System, please just shut up

The training hall fell silent around Kael, the last echoes of his Seraphina's advice fading into the high-ceilinged quiet.

He stood at the center of the vast, polished room, his back straight, the familiar weight of his blade drawn and humming softly in his hand.

Sweat already beaded down his neck despite the early hour, a testament to the internal furnace of his focus.

**Morning**

He began slow, meticulously breaking down the technique into its most fundamental components.

He had gone over the movements of Flicker Step in his mind hundreds of times already, replaying the theoretical instructions from the scroll.

The initial stance. The precise positioning of the feet.

The subtle shift of weight. Every detail was imprinted, ready for replication.

Left foot forward.

Shoulders loose, but poised for tension.

Weight balanced evenly, spread across the balls of his feet, ready to flow.

Then—movement.

Not a lunge, not a step, but a peculiar, almost internal shift.

A step inward, his spine coiling ever so slightly, his center of mass locking, becoming strangely still in the midst of motion.

It was not quite a full stop, not quite a continuous shift.

It felt almost like preparing to dodge with explosive speed, but then stopping halfway, arresting the momentum to gather it.

This was the essence of the spatial compression, the "micro-step" that formed the heart of Flicker Step.

He paused, holding the awkward, half-formed posture, feeling the strain in his muscles as he tried to mimic an unnatural stillness.

Then, he reset. Tried again. And again.

Each motion was sharp, deliberate, yet slow.

He wasn't trying to move fast; speed was the enemy of true understanding in this phase.

He was trying to move right.

To get the angles exact.

To feel the precise points of tension and release. There was no burst of speed. No instant repositioning that defied the eye.

No blur of motion, no spectacular activation of the technique. But that was precisely the point.

This was Imitation.

The first phase of mastery was entirely about syncing the body's physical structure to what the technique implicitly demanded.

It was about teaching his muscle memory how to anticipate a rhythm it hadn't yet heard, a dance it didn't yet know.

He repeated the motion.

Again.

And again.

Dozens of times.

Then hundreds.

The hall became his solitary stage, the air thick with his quiet grunts of effort and the soft shuffle of his boots.

Every few sets, he stopped and adjusted.

He replayed the shimmering image from the scroll in his mind—the precise angle of the hips during the "inward step," the absolute anchor of the back leg providing the counter-force, the shifting tension in the core that pulled everything together.

He closed his eyes, visualizing, trying to feel the phantom mechanics.

He could almost see the faint, shimmering trail the technique left behind in the scroll's description, that subtle, ethereal twist in physics.

That's what he wanted to achieve. Even if, for now, it was just a shadow of the real thing, a clumsy imitation.

**Afternoon**

By afternoon, his uniform shirt was soaked through, clinging to his back and chest like a second skin. His forearms ached with a deep, persistent burn, and a dull throb had settled in his lower back.

But Kael didn't stop. He pushed through the discomfort, his focus narrowing until the pain became a distant hum, a part of the background.

He dropped into stance.

Held it, unyielding.

Then moved again, initiating the complex micro-step. His feet scraped against the polished floor with practiced friction, a soft, rhythmic whisper.

Each movement was now a carefully controlled sequence, a nascent echo of the real thing. And then again. Over and over, until the concept of linear time stopped mattering.

He didn't feel the hours pass.

Only the strain creeping relentlessly up his spine, the searing burn in his thighs as his muscles screamed in protest, the persistent tremor building in his grip.

His mind, usually so active, so prone to worrying thoughts, became quiet, emptied of everything but the immediate sensation of his body moving.

Still, he moved. Still, he practiced.

He was a machine of repetition, pushing his physical limits, forcing his body to accept the alien grace of the technique.

His vision blurred at the edges, sweat stinging his eyes, but he didn't wipe it away.

Each repetition was a brushstroke, adding to a painting he couldn't yet see, but felt in his bones.

He pushed for perfect form, for the exact lean, the precise hinge of the knee. He was drilling the 'what' into his very being, hoping the 'why' would eventually follow.

Seraphina's words echoed in his mind: "Imitation...repeating shapes you don't yet understand."

He was doing exactly that, blindly following the blueprint, trusting that understanding would emerge from the crucible of effort.

**Evening**

By evening, the training hall had grown dim, the golden light of the day fading, replaced by the soft glow of the wall runes.

Kael wasn't thinking in words anymore.

His consciousness had streamlined itself to a primitive state of absolute focus.

Just breath. Movement. Adjustment. Reset.

The rhythm of his practice had become his heartbeat, his world.

Something about the relentless repetition had become meditative, almost trance-like.

It was no longer a conscious effort, but an instinctual flow. Like he wasn't chasing the technique anymore.

He was letting it speak to him, letting its inherent truth resonate within his weary muscles and bone.

And that's when it happened.

He pivoted mid-practice, his foot skimming the floor with the almost silent grace he had managed to achieve a thousand times before—but this time, something clicked.

It wasn't a burst of speed.

It wasn't the technique activating in its full, perfected glory.

But for a split second, his weight shifted in a way that didn't belong to him. Like his body forgot gravity for half a second.

Like space misfired, not just around him, but through him, bending to his will in a minuscule, almost imperceptible way.

It was an echo, a ghost of the technique, a momentary alignment.

Kael stumbled, caught himself—his eyes widening—then stopped.

His breathing was hard, ragged, but it wasn't from exertion alone. It was from shock, from a sudden, profound realization.

Breathing hard, he slowly opened his Archive, his fingers trembling slightly as he summoned the translucent window.

The glowing text shimmered into view.

Flicker Step – 3.0%

Sword Mastery – 5.2% (+0.5%)

He stared. Three point zero percent.

A minuscule number to anyone else, but to him, it was a universe.

It was proof.

He stared at the incremental increase in his overall Sword Mastery, then back at the nascent percentage for Flicker Step. A whole day of relentless, grueling, almost mind-numbing repetition. And finally… something. A connection.

He let out a breathless laugh, a raw, joyous sound that echoed faintly in the silent hall.

Just like that.

A whole day of single-minded effort, pushing his body and mind to their limits.

And finally, a tangible reward.

It wasn't much, not yet, but it was his. It was the first true seed of mastery, planted in the fertile ground of his persistent effort.

He sheathed his blade with a soft, reverent click and dropped to the floor, lying flat on his back, the cool stone pulling the lingering heat from his skin.

His muscles throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

His head buzzed with residual energy and sheer exhaustion. But he was smiling, a wide, genuine smile that stretched his aching cheeks.

'I definitely knew i was a natural.'