The next day unfolded in much the same way as the one before. Uneventful. Not because of Lucian's absence—though that helped—but because everyone seemed entirely preoccupied with their own tasks.
Mia was buried under a mountain of books, eyes scanning each page like she was trying to absorb their content through sheer force of will.
She looked more like a scholar than someone recently introduced to magic. Isolde had dialed things up too. Her teaching had taken on a fevered intensity, pushing Mia to new limits.
Lucian, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. Off gallivanting through who knows what bloodstained battlefield or shadowy council.
The result? A peaceful silence I had known I would crave.
After a quiet breakfast, I wasted no time. No idle thoughts. No distractions. I bolted straight toward the arena like a dog chasing a bone.
The moment I stepped inside, the familiar scent of sweat and steel wrapped around me like an old cloak. There they stood—the dummies. Motionless. Passive. Unthreatening.
But my grudge against them hadn't dulled.
Without a word, I walked up and punched the nearest one square in the chest. My fist met straw and wood with a thud.
They didn't flinch. Of course they didn't. Not without Isolde directing their movements. But it was a symbolic gesture. Payback, in a way. A silent promise of what I'd become.
With a grin tugging at the corner of my lips, I headed toward the weapons rack and picked out a long sword—not like the one I used yesterday.
I gave it a few test swings, feeling out its weight, letting my muscles memorize the rhythm.
I didn't use mana. Not this time.
No flashy techniques. No Eye of the End. No violet lightning.
Just raw, brutal repetition.
Slash. Step. Slash. Breathe. Slash. Turn. Slash.
Each strike carved a line through the air. Each movement honed the muscle memory a fraction more. I focused solely on the mechanics—angle, force, follow-through.
I wasn't sure what exactly I was trying to accomplish, but I knew this: My arms burned, my grip ached, and my shoulder throbbed.
Which meant something was happening.
I trained like that for hours. The sun shifted across the arena windows, casting long shadows.
I only stopped when my body couldn't keep going. I collapsed onto the floor, arms wide, chest heaving, sweat pooling under me.
But I didn't stop for long.
After gulping down water and letting my breath stabilize, I sat cross-legged in the center of the arena and closed my eyes.
This part... this was where the real work began.
I reached out with my senses, stretching my consciousness past the boundaries of flesh. I slowed my breathing—inhale... exhale... again... again...
Like invisible strands of silk drifting through the air. Thin at first, nearly imperceptible. But the more I focused, the more they came into view—dozens, then hundreds of threads weaving around me. No... through me.
They weren't just around me. They were everywhere. In the stone beneath me. In the weapons on the racks. In the very air I breathed.
If I could see atoms, I had no doubt these threads would stretch through them too.
The threads collided, merged, and branched out again—forming an ever-expanding web that blanketed the world.
I didn't dare try to manipulate them directly just yet. I'd made that mistake before. Instead, I focused inward, on the mana already inside me—my own personal current.
I tried to command it.
Like a stubborn river refusing to flow the way I wanted.
Still, I persisted. Slowly. Patiently. No sudden bursts. Just gentle nudges.
Over and over, I coaxed the flow of mana through my limbs, across my veins, up into my fingertips and down into my heels. Guiding it. Shaping it.
It was like trying to teach a wolf to heel.
But bit by bit... the river bent.
As night fell and the sky outside the windows dimmed to a deep violet hue, I finally opened my eyes. I didn't feel triumphant. I wasn't basking in some newfound power.
But something had changed.
The flow was smoother now. More obedient. Still imperfect. Still raw. But it was... refined.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and wiped sweat from my brow. My muscles were sore from the sword drills, and now my mind ached from the mana meditation.
But it was a good ache. The kind that promised growth.
'Refining my control will probably lessen the backlash from my abilities too,' I thought. 'Maybe even let me use Eye of the End for longer... consciously.'
The next day mirrored the one before it.
Breakfast came and went in a blur, and before long, I was back in the training arena. My unofficial sanctuary. My new battleground. My personal hell.
Today, though, I decided to change things up.
Instead of the usual longsword, I went with something different—a katana. Sleek, elegant, and undeniably cool. I had seen enough anime, played enough games, and read enough novels to know that wielding a katana meant automatic badassery. Or at least, it was supposed to.
"If it worked for Rur*uni Kenshin, why not me?" I muttered as I unsheathed the weapon.
I loved katanas. Always had. There was something inherently appealing about their curved grace and deadly precision.
Maybe it was the media influence. Maybe it was the idea of cutting down foes with one fluid motion. Regardless, today was katana day.
But the moment I approached the dummies and swung?
The blade bounced off like I'd smacked a steel wall. The dummy—made of literal wood and hay, mind you—stood there completely unharmed, save for a barely visible scratch.
No mana. No enhancements. Just raw form.
I frowned. Slashed again. Thunk. Another reflection, another rejection.
Slash. Deflect. Slash. Deflect. Slash.
Eventually—mercifully—a dent formed. Small. Pathetic. Insulting, even.
Six hours. Six hours of sweat-drenched, sore-muscled, spirit-crushing labor for a dent the size of a pebble.
I stared at it like I'd discovered fire.
It was like the dummy was mocking me. Laughing without a mouth. Taunting me without words.
But I wasn't going to let it win.
My motivation may have cracked, but it hadn't shattered. So I gritted my teeth and continued hacking away.
Slash after slash after slash, pouring my annoyance into every swing. I wasn't trying to learn anymore—I was trying to punish the damn thing for existing.
I had no technique. No form. Just pure spite and increasingly sloppy aggression.
By the time night fell, my entire body was sore. My hands were blistered. My grip was shot. My back screamed in protest. And my brain was two swings away from evaporating.
I dragged myself to dinner like a war survivor and slumped into bed the moment my stomach was full.
The next day? Rinse and repeat.
Katana in hand, I resumed my epic saga of "Man vs. Dummy."
I swung with less technique and more determination. If I couldn't beat them with skill, I'd beat them with persistence.
And yet—still—all I had to show for it was a marginally larger dent and a rapidly declining will to live.
My body was on strike. My grip had all the strength of a dead fish. And still... still I swung.
Because at this point, it wasn't about progress anymore. It wasn't about improvement or training arcs or leveling up.
No. This had become personal.
I was fighting out of pure, undiluted spite.
The day after that, I finally gave the katana a break and shifted back into mana training.
I returned to the arena floor, sat cross-legged, and closed my eyes.
The familiar calm of meditation washed over me. The world faded into a dim void, and the mana threads once again appeared—glistening strands of invisible silk, weaving through everything and everyone.
This time, I didn't rush. I didn't demand anything. I simply observed.
Then slowly, deliberately, I began to interact with the mana within me.
Commanding it. Guiding it.
I shaped it like a potter shaping clay—gently, gradually, without force.
And over the course of the day, something happened.
A measurable difference.
My control improved—from 0.3% to 0.6%. It was nothing grand. It wasn't revolutionary. But it was growth.
Real, tangible growth.
The day after that? Rest day.
Thank the gods, the stars, the ancestors, and whoever else was listening.
I woke up with every muscle in my body singing a song of glorious rebellion. So instead of diving headfirst into more training, I did the next best thing:
I annoyed the hell out of Mia.
She was hunched over her desk, scribbling notes and mumbling equations like the living encyclopedia she was. A walking almanac of the arcane. A nerdy transformation of the shy gremlin older sister I used to know.
Naturally, I took this as an invitation to bother her to no end.
"Hey Mia," I whispered dramatically, leaning over her shoulder. "If I sneeze with mana, will I cause an explosion?"
"What if I sneeze toward someone? Like a magical sniper sneeze?"
I leaned closer, voice lowering. "Be honest... do you think mana farts are real?"
Her pen snapped in half.
And with that, rest day was officially a success.