Later that evening, I sat in a small but opulent dining room eating dinner with a near stranger and a complete unknown. It was the girl I’d saved and would protect, Calliope, and another man that I’d never seen before. Over the course of the meal, he’d been the one who’d done most of the talking.

“You’ll be expected to act in a manner befitting your newly elevated station,” he said to me.

I nodded at him in response.

“If you’re simple, or find yourself unable to do so, alert myself or another steward. We’ll find a more suitable position for you, and a better guardian for Mistress Calliope.” He didn’t try to hide the fact he looked down on me.

“If you say so, bossman,” I said. My word choice made him flinch. Good.

The man wore a tweed vest that was a deep purple. It was the style that buttoned together in the middle but didn’t open, with the clasps being entirely decorative. What was the point of that? The garment might’ve been expensive, but I thought it made him look like a grape.

I struggled to pay attention to his lecturing. It didn’t feel like anything important was being said, and he’d snuck in more than one insult. Being rude to an audience was a good way to get them to stop listening.

“Reputation is paramount among the assembly,” he said. “Do you understand the importance of how you present yourself?”

“Yes, sirree,” I said. I’d do anything to get him to stop talking.

“If I don’t behave myself, it’ll make Jacobi look bad. If I make Jacobi look bad, then there’s no point in keeping me around.”

He blinked in surprise. “That’s a crude, if not accurate, summarization of your situation, yes.”

“I know. I’m poor, not stupid.”

He didn’t like the tone I’d taken with him. His nostrils flared, and I’d clearly made him mad.

“You represent something greater than yourself, the ancient and blooded gens Radeos. You’d do well to remember that,” he seethed.

“I’ll put that at the top of my to-do list, bossman.”

I’d heard more in that past day about bloodline than in a lifetime before, and I had a feeling this was only the beginning. I thought bloodline was stupid, and that people who made nothing of themselves often leaned on ancestry to compensate for it.

He pushed himself against the table and stood, then looked back and forth between the two of us.

"I’ll leave you two to mingle,” he said. Then he turned to her. “Calliope, if the ogre tries anything, scream. There are three legionnaires stationed immediately outside the room.”

I hadn’t been planning on doing anything malicious, but I recognized an attempt at a threat when I heard one. Calliope did too, it seemed, judging by the way she rolled her eyes. Three legionnaires? I thought. Just who was she that she’d have such a guard posted about her?

Calliope wore a beautiful dress of green pastel. A stool sat next to her, where her left leg lay splinted in an ugly iron and leather scaffold. Two carved wooden crutches leaned against a wall nearby.

With the man gone, an uncomfortable silence settled into the air between us. We exchanged brief glances and nervous facial expressions. Neither of us wanted to speak.

That was alright. It didn’t feel like we were in any hurry to finish our meal. In the end, she spoke first.

“Please call me Callie, not Calliope,” she mumbled. “Calliope makes me feel like I’m about to be scolded.”

I nodded. “You’ll be Callie, then.”

She smiled. Then her grin turned into a frown.

“I’m sorry you’re being forced to come work for me,” she said. “If I had a say, you’d still be able to do whatever you want. I never meant to create trouble in your life- I never even got a chance to thank you.”

I’d never viewed my present situation as a lack of freedom, I thought. But she’s right. It is.

It wasn’t like I had any other choice. Honestly, I saw it as a tremendous opportunity that I’d stumbled into. As an urchin, my outlooks in life had never looked too great before now. Breaking into buildings wasn’t a future.

“No thanks needed,” I said. “And it’s alright. It’s not like I was doing anything except surviving.”

She gave me a look of concern and pity.

“It’s not alright. But I won’t press if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’d rather not,” I said. If she expected more of a response from me, she wasn’t going to get one. The silence resumed.

A few minutes later, a stocky and well-armed man wearing legion garb entered the room and whispered something into her ear. Then two more came and led Callie out of the room. Nothing was said, but it was clear I’d been dismissed.

There are words left unsaid between us, I thought. I just don’t know what they are.

I didn’t see Callie again before I left.

The trip to the Radeo’s family manor, the place where I’d be spending most of the next month, was brief. The manor was an hour’s ride outside of Lille proper. It was far enough away that you couldn’t see the town on the horizon, but close enough that you could get there in a hurry.

I had no idea how to ride, so my journey was longer than an hour. But it was also more luxurious, as I sat safely in the back of an enclosed carriage like a prince. Or what I imagined a prince would travel like. I’d never met one.

I approached my temporary home for the first time whilst sitting on velvet.

The estate, sitting against the seafront, had an outer wall made of a deep crimson brick that reminded me of blood. The structure was new, with no signs of wear from the elements. At a hole in the wall, a wrought-iron gate opened into a large orchard.

From my place in the carriage, I could see a handful of servants working. They trimmed plants and moved earth, tending to the grounds.

At the end of a long, and winding gravel drive through the orchard sat a handful of buildings. One was an oversized house with exotic gardens and stone statues, the red brick of which matched the outer wall. I assumed that was the manor.

As the carriage I was in ground to a halt, I asked the driver for directions. It never hurts to rely on the kindness of strangers.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“What is it, big fella?”

I’d been getting that a lot recently, especially after the changes the System had made in my build. The comment bothered me.

“Could you point me toward the barracks? I’ve got no idea where I’m going,” I said.

It seemed like the best policy was for me to be polite to everyone. There was no way for me to tell who was a servant and who was one of Jacobi’s relatives, although I doubted that one of them would drive a coach. Plus, it didn’t hurt to be friendly.

“You’re not from the family, are you?” He asked.

I shook my head.

“My friend, this is the barracks. The Radeos are not militants. They’ve got a taste for the finer things in life.”

My mental estimation of Jacobi’s importance went up a few notches. This level of opulence wasn’t something I’d expected. If this was where the garrison stayed, I couldn’t imagine how the family must’ve lived.

“If this is the barracks, then where’s the house?”

“House? The core of the family stays at the capital, and only the young spend any time here. I’ve been driving for them for years. Some seasons, none of ‘em visit at all. It’s a shame if you ask me.”

He motioned over to the sea with his hand that held the reins.

“The view is something that makes you fall in love with the place.”

The view was spectacular. Uninterrupted sight of the Endless Sea, stretching on for what looked like forever. The water was a deep blue, accented by crashes of white waves against the shore. It was huge.

I’d never seen the sea before, and it was one of the few things in life that made me feel small.

I thanked the driver for his help and sent him on his way. I wasn’t thrilled about having been sent off to their vacation retreat, but at least I’d be out of the way of any pompous young scions. The isolation would allow me to focus on learning how to fight, or whatever it was bodyguards and legionnaires did.

I made my way up a set of stone steps to a large door engraved with images of flowers and fish. I grabbed the iron knocker and brought it down three times. The door opened.

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The man who received me was not what I’d expected. I don’t know why, but I had in my mind the ridiculous idea that any master at arms associated with Jacobi would be entirely devoid of hair. This wasn’t accurate. He had a lot, dirty blonde and braided in knots so complex that I had no idea where I’d even begin undoing them. A braided beard wrapped around his face and sat neatly bound by blue colored twine below his chin. Matching the twine were his eyes, a deep ocean blue.

“Are you the boy that’s supposed to watch over Callie?” He growled out.

“Yes, sir,” I stammered. “I am, sir. How could you tell?”

“Who else would arrive in a private carriage looking like a giant had just pissed him out? They’d told me you were large, but I hadn’t expected this.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he spoke before I could, cutting me off.

“Don’t answer that,” he said. “Come in and grow a spine. Let’s see what I have to work with.”

“I’ve got a bigger spine than you,” I rebutted as I followed behind him. The blonde man was only of average height, so it was true.

“You’re probably right, but you lack any talent for insults. The spine I refer to is non-literal.”

His comment made me snort. He seemed like a strange and laid-back fellow, which was also unexpected.

He led me to the basement, which was a wine cellar turned into a miniature armory. All manner of weaponry and armor lined the walls on wooden racks, both in wood and iron variation. I even saw some items that I thought might be the soft blue gray of steel. A suspicious amount of chips along their edges suggested a few of the blades had seen battle.

He walked over to a large padded mat in the center of the room and sat lotus style on it. I blinked, then a blade sat slung across his lap and he started to polish it intently with an oil and a rag. I hadn’t seen where he’d got it from; I hadn’t seen him move.

“I’m not sure what I am supposed to call you, Sir,” I said.

His eyes flicked up and watched me like a hawk, unblinking and predatory. It wasn’t anything like the casual words we’d exchanged moments before.

“Many call me nothing. Some call me wise. All hope to know me, but we shall see if you can earn my name.” he pointed to the racks on the wall. “Choose a weapon.”

I walked over to an ugly, dark-metal axe hanging against the wall and lifted it from where it sat. The weight of it felt good in my hand. It reminded me of the hammer that my father used. I swung it through the air a few times, getting a feel for how it moved.

As I did this, the man watched indifferently from his spot on the ground. I couldn’t tell if he was judging me.

“Now hit me.”

I blinked. “What did you say?”

He scowled. “You heard me. I promise you won’t be able to do any damage. Now hit me.”

“You want me to hit you with an axe?” I asked. Was he mad? I didn’t want to begin my employment by murdering someone who was supposed to be my instructor.

“Yes,” he said. “If it helps you perform, you can imagine that you’re chopping wood. Only the wood is a person. Me.”

I made no move to strike him. If this was a test, then I didn’t know what I was being tested on. Something didn’t make sense here.

Eventually, he grew tired of waiting and grabbed a knife from a nearby wall.

“Watch.”

He faced me and extended his hand, palm open and facing up. Then he stabbed the knife through his uncovered palm. The blade went straight through his hand, taking a small chunk of bone and leaving behind a bloody mess. I almost gagged. He laughed at my reaction whilst he mutilated himself to prove a point.

He yanked the bloody knife out and tossed it aside onto the mat. A splatter of red, his blood, now decorated the floor.

He turned his hand up and showed me his destroyed palm and I watched in horror, and then awe, as the flesh knitted itself back together in real-time. I watched something moving beneath his skin, shifting around, and closing the wound by stretching spindly fibers of skin across the gap.

Excluding the blood that coated the floor, his body, and the blade, it was like nothing had ever been there. The damage was gone. It’d vanished in less time than it would’ve taken me to count to five. He appeared unharmed.

“How… how’s that possible?” I asked.

“Once you’re powerful enough,” he explained. “the System begins actively regenerating any injury you sustain. It’s about the point where you stop aging. The effect only becomes stronger as you grow older.”

“That’s…” my voice trailed off.

The man was talking about divinity! An immortal soldier whose wounds repaired themselves? He was a god! I’d never seen one in the flesh before. Every strange behavior he’d displayed suddenly made sense. He had a quiet grace about him, a steady confidence. I would too if I knew I would live forever.

He sighed and turned to face me with his arms crossed. “So, you couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Now hit me.”

I eyed the axe in my hand. Who could honestly say they’d been given the opportunity to strike a divine? I thought. Who was suicidal enough to take the chance? Was I?

I was.

I reared back and raised the axe overhead in the style of an executioner, then swung down across the man’s torso. The axe was poorly aimed and met flesh somewhere around his shoulder. It traveled through his skin and tissue until it met bone. Then the axe stopped. The momentum of the axe head, with all my weight put behind it, was arrested as I struck his skeleton.

Admittedly, I had little to no experience using an axe. I didn’t know if this was typical; it didn’t feel normal. I wasn’t used to bone being harder than iron. I tore the axe out of his shoulder, freeing from it a messy conglomeration of flesh and muscle. Just as quickly as before, the wound vanished.

“Hardly passable,” he said. “Might II? Do you even know how to [Empower] a strike? I have words for whatever clown taught you to hit from above like that.”

My cheeks reddened. No one had taught me to hit like that. It was something I’d figured out myself, albeit not something I had put a lot of thought into.

“I don’t know what empowering a strike is, let alone how to do it,” I said.

“[Empower] is the ability where the System reinforces the strength of your blows. Grab a different weapon and try again. The axe clearly isn’t for you.”

He paused for a second, considering something. “But we’ll change that soon enough. So don’t give up on the axe.”

What followed thereafter was a repeated cycle of me hitting him a handful of times and then receiving criticism. We practiced nine different weapons. It took three hours.

None of my hits met whatever standard he had for me in his mind. None of them seemed to do any lasting damage to him. Judging from the heavy weight in my arms, I expected I’d have to call for a break soon. I felt rather pathetic, considering I wasn’t the one getting chopped up like a slab of meat. I’d still not managed to [Empower] a blow despite his near-constant pointers.

After another unsuccessful round of whacking with something called a War Fan, I had my first victory of the evening.

He’d stuffed in my hand a large, double-handed sword he referred to as a Zweihänder. I’d given up hope of accomplishing what he wanted. I went to throw the blade aside when the air along the edge of it erupted into a crackle of small white-hot sparks.

I’d thought it’d been a trick of the light. A flickering of one of the candles that lined the wall reflecting off the blade.

“Stop,” he said. I stopped. “Can you do that again?”

“I’m not sure what I did,” I replied.

He smiled. “That’s okay. The best abilities often come from ignorance. Try again.”

Taking the blade with both of my hands, I swung it through the air. It cut with an audible whoosh as it traveled and released an arc of the same sparks that followed its path. The movement of the blade felt right. He stepped forward and allowed one of the sparks to fall onto his exposed skin.

“Put that down. I’m not sure what you’re doing but it isn’t [Empower],” he said.

I put the gray Zweihänder back on the wall. Of all the weapons he’d had me try, it’d came to me the most natural.

“I liked that one,” I said as I walked away from it.

“It’ll take a lifetime of schooling to use well, but it’s a start.”

He pointed toward a corner of the room.

“Pick something from that rack.”

The section he pointed to could’ve been called ‘big and clumsy.’ Each weapon on the rack he indicated was oversized and ugly. I picked an unremarkable and dull two-handed sword from it and swung it around. Despite it being a bladed weapon, I couldn’t help but feel I was swinging a club.

He made a pained noise.

“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” he said. “Maybe the weapons are making this too complicated. Let’s try a change in perspective.”

In mere seconds, he moved from the center of the mat to the exit of the basement. It was quick enough for him to be a god. He was a god. I realized how bizarre my day had been- I’d met a god, and all he wanted me to do was learn how to beat him up more effectively.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to trip onto a knife whilst you’re gone,” I said.

He gave me a skeptical look, and then left.

He returned minutes later with a large tree branch and a dozen slightly overripe apples. The end of the branch tapered off to a size small enough that I could grip it with a single hand. He laid the apples out in a row on the ground.

“Smash the apples,” He instructed.

I swung the branch down, and he moved forward in a blink and caught it.

“No. Try again. Let the System do the work.”

I swung the branch down again, and once again, he stepped forward and stopped it flat with his palm.

“Relax. You have the strength, now swing.”

I took a deep breath and let the makeshift club fly. I didn’t care if he stopped it; I didn’t care if I used [Empower] on the blow. I just wanted to move on from this mind-numbing, repetitive activity. How was smashing fruit going to make me a better fighter?

He didn’t stop the club that time.

It flew. Sourced from my anger, it gained a force I didn’t think was possible. The branch hit the ground and pulverized the apple, and then had so much extra power behind it the front half snapped back and flew toward my face.

I dropped to the floor, dodging the massive wooden shrapnel. I landed stomach-first on a pile of bludgeoned fruit.

The System chimed in my mind.

*Prior nanite absorption processed. Survival requirements for progression met.*

Might II -> III

Ability unlocked: [Empower] I

*Chrysalis enhanced.*

He offered me a hand from above, and I reached up and took it.

“I’ll teach you,” he declared. “You can call me Delta.”

He dismissed me for the evening shortly thereafter, and I practically raced to my new quarters to display my [Status].

Ghul

Vestige: The Behemoth

Might: III

Arcana: -

Intellect: I

Dexterity: II

Authority: Overridden

Traits: -

Abilities: Empower I (.03%)

There it was. An ability. All it’d taken was one of the longest, grossest evenings I’d ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

I’d have to make the most of every minute I had with Delta, the strange immortal who was to be my teacher. I wondered how Jacobi had enlisted his services. The gods walked among us, but their desires were beyond understanding.

Odd or not, it excited me to learn from him. I just needed to finish scrubbing the rotting fruit from my clothing first.