Lukas let out a low groan as he stared up at the pale-blue, early-morning sky. The last few hours had not been fun, but he knew they were necessary if he wanted to push himself to become better and stronger. Unfortunately, Akira had seen it as a chance to rough him up, even if she had warmed up to him slightly.

After the lengthy stretching session, Akira led Lukas in movement training. He thought that would consist of using the random obstacles laid out at the edge of the field, but he'd been mistaken. Instead, Akira dragged him through the rough, wild terrain of the Anuk estate grounds. At first, Lukas was confident—he'd just spent months fighting in the forest—but he quickly discovered things were different here. Somehow, these forested grounds were wilder and more overgrown than the actual wild. This was obviously intentional, providing a dense and complex environment to train in.

Even after seeing the dense foliage, hanging branches and boughs, and thick roots ready to break and twist ankles, Lukas was somewhat confident. He had a great movement ability that allowed him to move through the shadows with speed. His hopes were immediately dashed, however, when Akira told him he wasn't allowed to use the ability before he could even activate it. She explained that the whole point of the exercise was to gain experience moving through complicated environments with nothing but one's own skill—pushing agility, endurance, and perception—while moving as nimbly as possible, managing stamina, and choosing the most optimal path forward.

Lukas hated that she was right and went along with it. Truthfully, he was glad for the training. He had no idea what he was doing before and was just floundering on his own. He knew he needed to develop the skills to survive, whether out in the wild or within society. He was also excited to truly put his attributes to work. During one of their first encounters, Sera had told Lukas to practice with each stat, extracting everything he could from each. Lukas had agreed but had quickly forgotten as he was swept up in his alchemy at the time. Now he had a chance to reignite that fire.

The movement training went well, surprising Akira for multiple reasons. The first was the ease with which Lukas moved through the forest—dodging pits, evading tricky roots, and slipping through thick brush with ease. To Lukas, it wasn't much different from anything back home. The land he'd purchased and built his cabin on had been wild, overgrown, and unmanaged. He'd never gone running through the trees or anything like that, but as he worked on his cabin he'd grown accustomed to the land, able to pick out potential walking hazards. This only improved once he'd finished constructing his cabin and would frequently go on walks through the forest.

That being said, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows right away. Lukas could pick out the dangers easily enough and move through the terrain with enough time, but that was the problem—he was meant to do it at speed. There were a few false starts where Lukas wasn't moving fast enough for Akira and was forced to get going. Eventually he found his footing and things were relatively smooth besides a few mishaps—ones where Lukas ended up covered in mud and earning laughs from both Sera and Akira. Sera, for her part, just floated through the forest like a specter, ignoring vegetation and obstacles alike, making sure she was right next to Lukas to annoy and trip him up as much as possible.

One of the other things that Akira found perplexing was the speed at which Lukas could move in general. That wasn't surprising, as it wasn't every day someone at level 26 had over 150 agility. In fact, he seemed to have roughly the same level of agility as Akira, who was at level 63 herself—though she still had a bit more and knew how to use it effectively. Despite her advantage in agility, Akira was still very curious about how and why Lukas had so much at his level—something he adamantly refused to answer, much to her annoyance.

Once they were done with the movement training, Lukas found himself in much better shape compared to when he'd finished stretching. Granted, he was still out of breath and sweaty, but not nearly as much as before. He'd been about to down a stamina potion to top himself off when Akira stopped him. She told him that while training it was a good idea to let the body recover naturally; if he just took a potion every time he needed stamina, mana, or health, then the stats meant to aid recovery would suffer from disuse.

With movement training finished and Akira properly annoyed at Lukas, she decided it was time for a sparring match. The two went back to the training field to give themselves a clear, open space. There, Akira informed Lukas that they would be having an empty-handed spar with no abilities—the only thing they were allowed to use were their own martial skills. Suffice to say, Lukas was in for a bad time. The only fighting experience he had was battling beasts and getting beat up by bullies in school. Akira, on the other hand, had been learning to fight since she was a toddler and could easily mop the floor with Lukas—which she promptly and enthusiastically did.

Thus Lukas was laid out flat on the grass repeatedly.

He let out another low groan after receiving a kick straight to the gut. It turned out that while the armor he wore was good for dealing with slashing attacks, it did nothing to soften the punches and kicks Akira threw his way.

"That hurt," Lukas managed, holding a hand to his stomach. Pulling his head off the ground, he looked up to see Akira smirking to herself. "You don't have to look so pleased with yourself."

She didn't even try hiding her smile as she stood over him. "There's just something so satisfying about punching you repeatedly," she said, getting an approving nod from Sera.

"Is this about me killing those beasts you were contracted to kill?"

"Maybe—just a little."

"How are you still upset about that?" he asked, propping himself up with one arm. "I didn't even know I was doing anything wrong, because I didn't know anything at the time."

"I… guess you're right," she admitted, "doesn't make beating you up any less satisfying, though. You're annoying as hell and difficult to deal with. Like, I can kind of understand how you have so much agility—being a rogue—but how do you have so much strength and toughness? It's like you're twice your actual level."

Lukas pushed himself up off the ground. "Well, you ever heard of the saying 'strength through adversity'?"

She raised a brow. "No, but I've heard similar sayings. I assume that's one from your world?"

"It is."

"And what does that have to do with anything?" she asked, planting her hands on her hips.

"I was killing strong beasts ever since I arrived in this world—even before I could channel mana—and I killed a lot of them," he said, trying to explain his title system without giving up too much. "The stronger the beast I killed, the stronger I became, allowing me to take on even more powerful enemies."

"I don't see how that gives you double the stats someone at your level usually has."

"Have you never come across someone else who seemed extra powerful for their level?"

Akira thought for a moment. "I guess I have. I always just attributed it to their impressive backgrounds and resources—something you obviously don't have. So you're saying these people are all like you?"

Lukas opened his mouth to respond, but Sera stopped him. "Be careful with how much you say," she warned.

"...No, not necessarily, but I bet they've all overcome extreme challenges like I did."

Akira narrowed her eyes at him. "You clearly know something and you're skirting around it."

"All I'm saying is that going further than you think possible and doing what others think is impossible will help you get stronger."

She scoffed. "Whole lot of good it's doing you—I'm throwing you around like a ragdoll."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lukas rolled his eyes. "You're still stronger than me and way more experienced; of course I'm not going to have a chance against you. The only reason I agreed to stick around was because your family would provide training and experience."

"Well, luckily—or unluckily—you're a clean slate. You clearly don't have any prior fighting experience; your movements aren't confident or solid. I could topple you with a sufficient push, which I've done multiple times. The moment you're on the back foot and don't know how to recover, you begin to lash out even more inexpertly than when you normally fight. Your strikes are messy, uncoordinated, and inconsistent, and you never feint, bait, or use combinations. You fight like a beast—nothing but pure aggression—which can be good when fighting a beast with your abilities, but in any other situation you're helpless."

Lukas just nodded, taking the criticism seriously. It stung a bit, but he knew that if he wanted a way forward he'd need to accept constructive criticism when it came. "So you think you can help me?"

Akira shrugged. "I'm no grand martial-arts master, but I have been training since I could stand, so teaching someone as bad as you should be possible."

"Uh, thanks?"

"There's a lot of work to do, but from what I've seen it shouldn't take too long before you'll have enough know-how to go to the training arenas in the city."

"There are training arenas in the city?"

"Lots of them—most in the adventuring district."

"What are they for?"

"Adventurers go there to find sparring matches—whether that be martial ability only or with abilities as well. It's a good, safe place to improve your fighting style if you're not from one of the large families with their own resources. It's also a place for some of the more powerful and influential to get a look at any rising stars."

"If it's mostly a place for people without access to their own training facilities, then what would I gain by going?"

"For you, it'd be a chance to see what other fighting styles are out there and to clash with them to find weak spots in your own. Having grown up in this world, I know what I'm going to run into out there and have long since prepared—and am still learning to this day. You, on the other hand, have been in this world for two months and the city for two days."

"Okay. So what now?"

"As much as I'd love to keep throwing you around, I think it's time we got to something productive. I do have things I want to get done today. We'll start with simple movements—learning to walk and shift through stances in a clean, efficient way that doesn't break the body line or make it easy to push you over. It's going to stay that way until I'm satisfied you won't be an embarrassment if someone finds out I'm training you."

"So you'll be training me? I thought you'd be handling the initial steps."

"I thought so too," Akira said sourly, "but my mother decided otherwise. She said that if our fighting styles were similar enough, I'd take over your training. Seeing as you have no fighting style and have a similar stat distribution and class to me, I'll be training you."

"Alright. Where do we start?"

For the next handful of hours, Akira drilled Lukas in basic movements, forcing him to make awkward stances while testing his balance and attentiveness. Thankfully, these exercises didn't kick his ass too badly, and he had a decent understanding of the goal. He assumed the point was to make him more familiar with—and in control of—the movements of his body. At least he thought so; what other reason did Akira have to make him move around weirdly and generally look like an idiot? Whatever the case, Lukas went along and trusted that everything he did had a purpose.

As the hours ticked by, Akira seemed to get more and more irritable as what would've been time to go out and get things done was taken up by Lukas. Eventually she stopped him and had him sit across from her in the grass.

"You've got the basic idea and you know the important movements and exercises. I expect you to practice them in your own time—I want to see improvement every morning, because I will be checking every morning."

"I can do that," Lukas nodded, sitting cross-legged on the grass. "My guest house has a decent-sized training room and I should make do. We're doing meditation now, right?"

"That's right. There's not a whole lot I can teach you about meditation, as it's more of a personal journey than anything, but what I can do is walk you through it to make sure you're getting the basics."

"Well, I have learned that my meditation technique is terrible, so any tips would be appreciated."

"Who told you this?" Akira asked, one eyebrow rising.

"My benefactor informed me."

"But they didn't help you correct it?"

Lukas threw a side glance at Sera, who was sitting off to one side. "My benefactor is wildly unhelpful when it comes to things like that, but was more than willing to give me a lesson on arrays and formations."

"Hey!" Sera protested. "I'll have you know I—"

"That does sound unhelpful. No wonder you're so helpless—what kind of benefactor would let you go out into the world as you are now?"

"What! Do you hear her? You should strike her down for speaking such blasph—!"

"It's nice to finally have someone agree with me," Lukas nodded.

"Traitor! What have I ever done to you?" Sera huffed.

"Did this benefactor at least explain what you were missing?"

Lukas shook his head. "No, she only said that my technique was terrible. She was also the one who taught me to retract my aura."

"What? What kind of benefactor would—? Ugh, never mind," Akira groaned, running her hands over her face. "At least aura technique is next. Why don't you go ahead and start meditating, and I'll monitor you to see what you're doing so I can figure out what's so terrible about your technique."

"Alright," Lukas said, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths to clear his mind. Less than a minute later he was peacefully meditating.

It only took a few minutes before Akira spoke, pulling Lukas out of his spell. "Are you meditating?"

Lukas' eyes snapped open, and once more the orange lights were trained on Akira. "Yes? What did you think I was doing?"

"It just looked like you were sitting there with your eyes closed. Why aren't you rotating your mana?"

Lukas raised a brow, "What now?"

"You don't know how to circulate your mana?"

"As in activating an ability?" Lukas asked, having no idea what Akira was talking about.

"No," an exasperated Akira sighed, growing more frustrated, "I mean moving the mana through your channels."

"Channels?"

"Good gods—did your benefactor teach you anything?"

"A few things," Lukas shrugged.

"Channels are like the blood vessels of your spiritual and metaphysical body, but instead of blood they carry mana." Akira looked at Lukas expectantly, only to have him look back blankly. Akira buried her head in her hands and let out a groan. "Ugh, why did it have to be me?" she asked, making Lukas feel more than a little uncomfortable.

"Alright, look," she continued, "Your metaphysical body is like your physical body but for the soul and is separate from the physical body. It's a lot more durable than your physical form thanks to its direct link with the soul, which is inviolable, and it's responsible for your ability to manipulate and channel mana. At lower levels—before you get your first abilities—mana control is sloppy and inefficient because the mana in your body has no focus. The focus comes from the channels, which are engraved on your metaphysical body when you gain an ability. When you manipulate mana, you move it through these channels—but only parts of them, not all. When you circulate mana through certain 'patterns' in the channels, you get your abilities.

"What you want to do while meditating is move mana through those channels as if you were going to use an ability, but hold it back. It's like having to pee really bad but holding it in. The point is to circulate the mana through your channels to widen them, allowing them to carry more power and be more efficient. Channeling mana also helps you connect with your soul, which is why you do it during meditation rather than separately."

"That's what the arrays and formations are for in the meditation chamber," Lukas realized.

Akira nodded, slightly relieved that Lukas was beginning to understand, "They help with mana regeneration, since channeling mana while meditating can lead to mana seeping out of you like a mist. It's why the rejuvenating pine is so popular in meditation chambers."

"Okay, so how do I channel the mana?"

"All you need to do is focus and try activating an ability, but don't let it trigger. Hold it in for as long as you can. I'd suggest trying it with your shadow-travel ability—there aren't any shadows nearby, so you shouldn't accidentally activate it."

Lukas shifted in place, excited to try, but also nervous, "What happens if I lose control of the mana and it has nowhere to go since it can't activate the ability? I won't explode, will I?"

"The mana will just disperse," Akira shrugged. "Nothing dangerous. Give it a try."

Nodding, Lukas closed his eyes once more and went over everything he'd just learned before clearing his mind. Once his thoughts were still, he attempted to activate his Lurker of the Shadows ability. With his new knowledge he felt and traced the mana's movement—then, for a split second, felt it do… something before dispersing.

Opening his eyes a moment later, he found Akira wearing a pained grimace. "This is going to take a while."

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