice dropping into a lower, more resonant frequency. "To the Hunters, it is a power tier list. But to the Association, it is a way to budget lives."
He tapped the icons for **Baron** and **Viscount**. They flickered with a dull red light.
"Seventy percent of the Hunter population resides here. These are the workers. They have the biology, but their Aura reserves are shallow. They die because they lack the power to end a fight quickly. They are overwhelmed by numbers or duration."
Reina flinched when she heard the statistics linked to her own rank.
His stick moved to the **Count** icon—the rank held by Mika and Vivian. It pulsed with a sharp, arrogant gold light.
"This is the 'Danger Zone.' Counts are strong enough to handle most threats with raw power alone. Because of this, you stop learning. You stop refining. You become reliant on the 'One-Shot'—the flashy finisher that solves the problem. But when you encounter a Cryptid that doesn't die in one hit, or one that outsmarts your direct approach, you have no 'Plan B.' You are the rank with the highest mortality rate relative to your power level because your pride outpaces your perception."
Mika shifted in her seat, her jaw tight. She wanted to argue, but the data on the screen showed a spike in "Count-rank casualties" over the last three years that she couldn't ignore.
"Above you," Kei continued, pointing the stick toward **Duke** and **Archduke**, "the game changes. These Hunters understand that Aura is a finite resource to be managed with surgical precision. And a **King**..." He paused, the hologram of the crown flickering. "A King doesn't just use Aura. A King dictates the environment so that the Cryptid has already lost before the first blow is even struck."
He turned away from the screen, his shades reflecting the girls' stunned faces.
He tapped the remote again. The rank hierarchy vanished, replaced by a complex 3D map of a human's nervous system, overlaid with glowing "Aura nodes."
Throughout the whole afternoon, Kei gave in depth lessons about 'Aura' and a Hunter's body constitution.
The blue glow of the holograms finally flickered and died as Kei tapped a final command on the frosted glass desk. The silence that followed was heavy, filled with the hum of the air conditioning and the girls' mental exhaustion. For five hours, he hadn't let them move, forcing them to digest data that stripped away the glamour of their profession and replaced it with cold, hard anatomy and physics.
Mika rubbed her temples, her head throbbing from the sheer volume of information. She had spent her whole life being told her Aura was a "gift from the heavens," but Kei had spent the afternoon describing it like a dangerous, volatile radiation leak.
"Information is only half the battle," Kei stated, his voice as steady as it had been at ten in the morning. He picked up his blind stick from where it leaned against the desk. "The other half is the realization that your body is a weapon you haven't bothered to read the manual for."
He stood up, his silhouette tall and imposing against the darkened screen. "That concludes today's lesson. Wash up and meet me at the dining room in 45 minutes."
As the girls filed out of the meeting room, the hallway lights dimmed slightly, shifting to a cooler evening hue. Mika walked with a stiff, deliberate gait, her newly healed ankle feeling strangely light, yet she moved with caution as if Kei's voice was still whispering about "pivot points" in her ear.
"Forty-five minutes," Reina sniffled, her stomach letting out a small, treasonous growl. "I hope he doesn't expect us to eat tactical protein bars or something. I was really hoping for some sinigang(Filipino sour soup) to make this feel less like a prison."
"Don't hold your breath, Reina," Vivian said, her voice sounding drained. She was already mentally cataloging the data from the lecture. "He's stripping everything away. Comfort is probably the next thing on his list."
Mika remained silent until they reached their rooms on the second floor. She stopped at her door, her hand on the cold steel handle. "He's doing it," she whispered, not looking at her teammates. "He's making us doubt ourselves. Five hours of talk, and I feel like I've never even held a sword correctly."
"Maybe we haven't," Vivian replied softly.
***
Forty-five minutes later, the trio descended to the dining room. Like the rest of the manor, the space was a blend of brutalist architecture and high-end tech. A long, seamless obsidian table sat in the center, set with three places.
The three girls stopped dead in their tracks at the entrance of the dining area. After a day of being dismantled by a man who felt more like a cold, calculating machine than a human being, the scene before them was a total assault on their expectations.
The air was filled with the rich, savory aroma of garlic, ginger, and slow-cooked meat—a scent that immediately made Reina's stomach let out an audible, desperate rumble. But it wasn't just the smell that stunned them.
Kei, the man who had effortlessly crushed Mika's pride and held a pipe to her throat with lethal intent, was currently wearing a soft, oversized gray sweatshirt and an apron. But the most jarring detail was his feet: he was wearing a pair of plush, white bunny slippers with long ears that flopped slightly as he shifted his weight.
He moved with the same uncanny, blind precision he used in combat, but now it was applied to the domestic arts. He set a large ceramic pot in the center of the table without a single wasted motion, the lid clinking perfectly into place.
"Sit," Kei commanded, his voice as level and emotionless as ever. He reached out and grabbed three bowls, placing them at their settings with a rhythmic *clack-clack-clack*. "You've burned a significant amount of glucose during today's cognitive load. If you don't refuel properly, tomorrow's class will be a waste of my time."
Mika stared at the bunny slippers, her brain momentarily short-circuiting. She looked up at his face—his shades were off, his silver eyes staring blankly at nothing, yet his focus felt as sharp as a laser.
"Bunny slippers?" Mika blurted out, her voice a mix of disbelief and lingering irritation. "You're... you're an Overseer of the Association, a 'human machine,' and you're wearing bunny slippers while making us dinner?"
Kei didn't stop his task. He began ladling a hearty beef and vegetable stew into the bowls. "They provide optimal arch support and the sole material is silent on obsidian floors," he replied flatly. "A Hunter's environment should be optimized for recovery. My aesthetic choices are irrelevant to your training. Eat."
Reina, lured by the scent of the food, was the first to cautiously take a seat. She peered into the bowl—thick chunks of beef, perfectly sliced carrots, and a broth that looked rich enough to heal a broken soul. She took a small sip from her spoon and her eyes practically turned into stars.
"Oh my god," Reina whispered, her cheeks flushing. "It's... it's better than the five-star catering we get at the arena. Did you actually make this yourself?"
"Cooking is merely a series of chemical reactions and thermal management," Kei said, turning back to the counter to wipe it down with a cloth. "If you can understand the variables of a Cryptid's anatomy, you can understand the variables of a stew."
Vivian sat down, looking at Kei with a deep, pensive expression. She didn't miss the way he moved—even in a sweatshirt and apron, his movements were perfectly balanced, his center of gravity never wavering. He was demonstrating, even now, the "efficiency" he had lectured them about all afternoon.
"Is this part of the 'total immersion'?" Vivian asked, picking up her spoon. "Feeding us? Or are you just making sure we don't faint before you get to the hard part?"
"A starved weapon is a brittle weapon," Kei stated, finally stepping away from the kitchen island and standing at the head of the table. He didn't eat; he simply stood there, a silent, domestic sentinel. "Tonight, you will rest. Tomorrow at 05:00 AM, you will start your daily exercise to keep your bodies in top shape."
He 'looked' toward Mika, who was still staring at her bowl, her spoon trembling slightly.
"Eat, Hunter Mika. You'll need the calories. Tomorrow, I will be showing you exactly why your katana is currently nothing more than an expensive paperweight."