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 would it even be possible to throw smoke off a cliff? I'd 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 Kanye West's music career.
"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*
Telling Rael about me was Daniel's worst decision.
Every afternoon, Rael would force a soul swap and drag me into combat drills that felt less like training and more like execution practice.
No wooden swords. No padding. Just smoke constructs with fists like iron and no mercy.
I learned pain.
And I learned quickly—because failure didn't mean reset. It meant blood.
One-on-one became two-on-one. Then four. Then six. By week three, I was barely surviving—and I understood that was the point.
"Every enemy studies you," Rael said. "Adapt or become a well-memorized corpse."
The rhythm was brutal. Dodge. React. Flow. Read before the strike. Strike before the thought.
And Daniel? He never left.
He was in my head. Always watching. Always correcting.
I hated hearing his voice. Not because he was wrong.
But because he never was.
I grit my teeth and launched over the clone's leg, heel crashing into its chest. Smoke exploded. One down.
"Better," Rael said. "Still inadequate."
I collapsed to a crouch, panting. I didn't argue.
*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.
In 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.
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.
My hair? Half of it was now streaked in sky-blue, like someone had dyed it with liquid lightning.
I didn't speak.
But I heard it.
<...You ruined my red hair.>
Akai's voice was low. Bitter.
I ignored him. He knew better than to press right now. 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".
My left eye was glowing softly, faintly, cyan blue, it was, in one word, beautiful.
"What the hell…?"
I sighed.
"Aesthetic trauma. Great."
Soon after I said that, it happened.