One Month Later
I woke up on the thirtieth morning with sore muscles, sandpaper lungs, and the overwhelming urge to throw Rael off the nearest cliff.
Unfortunately, we were already on one. And even if we weren't, how was I supposed to push smoke? I would just end up falling.
"Again," Rael said, his smoky form drifting just out of reach like the smug ghost of bad decisions.
I groaned, peeling myself off the cold stone floor we used as a training mat. "I just got back from sprinting through your death maze of thorn bushes and poison ferns. Can't I, like, eat or breathe first?"
"Breathing is optional. Living is optional. Training is not."
"Someone write that on a mug," I muttered, dragging myself to my feet.
Daily Training Recap – Week 1 to Week 4 Breakdown
MORNINGS – "Perception Conditioning"
Every damn day, at the crack of disrespectful o'clock, Rael would slam a smoke whip against the cliff wall like a demonic school bell.
"Wake up, warrior."
"I'm ten," I mumbled into the dirt.
Each morning started with blindfolded navigation drills, even after my vision returned. Rael said sight was nice, but if I wanted to be more than cannon fodder, I had to feel the world, and not just see.
So I learned.
I tracked wind shifts with my skin. Counted footsteps by vibration. Memorized how the air pressure changed when something moved.
By day ten, I could sense a leaf falling fifty meters away.
By day fifteen, I knew when Rael was about to slap me before he even thought about it.
"You're just mad I dodged the slap Rael was about to give me."
MIDDAY – "Body Sync"
This part was very brutal.
With my core still dormant, Rael made me train like a monk without the chill vibes. It started with pulse meditation, learning to hear the rhythm of my heart, then match it to the ambient mana around me.
Next came control drills. Balancing rocks on my head while standing on one foot, on a pole, during a windstorm. No lie. He literally conjured wind.
"Behave like you can feel mana, even if you can't," Rael whispered, as I tried not to faceplant off the cliff for the fourth time.
And when I got it right—when I finally felt like I could stand through the storm, like I was invincible, Rael increased the density of the wind, and of course, I fell off harder than
"You're getting it. Again."
"Again?! I just unlocked the magical equivalent of a handshake. Can I get a nap?"
"No."
AFTERNOONS – "Instinct Combat"
*Akai's POV*
The worst mistake I believe Daniel made was telling Rael that he shared the body with me. After he told Rael that, every afternoon, he would force us to switch, and then train me in full combat mode.
Rael didn't believe in wooden swords or sparring pads. He believed in smoke clones that hit like trucks.
The combat drills were a rhythm of violence. Dodge. Strike. Predict. Breathe. Dodge again. Slip under a sweeping leg. Counter with an elbow.
Every time I landed a hit, Rael increased the number of clones. From one to two. Then four. By week three, I was fighting six at once, all reading my moves, all adapting to me. I'd train for 30 minutes, and then Daniel would train for an hour while waiting for the cooldown to elapse, and once the cooldown elapsed, he'd get right back to me.
"Every enemy you meet will study you," Rael warned. "If you don't learn to adapt faster, you'll die smarter than them—but still dead."
We bled. We bruised. We broke a rib around Day 18.
But we also learned.
I learned how to listen to a fight. Not with my ears—those are too slow. I learned to read intent, to react before movement even starts.
And I didn't fight alone.
Daniel, the author, was always there in the back of my head.
"Got it!" I shouted, flipping over the clone's leg and slamming a boot into its chest. It burst into smoke, vanishing into the wind.
"Better," Rael admitted. "Still sloppy."
"I'll take it," I panted, falling back into a crouch.
*Daniel's POV*
Once the body had been battered to hell and back, Rael would shift gears—kinda.
At night, we trained the brain.
Using [Writer's Insight] in small bursts, I'd analyze low-tier wildlife, creatures, that would pop out once in a while. I couldn't fight them yet, but I studied them like a scientist dissecting monsters.
Each encounter, I asked:
What are their patterns?
What's their fatal flaw?
What did I write into their backstory that could screw them over?
"I ran out of ideas, okay?"
And slowly, my instincts became intellect. My intellect became intent.
Before bed, I'd sit and log it all. Not in a journal—just mental notes, thoughts.
Mental State: Determined. Tired. Slightly homicidal toward Rael.
Rael always said the same thing before I passed out… Yup, I didn't sleep, I passed out. And it happened every single day.
"Tomorrow, you'll be better. Or you won't wake up."
Motivating… Kinda.
End of Month One
On the morning of Day 30, I moved before the smoke clones did.
I felt them before they emerged, and I struck without thinking. Three strikes. Three hits. All clean. No wasted motion. No wasted breath.
Rael whistled low. "So. You're not entirely hopeless."
"Thanks. You say the nicest things."
I stood on that cliff, feeling the wind hum around me. Not to train. Not to fight. Not to become the kind of person my siblings could stand beside.
Exactly one month.
That's how long I spent stumbling through darkness, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Blind, bruised, trained by a smoke demon with questionable teaching ethics and zero training manner.
But today… Something clicked.
The light came back not as a grand event, but as a soft, jarring ache behind my eyes. I blinked once. Twice.
Color. Real color. Shapes followed suit, and then other elements of vision followed soon after.
I gasped like someone had ripped the curtain off my vision. For a moment, I just sat there, drinking in the world—trees, light, clouds, that annoying bug buzzing in stereo near my ear.
And then I noticed Rael, standing a few feet away. He assumed his normal smoke demon form, and kept his arms crossed. Silent as always. Like he'd been watching me reboot the whole time.
"Something you wanna say?" I asked, rubbing the crust from my eyes.
He just shrugged. "You'll see."
Confused but too tired to play his cryptic NPC game, I stumbled over to the nearby creek. My face felt like it had been dragged through half a forest, so I knelt and splashed cold water over my skin.
Then I looked down.
And froze.
In the rippling reflection, I saw me. Except… not just me.
My left eye was glowing softly, faintly, cyan blue, it was in one word, beautiful.
I leaned closer. The left side of my hair had changed too, colored with a cool, bright blue, as if someone had taken a brush of liquid sky and dragged it through my scalp.
"What the hell…?"
I didn't answer him. I turned toward Rael.
"You knew?"
"I noticed on the third day. Your hair turned half blue, although the eye development happened today, probably because your eyes were smoke-colored when you were blind," he said casually.
"AND YOU DIDN'T THINK TO TELL ME?!"
"You had other things to deal with. Training, Training, Sleeping, other stuff, I judged it… irrelevant."
"'Irrelevant'?!" I gestured at my face. "I look like a half-done character design!"
Rael tilted his head. "You look… unique. It suits you."
I stared at the reflection again.
"…So, no special powers?"
Rael shook his head.
I sighed.
"Aesthetic trauma. Great."
Soon after I said that, it happened.