Chapter 26: Unbound Strength

"MY LEGS HAVE CEASED ALL MOTOR FUNCTIONS!"

The private training yard of the Everhart campus villa was an imposing, high-walled arena paved with crushed red shale and surrounded by reinforced runic barrier stones designed to absorb errant cannon-grade spells.

Racks of heavy ironwood halberds, blunted claymores, and lead-weighted shields lined the stone perimeter.

Caelan marched into the center of the crushed shale, unceremoniously dropped Lucien onto his feet, and tossed a heavy, leather-wrapped wooden practice sword into the dirt before him.

THUMP!

"Pick it up," Caelan ordered, cracking his neck from side to side, sparks dancing merrily across his collarbones. "Basic footwork drills. Five hundred thrusts. If you drop your elbow, I hit you with a low-voltage shock to remind you where your guard belongs."

Lucien looked down at the wooden practice sword. It was carved from dense iron-oak, weighing at least fifteen pounds, absurdly heavy for an unawakened youth.

He sighed, dusting off his dressing gown. "Caelan, this is absurd. My Strength score is eight. I have the physical output of a moderately athletic badger. If I swing that piece of timber five hundred times, my shoulders will turn into strawberry jam."

"Stop whining and pick it up! An Everhart does not—"

Before Caelan could finish his lecture on ancestral masculine fortitude, Lucien’s vision faintly shuddered.

The ambient light in the training yard seemed to dim, the crimson dust settling with unnatural, frozen slowness.

DING!

The sound was sharp, clear, and dripping with malicious algorithmic glee.

[DYNAMIC QUEST TRIGGERED]

[Contextual Assessment: Host is currently situated in a high-density combat conditioning facility under direct martial duress.]

[Mission: The Reluctant Vessel’s Morning Calisthenics]

[• Objective: Execute 100 basic strikes with the ironwood weapon.

• Reward: Attribute Stabilization, Spirit-to-Physical Calibration (+1)

• Failure Penalty: System will forcibly discharge 50 Volts of galvanic current through Host’s gluteus maximus to assist with their motivation.

System Message: Even a salted fish must occasionally flip itself in the frying pan to avoid burning. Move your limbs, Host.]

Lucien stared at the floating silver rectangle.

A failure penalty?

To my gluteus maximus?!

"You cheap, digital parasite," Lucien hissed under his breath, his eyes blazing with offended pride. "You’re threatening my backside?! In front of my family?!"

"What was that?" Caelan barked, crossing his arms. "Who are you talking to?!"

"Nobody!" Lucien snapped.

With a low growl of pure, spiteful irritation, Lucien reached down, grabbed the hilt of the fifteen-pound ironwood sword, and hauled it off the shale.

To his absolute shock... it didn’t feel heavy.

It didn’t feel heavy at all.

In fact, the moment his fingers curled around the rough leather grip, that strange, cold, leaden weight from the courtyard, the immense and abnormal density of his Spirit attribute surged through his tendons like liquid mercury.

The fifteen-pound weapon felt as light as a dried willow twig.

’Wait,’ Lucien thought, blinking.

’Wait a second!’

"Ha! Look at that grip!" Caelan grinned, thoroughly pleased with himself. "Now! Strike the post! Let me see your form!"

Lucien stepped up to the leather-padded iron striking pel, a solid pillar of volcanic ironwood anchored six feet deep into the earth.

’If I must do this to prevent my trousers from being electrocuted by a rogue UI interface,’ Lucien reasoned, ’I might as well test the parameters. Let’s see what happens if I engage the power conversion.’

Lucien raised the wooden sword.

He didn’t use an imperial stance; he simply swung it with the motion of a man swinging a baseball bat.

SWISH!

The blade sliced through the air with a terrifying, high-pitched screamer-whistle that made Caelan’s grin falter.

CRACK-BOOM!

The blunted wooden blade struck the iron striking pel.

The reinforced leather padding didn’t just dent; it vaporized into black shredded fluff.

The massive, twelve-inch-thick ironwood pillar let out a shriek, bending backward at a thirty-degree angle before snapping completely at the base.

The top half of the heavy training pillar, weighing easily three hundred pounds, was launched thirty feet across the courtyard, tumbling through the air like a discarded toothpick before smashing through a stone equipment shed with a deafening KABOOM.

A massive plume of red shale dust and splintered timber exploded into the sky.

DING!

[STRIKE 1/100 COMPLETED.]

[STRENGTH DISPLACEMENT: MAXIMUM.]

[PHYSICAL LATTICE CALIBRATING...]

[STRENGTH: 8 → 9]

[VITALITY: 8 → 9]

[LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP!]

Lucien stood frozen in the dust cloud, the wooden sword still extended, not a single drop of sweat on his brow.

Beside him, Caelan’s jaw had dropped so low it looked as though his facial muscles had suffered from some paralysis.

A single, dislodged roof tile from the crushed shed slid down the wreckage and shattered on the cobblestones with a tiny, pathetic clink.

Caelan slowly turned his head, his wide, yellow-tinged eyes staring at Lucien’s wooden stick, then at the smoking crater where the ironwood post used to be, then back at Lucien.

"Lucien..." Caelan croaked, his voice cracking like an adolescent boy’s. "You... you just sheared an ironwood pel in half. With a blunt pine toy."

Lucien looked down at the wooden sword.

Then he looked at the floating System window, which was currently blinking with continious incoming numbers:

[ ATTRIBUTE ACCELERATION ]

[Spiritual Core Leakage: Active

Strength Feedback Loop: 100% Efficient

Current Strength: 10 (+2) Current Vitality: 10 (+2)

System Alert: Host is leveling up at an exponential rate.

Remaining Strikes to Complete Quest: 99

Projected Collateral Damage: High.

Campus Villa Structural Integrity: 42%]

’If I do ninety-nine more swings,’ Lucien calculated in cold terror, ’the shockwaves will flatten the Everhart villa, shatter the floating plateau’s foundation, and drop this entire residential ward into the capital city below.’

Lucien instantly let go of the wooden hilt.

The sword clattered harmlessly onto the crushed shale.

He clamped both hands over his chest, let out a theatrical wheeze, and dramatically wobbled on his feet like a Victorian maiden succumbing to the vapors.

"Ah... oh, gods... my heart!" Lucien gasped, rolling his eyes back until only the whites showed. "It’s the latent rebound! The spiritual recoil! My mana pathways are inverting!"