Chapter 36

The first thing I registered was cold.

Freezing, bone-deep cold, the kind that seeped through the window and straight into my bones. I burrowed deeper under the blanket, trying to ignore the faint grey light creeping through the curtains.

Five more minutes. Just five more—

Knock knock knock.

“Huwi! You awake? It’s dawn!”

Aaron’s voice came through the door, way too energetic for this ungodly hour. How did he have this much energy after ten laps and sword training every single day?

“Five more minutes,” I mumbled into my pillow.

“Sir Cedric says if you’re late, you run extra laps.”

“…I’m up.”

I dragged myself out of bed, threw on the training clothes Mr. Hans had laid out for me — a simple linen tunic and trousers, tighter than what I was used to — and splashed water on my face. The man in the mirror looked like he had died and been partially resurrected.

This was Master Elara’s fault. If she hadn’t accepted Sir Cedric’s invitation, I would still be in my warm bed at the Tower, waking up at a reasonable hour like a civilized person.

…Okay, fine. I had agreed to this myself. But I was still blaming her.

By the time I made it to the training ground behind the main building, Aaron was already there, going through stretching routine with the focus of a monk. The sky was still a deep indigo, the first hints of pink barely touching the horizon.

“Took you long enough,” Aaron said without stopping his stretch. “Thought you bailed.”

“Please. I trained at dawn every single day for ten years back at the clan. This is nothing.”

That was a lie. I had trained at dawn every single day for ten years, yes, but I had also gotten soft after a year of being a mage. Mages didn’t need to run laps. Mages read books and blew things up from a distance.

“Sure you did, Huwi.”

I ignored him and started my own stretches. The Cheon Clan warm-up routine was burned into my muscle memory — neck rolls, shoulder rotations, hip openers, deep lunges. My body complained the whole time, but it complied. Old habits died hard.

After stretching, we ran. Ten laps around the estate, just like Aaron did every morning. By lap three, I was already questioning every life choice that had led me here. By lap seven, I was convinced my lungs were going to leap out of my throat and run away without me.

Aaron, to his credit, didn’t say a word. He just kept running at a steady pace, his breathing even.

Bastard. He was definitely enjoying this.

By the time we finished the tenth lap, the sun had fully risen, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. I collapsed onto the grass, gasping for air, while Aaron stood there barely winded.

“You’re… in better shape… than me…” I managed between breaths.

“Duh. I do this every day.” Aaron grinned. “What happened to ‘trained at dawn for ten years’?”

“Shut up.”

“Big bro, you’re being pathetic.”

I looked up. Luna was standing at the edge of the training ground, fully dressed, her silver hair neatly braided, holding a basket that smelled suspiciously like bread. She had a very smug expression on her face.

“Since when did you wake up this early?” I asked.

“Since I heard you two leaving. I wanted to watch.” She walked over and sat down on a nearby bench, pulling out a piece of bread and taking a bite. “Also, Miss Josephine packed me snacks. You can have one if you beg.”

Traitor. I was dying here and she was eating bread.

Before I could formulate a retort, the sound of boots on stone cut through the morning air.

Sir Cedric walked onto the training ground, already in his training gear — a simple leather vest over a linen shirt, trousers tucked into boots, a practice sword at his hip. Even in casual training clothes, he carried himself like the King’s Sword. His gait was relaxed but there was no opening around him at all.

“Good morning. I see you two have already warmed up.” He glanced at me, still on the ground. “Hwi. Are you injured?”

“No, Sir. Just… reacquainting myself with the grass.”

Aaron snickered. Sir Cedric’s lips twitched.

“Stand up. We start now.”

I got to my feet, trying not to look as winded as I felt. Sir Cedric walked to the center of the training ground and gestured for us to follow.

“Swordsmanship begins and ends with the legs,” he said. “You can have the fastest hands in the kingdom, but if your stance is weak, your strike is weak. If your footwork is slow, you will be cut down before you ever draw your blade.”

He dropped into a stance — feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, weight centered. It looked simple. Effortless, even.

“Hold this stance,” he said. “Ten minutes. Then we move.”

I dropped into the same stance. Easy. I had held horse stance for an hour at a time back at the Cheon Clan. This was nothing.

Three minutes later, my thighs were burning.

Five minutes later, my legs were trembling.

Seven minutes later, I was pretty sure Sir Cedric was secretly a demon.

How was this harder than horse stance? Because it wasn’t just static — he had us shifting our weight constantly, rolling from heel to toe, maintaining that perfect center of balance while moving in slow, deliberate patterns. Every muscle in my lower body screamed at me.

Aaron, to my eternal shame, was doing better. Not by much — his legs were shaking too — but he had been doing this for months. His body was used to it.

Sir Cedric walked behind us, checking our stances. He stopped behind Aaron first, correcting his posture with a few sharp words. Then he stopped behind me.

“Your form is flawless,” he said, sounding slightly surprised. “Even weight distribution. Center low. Perfect balance.”

“Cheon Clan,” I said through gritted teeth. My thighs were on fire, but I’d be damned if I let my form slip.

“Then your only problem is endurance.” He tapped my shoulder lightly. “A year of standing still and casting spells has softened your legs. Hold it. They will give out before your form does.”

He was right. My form stayed perfect. My legs, however, were staging a full-scale rebellion.

Sir Cedric walked to the front and demonstrated a slow forward lunge. “A mage’s power is in his heart and his mind. A knight’s power is in his body.” He paused, then added, “And in the mana that flows through it.”

I frowned. “Mana? But Aaron has no talent for magic.”

“Talent for casting spells, perhaps. But mana flows through every living thing. Mages force it through their blood vessels by coating their heart and veins — a powerful but dangerous method. We knights do not coat. We do not force. We train. Year after year, blow after blow, until the body learns to accept mana on its own. Until it seeps into muscle and bone, naturally, like water into soil.”

He demonstrated a simple horizontal cut. For a brief moment, I saw it — a faint shimmer around his blade, like heat haze. Mana, flowing through his arm and into the sword, not through a coating, but through the muscle itself.

“It is slower,” Sir Cedric continued. “A mage can reach Intermediate in years. A knight needs a decade or more to strengthen his body enough to channel mana freely. But it is stable. It does not torn apart our body because of the training and it cannot be sealed the way a mage’s coating can.

I thought back to the fifteen mages at the Tower, their coating destroyed by Master Elara in an instant. If they had been knights…

Well, they would still have lost. Master Elara was an Archmage, after all. But the point stood.

“Then Aaron…” I glanced at my friend, who was still holding his stance, jaw clenched with effort.

“Will learn to channel mana through his body in time,” Sir Cedric said simply. “He will never cast a Fireball. But one day, his sword will cut through stone.”

Aaron’s head snapped up. He stared at Sir Cedric, his eyes wide.

“Really?”

“Really. Now hold your stance. Three more minutes.”

Aaron’s face set into a determined grimace, and he lowered his center of gravity even further.

I watched him, and something in my chest tightened. Back in the slums, Aaron had been a thief — quick, clever, surviving on his wits. Now he was here, training to be a knight, being told that one day his sword would cut through stone.

He deserved it. More than anyone I knew.

My own legs chose that moment to give out. I collapsed onto one knee, gasping. My form had stayed perfect to the very end — but my stamina had run out completely.

“Big bro!” Luna was on her feet, bread forgotten.

“I’m fine,” I wheezed. “Just… legs… betrayed me…”

Sir Cedric looked down at me. “Your murim training gave you strong arms and good footwork, and your form is impeccable. But your lower body endurance has atrophied from a year of standing still and casting spells. We will fix that. Rest. Breakfast in thirty minutes. We resume at mid-morning.”

…

Breakfast was simple — bread, cheese, boiled eggs, and hot tea. I ate enough for three people, which earned me a raised eyebrow from Mr. Hans and a lecture from Luna about eating too fast. Aaron ate in silence, shoveling food down like he was still afraid it would be taken away — an old slum habit that hadn’t quite left him.

After breakfast, we went back to the training ground. The mid-morning was spent on footwork drills and basic sword forms — the western kind, which felt alien in my hands. The stances were different. The weight distribution was different. The very philosophy of movement was different. Where my clan’s sword art emphasized speed and precision, knight swordsmanship emphasized stability and power. Every step was rooted. Every strike committed.

It was frustrating. It was humbling. And by the time lunch rolled around, I was actually glad for the break.

…

After lunch — which I ate approximately three times my normal portion, much to Luna’s horror — we returned to the training ground.

The afternoon sun was warm, and the grass had dried from the morning dew. Sir Cedric handed each of us a wooden practice sword. Mine felt strange in my hand — heavier than a jian, thicker, designed for hacking and blocking rather than the precise cuts of my clan’s sword art.

“Rules are simple,” Sir Cedric said, taking a seat on the same bench Luna had occupied that morning. Luna was beside him, now fully invested, her snacks abandoned. “Do not use any kind of energy, just pure technique. First to three clean hits wins. Begin when ready.”

We took our positions ten paces apart. Aaron raised his sword in the standard knight’s guard — high, vertical, protecting his head and chest. I raised mine in the Cheon Clan’s basic stance — low, angled, ready to deflect and counter.

No inner energy. No mana. Just skill against skill.

Aaron moved first. He charged forward, a simple horizontal slash — basic, but fast, his footwork surprisingly solid for someone who had only been training a few months.

I sidestepped. Wind Steps, but without inner energy — just muscle memory. His blade cut through empty air. I tapped his wrist lightly with my wooden sword.

“One.”

Aaron gritted his teeth and came again. This time he feinted high, then slashed low at my leg. I jumped back, barely avoiding it, and countered with a thrust toward his shoulder. He blocked.

Wood cracked against wood. Aaron was strong — stronger than me, now, from all that physical training. Each block sent a jolt up my arm.

But technique was technique. I had been trained by the Cheon Clan, one of the great sword clans of Murim, since I could walk. Aaron had been training for months.

I slipped past his guard and tapped his ribs. “Two.”

Aaron stepped back, breathing hard. There was a fire in his eyes now — the same fire I had seen in the slums, when he refused to back down from men twice his size.

He came at me again. And again. And again. Each time, I deflected, dodged, countered. But his attacks were getting sharper. His footwork was adapting. He was learning, right there in the middle of the spar.

On his seventh attack, he did something I didn’t expect. Instead of slashing, he closed the distance — body-to-body, the way a knight would — and headbutted me.

“Guh!”

I staggered back, stars exploding in my vision. Before I could recover, his wooden sword tapped my chest.

“One for me!” Aaron grinned, wiping sweat from his brow. “Headbutt is a technique, right?”

I rubbed my forehead, a lump already forming. I couldn’t even complain — Seolhwa had done the exact same thing to me during our duel. Turnabout was fair play, apparently.

Sir Cedric’s laugh boomed across the training ground. Even Luna was giggling behind her hand.

This bastard.

We resumed. I stopped holding back — not with energy, but with focus. I used the full repertoire of Cheon Clan footwork, angles a western swordsman never considered, attacking from directions Aaron didn’t know existed.

Tap. “Three. Match point.”

Aaron didn’t give up. He charged one last time, every ounce of his strength behind a single overhead blow. I didn’t block. I stepped inside his guard, twisted, and used his own momentum against him. He stumbled past me, and I tapped his back.

“Three hits. I win.”

Aaron collapsed onto his back, staring up at the sky, chest heaving. “You… cheated… with your weird… footwork…”

“All’s fair in love and sword fighting,” I said, sitting down next to him. My legs were jelly. My arms ached. My forehead had a lump the size of an egg.

And I hadn’t felt this alive in months.

Sir Cedric walked over and looked down at both of us. “Good. Hwi — your technique is exceptional, but you rely too much on murim habits. In a real fight against a knight, those habits will get you killed. Aaron — your strength is improving, but you rush. Patience. A knight waits for his opening, he does not force it.”

He paused. “Both of you. Rest. Tomorrow, we do it again.”

Tomorrow. And the day after. And every day for a week.

I lay back on the grass, staring up at the blue sky, and felt my inner energy stir — just a faint, quiet pulse in my dantian, flowing smoothly, effortlessly, the way it never used to.