As noon tiptoed close, Kestrel moved to the next technique: rhythm breaking.

This one Lancet liked immediately, which was probably why Kestrel made him practice it until his legs gave out.

The style centered on interrupting his own tempo in an intentional attempt to make an enemy misread the next strike.

For example; Lancet would step normally, suddenly delay the blade, then fire it forward from an angle no one expected, then break his own pattern again before it could become predictable.

The technique looked simple on paper, but in the hands of a true swordsman it was nearly invisible.

Lancet began to understand why Ugbard had valued it so much. There was a serenity to it, yes, but also a cruelty. It made the opponent doubt their own read of reality. It made the sword appear inevitable, as though the strike had already happened in the enemy’s mind before the body finished moving.

As Kestrel explained to him, "Swordsmanship isn’t just a battle of wits and steel, it’s also a battle of minds."

Not long after saying that, she attacked him with air blades while he practiced it.

At first, Lancet failed repeatedly. Each time he tried to break his rhythm, the air-blade found him. His delays were too obvious, his angles too hesitant, and his body was always exposing the shift he intended to make before the sword could follow through.

She struck his ribs, his shoulder, his thigh, each hit a punctuation mark on another mistake.

When she finally made him attack her instead, it was worse. She broke her own rhythm so smoothly that her blade seemed to arrive from angles that did not exist. Her tempo refused any pattern he could grasp.

She stepped forward at normal speed and struck before the step was done. She feinted left with her shoulders and cut right with her blade. She told him that he had to learn how to lie in order to be a great swordsman.

Not lying with your lips, but with your body. Lancet’s body had to tell one story while his sword told another. Then she demonstrated by tapping his temple with an air-blade he never saw coming.

Lancet started to even get dizzy from how flawless Kestrel was at this technique. The disorientation of trying to track something that refused to follow logic got to him and he could see how something like this would leave an opponent frustrated and defeated before even the killing blow.

Lancet was second-guessing his own footwork, hesitating before cuts that should have been automatic. His confidence was frayed at the edges, and at one point he lowered his sword and admitted he was getting nowhere.

But Kestrel made him keep going.

They switched roles again and Lancet was out for revenge. Twice he managed to force her to shift her footing because she mistook his tempo and expected one cut when he gave another.

The second time it happened, she did not praise him, but the small lift at the corner of her mouth was enough to keep him going for the rest of the afternoon.

By then, the lightning had already changed him in ways he could feel but not fully name. He was not only precise with his deceitful moves, but he was also fast.

He even did the double-fake neck slash she had done to him yesterday. Kestrel had countered it right after, but it felt really good to give her a taste of her own medicine.

When the mountain errands began again, he cursed more openly than he had the day before.

Kestrel sent him down for more sticks, more grass, more water, and Lancet could not help thinking that no one had ever made swordsmanship feel so much like punishment and so much like a breakthrough at the same time.

The terrain around Stone Castles was dry as always, and with his last spot fresh off grasses, Lancet had to find another. He ran into another pack of Evolved Mountain Wolves, and they were as excited to see him as he was to see them.

"Finally, something to test my new sword skills on!"

They were smaller than the pack from yesterday, but they were quicker, leaner, and harder to catch in open terrain. He fought them while thinking about step-linking, the scroll’s instruction to move the feet and blade together so the entire body advanced as a single line.

It changed the way he moved. Instead of swinging and stepping as separate actions, he started using the path of his body as part of the strike itself.

It made him faster, cleaner, and, annoyingly, more graceful than he had any right to be while covered in dust and sweat. The wolves didn’t stand a chance.

He took their juicy Beast Cores after he was done with them.

The third day, after his lightning bath, Kestrel taught him through step-linking, sword dance, and sword defence.

The day was harder and better in equal measure. His muscles were already full of yesterday’s strain but he moved through the training knowing with certainty that he truly was becoming better.

As time went, Lancet could feel his relationship with Grace getting better and better.

Breath anchoring came next, and that one transformed the sword in ways he had not expected. Each strike had to synchronize with the release of Grace, and if he mistimed it even slightly, the blade dragged behind his body like a thought arriving too late.

But once he found the rhythm, it became uncanny. His sword stopped feeling like a weapon he swung and began feeling like a thought made visible, a line of intention extended into steel.

Kestrel made him repeat the sequence over and over until the movement stopped looking like an exercise and started looking like instinct.

When it was time to get the ritual ingredients again, Lancet tested what he had learnt against two more packs of Mountain Wolves.

He defeated all of them without even using a single borrowed Skill, just sword and Grace. Lancet was more than elated.

Yes, he was still sore and tired. And he was still climbing with the stubbornness of a man who hated every second of it. But now his body was starting to understand what Kestrel had been drilling into him from the start, and he was on his way to full mastery.

Even when he came back up the mountain carrying sticks, grass, and water again, he was thinking differently. He no longer saw the errands as separate from the training.

The climb itself was beginning to feel like another lesson, another forcing ground where he learned how to move under pressure, how to stay aligned while burdened, and how to keep the sword and the body from falling out of step.

Kestrel saw it too. She watched the way he returned, the way he handled the materials, the way he stood, and every time he improved even slightly, she made him feel it by demanding more.

By the end of the third day, Lancet became a master.

Kestrel told him he could never become a grandmaster in such a short amount of time and even him reaching master in 3 days was nothing short of impressive.

Lancet thanked her for half-handed congratulations, but the feeling of fulfillment was the better reward.

Lancet’s Grace no longer felt like a thing he was pushing around inside himself. It moved in cleaner lines now, faster and more responsive, and the sword in his hand no longer seemed quite so foreign.

The techniques from the scroll had begun to settle into his muscles in pieces. Stillness was no longer hesitation. Edge-threading no longer felt impossible. Breath anchoring had started to turn his strikes into something quieter and more exact. Rhythm breaking, killing intent and other techniques were all locked into his muscle and mind memory.

Before Lancet returned her to the Summon Space, Kestrel had given him one of those impossible, almost invisible nods that meant he had earned another step forward.

She told him tomorrow, being the last day, was going to be very important, then she vanished into the green dragon effect.

The final morning arrived cold and clean, with the summit wrapped in pale clouds and the mountain wind carrying that strange, high silence that meant weather was waiting just beyond sight.

Lancet woke sore but steadier than he had been on day one, and when he climbed up to the peak, he summoned the Emerald Blade.

Kestrel saw that he had already prepared the ritual for the lightning strike. They trained for a while and when the storm started, Lancet took his seat in the center.

KRAKOOOOMM!

A few minutes later, as Lancet dusted himself and flexed his muscles, Kestrel walked over to him to let him know what today’s events would be.

She looked him over once, then said, "Today, you face me."

Lancet straightened despite himself. "For real?"

Kestrel’s green eyes narrowed with the faintest trace of satisfaction.

"Yes," she said, "and you best be prepared because this time, I will be going all out."