The problem with a wooden training sword is that it doesn’t slice.
It breaks things.
Ribs, mostly, but occasionally pride.
“Again,” Instructor Toris droned, not looking up from his data slate.
Kael picked himself up from the sawdust floor of the training ring for the sixth time in ten minutes.
His chest ached, his gray provisional uniform was soaked in sweat, and his lungs burned.
Across the ring, Sebastian sighed, twirling his practice blade with a casual, infuriating grace.
He wasn’t even sweating.
“Are we sure the F-rank didn’t accidentally wander out of the culinary arts wing?” Sebastian called out to the gallery, drawing a reliable chorus of snickers from the gathered B and C-ranks.
“Because so far, all he’s done is tenderize the floor.”
Kael leaned heavily on his wooden sword, spitting a speck of sawdust from his lip.
“Well, someone has to clean up after you, Sebastian.
I figured I’d start with the floors before I tackle that massive ego.”
A few students in the back row stifled a laugh.
Sebastian’s smile tightened.
He adjusted his grip on his sword, slow and deliberate, the leather of the hilt creaking under his fingers.
“Watch your mouth, rat,” Sebastian hissed, his voice dropping so only Kael could hear it.
“I’m going to break your collarbone this time.”
“Bold promise,” Kael shot back, giving him a weak but utterly defiant grin.
“I’ll try not to bleed on your boots.
I know how much you hate doing your own laundry.”
“Begin,” Toris boredly announced.
Sebastian lunged.
It was a textbook thrust, fast and brutal, backed by the enhanced kinetic output of a B-rank.
Kael didn’t even try to block.
He was an F-rank; if he tried to meet that force head-on, his wrists would snap.
Instead, he twisted sideways, intending to let the strike sail past.
But he was too slow.
The heavy wooden blade clipped his shoulder, spinning him around, and Sebastian followed up immediately with a sweeping strike to the back of Kael’s knees.
Kael hit the floor hard.
The gallery laughed.
But as he lay there, the throb of impact was already fading, replaced by the cold hum of analysis. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Humiliation was just noise.
Underneath it was data.
He replayed the last exchange in his mind’s eye, the perception slowed to a crawl.
He ignored the sword, focusing on the body behind it.
The twitch of a deltoid muscle.
The precise rotation of a hip.
The transfer of force from floor, to leg, to spine, to arm.
Every impact wasn’t a failure; it was a schematic, imprinted directly onto his nerves.
“Stay down, Morgan,” Sebastian sneered, standing over him.
“You’re embarrassing the academy.”
Up on the observation balcony, partially hidden by the shadows of a stone archway, Mori watched the scene play out.
Her dark eyes tracked the F-rank boy as he lay in the sawdust.
Most students in Kael’s position would be looking away, shielding their faces, or radiating fear.
Kael was just…
staring.
Mori leaned closer to the railing.
When Sebastian had struck him, Kael hadn’t fallen wildly.
He had tucked his chin, rolled his shoulder to protect his clavicle, and exhaled sharply right before impact to protect his internal organs.
It was a perfectly executed breakfall.
He’s not flailing, Mori realized, a quiet chill of fascination creeping down her spine.
He’s taking the hits on purpose.
He’s learning.
“Session over,” Instructor Toris announced, tapping his slate.
“Sebastian, flawless form.
Morgan…
try to be less of a target tomorrow.
Class dismissed.”
The students began filing out toward the dining halls, laughing and loudly critiquing the spar.
Sebastian gave Kael one last disgusted look before leading his entourage away.
Kael lay on the mat until the heavy double doors clicked shut.
The training hall fell into a vast, echoing silence.
Then, the world froze.
The familiar translucent blue screen materialized in the air in front of him.
[Data Collection Optimal.] [Bruise Count: Excessive.]
The system paused, and Kael could practically hear the dry, sarcastic sigh in the text.
[Would you like to learn how to hold a sword now?] [Skill Evolution Unlocked: Beginner Swordsmanship.] [Do you accept?]
“Yeah,” Kael breathed into the empty room, a tired but genuine smile breaking across his bruised face.
“I accept.”
The change wasn’t the searing heat of his physical evolutions.
It was a cold, electric flood through his nerves, a key turning in his spine.
Suddenly, his body understood angles it had never learned, felt balances it had never practiced.
The weight of the sword in his memory, the phantom strain of a thousand parries in his forearm.
It wasn’t knowledge.
It was history, downloaded directly into his bones.
Kael stood up.
He reached down and picked up the heavy wooden practice blade.
Five minutes ago, it had felt like a clumsy club.
Now, as his fingers wrapped around the leather grip, it felt like an extension of his own radius bone.
He adjusted his grip by a millimeter.
Perfect balance.
Kael closed his eyes.
He pictured Sebastian’s textbook thrust.
In the dead silence of the empty hall, Kael stepped forward.
He moved with a sudden, fluid precision that would have made Instructor Toris drop his data slate.
He executed a perfect parry, transitioned flawlessly into a riposte, and finished with a sweeping downward strike that cut through the air with a sharp, violent whoosh.
He stopped, the tip of the wooden sword hovering exactly one inch above the sawdust.
Kael opened his eyes.
His breathing was steady, his body thrumming with a silent, electric potential.
The aches were gone, replaced by a cold certainty.
“Alright, Sebastian,” he whispered, the sound swallowed by the vast hall.
His usual humor was gone, replaced by a quiet, dangerous promise.
“Round two.”