Chapter 2. The swordmaster's trial
1781 Words
The next morning, the village was quiet, too quiet.
No children laughed. No hammers rang. No birds sang. The air itself held its breath, as though even the wind feared to make a sound.
Adam stood alone in the clearing where Walter had first trained him. His arms trembled from fatigue, muscles screaming from yesterday’s punishment. Bruises painted his sides like ink stains, and two of his fingers were swollen from parrying wrong.
But still, he swung the wooden sword.
One. Two. Three.
The wind whistled against the blade. His feet dug into the damp earth. His breath came in ragged, controlled bursts.
Then came the voice.
“Better,” Walter said, stepping from the trees. He moved without sound, like a shadow given form. “Still sloppy, but better.”
Adam straightened. “Didn’t hear you.”
“That’s the point. If you hear your killer, you’ve already lost.”
Walter approached, his robe trailing frost behind him despite the lack of snow.
“What’s next?” Adam asked, tightening his grip.
Walter’s eyes narrowed. “Pain.”
Before Adam could respond, Walter raised his palm and a wave of force slammed into Adam’s chest.
He flew backward, smashing against a tree with a grunt.
“Magic?” Adam coughed, dragging himself up.
Walter nodded. “Essence.”
Later on, they say across each other with a fire crackling between them, the woods thick with fog and the scent of pine.
Walter carved a rune into the dirt between them, a circle bisected by a line, symbols etched around the edge like teeth.
“This is the Cycle,” Walter said. “The heart of cultivation. All energy in the world flows through it. light, dark, fire, blood, stone. We call it Essence.”
“And I have it?” Adam asked.
“No,” Walter said. “Everyone has it. But most people live and die never learning to shape it.”
He tapped Adam’s chest with the hilt of his sword.
“But something in you is different. Your body’s young, but your soul is... loud. Fractured. Unnatural. That’s why your core formed so early.”
“My core?”
Walter stood, drawing his sword in a slow arc. As the blade moved, wind coiled around it like a snake, hissing.
“You were born with a seed,” he said. “Most cultivate for years to awaken it. Yours bloomed the night you came through.”
“Is that why I feel… strange? Like something’s always moving under my skin?”
Walter’s eyes glinted. “That’s your Essence. It’s raw. Wild. And if you don’t master it, it will devour you from the inside out."
That night, Adam sat alone on a moss-covered rock overlooking a shallow brook. Moonlight spilled across the water, casting silver ribbons that swayed with the current. The stars above pulsed softly, watching.
He closed his eyes, trying to feel it.
That pulse.
It was always there, beneath the skin, under the heart. A slow throb like distant thunder.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
The dreams hadn’t stopped. Every night they came, more vivid, more terrible.
He stood in a forest made of bone, trees carved from skulls, leaves of ash. A red sun blinked like an eye overhead. The tower was always there now, closer each time.
And always, the voice would repeat “You do not yet know what you are.”
***
“Again.”
Walter’s voice was merciless.
Adam lunged, striking at the training dummy with a sword now wrapped in pale, flickering light. His Essence, it had started to obey him, slowly, like a wolf learning to heel. When he struck now, the blade cut deeper. Wind howled around him.
But it wasn’t enough.
Walter countered easily, sweeping Adam’s feet out from under him with a motion like a falling leaf.
“You’re still thinking like a human,” he growled. “This world doesn’t care for men. It bows to monsters. You must become one.”
Adam stood, shaking, blood dripping from a gash in his arm.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.” Walter said.
Later, as they rested beneath an old willow, Walter finally spoke of the past.
“I once had a student like you,” he said, voice heavy with memory. “Gifted. Fierce. Reckless.”
Adam looked over. “What happened?”
Walter stared at the fire. “He tried to master the Essence too quickly. Let it control him. Thought he could cheat the Cycle.”
“And?”
“He burned from the inside out. Screaming for seven hours.”
Silence fell between them like a blade.
Adam finally asked, “Why are you helping me?”
Walter didn’t answer for a long time.
Then he said, “Because I’m tired of burying those who could have changed the world.”
***
The next week passed in blood and breath.
Walter taught Adam to feel the flow of Essence, how it rose with the moon, how it thickened near rivers and deep roots, how to draw it into his lungs, his veins, his blade.
“Foundation Tier,” Walter explained. “It’s where all cultivators begin. Build your core. Strengthen your body. Fuse Essence with your soul.”
“And after that?”
Walter’s gaze turned distant.
“Core Tier. Then Soul. Then Heaven.”
“What comes after Heaven?”
Walter didn’t answer.
On the seventh day, the sky turned black. A scream echoed from the village.
Adam and Walter arrived just in time to see the smoke.
The beasts had returned. But this time, they didn’t come quietly.
The air smelled of blood and smoke.
By the time Adam and Walter reached the village, fire already licked at the rooftops. Screams pierced the night like arrows. Shadows danced. too tall, too wide across the walls of burning huts.
Orcs. Dozens of them.
Not the scrawny scouts from before. These were brutes, each nearly eight feet tall, muscle-wrapped bones, eyes burning yellow with savage intent. They tore through the village like wolves through lambs.
Adam froze at the edge of the road. A child lay still in the mud. A woman knelt beside him, wailing until an orc cleaved her in two without pause.
His stomach turned.
This wasn’t a dream.
This was war.
“Move,” Walter said coldly.
Then he vanished.
Walter was a storm given form.
His blade cut arcs of white light through the dark. Every swing took limbs. Every step brought death. He danced through the horde like a phantom, cloak billowing, sword howling. Orcs roared and fell. The ground ran red.
But there were too many.
Adam gritted his teeth. Villagers fled in all directions. Some tried to fight with pitchforks, hunting bows but they were nothing. Their blood painted the walls. Their screams rose like a cursed hymn.
Then he saw her.
Mother Elna, standing in the village square, chanting in a tongue Adam didn’t know. Her hands glowed with silver fire. A protective ward. Light shimmered around her like a dome but cracks already ran through it.
Three orcs charged her.
Adam didn’t think before running towards her.
His feet pounded the dirt. Essence surged through him, flickering and wild. He screamed, raising his wooden practice sword.
One of the orcs turned but was too slow.
The blade connected with its neck. There was a snap, a flash and the orc’s head twisted unnaturally, body falling with a grunt.
Adam stumbled, staring at his hands.
The sword glowed faintly. Not wood anymore. Energy.
He turned as the second orc lunged.
With limited time to think, he ducked under the swing, thrust forward, and drove the glowing weapon through its gut. It screeched, flailing. Blood sprayed all over.
But the third orc was on him before he could recover.
A backhand sent Adam flying. He crashed into a stack of crates, gasping, ribs screaming. His vision blurred. The world spun.
The orc raised its axe and all of a sudden time slowed.
"Claim power… or be devoured."
The voice. The tower. The broken sky.
Adam’s vision narrowed. Something broke inside him, but not his bone, rather a barrier.
Essence surged like a tidal wave.
His chest burned. His veins caught fire. A silver core pulsed within, spinning faster than thought.
Adam rose with speed and without pain, moving with purpose.
His body knew the rhythm now. His hands remembered things he’d never learned.
He raised the sword again which was no longer wood or steel, but pure energy.
The orc swung.
Adam stepped inside the arc, blade humming, and slashed upward.
The sword left a trail of silver light. The orc’s chest split clean from hip to collarbone. Its heart hit the dirt before the rest of the body did.
Everything went silent for a moment then chaos resumed again.
Walter met him at the heart of the village.
“Your eyes,” the old man said.
Adam blinked. “What about them?”
“They’re glowing.”
Adam touched his face. His fingers were tingled. His whole body felt... open, like a door had been flung wide inside him.
Walter nodded slowly. “Your core just ignited.”
“Is that… bad?”
“No,” Walter said. “But now the real danger begins.”
Together, they fought through the village.
Orcs fell. Houses burned. Screams faded. By dawn, the battle was over.
The survivors huddled near the chapel. Barely a dozen. Bloodied, exhausted. Adam stood among them, his tunic torn, body aching, sword still glowing faintly in his grip as a boy clutched his leg.
“You saved us,” he whispered.
Adam was without response.
Later, Walter found him alone beside the river, washing blood from his hands.
“You killed three orcs,” Walter said. “With a raw and unstable aura.”
Adam didn’t look up. “I watched thirty people die.”
Walter knelt beside him. “And because of you, a hundred lived. That’s how war works. You don’t save everyone.”
Adam stared at his reflection.
His eyes still glowed faintly silver.
“I felt something break,” he whispered. “Like... something inside me shattered open.”
Walter nodded. “Your first Awakening. You have entered the Foundation Tier.”
Adam looked up. “And that’s just the beginning?”
Walter's eyes darkened. “Barely a footstep on a path soaked in blood.”
That night, as the village burned its dead, Adam stood beside the pyres.
The flames roared high, devouring friend and foe alike as he whispered a promise into the smoke.
“I will never be weak again.”
- Writer
