I turned, everything coming to a sudden stop, and for a brief moment I was utterly and totally confused. Xilvia… wasn’t attacking. Had I passed out and woken up again? Was this one of those rare brief moments between a fight? But I wasn’t in a pool of blood and didn’t feel like I was going to pass out…

And then to my utter shock, the moment kept going and going and going. She didn’t move, in fact, she turned…

I turned with her, my brain unable to keep up, when-

“Konohora!” I said, voice surprisingly hoarse. Strange, it had been ripped out multiple times, it shouldn’t have had the time to become hoarse. Odd.

Still, Konohora was here! It had been…. So, so, long. It felt like I hadn’t seen her in… god, multiple eternities. I smiled wide, happy to see her. She looked at me and-

I felt taken aback. Konohora was staring at me in horror. W-What? What did I do? Did something happen? I looked to her left, only to see Tyler immediately vomiting onto the ground. What?! What was going on? A quick turn and check at Riary and-

My breath actually caught in my chest this time. Riary was crying and looking at me with anger… anger masking clear, nearly audible, fear.

What was going on?!

“Fuck…” said a voice, and I recognized Kasandra, our team manager, looking just as horrified as the others.

Xilvia sniffed next to me, the way a proper noble lady would at being annoyed.

“It’s your own fault. Who said you were to come the moment the training ended? Another five minutes and the area would have been cleaned up.”

The area? I blinked, the exhaustion nearly bowling me over as I tried to focus on the surroundings and the lethal amount of adrenaline in me went away. But I shook it off. Sleep and exhaustion were just chemicals, same as everything else. But those chemicals could run out. My thoughts may be a tenth of their speed and even less than that in ability, but it wasn’t something I couldn’t ignore anymore.

I looked around and-

Oh my God. What… what the fuck happened…?

It was like a hundred, no, even more than that. It was like a thousand people had been grinded down into nothing but blood and exploded all over the courtyard. There wasn’t a single inch, a single area without it. The ground, the floor, the walls, the fucking tree branches above. I was in a… a crimson hell. No, not entirely crimson. Crimson and ebony, as so much of the blood had dried and then rotted. I knew the sun had come and gone, I’d noticed my surroundings becoming dark but…. Just…. Just how long had I been fighting? How long had I been bleeding? How much blood had I lost? Was this…. Was all of this…. Really me?

I looked down at myself… and my jaw dropped. I was… completely coated in blood. Black blood, dark red blood, fresh red blood. And that wasn’t all… my clothes were gone, vanished, only underwear left. Underwear I didn’t remember.

“What…. the fuck?”

“Hmm. Annoying. Leave.” Xilvia said, speaking directly towards Kasandra. “And take them with you. We will be out tomorrow.”

Kasandra didn’t waste any time, grabbing my teammates with her arms and practically fleeing, shutting the door on her way out. It was…. So strange. So unnerving. I watched the only people I could barely call ‘my team’ vanish behind a door, one in horror, one in fear, one unable to keep his lunch down.

“Wa- Wait!”

The gate closed, my hand outstretched.

“No need to be dramatic. You’ll see them soon. First, we need to get cleaned up.” Xilvia said.

Xilvia… my trainer. No, more than that. My… Master? Felt off, wrong. She had beaten me last time I called her that. Teacher, Mentor? Maybe?

Either way, she walked towards a part of the wall, activating a magic symbol on the side. I saw a brief blue glow before-

“BLUB?!”

Air rapidly became to escape my lungs as suddenly a whirlpool of water seemed to spawn out of thin air. Specifically, the air I was currently standing in. My underwear gave up the ghost at that, being lost to the water. My eyesight went next as the pool was immediately dyed red and black. I shut my eyes for a moment, I swore it was only a moment, and when I opened them, I was positive it must have been years.

All the blood, all the pieces of flesh, everything… was gone. I’d seen magic before but…

“How?!” I had to scream out.

“Do you think you’re the first person I have trained here or trained at all? I have a magic array designed just for this area to clean it. Honestly. If they had waited but five minutes, you would not have looked like you had freshly come from War. Their impatience was their own fault but they shall have to get used to the sight if they wish to climb to higher heights.” Xilvia said.

I turned to her, looking at her. The woman I had fought with for…..ever? That my Analyze had read so much about yet still so much remained a mystery, blocked by whatever secrets she carried. The woman that had trained me, empowered me, poured her all into me. The woman that had made me so strong, I felt like I could beat over a thousand of me from before the training began. I was not ungrateful or stupid. Nor did I know the customs of this world, but I knew what I had to do.

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I put my fist to my palm and bowed.

“Thank you for training me Master.”

“Gah!” Xilvia retched, sticking out her tongue, showing a part of her true personality from behind her Noble mask. “Disgusting. Don’t do that. Seriously… I think that may be the first time anyone has said thank you after I began my training. Usually it’s just cries for help or well, just crying.”

She said, looking strangely… sad?

“Master…” I said, squinting at her. “...Are you upset I’m not crying and begging you to let me go while shivering in fear?”

She frowned… no… she pouted. I couldn’t help myself.

“Pervert.”

“Who are you calling pervert?! I’ll tear your legs off and feed them to you! Shove your own cock up your ass, you spoilsport! Seriously… your damn pain immunity is the real perverted thing here. Who fights like that for a whole month?!”

I felt like I’d been smacked over the head. WHAT?!

“It’s been a month?!”

“Truly… what a monster I’ve created. Come now. We need to talk.” Xilvia said.

She walked to the back of the courtyard, towards doors leading further into her house. I looked down at my own body in shock. How…. How?! I hadn’t eaten, drank, or truly ‘slept’ in a month?! When, where, had I gone to the bathroom? How was this possible?!

Distracted, I still followed after Xilvia, gaping at my own body. My analyze was providing me with no answers. I doubt I had somehow become immortal and no longer needed food or drink but then… how?

I looked up and gawked at something else entirely. Xilvia’s house… was fancy. For a moment I wondered if the locked information Xilvia had was that she was a fucking vampire. Paintings of battles rested on her walls, red carpet, castle like architecture, gold and red or gold and black trims on most things, lighting coming from candelabra’s and sconces, I felt like I was back in Vanessa’s mansion that I never got to explore.

It practically screamed of Wealth. Lots and Lots of Wealth. A new fact was dawning on me. Konohora had said our money was going towards training and I accepted that but… just how much money did we actually have to be able to afford not one, but four trainers, plus a manager? I never… really… counted. It was Gold! A big bag of Gold! Why should I have counted?! It was enough. I had donated almost all of it to the ‘team’ fund. Man… I was even less sure now about what I’d do if I was rich in a fantasy world. It was clear, Xilvia had poured it all into her home.

Soon, she led me to a living room, with an incredibly fancy couch, glass table, and a few large leather chairs. She picked up one of those chairs, with one hand giving me normalcy whiplash, and placing it across from the couch.

“Sit.” She said, pointing at the couch. She took her own seat and crossed her legs, seemingly at ease.

I did so, only to feel like I was going insane as Xilvia had a teacup in her hands. How?! Wait…

“A domain?” I asked. Xilvia frowned and finished sipping her tea.

“What, am I made of luck? No, a simple spatial enchantment. Well, simple as far as spatial enchantments are concerned. Connected to the table from the kitchen.”

“When did you even start the tea?!” It was steaming after all.

She raised an eyebrow.

“When I also activated the cleaning pool of course. My house is not a shoddy piece of trash, after all. It is all connected via Mana Circuitry.” She tapped the table and this time I saw it, as another tea cup appeared across from her, right in front of me.

Wow. The benefits of magic huh.

I took the cup, drinking it, and my eyes went wide. It wasn’t magical cooking but it was damn good. Also, strangely sour. The fact that I enjoyed that made it even odder in my opinion.

“Now,” Xilvia started after we’d drank our tea for a couple of minutes in silence. “Ask your question and then we shall talk.”

I started immediately. “Has it really been a month?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

She raised an eyebrow. I clarified.

“How did I, did we, fight for a month? What about… food! Water! The bathroom!”

She smiled slightly, and took out a small pouch from between her breasts.

“Silvia Extract. It puts a pause on the natural occurrences of the body. Such as wounds. In low doses it can stop the need for food or water and even substitute body processes if needed. It’s part of why my courtyard was such a mess. Your wounds did not stop bleeding until they healed, naturally. For most of the month, you were a constant blood fountain. As for the bathroom… well, all natural occurrences of the body.”

Will wonders of this world never cease? Man… just how many amazing alchemy or potion like stuff was out there? A half pause, half substitute for, what, everything? Everything the body needed at least. Hell, it sounded like with enough of this you could even stop aging-

I looked up sharply.

“How… expensive is that?”

Xilvia merely smiled.

“Any other questions?”

“Uhh…” I thought about it.

Nothing really came to mind.

“No?”

“Good. What is your Ability, in detail?”

Xilvia immediately asked, catching me off guard. I thought about the question for a moment and then decided for full honesty. I doubted Xilvia would suddenly murder me or torture me simply because of it.

When I got done explaining, Xilvia tapped the table, summoned a refill into her current cup, and sipped it in silence for a while. Finally, speaking in her normal nobless way of speaking, she said,

“Your Ability is completely fucking bullshit.”

My eyes widened, as she patiently continued.

“You must never speak of it to anyone you do not trust with at least your life and I’d recommend not even then. I have heard of powerful abilities before but this tops most. While its power is not immediate, I dread to think what a few centuries with it would do. You have called it Analyze, I would call it low-level omniscience. Your knowledge seems to come from nowhere and has zero accuracy problems? Completely fucking insane. There are diviners and prophets who would kill you out of jealousy, Kings, Emperors, and leaders that would want to use you to find spies, and craftsman… they would probably be the worst out of the bunch. You have only geared it towards Power but the other applications would be monstrous once you’ve learned to use it well.”

I nodded, basically hearing the same thing twice. Konohora had said as much, after all, just not with as much depth.

“Now… let us talk about your True Hero Potential.”

My heart basically stopped.