(Zylus's Thoughts) I need to grow. I need to be stronger. For the ones I want to protect, and the ones I must fight for.
Three weeks later…
(Zylus's perspective)
It had been exactly three weeks… Just as Medrus said. The time my bones needed to recover. The time my spirit needed to settle.
This morning, I didn't hesitate.
I sat up in bed, heart steady, body humming with anticipation. To my right, Medrus was still asleep. Awkwardly sprawled on the floor like a tired old bear. I smiled gently, grabbed my blanket, and draped it over him.
A simple gesture. But it felt right.
Today's the day, I thought. Finally… A place where I can grow. A place where I'm safe.
For the next several months, my training would take place within the protective barrier surrounding the cabin. A fifty-foot radius of enchanted safety. No bloodthirsty creatures, no unexpected horrors. Just me, the earth, and the lessons ahead.
Medrus told me he forged the barrier through years of effort and frustration. The way he said it, I could almost feel the bitterness in the magic that kept this place whole.
The cabin wasn't massive, but it held everything we needed. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I changed clothes. Each step is a reminder of age and history, of lives that had passed through this place before me.
Outside, the snow had long since melted. In its place was a landscape of fresh grass and winding dirt paths, hemmed in by the limits of the barrier. Medrus's vegetable garden rested nearby, scrappy but alive, and beside it, a small reflective pond shimmered in the morning light.
I stepped out of the cabin, arms wide, wind brushing past my fingertips like a greeting from the earth itself. The snow had melted weeks ago, leaving behind a living terrain of soft green grass, winding dirt paths, and that tiny pond beside Medrus's crooked vegetable garden. Everything felt more alive here. Safe. Like the world paused just for me to grow.
Medrus once said this barrier wasn't made with ease. It cost him years of frustration—"bitter magic," he called it. But within it, I could breathe without fear.
My bones still ached, but something inside me buzzed. It was time.
Month 1: Bones and Bruises
The first week was deceptively calm. Until Medrus spoke two words that changed everything.
"Fall. Now."
And I did. Over and over.
He swept my legs, knocked me off balance, pushed me backward with one hand and threw me with two. I hit the ground a hundred different ways in the first few days alone.
"Pain teaches faster than comfort," he said. "But surviving teaches best of all."
My arms became shields. My knees learned to bend on instinct. By the end of the month, I didn't fear the fall, I calculate it. I learned to roll, to twist midair, to let the ground give instead of break me.
My ribs ached. My knuckles bled. But every time I stood back up, I felt stronger. Sharper.
Month 2: Cold and Control
Just when my bruises started to fade, Medrus raised the stakes.
"No coat," he snapped. "If you flinch at the cold, how will you face death?"
Each morning, I woke before dawn and ran the inner edge of the barrier, barefoot. Frost kissed my skin like blades. Then I waded waist-deep into the pond, forcing my muscles to obey even when my breath stuttered and my teeth chattered.
But beneath the misery, I found stillness. The cold became my teacher.
Months 3–4: Form and Frustration
The cold hardened me. But now it was time to refine.
We began with stances. Medrus drew lines in the dirt with a stick, then made me stand in them for hours.
Left foot angled. Knees bent. Spine loose but alert.
I thought I knew how to move. I didn't. Every misstep earned a correction. Every lazy pivot a sharp rap on the shin with his training staff.
Then came the strikes. Open palm, fist, elbow, knee. Everything had to flow from the core.
"You don't fight with arms," he barked. "You fight with your entire self."
The repetition was maddening. Some days, I screamed into the trees just to feel something. But by the end of the month, my body began to move without thinking.
Month 4: Blades and Balance
When my steps stopped stumbling, Medrus handed me a wooden sword.
"Don't swing it like a stick," he warned. "It's an extension of your will."
The blade was light—too light. At first, it felt like a toy. But I soon learned how wrong I was.
He had me slice through falling leaves, strike moving targets hung on branches, even balance the blade flat on one finger while walking tight circles.
We practiced kata after kata—forms with names like "Whispering Arc" and "Stone's Edge." I memorized every breath between motions.
Every evening, I sharpened the wooden blade myself with a stone. Not because it dulled—but because it made me feel like it mattered.
Month 5: Nature as a Weapon
One morning, Medrus buried my sword in the garden and handed me a stick instead.
"You've learned to swing. Now learn to feel."
He blindfolded me and made me walk the barrier, listening.
I heard the shift of grass beneath rabbits. The buzz of insects in the warm corners. The hush of wind through pine.
We sparred in silence. Stick versus staff. I had to read him by sound alone, his breathing, his footfall, the whoosh of air.
At night, I sat by the pond, feeling the water's rhythm. Slowly, I began to sync with the world around me.
I stopped forcing motion. I started flowing with it.
Months 6–7: Clarity and Combat
By midsummer, the blindfolds were gone. But the tests got stranger.
Medrus ambushed me randomly. While I was cooking. While I meditated. Once while I was relieving myself.
"Life doesn't ask permission," he said. "Neither do enemies."
We trained in unpredictability. Dodging surprise attacks. Blocking with whatever was nearby. Sticks, rocks, even vegetables. My awareness expanded. Reflexes sharpened.
He introduced dual-wielding: A short blade in the off-hand. My footwork changed. My perception changed. I became faster, more efficient.
And for the first time, I beat him in a spar.
Just once.
He didn't smile. But I caught the flicker in his eyes.
Month 8: Isolation and Insight
Then, one morning. I woke up, and Medrus was gone.
No warning. No note.
I panicked for two days. Then… I adapted.
I trained alone. Ran drills. Drew lessons in the dirt with sticks. Rebuilt broken garden fences. Fished from the pond. Laughed alone. Cried harder.
I started speaking aloud. To myself, to the trees, to Glemt.
Something shifted.
I didn't need Medrus to push me anymore. I knew how to push myself.
When he finally returned, he looked at me long and slow.
"You trained without a leash," he said. "That matters."
Months 9–10: The Limit of Strength
With winter on the wind again, I hit my wall.
Physically, I was fast. Strong. Precise. But my Amora, my inner magic, was silent.
I tried everything. Meditation. Focused channelling. Screaming at the sky.
"Why not me?" I finally asked.
Medrus didn't scold me. Just sat beside me, eyes on the pond.
"Maybe you were never meant to shine," he said. "Maybe you're meant to survive. That's rarer."
His words didn't heal me. But they cleared the fog.
I stopped trying to force Amora. I learned from discipline. Into instinct. Into who I was. Powers or not.
And strangely… That made me feel more powerful than ever.
Months 11–12: Mastery and Meaning
The cold came back. But this time, I welcomed it.
I no longer feared the pond. I trained shirtless in the snow, blade in hand, feet carving patterns into ice and soil.
We sparred in storm winds. Climbed frozen trees. Tracked animal trails. I learned how to fight while shivering. How to breathe through exhaustion. How to focus through pain.
By now, I didn't hesitate. I didn't flinch.
Medrus no longer corrected me. He tested me. Pushed me. And smiled when I pushed back.
I hadn't unlocked some hidden force. I hadn't become a legendary hero.
But I had become someone who could face the storm.
The Final Morning
On the last day of the year, Medrus stood by the garden, arms crossed.
"You're not done," he said. "But you've become something. Not a weapon. Not a warrior. A survivor."
I nodded. My fists were wrapped. My breath calm.
"So what now?" I asked.
He smirked. "Now, we test what the world does when it meets you again."
I looked toward the trees. Toward whatever came next.
And I wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.
Elsewhere…
Far from the quiet woods and the protective barrier, another world churned with steel and shadows.
Just two cities east of Mire-Valley, in the heart of the capital in Amorai, stood a structure that was part marvel… And part monstrosity.
The Null Bastion.
A prison of reputation. An attraction for the cruel.
Its walls were coated in a layered alloy of obsidian and energy-forged metal. An impossible black sheen that swallowed sunlight. It looked less like a building and more like a wound torn into the skyline.
Tourists came in droves. Not for justice. For entertainment.
The upper ring of the Bastion held a glass walkway. Bulletproof, spell-sealed, and curved like a viewing dome above the central cell.
And within that central cell… Was him.
A prisoner mainly known for his reputation.
A creature too dangerous to be forgotten. But too valuable to destroy.
They stared through the glass as if at a beast in a cage.
Children clung to their parents. Tour guides rattled off lies wrapped in dramatic flair. "This cell," they'd say, "holds a living reminder of what becomes of traitors to the crown. To the world. To existence itself."
A boy pressed his face to the glass, peering down at the unmoving figure below.
And slowly, beneath layers of cold metal restraints and arcane suppression fields. The prisoner opened his eyes.
They were pale gold. Faintly glowing. Haunted and confused.
His eyes flicked upward. To the silhouettes behind the glass. The ones watching.
Faces twisted in disgust. Laughter echoed through the dome. Pity mixed with superiority. The sound of contempt wrapped in a spectacle.
"You see, son," a woman sneered, holding her child close, "this… Thing… It is an example of what never to become. Filth made flesh."
The words cut deeper than the glass ever could.
Wait… Is she talking about me? I'll kill you.
His mind stung with static. Something inside him boiled over.
I'll kill you. I'll kill all of you-
Then the pain.
Afterwards. The prisoner jumped towards the glass without any hesitation. Only for bloodlust.
Agonizing, electric pain surged through his veins, lighting up every nerve with a command to shut down. A system of control, embedded into the walls, the floor, and even his restraints. It struck without warning, without mercy.
His body convulsed. Then collapsed.
Unconscious.
The crowd gasped for a moment, but none screamed. No one panicked.
They just… Moved on.
Parents ushered their children away. Tourists snapped one last picture. The mother who had sneered so proudly now whispered softer warnings, covering her sons' ears like a bedtime story turned ugly.
And yet, one thing they couldn't decipher. Lingering like smoke.
They didn't know.
But they would.
Soon.