As I continued to exercise in the open training grounds by my own, I could see that brother Cecil was by the usual tree where he would hang around. Through the days that I have been training here, I have not seen him do any himself. It made me wonder how far does he master the teaching of Master Yagami.

“…” but I dare not question. After all, today is the day that Master Yagami promises me to be trained In the ways of the house of the Shadows.

“…Soril.” having heard a passing call like that of the wind, I turned to my left and saw that master Yagami was simply standing there as if he appeared like a ghost.

“M-master.” having been surprised by his appearance, I jumped back up from doing push ups and bowed to greet him.

“As you know, I have promised you the lessons of my arts…my skills, the way I have done with my first disciple Cecil.”

“Yes you did master.”

“We begin with a quote. For every light that exist, a shadow is present…”

“…”

“it is clear to us that when you point a flashlight down a tree, you will see its shadow. In times like this, Shadows exist simply because of the presence of a light, but if we expand that thought and instead of a flashlight, we present ourselves to a burning ball of fire…Our sun. What if, by example, we can turn off the sun, what happens then?”

“…Darkness.” I answered.

“Exactly. Light may push us aside, light may be the reason that we appear strong, but without light, we are the strongest existence that reaches out to even the planets above Atlanta itself…everything that is not in touch with light, is replaced by our own existence…the shadows.”

“What does that mean Master?”

“…It means that the Shadow is capable of Devouring anything in its way…the shadow is the constant of all things.The Shadow is strong, that is what I’m saying.”

“Then how do I become as strong as a shadow?”

“…Discipline my boy. Pure effort and discipline will merge you to a path that is guided by the Shadows. You, you who has this uncertain path for your fate, where the path has no light for there to guide you, you must follow the path of the Shadow…not just the simple path made of darkness, but the path that shows the pinnacle of a strong Shadow. Something Darker than simple Darkness with the absence of light…what you will follow is the path of the Shadows.”

“…What is this path master?”

“Taught by my master unto me, and me unto you, I will teach you one of the most insatiable powers gifted by god. We call this…the Gates of the Shadow Arts.”

There, his presence began to grow and his shadow merge and moved by his will.

“This path needs only your trust in yourself, for this path has no light to guide you. Are you ready to walk in the dark?” he asked as he looked rather gallant in his stance as he stood with power.

“…I am, master.”

“Good, we begin with the basics before I teach you anything that relates to the gates of the Shadows. One of the factors that needs most of all is a strong body and a strong mind, as well as a bright mind. You’ve been growing your body since you’ve started here, how much can I know on how strong your mind is?”

“…I don’t know master.”

“We begin with a sense of control towards a situation. Let us say that Cecil is a man crazed for blood and he wants to murder you so that he can shower in your blood, how do you solve this issue when it comes to a strong mind?” he asked.

“Umm…Well, I’ve experienced bloodlust before from goblins. I know how crazy they are…but I handled it well enough.” I said as I was sort of taken aback by the situation given.

“I see, but I will test to see if you can handle something far more aggresive.” Master Yagami then snaps his fingers and out appears before him Cecil who was standing with his arms crossed.

*snap*

“Cecil, I leave it to you and Soril, make sure you defend yourself properly.”

*snap*

With that he snaps his fingers again, and without warning, Cecil came lunging and pushes me off of my feet.

“Kugh*!!”

My stomach hurled in the sudden pressure as he grabs me and tosses me in the air with his bare hand.

There as I found myself flying higher and higher up, my mind begins to panic as the sight of a small stature of my master grows smaller and smaller…until finally it stops and suddenly gets bigger and bigger as I realized that I was now falling.

“!!!!!” I couldn’t think nor process the moment of what was happening until I realized I the pavement of the floor was ready to kiss my face.

But it didn’t.

“Khk!!” because I only felt the lumber arms of my Senior as he catches me with his forearms. I dropped to the floor and shook my head to see for myself if what happened to me actually happened…

“So, my pupil, what did you think when you where that high up or when you realized that your Senior has thrown you off out of the intent to kill you?” Master asked.

“…I…I…” but I couldn’t answer.

“Did you realize the killing intent that Cecil gave off?” he asked.

“N-no.” I answered.

“Hmm, maybe you were going too fast.” said master to Cecil.

“Maybe I did.” said Cecil.

“Well, if you did noticed, Cecil gave off enough killing intent to kill a Goblin, but never mind that, what about when you were in mid-air, did you think of something as you were there?” he asked.

“I noticed that I was falling, but I couldn’t think of any words for that…I just knew that I was about to die.” I said.

“Hmm, I see. Well, we will have to improve of that aspect within you as well as your reflexes to react to a charging beast like Cecil.”

“What do you mean master?”

“From now on, instead of simple training, Cecil will now train you to fight out of the instinct to dodge. He will bare with the intent to murder you and its your job to dodge and think of what to do next when that comes. Think of it as if your fighting a level 100 monster in a dungeon.”

“Ah…yes master.” having felt depressed over this realization that I was weak, I sighed.

“Carry your sword and only your sword…from now on, I will also engrave it in your body the importance of your sword.” said Cecil as he readied himself to fight me.

And off it goes…

As I was still disoriented from the fall, I was not fully prepared with the upcoming onslaught. But Brother Cecil taught otherwise.

Just as before I could grab my sword, a palm strike was thrown, powerful enough to cause a distortion in the wind. I reacted a bit faster compared to his charge lunge a second ago, but I was barely able to dodge entirely.

“!?” I rolled over the ground and didn’t had the chance to pick up my weapon.

“I-I wasn’t ready!” I said as I felt pressured by his presence of wanting to pummel me down.

“This isn’t about being ready or not, its about how you react to a situation with or without your weapon. It is by your choice whether or not you even have the gall to pick up a weapon while a monster is in front of you. You have no other choice otherwise.” said master.

“Fine…” having looked to brother Cecil, he was just as prepared as he always was.

Without warning, Brother Cecil came with only one hand forward to dictate his move. His confidence was ever so noticeable. Meanwhile I was only ever focused of being able to want to get my sword.

He came with a straight forward strike with his palm, and I, wanting to catch that palm, reacted by using my two hands to catch its force, but his eyes spoke differently the moment that palm reached my two hands.

“!!” as not only did his palm break through my shielding hands, but it went straight at my face.

“Kugh!” I felt the full force of his strike and with it, I was seen to be thrown across the training grounds and unto a bush.

“…” brother Cecil only ever looked rather curious as to why I did what I did.

‘Hmm, it looks like he wasn’t able to evaluate the level of strength that my hand had to offer.’ he thought to himself as he stood rather worried over my unconscious state.

“…Try to level it down a bit for the day Cecil, we don’t want to break the boy before we can even get things started.” said Master.

“…Okay.”

“I’ll leave him in your hands for today. Once he gets back up, try to let him experience, both the killing intent as well as the physical tribute to take on blows. Do it to a point that his body unconsciously recognizes the pain of this training”

“He’s not really the fast type though…and I doubt that’s he’s getting back up from that.” said Cecil as he looked rather worried.

“…For now at least, but its our job to make him surpass that limit.”

“D-don’t look so worried Brother…I’m not so weak to just want to end it here. Just keep coming at me.” I said as I struggled stood back up from the bush.

“…Wipe your nose, its bleeding.” said Master.

“Y-yes master.” and I answered.

“Sorry Soril, I don’t mean to harm you in anyway, just think of it as tough love.” he said as he readies himself again.

“Yeah, I know.” I said as I put my fist up to copy his position.

“…Good.”

And with that…the day continued with me getting pommeled for hours on end. I barely had the chance to escape his strikes, because compared to a bullet, it seemed as though my brother’s strikes were faster than those things. Each time I get hit, it was always enough to make me fly across the training grounds…

I tried to study and memorized as much of his movements as I can, but they were never consistent in anyway that I could think of. In some way, I noticed that the way he moved was somewhat formed by years of training. It was a practice that was incomparable to my training where I just get hit and get used to the essence of what they call killing intent.

Brother Cecil told me that whenever fighters come along to fight each other, killing intent is most likely going to be present especially in locations like the dungeons. To associate myself with a higher chance of survival, I have to get used to feeling this essence called killing intent. Its one of the ways that a man can predict certain situations.

Hunters themselves can produce this skill with years of experience but with me being a newbie, I hardly had the essence to predict a man’s killing intent.

I realized that after four hours of continuous fighting, the way that brother Cecil fights, it somehow moves me to act in a more agile sense. Big but sharp moves…each time he strikes, I hardly ever have the process to think of anything critical to inflict damage back, all I could ever do with my time was dodge…and it even got worse the moment I got hold of my weapon.

His strikes got faster and more harder that I barely had the gall to even think of attacking. And this time, he strikes more at my hands than one would realize. I get that his intentions was to train me in holding on to the value of never letting go of my weapon. But I never would have imagined just how feeble my hand was at the efforts of holding on to the handle of my sword. Everytime I let go, he gave this intense glare in his eyes that spoke of an opportunity to murder me, but all he does in the end is kick me off of the ground and flying across the training grounds.

I think that was his way of saying that a monster could have killed me then if I let go me my weapon…I get the message…I really do.

I only had two days left before the entrance exam would start, by then I need to be more than enough to have some sense of improvement out of this so called training. With the day ending in me being wrapped in bandages all over, I think it was beneficial…in some case.

As I laid in my bed, Brother Cecil came to visit and handed me a sort of pill.

“Here, take this. By morning, you should be able to move again. Are you prepared?” he asked.

“…Yeah.”

“…Okay then, just get some rest.” he said as he closed the door and walked away.

Its just the first day of intense training…

I know its hard, but my body is getting used to the pain. As it can be said with my profile, the last days that I have been training here, I have gained a lot of growth all from my exercises. But it especially grew the moment I trained for the entire day’s straight with Cecil…if I keep this up, I’m sure I can get stronger. Although I had to give up with hunting on the dungeons for the day, I’m sure this training was more beneficial than a simple level up.

[Profile:]

Candidate: NPC

Mission Status: In Progress

Level: [6]-[ >5,567 exp until to the next level…]

Strength: 12 —> 15

Endurance: 9 —> 13

Intelligence: 10 —> 11

Agility: 7 —> 12

Mana: 60/60

I just have to get going…

*** The Next Day ***

“…” I woke up the next day with the capacity to being able to move my body.

“Hmm…” I thought that it was a weird thing to happen, but that pill that brother Cecil gave me did a miracle on me. I could actually move my body. And although it still hurts, I was good enough to move it without a hindrance to the pain. It like feeling a muscle sore all over. Is bad…but not so bad that you want to roll all over the dirt and scream in pain kind of bad.

Having walked across the halls, I made my way to the dining room where brother Cecil and master where having their breakfast. Mine was already prepared on a plate so I didn’t hesitate and sat down to eat with the two of them.

“Are you ready to go again?” asked brother Cecil.

“…Yeah.” I nodded and ate the fish.

“Good.” and we continued to eat.

Not a lot of words were spoken on the table, but it can be noticed that the mood wasn’t soiled. In fact, it felt like it was a good day for its start.

Because what comes after this is a day’s worth of tough love.