Will and Stamina

Rashan found himself laying in the dust, chest heaving, muscles burning with exhaustion. His entire body ached from the relentless sparring, bruises forming where his father's strikes had landed—ribs, legs, stomach.

He had fought hard. He had lasted. But in the end, his father had still put him down.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to roll onto his side, arms trembling as he struggled to push himself up. He barely made it to his knees before his father's voice cut through the training yard.

"Enough."

The weight of that single word held finality, but it was not dismissal. It was acknowledgment.

Rashan exhaled sharply, accepting his father's offered hand, though he hated the weakness in the action. As soon as he was standing, he put his hands behind his head, elbows out. It wasn't a conscious decision—it was habit, a holdover from his past life.

Even when exhausted, he refused to bend inward, to slump, to allow his body to do comfortable things.

Comfort made you weak.

Comfort let exhaustion win.

His father watched him for a moment, expression unreadable, before finally speaking.

"You did well."

Rashan swallowed, staring up at him, waiting for more.

His father's words were never empty. If he said it, he meant it. But the lesson wasn't over yet.

Rashan would later look back on this moment with a bitter sense of humility.

At seven summers, he had thought himself the smartest person in the room—someone who saw the world for what it was, who understood how things worked better than those born into it. He had knowledge of a past life, of strategy, of how things should function.

But he had failed to recognize something critical—

He didn't actually understand this world.

Not in the way its people did.

And today, that lesson would be burned into his mind.

His father, standing tall before him, studied him with the same keen gaze he always carried—measuring, weighing.

"Most of your training is form and conditioning, yes?"

Rashan wiped the sweat from his brow and nodded. His sparring sessions with his brothers were valuable, and he trained alongside them in conditioning, but because of the age gap, much of his training was separate. He had never met another child who trained as hard as he did.

But his father wasn't finished.

"Have they explained Will to you?"

Rashan raised a mental eyebrow.

"Shehai?" he asked cautiously.

His father let out a short breath, something almost like amusement. "No, no… Shehai is something different."

That caught Rashan's attention.

"We find it is best not to explain it to youngsters," his father continued. "Most are not ready." He folded his arms, his sharp gaze meeting Rashan's. "But you have shown me you are. Your will is strong, my son."

Rashan's stomach tightened. What was he talking about?

His father walked across the training yard, stopping about fifteen yards from a sturdy wooden training dummy. Rashan watched closely, noting the casual way his father positioned himself.

Then, in an instant, his father moved.

One moment, he was standing still. The next, he was gone.

Rashan barely processed it before he saw his father slam into the dummy at terrifying speed, blade flashing in a single, brutal arc.

The wooden dummy split clean in two.

Rashan's jaw dropped.

His father hadn't used magic. There was no spell, no illusion, no outside force. He had closed the distance in a second, faster than Rashan had ever thought possible, and his strike had carried enough force to destroy solid wood.

It was in that moment that Rashan realized something.

He had been a fool.

For years, he had been pushing himself to his limits. He had run until he collapsed, trained until he could barely move, emptied himself every single day.

And over time, he had noticed his endurance growing. His body adjusting. He could run farther than before, train longer than before.

But he had never thought of stamina as just endurance.

Because he had always used it.

Rashan blinked, the realization slamming into him.

He had always used stamina to sprint faster.

It was something that came naturally to him—a habit that had carried over from his past life, from the game. When he ran, he didn't just run. He focused. He poured his stamina into movement, and when he did, he sprinted. Just like in the game.

That was why he was always faster than his peers. Faster than even some of the older children.

Was this what they called Will?

His heart pounded as he focused on his HUD, eyes locking onto his stamina bar.

When he sprinted, it dropped. It wasn't a passive drain from exertion—it was spent, just like a resource.

That meant…

Could he use it in his attacks, too?

His HUD always showed a minor dip in stamina when he swung a sword or performed heavy training. That was normal. But now that he thought about it…

He had never once deliberately put his stamina into a strike.

Never once had he tried a power attack.

Not in the way he had just sprinted.

His father was watching him closely, his sharp eyes filled with something unreadable. Rashan swallowed and forced himself to stay quiet.

He couldn't ask outright. He couldn't say, "Hey, I have a stamina bar, and I just used it to sprint." No one else had a HUD. No one else saw what he saw.

But his father knew something. That was why he had asked about Will in the first place. That was why he had tested him.

Rashan exhaled slowly and nodded. He'd figure it out. He had always used stamina to sprint—it wasn't passive. It was something he had control over. If that was true, then his training up until now had been flawed. He hadn't been pushing himself properly. If he could use it deliberately for movement, then he could use it for attacks.

And if he could use it for attacks… Then this changed everything.

Rashan looked at his father, his breath still steady despite the intense training session. He had stamina left—not much, but enough. Stamina required rest and food to be restored after being depleted too many times. That was something he had learned firsthand through training, feeling the way his body pushed past exhaustion but always required time to recover.

His father studied him, nodding in approval. "You run like a deer, my son. You have been unconsciously using Will to keep up with your brothers at times."

Rashan stilled. Oh.

So they had noticed.

That explained why he had been able to match his older brothers at moments, at least in short bursts. They had seen him using his stamina. He had assumed they just thought him naturally fast, but they had recognized something he hadn't.

He had been using Will the entire time.

A look crossed his face—one his father surely caught—like someone who had just realized that frozen water and liquid water were the same thing, just in different states.

He needed to try this.

He looked at the training dummy, then turned back to his father. "Father, may I?"

His father raised a brow, intrigued. "Of course, my son." He stepped back, watching closely.

From his father's perspective, Rashan had always been driven, always trained harder than his age demanded. But Will was something delicate. It was best to let children discover it on their own. Forcing it made it harder, made the body resist rather than embrace it.

Still, he had watched his son run. He had seen the moments where he pushed beyond what a child his age should have been capable of. He had suspected Rashan was unconsciously using it.

What he didn't know was that Rashan had simply never thought to apply it to his attacks.

His son walked up to the dummy, gripping the training sword tightly. Then, to his father's amazement, Rashan closed his eyes, took a breath, and then—he struck.

The blow was fast. Lightning quick. There was no hesitation, no wasted movement. The wooden blade sank into the dummy—not deep, not enough to split it, but enough to sink in.

For a seven-year-old, that was incredible.

There was a stunned silence around the training yard.

His father wasn't the only one who noticed.

He saw the guards watching, their expressions betraying their surprise. A couple of them even had their jaws slightly dropped.

What Rashan had just done was remarkable.

Rashan felt euphoric. His mind opened to a flood of possibilities, a door unlocked that he hadn't even realized was closed.

The attack had drained the last of his stamina, leaving him spent. It wasn't something he could use recklessly—not yet. But that didn't matter.

He had just gone from a fish in a pond to the ocean.

This was how warriors could fight mages, dragons, trolls.

This was why they weren't helpless against monsters that could breathe fire or hurl spells.

For all his confidence, there were moments when he felt inadequate. That was gone now.

His hands clenched with excitement, his mind racing with plans, with theories. He had to test more—what were the limits? How far could he push himself? How fast could he recover?

His father clapped him on the back, pulling him from his thoughts. "Come, let's go."

Rashan quickly put his gear away, still buzzing with adrenaline. As they walked, his father started telling a joke. A Redguard one—crude, a little inappropriate, but actually funny.

Rashan laughed, truly laughed, and his father chuckled along with him. Then, to his complete surprise, his father picked him up.

It caught him off guard—he was only seven, after all, but his father was always so serious, so dutiful. This side of him was rare.

"Son, I can see your world has opened up today." His father's voice was thoughtful, steady. "But remember this—there is always something faster, something stronger, something greater than you. But even so, a smart warrior can always prevail."

Rashan nodded sharply. "Of course, Father."

His father gave him an approving nod. "Come, let's eat. Then we'll find your brothers. We shall ride the horses this evening, along with your sister and mother. I think we need time as a family, yes?"

Rashan's grin widened. "I think that would be excellent."

As his father carried him toward the estate, Rashan felt the warmth of the moment—but deep in the back of his mind, he was already planning.