System, please just shut up

Kael had been utterly confused about the whole thing.

According to Seraphina, he had experienced Enlightenment—a rare state achieved when someone was in the midst of profound comprehension.

So driven by curiosity he immediately tried doing the same thing he remembered seeing her do.

At first, his posture was stiff and his body awkward, but as seconds bled into minutes, he began adjusting.

The flow of his movements became natural, guided by pure instinct.

It wasn't anything grand, heck, a ten-year-old knight in training could do better.

What he was doing now was just basic body movement techniques, a crude mimicry of true swordsmanship. But even knowing that, he couldn't help but feel a surge of satisfaction.

He was making progress.

From that day on, he began practicing every single day after classes, with or without Seraphina.

It became almost like a compulsion.

He couldn't eat without practicing, couldn't study without practicing, couldn't even go to sleep without practicing—and that was crazy, coming from him.

It was almost like an addiction, the visceral thrill he felt when the hilt of the sword twisted through his fingertips, the cool metal a familiar weight, the blade a gleaming extension of his own will.

Each subtle shift, each perfectly executed arc, sent a jolt of raw satisfaction through him, like finally solving a puzzle he didn't even know he was trying to solve.

And most importantly, there were the small, gratifying notifications:

[Sword Mastery +0.25%]

[Sword Mastery +0.1%]

.

.

.

He kept on building his foundation, deliberately holding back from learning any real techniques since Seraphina said the amount he could learn was limited, and he had to choose carefully.

So, after a week and a half of continuous practice, she took him to The Crucible, an organization within the academy that provided students with missions and access to realms for training.

The deal was simple. If he could complete the mission they selected using only the basic sword movements he had learned, he would finally be allowed to learn an actual technique.

He wasn't allowed to use any skill or weapon apart from his sword.

They got there and selected a random mission from the Novice rack.

And so far, he was almost done with it, but it had been far from easy.

Swinging a sword at a stationary dummy was totally different from swinging against a moving target.

Even though his swordsmanship had increased to a considerable skill level, he was still beaten into a pulp a couple of times. After all, Tier D beasts were usually meant for a small team of Novices.

But as his mission progress increased, so did his mastery of his weapon.

Today was the day he was going to complete it. And to celebrate, he had decided to finally get his own personal blade.

******

"Realms are not man-made. We only learned how to use the door."

Kael remembered the words of Professor Arven as they went deeper into the snow.

According to scholars, long before the Archive came into existence, there had been a catastrophic event that had caused the world to shatter.

He had a little idea of what that event might have been. After the cataclysm, the fabric of reality tore in places where the rules of space, time, and life broke down entirely.

These were cracks in the world, which opened into chaotic, self-contained dimensions.

Over time, those cracks stabilized into isolated zones—closed-loop worlds that each developed their own unique logic, weather, magic saturation, and beast ecosystems.

These zones became known as Realms, dimensional anomalies sustained by the world's lingering mana scars.

When the Archive came into existence, it didn't erase these places, it simply began to catalog them.

Centuries later, organizations learned to stabilize access to these places using Realm Anchors, magical structures that allow brief, safe portals to a realm without fully breaking its seal.

These days, realms are used for combat training, resource extraction, and private missions.

A Tier Two realm usually hosted beasts from E to D tiers and very few with higher ranks, which made it a good place for students to train.

The downside was the beast density usually wasn't very high. But it looked like luck was on their side today.

******

"Let's wait for one of them to leave the group."

Kael and Seraphina were both lying flat on their stomachs, hidden behind a small mountain of snow, observing what looked like a small village of snowmen walking around.

Yes, literally snowmen, like the ones kids built outside during Christmas. But these were different.

Their bodies were packed solid with razor-sharp ice teeth, and spiky arms extended into brutal, glistening blades. They looked nothing short of terrifying.

All of them were Tier D, and there looked to be more than fifty, so they were very careful not to alert them.

They waited patiently in silence as they watched the Snowmen go about their daily activities.

In-between their silent watch, Kael began secretly glancing at Seraphina from the corner of his eye, clearly wanting to say something.

She pretended not to notice, but as time went by, his furtive glances became so annoying that she shot him a glare and whispered, "What?"

Kael feigned surprise at being caught, even though that had clarely been his intention.

He then cleared his throat and mumbled, "Uhm, the thing is... what's your favorite color?"

"..."

Kael held his breath, patiently waiting for her to lash out.

'Please not the face. This wasn't my idea.' Kael cried inwardly as he recalled what his instructor had told him yesterday: "You need to deepen your bond with your partner, if not, you guys will not reach your maximum potential." He had said it sounding like a wise monk from the mountains, even going so far as rubbing non-existent hair on his chin. But he was far from anything serious.

Kael was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a sigh.

He turned to see that she had gone back to facing front, acting as though he had never asked the question.

He released a breath. 'At least she didn't knock me out... again.'

But just when he was about to go back to watching...

"Yellow."

The sound of her voice suddenly rang out in their small hideout.

"Ehhh?" Kael's eyes went so wide that snow particles slowly began landing inside.

"Yellow. My favorite color is yellow."

"..."