[YOU OBTAINED A SILVER BOX.]
Open it.
[CONGRATULATIONS. YOU RECEIVED: ALERT GUIDANCE.]
Hasib was asleep before he even registered what that meant.
The next morning, he sprinted across the field, breath already ragged. "Wait, am I actually going to be late?"
Itoshi spotted him first, the rest of the group already lined up behind him. He pulled out a lollipop, unbothered. "Late on day one. Run the full loop for it."
"Come on, I wasn’t even that late. This feels a little harsh."
"Want me to make it two loops instead?"
"Heh, heh. Going, going. Sara, I’ll catch up in a bit."
Sara, watching Rocky work through his sword drills nearby, didn’t even look over. "You’re already late. Go. Now. No talking."
Hasib tilted his head with a sigh. "This kind of thing always happens to me." He jogged to the edge of the field and started his loop.
He’d barely gotten going when Lio blew past him from behind. "Move! Move!"
"Oh, Lio. I figured I’d be running this alone, so honestly, good to have company." He glanced over. "What time did you even get here?"
"Five a.m.," Lio called back, already pulling ahead at a speed that didn’t seem possible for someone who’d already run this loop.
*Five in the morning? Is he serious?*
Hasib kept running, telling himself he’d catch up eventually. A short while later, Lio caught up to him again, this time from behind.
"Wait, weren’t you already way ahead of me a second ago? How are you behind me now?"
"I looped back around," Lio said simply.
"That’s not possible, not that fast. You must’ve cut across the middle of the field."
Lio was already pulling ahead again before he finished the sentence. "Not sure what you’re talking about."
*Okay, this is starting to feel personal,* Hasib thought, breaking into his fastest sprint yet, determined to catch him from behind. "Where’d he even go..."
Lio reappeared behind him a moment later, same as before.
"What the... this has to be cheating. There’s no other explanation."
A little further along, he spotted someone ahead of them dressed like a drill instructor, a pair of oversized dumbbells in each hand, cutting through the air at the exact same blistering pace as Lio. The man shouted after him without slowing. "Faster, Lio! Faster!"
Hasib caught up just enough to manage a breathless "Hello!"
The man was busy scratching a tally into a wooden post. "That’s ten laps for you, Lio. Ten more to go."
"T-Ten more?!" Hasib’s head spun. *Wait. Is this guy actually their trainer?*
"Ooh. You’ve got something to say to me, boy?" The man turned to look at him properly.
"Are you... Lio’s coach, or something?"
"Heh! You don’t know who I am. Well, remember it now." He struck a pose, dumbbells raised high, mimicking Lio’s exact stance from a second ago. "There’s nothing my muscles can’t handle. I put enemies in the dirt and send them flying through the air. The name’s Captain Sugai!" He finished it off with an exaggerated victory sign.
That’s basically just a grown-up version of Lio,Hasib thought, and decided not to stick around to find out more. He got back to his own training.
"That took you long enough," Itoshi said when he made it back. "You’re painfully slow. Look over there, Rocky’s already shredded that whole tree trunk down to nothing."
Hasib looked. Rocky was busy trimming the remains of the trunk back into a series of perfectly even cuts.
Huh. Show-off monk. "Fine, watch this. I’ll show you what I’ve got too."
He walked over to Sara, who was watching from a little way off. "Might want to stay alert. I’m about to do something big."
She raised an eyebrow. "Don’t distract me."
"Fine, do your own thing. Just, keep an eye my way when you get a chance..." Her eyes went wide before he even finished.
He stepped forward, drew his sword, and started pushing Zhoa energy into it.
*He’s definitely gotten better with his flow,* Itoshi thought, watching from the side.
Sara glanced over, curious despite herself.
Nothing happened. Hasib gritted his teeth. *She’s watching. Why isn’t this working?* He caught her attention drifting elsewhere and scowled. "Idiot, wasting my time watching someone else."
Sara’s brow furrowed. "I heard that."
"Doesn’t matter," he muttered under his breath. "I’m proving this to her whether she’s watching or not."
He took a long breath and let it out slowly. *Forget every failure. Forget everything holding me back. I just need to train. Because I’m going to be the Legendary Warrior.*
His flow surged, and this time the sword answered.
Wind tore through the clearing again, the same violent gust as before. Sara’s skirt caught the wind and she grabbed at it with both hands, half-mortified. "What the... this is embarrassing..." She looked up mid-complaint, and whatever she’d been about to say died in her throat.
A dark symbol flared across Hasib’s forehead.
Leaves ripped free from the trees around them. Itoshi’s eyes narrowed, watching closely.
Then Hasib called it.
YUZOKO
THE BLADE OF BLACK DRAGON
Rocky’s hair whipped back in the sudden gust, black smoke curling off the length of Hasib’s blade. Hasib tilted his head up with a faint, satisfied smile.
"So? How’d I do?"
Itoshi muttered to himself. "That’s... what kind of Zhoa manifestation is that. The Blade of Black Dragon."
Rocky’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "Better than I expected, honestly."
Hasib walked over to Sara. She was staring at him, still catching her breath. "H-Hasib, is that... that mark, on the right side of your forehead..."
"Huh. So you do notice me sometimes."
Her eyes went wide. *Did he seriously just say something that cool?*
Standing this close to him, she could feel the faint warmth radiating off the black Zhoa still curling around his blade. "It’s... a little warm," she admitted.
Itoshi called over to him. "Well done. Now go cut that tree down clean, the same way Rocky did his."
Hasib headed off toward it. On the way, Rocky fell into step beside him. "You surprised me a little back there. I’d be glad to keep seeing that from you."
"You bet I will."
He reached the tree, and the moment he raised his sword, the black Zhoa sputtered out entirely. He pressed a hand to his head, dropped to his knees, and then collapsed.
"Huh. Guess I forgot to mention that part." Rocky shrugged. "Still, at least the sword’s unlocked now."
Itoshi walked over and, just like before, tucked a lollipop into Hasib’s mouth as he lay there.
Darkness swallowed his vision.
[SUGGESTION GUIDE: YOU HAVE A LIMITATION ON USING THE BLACK SWORD.]
Use and Limitation. So that’s the trade-off.
[LIMIT INCREASES WITH EACH LEVEL UP.]
[TASK 1 — STRETCHING AND LIFTING]
Hasib started in, and everything played out the same as always. The threads pulled taut around his limbs, stretching him past anything comfortable, and a short while later the training blades rose up around him. He pushed through it.
Elsewhere, Miss Suhi’s brow stayed furrowed as she knelt beside Inosi, sword resting against the worst of his wounds. Zhoa energy flowed slowly out of the blade and into him, and the gashes across his body began to close, one by one.
Once he’d steadied enough, she slid her sword back into its sheath and turned to face the Principal.
His eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. "You’re the one holding all of Dragoland together on your shoulders?"
Her hand curled into a fist. Everyone nearby took a step back on instinct.
She swung, and the Principal went straight over the balcony railing, landing hard in a cluster of bushes below.
"Principal, sir!" Zoha took off running toward him.
At the same moment, Inosi’s fingers twitched. "Looks like he’s coming around," Habi Ma’am said quietly.
"Get him bandaged," Miss Suhi told Yamin, and he wrapped a length of cloth around the worst of the wounds.
Inosi’s mouth moved before his eyes even opened. "I’ll be the one to finish you off someday." His eyes cracked open, hazy, and focused on the figure in front of him. "...Who’s this woman?"
"I’m a woman, yes. And who exactly are you planning to finish off?"
He rubbed his eyes properly and looked again. His whole body went rigid. "M-Miss Suhi! You’re..."
A pair of sharp red eyes stared back at him, and he clapped a hand over his own mouth.
Zoha jogged back over. "Not now." Miss Suhi raised a hand toward him, the gesture almost childish in how flatly it waved him off, and started to walk away.
"Thank y...!" Inosi started, but Zoha slapped a hand over his mouth before he could finish.
Miss Suhi paused, glancing back. "Did someone say something?"
"No, nobody said anything," Zoha called out. She kept walking and didn’t look back again.
Everyone let out a breath at once.
"I genuinely couldn’t move," Habi Ma’am admitted. She turned to Inosi. "You’ve got some nerve, boy. How are you feeling now?"
"Sorry, Ma’am."
Habi Ma’am puffed out her chest, unimpressed. "Listen. You haven’t even made Master Rank yet. Don’t you ever pull something like that again."