By the time I left the training ground, I was sore in ways I hadn’t even realized were possible. My muscles ached, my ribs throbbed, and every breath reminded me of just how many times I had been sent sprawling across the dirt. Arthur and Ellie had used me like a training dummy—and not the kind that got to fight back.

  At first, it had been a simple spar. Then it became a lesson in pain.

  They took turns, striking with a precision that was almost clinical. Arthur was relentless, his blows landing just hard enough to bruise without breaking. His movements were sharp, calculated, forcing me to react to feints and punishing me for every hesitation. Ellie, on the other hand, was a force of nature. When she hit me, it felt like being rammed by a falling tree, her sheer power knocking the wind from my lungs again and again.

  Eventually, the fight had devolved into dodging practice—for me, at least. I’d try to avoid their attacks, and they’d try… or, well, succeed in hitting me. Over. And over.

  Not enough to cripple, but enough that I felt every single impact building up in layers of deep, aching bruises. The kind of soreness that would linger for days.

  By the time we finished, my body felt like a battlefield—one I had very clearly lost.

  This was just day one of training. I had leveled up. I had learned. But I was worn down to the bone, and everything hurt.

  Bruises layered over bruises, my limbs felt weighted, and even breathing sent dull aches rippling through my ribs. Good pain. The kind that meant I was growing. But still—pain.

  I opened a portal to my room—private, small, nothing special, but it had a bed. And right now, that was all I needed. The moment I hit the mattress, sleep dragged me under.

  It felt like only a few hours had passed before something wet and forked slithered across my face.

  My body reacted before my mind did. My eyes shot open. My muscles coiled, my tail braced against the bed for leverage. Attack.

  Woundreaver was in my grip in an instant, its edge gleaming under the dim room light.

  Then I heard it.

  That deep, reverberating hum—the same one I had heard in the library. The one that wasn’t quite a sound, more like a pressure in the air. It carried amusement this time, a distinct shift in tone. I didn’t know how I could tell. But I could.

  The serpent. She hadn’t spoken, but I could feel her amusement. Her tongue had been tasting me.

  “It’s time for class.” Her voice slithered through the air, smooth and knowing. Without waiting for a response, she turned and flew toward the portal behind her, expecting me to follow.

  I did. I was here to train, not sleep.

  Stepping through, I expected to find myself in a vast library, surrounded by towering shelves of ancient tomes. Instead, I was met with an endless white expanse. The only feature in the void was a massive hourglass suspended above us, its sand dripping downward at an unnervingly slow pace.

  I exhaled, adjusting to the sudden shift. “Sorry for almost missing your class. I was dead tired and forgot to check my schedule.” I glanced at her. “By the way, my name is Sylas. I didn’t catch yours last time we spoke.”

  She regarded me, unblinking, her tongue flicking out as if tasting my words. When she finally spoke, her name came out more hissed than spoken, a whisper of sibilant syllables.

  “Itsss Ssythara. And my classss are not scheduled. When you are acccepted, I come to you when it isss time to learrn.”

  I took in my surroundings, only now realizing that there was one other person here. The emotionally detached girl.

  “Hey!” She waved over at me, her tone light. “We keep running into each other.”

  Ssythara’s head tilted slightly, her slit pupils narrowing as she flicked her gaze between us. A slow, deliberate blink, and then her reverberating hum returned. “Thisss isss good. That you two know one another makesss thisss processss easssier.”

  Her body coiled slightly before she continued, her voice taking on an almost pleased tone. “My classss is skill exchange. A very ssspecial, rare classss. Only thossse I invite are permitted to attend.”

  I tensed slightly at her next words. “I ran an analysissss on the both of you during your cage fightsss. Yesss, they are recorded for usss teacherssss to review.”

  “Sylasss, you fight with a risky sssstyle. You gain power the longer a fight lasssts, but you do not have an attack ssskill. You have a finisssher with that weapon of yoursss, but that requiresss a lot of build-up. You know what I am talking about, yesss?”

  I nodded. She was right. All I had was my intellect and my physical capabilities. I could enhance my strikes, but even that required Torment. It wasn’t a true attack skill—just a way to make what I already had hit harder.

  “And you, Diana. You ssstrike fassst and ruthlessly, but if your firssst attacksss fail, you become powerlessss as the fight drags on. You have no way to recover. You underssstand what I am sssaying, yesss?”

  Diana nodded, her expression shifting slightly. Her eyes widened just a fraction, like she was trying to feign surprise, but I could tell she already knew this about herself.

  “Thisss is good. I have brought you two together becaussse you compliment one another. Sylasss thrives in prolonged fightsss, whereas Diana excelsss in quick, decisssive ssstrikesss.”

  She gestured toward the hourglass hanging above us, the sand within barely moving.

  “You two need to feel what the other is like—how they move, how their ssskillsss work. Once you truuuly massster that feeling, I will be able to make a copy of the ssskill and transssfer it to the other.”

  That sounded incredible. The implications alone made my mind race. Was it really that simple? I had spent so much time fighting without an attack skill—was I about to gain one, just like that?

  I pulled up my status screen.

  Name: Sylas Orread

  Race: Painborn Revenant

  Specialization: 1E. Path of the Forsaken

  Titles: One Against Many, Childkiller, Masochist, Craftsman Benefactor

  Skills: Cloaked Appraisal, Freshen, Crimson Reconstitution, Quickstep, Painforged Armory

  Level: 28E

  Strength: 59

  Dexterity: 59

  Vitality: 65 (+3%)

  Fortitude: 89

  Veil: 59 (-2%)

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Mind: 70

  Instinct: 60

  Torment: 131

  Unspent Points: 0

  Skill Points Available: -7

  Even after leveling up, I still had a negative skill point balance. Being able to learn a skill outright, rather than having to grind through the system’s restrictions, seemed like a golden opportunity.

  “Sylasss tell her about your healing skill. In detail. Afterwardsss Diana tell him about your quick ssstrike skill.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Not because I was unwilling, but because explaining Crimson Reconstitution was… complicated. I exhaled, shifting my weight as I considered how best to put it into words.

  “It’s called Crimson Reconstitution.” My tail flicked behind me as I pulled up the details in my mind. “It’s not healing in the traditional sense. It doesn’t use mana, and it doesn’t mend wounds instantly. Instead, it converts stored pain into regeneration.”

  Diana tilted her head, her expression unreadable.

  I continued, “The more damage I take, the more I can heal, but it’s not free. It drains me in a different way. The skill draws from my Torment, a special ability of mine similar to mana, and if I don’t control it, it’ll bleed out of me, flooding my system with so much power that I lose myself to it.”

  I glanced at Ssythara, whose golden eyes shimmered with interest.

  “At low levels of injury, I can push through just fine. Cuts, bruises, even deep wounds—I can recover in seconds if I have enough stored pain. But the worse the injury, the more dangerous it gets. If I try to use it on critical wounds, it taxes my body, accelerating my Torment’s effect. Without a failsafe, I’d eventually become…” I paused, searching for the right word. “Something else.”

  Diana’s gaze sharpened. “Something else?”

  I met her stare. “A monster. I lose control of my will and attack everything in sight.”

  She didn’t scoff or roll her eyes. Instead, she nodded as if filing that information away.

  Ssythara hummed in satisfaction, the vibrations reverberating through the space. “Yesss, thisss makesss ssenssse. Your body doess not reject pain—it thrivesss on it. But pain is a fool’sss fuel. It burnsss hot and bright, but leaveeesss nothing when it consssumeesss you.”

  Her tail slithered in a slow coil before gesturing toward Diana. “Now, tell him about your skill.”

  Diana tilted her head, expression perfectly neutral despite the exaggerated smirk on her face. “It’s called Phantom Arsenal.”

  I crossed my arms, intrigued. “Explain it.”

  She twirled her weapon between her fingers. “I can create invisible copies of my blade. They stay exactly where I place them, floating in the air like traps. When I activate the skill, they all strike at once.”

  I frowned, considering that. “So you set up a net of invisible weapons mid-fight? Sounds strong.”

  She scoffed. “If I could set them up instantly, yeah. But each placement takes a couple of seconds, which is way too long in a real fight. I have to buy time to set them up, and most opponents won’t just let me.”

  That changed things. “So the setup is the hard part.”

  Diana nodded. “Exactly. If I get interrupted, the weapons disappear before they’re fully formed. And even when I do place them, I have to remember where each one is. There’s no marker, no glow—just memory and instinct. But once I trigger the skill…” She snapped her fingers. “Every single one strikes at once.”

  I exhaled through my nose. “That’s deceptive as hell.”

  She grinned, though it didn't reach her eyes. “It is. The best part is that people don’t expect an attack from behind when I never moved. If I get even a few weapons in the right places, the moment they become visible, it’s already too late.”

  Ssythara hummed, pleased. “A delayed assaaault, requiring patience and calculation. You strike like a ssserpent, Diana.”

  I rolled my shoulders, thinking about how that would work for me. Setting up a battlefield of invisible blades? If I could keep an opponent distracted long enough, it would be devastating.

  Ssythara’s golden eyes gleamed. “Now we need to demonstrate the ssskills.”

  Her tail lashed out without warning, striking me hard across the arm. The impact sent me flying a few feet before I crashed into the ground. A sharp, searing pain shot through my arm, and I immediately knew—it was broken.

  I sucked in a breath, pain flaring through my nerves. But I didn’t lash out. I understood why she did it.

  I still shot her a glare.

  She hummed, clearly unconcerned.

  Pushing myself up with my good arm, I turned toward Diana. “Crimson Reconstitution.” My voice was exaggerated, drawing attention to the process.

  Diana watched, expression blank, as I twisted my injured arm to show her the unnatural way it bent. Then, before her eyes, the bone reset, the torn muscle knitted itself back together, and my skin sealed as if the injury had never happened.

  It cost me.

  I could feel the drain of Torment, more than the pain I had just endured. The trade-off was brutal—healing through suffering. More suffering than the wound itself.

  I met her gaze. “You’ll need to accumulate enough before healing something that bad. Otherwise, you won’t have enough to regenerate properly.”

  Diana nodded, absorbing the information without reaction. “Understood.”

  Ssythara flicked her tail again, this time summoning a target dummy. She turned to Diana. “Your turn.”

  Diana didn’t summon her weapon. She simply walked.

  Casual steps, hands at her sides, expression unreadable. Every few steps, she paused—just for a moment, so subtle I barely noticed it. Then she kept moving.

  She made no indication that she was setting anything up. No gestures, no shifts in her posture, no flaring of power. If I hadn’t been watching her so closely, I wouldn’t have even registered that something was happening.

  When she finished, she nodded to Ssythara. “Sylasss, go see if you can find them.”

  I stepped forward, scanning the air around the dummy. I moved carefully, waving my hands through the space where I had seen her pause, expecting to feel something.

  Nothing. Frowning, I tried again, moving slower. Still nothing. Minutes passed. Still nothing. Then, without warning, Diana activated her skill.

  A dozen thin, gleaming needles materialized around the dummy, encircling it in a perfect pattern.

  Before I could react, she flicked her wrist. The weapons fired—shooting forward like silent, invisible assassins. Each needle embedded itself with pinpoint accuracy, piercing deep into the dummy’s form.

  The target now resembled a porcupine, bristling with lethal precision. I let out a low whistle. “That’s nasty.” Diana’s smirk stretched across her face—practiced, but hollow. “Yes.”

  “Good. You have both now been told, and shown, how each others sssskills work. Now comes the tricky part. That hourglasssss is here for a reassson. It showsss how long you two have remaining to truly undersssstand, to masster, the others ssskill.” She paused for a second to let her words settle. “This next part will be a little weird. Try to relax.”

  I barely had time to process Ssythara’s words before I felt it. A force—not physical, but something deeper—grabbed my soul.

  The sensation was impossible to describe. Like I was being unhooked from my body, pulled from the very essence of myself. My vision swam, twisted, inverted—a gut-wrenching vertigo that had nothing to do with movement. Then, just as suddenly as it started, it snapped back into place.

  But my body? It wasn’t mine anymore. I hit the ground, hard. Limbs unfamiliar, balance off, senses skewed. I wasn’t in my body. I was in hers.

  I tried to move—fingers first, then my arms. Slow, sluggish at first, but the more I focused, the more control I gained. Everything felt different. Lighter. More compact. The usual weight of my tail was gone, replaced by an eerie sense of stillness. My body—her body—was unnervingly efficient, precise in ways I had never experienced before.

  Then, something blinked in my vision.

  [Phantom Arsenal]

  It was highlighted, shimmering, waiting for me to activate it. I tried to open my status screen—nothing. My inventory? Locked. I frowned, turning my head—my head? No, her head—toward my real body.

  Diana was already standing, adjusting effortlessly, moving my body like she had always lived in it. There was no hesitation, no wobbling, no confusion. Just cold, clinical acceptance.

  Of course she adjusted faster.

  Ssythara’s voice hummed around us. “You two can only accesssss the ssskill you are trying to obtain.”

  She flicked her tail, summoning weapons onto the ground. “Learn, question, and massster the ssskill within the allotted time, and it ssshall be yoursss.”

  Then, without another word, she flew up toward the top of the hourglass and settled down, watching from above.

  I flexed my fingers—Diana’s fingers. They moved too well, too smoothly. My movements had always carried weight, a force behind them. But this body? It wasn’t about power. It was about precision.

  I turned my gaze back to the floating notification.

  [Phantom Arsenal]

  Alright. Time to figure this out.