Chapter 26: Training

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Training

Day Two

Morning came slower than the day before, at least for a few minutes.

Jason helped Novaria through the same careful routine as the past few mornings, easing her into the chair, then into the bathroom and finally into a fresh change of clothes, unhurried despite the clock ticking toward eleven.

"You’re going to be late," she pointed out, watching him double-check the fridge on his way past.

"I’ve got more than enough time."

He frowned slightly at the shelves.

"We’re low on basically everything. Moonvine, half the spice rack..."

"We’ve been going through a lot lately."

He shut the fridge, already doing quiet calculations in his head.

"I’ll swing by the market after training. And I should probably start looking at Gate jobs again soon, actually. Between the food and Judith’s pay, we’re burning through the raid money faster than I’d like. I’m only lucky Darius isn’t charging me."

"We’ll manage."

"Not like we have much of a choice."

He grabbed his spear and gave her a quick, easy smile.

"See you this evening."

Judith arrived a few minutes later, allowing Jason to leave with his spear.

---

Darius didn’t ease him in.

"Show me your stance."

Jason planted his feet, adjusting his own grip before Darius could reach for it, settling his weight the way it should sit rather than the way instinct wanted to push it forward.

Darius circled him once.

He said nothing, which, from him, was close to a compliment.

Then, without warning, he shifted his own stance entirely.

Lower.

Wider.

His weight settled back onto his heels in a way that looked nothing like the posture from a moment ago.

Jason barely had time to register the change before Darius came in low and heavy, the movement slow and deliberate, unmistakably animal in its weight and commitment.

Jason met it, barely managing to redirect the momentum wide.

"Good instinct."

Darius reset.

This time, his stance shifted again, higher and lighter, his weight moving forward onto the balls of his feet.

"Now this."

The second attack came faster.

Sharper.

More calculated.

Feints were layered into the approach in a way the first attack hadn’t bothered with.

Jason adjusted mid-motion, reading the difference before it fully landed.

"What was that?"

"A beast’s charge. It’s heavy, committed, all momentum and instinct."

Darius reset into a neutral stance.

"A person would be more calculated, reading you as much as attacking you."

He paused.

"Fighting beasts is easy."

Darius’s expression didn’t shift, but his voice carried considerably more weight.

"In the confines of those Gates, sometimes beasts are the least of your worries."

His spear rose again.

"A spearman who only knows one shape of opponent dies the day he meets the other."

They drilled it throughout the afternoon, Darius alternating without warning between beast and human.

Jason didn’t need the same correction twice.

Each mistake folded itself into the next attempt instead of repeating.

By the time training ended, Jason’s body ached in places he hadn’t known could ache.

After training, he stopped at the market on his walk home, filling a bag with moonvine, lotus ginseng, vegetables, and several other essentials.

The familiar mental tally of prices ran alongside a quieter, more persistent thought.

’Need to get back on the Gate boards soon.’

---

That evening, over dinner, Novaria asked how the second day compared to the first.

Jason turned his spoon absently.

"He’s training me to fight both beasts and people."

"I see."

Novaria gave him a thoughtful look.

"I didn’t expect that level of thinking from someone you found through a party lead’s contact list."

Jason glanced up.

"How was your day?"

Something almost fond crossed her face.

"Judith is much easier to talk to than I expected."

Later, once the house had gone quiet and Novaria was settled for the night, Jason sat cross-legged on the floor beside her.

Mana drew in slowly and steadily, refined through his Soul Core.

---

Day Three

"Your grip’s too tight."

Darius barely waited until the first exchange before pointing it out.

Jason adjusted it immediately, feeling the shift in reach and reaction time the second he loosened his hold.

They sparred.

Darius shifted stances mid-exchange, beast, then human, then something in between that Jason suspected was simply Darius testing how well he could adapt without being given a clean label for what he was facing.

"You saw that coming."

"It’s the third time you’ve done it."

Jason redirected another thrust.

"The pattern’s not exactly subtle once you know to look for it."

Darius grunted.

It could almost be mistaken for approval.

---

That night, Novaria mentioned, almost in passing, that Judith had stayed a full hour past when she needed to, the two of them talking well after Jason’s usual return time.

"About what?"

"Her son, mostly. Apparently, he’s just started out as a Hunter after his cultivation peaked at the Second Level."

She gave him a cheeky look.

"Reminds me of someone."

Jason raised an eyebrow.

"Is this ’someone’ a handsome, young, soon-to-be spear master?"

"I can’t say."

She smiled.

"It’s classified."

Jason laughed.

He told her about the redirection drills, about the growing ache in his shoulders that had started to feel almost like a part of him.

He cultivated late into the night again, assessing his Core afterward.

He figured he only really needed a little push before reaching the Intermediate Stage.

That progress was staggering to think about.

---

Day Four

Jason made it through the morning routine as usual, spear in hand, giving Novaria a quick goodbye before closing the door behind him at a quarter to eleven.

"Today, I’ll be teaching you how to properly infuse your essence into your spear."

Darius held his own spear loosely, letting a faint current of essence trail down the shaft.

It shifted.

Pulsed.

Never settling into one fixed point.

"Your footwork moves. Your grip adjusts. Your essence flow should do the same, not sit static in the weapon like dead weight."

He demonstrated.

The current thickened near the head during a thrust, then thinned and redistributed during a defensive turn.

The entire shaft seemed alive with constant, deliberate motion.

"Because it’s the same principle as moving your feet in battle."

Darius’s spear shifted again.

"Static essence is a static target. Predictable. Easy to counter once someone learns the pattern."

The current flowed smoothly from one end of the weapon to the other.

"Dynamic flow adapts to what the moment needs."

Darius tossed the spear back to Jason.

"Try."

Jason’s first few attempts came out lumpy, essence pooling awkwardly near the head of his weapon regardless of what the movement called for.

But by the tenth attempt, the flow shifted more naturally with the weapon’s movement.

"Better."

Darius nodded in approval.

They ran through both beast and human patterns, essence redistributing differently for each, until Jason’s focus finally began to fray at the edges.

---

Jason got home a little past five.

The same familiar exhaustion had settled into his shoulders, but the house was quieter than usual.

Judith met him at the door before he’d even fully stepped inside.

"She’s asleep," Judith said before he could ask. "Had a seizure about an hour ago. I handled it. She’s stable now."

Every good feeling from the day dropped out of him at once.

"Is she—"

"She’s fine, Jason."

Judith’s voice stayed calm and steady, the same practiced tone she probably once used on men bleeding out in worse places than this.

"She just needs rest."

Jason exhaled slowly.

Some of the tension eased, though not all of it.

"Thank you. For being here."

"That’s the job."

Her expression softened slightly.

"Go check on her. I’ll head out once you’re settled."

Jason found Novaria curled beneath the blanket, breathing evenly, peaceful in a way that eased the last of his worry.

He sat carefully at the edge of the bed instead of on the floor that night, close enough to feel her breathing.

He cultivated even harder that night.

Getting stronger was the only way he could help her out of her situation.

---

Day Five

Novaria was awake and steady by morning, insisting she was fine.

She waved off his hovering with a firmness that told him arguing wouldn’t get him anywhere.

"I’m fine. Go, before you’re late."

Jason left, spear in hand, the worry from the night before still sitting somewhere in his chest even as Darius put him back through his paces.

"Darius mentioned that your essence is dual-natured."

Darius watched him carefully.

"I’d like to observe what it looks like when both are in action."

He handed Jason his spear.

Jason threaded a thin, controlled line of Fire essence down the shaft, letting it shift and redistribute with each movement the way he’d practiced the day before instead of holding it fixed.

The metal glowed faint orange.

Steady.

Contained.

It brightened near the point during the thrust before thinning again on the recovery.

Then Jason infused Lightning into the spear, following the same careful pattern he’d used with the Fire.

He noticed the sparks before the two could fully interact and quickly pulled back.

Darius watched him with an intense look of fascination.

Then he moved his spear into position, clearly ready to continue their spar.

Jason obliged, essence-infused spear in hand.

---

That evening, dinner came with a longer conversation than usual.

The seizure from the day before still sat quietly underneath everything they said to each other.

Neither of them named it directly, but both were clearly aware of it.

"Judith had it handled. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done that she wasn’t already doing."

"Still."

"Still."

Novaria’s voice softened.

"I’m alright. Really."

Jason reached out and took her hand.

He held onto it a little longer than usual.

Later, once she was asleep, he settled back onto the floor and resumed cultivating.

His Core answered more readily than it had all week.

And somewhere within it, the door to the Intermediate Stage creaked ever so slightly open.