The training field behind the mansion was silent that morning, except for the dry sound of ice striking ice. Damon advanced with the sword in his right hand, his feet firm on the earth hardened by the cold still escaping from him in small waves. He no longer froze everything around him without noticing, at least not like before, but the ground beneath his steps still turned whitish whenever he concentrated too much. Ester said that was progress. Damon said it was humiliating. Aria said it was excellent for preserving food during trips.

Ester stood before him with an ice sword in her hand, using a stance so clean it was irritating. Her blade looked simple at first glance, thin and translucent, but every time it moved, it left short trails of bluish light in the air. Damon’s sword, on the other hand, was rougher. Beautiful, yes, resistant, cold, and sharp. But there was something about it that felt too heavy, as if he were holding a bar of ice shaped like a weapon and trying to pretend that was refinement.

"Your elbow is too high," Ester said, deflecting his strike with a minimal movement. "And you keep pushing with your shoulder instead of guiding through your wrist. That works when you want to split someone in half, but not when you need to control the rhythm of an exchange."

Damon retreated two steps, rotating the sword to relieve the pressure in his arm. "I spent months in a coma, rebuilt my spiritual veins with an elemental root, and woke up with a new body. I think my elbow deserves an adaptation period."

"Your elbow has no political rights."

"That sounds like something a former general would say before conquering a territory."

"And it would work."

She advanced before he could answer. Ester’s sword came from below upward, fast, clean, and without any waste. Damon blocked by reflex, but the impact ran up his entire arm and forced him to retreat another step. It was not a matter of strength. He had plenty of strength now, perhaps even too much. The problem was that Ester did not strike where his sword was most resistant. She struck where his structure was dumber.

The word appeared in his mind with such clarity that it almost offended him.

Dumb.

His sword was dumb.

Damon narrowed his eyes and attacked again, this time trying to reduce brute force. The ice blade cut the air in a diagonal arc, but Ester tilted her body to the side, let his sword pass a few centimeters away, and touched the base of his blade with the tip of her own weapon. The result was immediate. Damon’s sword vibrated unstably, cracking near the hilt.

He looked at the crack.

Then at Ester.

"That was unnecessary."

"It was diagnostic."

"You diagnosed my sword with humiliation."

"Correct."

Damon sighed and dissolved the blade, letting the fragments fall to the ground before evaporating into small crystals. Then he created another ice sword in his hand, thinner, trying to imitate the proportions of Ester’s weapon. The ice responded quickly, obediently, forming a clear and smooth blade. From the outside, it looked better. On the inside, he had the unpleasant impression that it was still the same thing with less volume.

Ester observed the new weapon for a few seconds. "Better appearance. Same flaw."

"You did not even touch it."

"I do not need to touch it to see that it is wrong."

"That sentence is offensive on many levels."

"And still true."

Damon took a deep breath and let the tip of the sword lower a little. The training had already lasted more than an hour, and although his current body could endure much more effort than before, precision still demanded a price. It was not simple exhaustion. It was as if each technique required him and the new body to negotiate the same intention. He knew what he wanted to do. The Celestial Ice Body knew how to produce ice. The problem was making the two agree on quantity, shape, density, function, and timing without destroying half the garden in the process.

"Speaking of things that are wrong," Damon said, trying to recover his breath without looking like he was recovering his breath. "Morgana improved a little after that meeting with Verden."

Ester did not lower her sword, but her expression changed subtly. "She slept five hours yesterday. Aria celebrated as if it were a military victory."

"For Morgana, perhaps it is."

"Perhaps."

Damon looked at the blade in his own hand, then at the distant building of the mansion. "She still tries to carry everything alone. But at least now she allows Elizabeth to review some documents before signing. And Ingrivid has started simply removing papers from the desk after midnight."

"Brave."

"Or suicidal."

"Sometimes it is the same thing."

He smiled, but there was concern beneath it. "I spoke with Morgana last night. Not much. She was too tired to argue, which I thought was a rare phenomenon. She said taking over as Duchess felt less like occupying a position and more like entering a room full of ghosts demanding answers."

Ester was silent for a few seconds before answering. "That sounds accurate."

"I did not know what to say."

"Good."

Damon frowned. "Good?"

"Yes. Sometimes there is no right sentence. Sometimes you sit there, listen, and do not try to turn someone’s pain into an immediate mission."

He stared at Ester for a moment, irritated mostly because she was right. "Have you been practicing that kind of comment to sound wiser?"

"No. You simply provide many opportunities."

Damon let out a low laugh and returned to his stance. Ester advanced again, and this time he managed to block better. Her blade struck his with a clean, almost musical sound, and Damon tried to keep the structure stable instead of compensating with more ice. It worked for two strikes. On the third, Ester twisted her wrist, caught his blade from below, and pushed lightly.

Damon’s sword broke in half.

He stared at the remaining piece in his hand.

"I am starting to hate this exercise."

"Good. Sincere hatred usually helps learning."

"That is not a healthy philosophy."

"But it is efficient."

Damon dissolved the broken hilt and pointed at Ester’s sword. "Explain something. Why is the difference so enormous? We are both using ice. I have the Celestial Ice Body, the elemental root, reconstructed veins, and all that mystical mess that almost killed everyone. Your sword still looks ten times better than mine."

"Because you are making a sword."

Damon waited.

Ester did not continue.

He raised his eyebrows. "Was that the entire explanation?"

"No."

"Then?"

"You are making a sword," Ester repeated, with a little more emphasis. "But you do not know how to make a sword."

Damon opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Looked at his empty hand.

Then at her.

"That sounds like the same sentence said with arrogance."

"It is not."

"It sounds very much like it."

"You are creating a shape. A blade, a hilt, an edge, approximate weight, and basic resistance. That is making a sword in the same way stacking stones is making a house."

"If the house does not fall, technically it works."

"Until the wind blows."

She raised her own sword before her face, holding it horizontally. The translucent blade reflected the morning light, and for a second, Damon saw only beauty. Then Ester closed her fingers tightly and broke the sword in half.

The sound was dry.

Clean.

The upper half fell into the palm of her other hand, but it did not dissolve. Ester turned the broken piece so Damon could see the inside of the blade. He approached by instinct, and his irritation disappeared immediately, replaced by pure attention.

Inside, Ester’s sword was not a block of ice.

It was a structure.

There were thin, almost invisible layers intertwined like muscle fibers. Small channels ran through the interior of the blade, some straight, others curved, distributing energy to specific points. There were compression rings near the center, longitudinal ribs close to the edge, and a kind of internal spine connecting the base to the tip. All of that existed inside the ice, formed from the ice itself, but organized in a way Damon had never even tried to imagine.

He fell silent.

Ester noticed his reaction and, for the first time during the training, seemed truly satisfied.

"Now look at yours," she said.

Damon created another simple sword and broke the blade with his hand. The interior was exactly what he feared. Pure ice. Dense, uniform, beautiful on the outside and stupid on the inside. There were no channels, reinforcements, ribs, layers, or distribution of energy. It was only a frozen blade with an edge. The comparison was so offensive that he felt like throwing the rest of the sword to the ground.

"I understand," he murmured.

"You do not understand completely, but you saw the difference."

"That explains why you break my blades so easily."

"Yes."

"And why your strikes feel lighter, but hit deeper."

"Yes."

"And why my sword seems strong until it meets yours."

"Exactly."

Damon observed the broken piece of her sword again. The more he looked, the more he saw. Those structures were not merely physical reinforcements. They were routes for Qi. Ester’s sword circulated energy internally like a small, simple, specialized body. His did not circulate anything. It only held cold until it broke.

"You are treating the sword like an organism," Damon said.

"Like a technique with a skeleton," Ester corrected. "A weapon formed from energy needs internal function. If you want to cut, the structure must conduct force to the edge. If you want to block, it needs to disperse impact. If you want to pierce, it needs to maintain compression at the tip. If you want to resist another energy, it needs layers that will not collapse at the first shock."

Damon looked at her. "And you do all of that when creating the sword?"

"Yes."

"Instantly?"

"With practice."

"How much practice?"

Ester thought for a second. "Years."

Damon released a sigh.

"Of course."

She dissolved the broken pieces and created a new sword in her hand. This time, she did it more slowly, allowing him to see. The ice did not appear all at once. First came a central line, thin and bright, like the weapon’s spine. Then small branches grew from it, forming the internal structure. After that came the outer layers, compressed one over the other until the blade gained shape. The edge appeared last, when everything else was already stable.

Damon followed every stage with absolute attention.

That was not merely a better sword.

It was a different way of thinking about ice.

Xue Lian had said something similar, in another way. Making ice was not the same as understanding ice. Damon was still trapped in the idea of producing forms with raw power, even after everything that had happened. The Celestial Ice Body gave him quantity, stability, and resistance. But technique was still technique. Knowledge was still knowledge. New power did not replace skill.

He looked at Ester. "Can you teach me that?"

Ester nodded immediately.

Without surprise.

Without hesitation.

"I knew you would ask."

Damon narrowed his eyes. "You planned this entire humiliation to make me ask?"

"Yes."

"That is manipulation."

"Pedagogical."

"You and Elizabeth need to stop turning manipulation into an elegant category."

"When it stops working, we will think about it."

Damon looked at her sword again and then at his own hand. For the first time since he had started training after the coma, frustration gave way to something better. Not relief. Not confidence. Direction. There was a clear path there, something concrete to learn, fail, repeat, and improve. After weeks of dealing with a body that seemed too large for his own experience, that was almost comforting.

Ester pointed the sword at him. "First lesson. Stop creating the blade from the outside in."

Damon nodded and raised his hand.

"Start from the center?"

"Start from the intention."

He frowned. "That sounds like something an old master would say."

"And yet you need to hear it."

"Fair."

Ester walked over until she stood beside him instead of in front of him. She held his wrist with one hand and positioned his fingers at the correct angle, without force, only adjusting. Her touch was still firm, but it no longer carried the desperation of the previous months. There was exhaustion, yes, and a vigilance that would probably take a long time to disappear, but there was also something more stable. Perhaps trust. Perhaps the feeling that, for the first time, she was not merely preventing Damon from dying.

She was teaching him how to live with this.

"Do not think of a beautiful sword," Ester said. "Think of what it must do."

Damon closed his eyes.

Breathed.

And, at the center of his palm, allowed a single line of ice to appear.

Thin.

Unstable.

But structured.

Ester observed the line for a few seconds.

Then said, almost satisfied, "Now yes. For the first time today, that looks less idiotic."

Damon opened one eye. "Is that your praise?"

"It is good praise."

"It is horrible."

"Get used to it."

He smiled, maintaining his concentration on the small line of ice. The training was still only beginning, and it would probably be long, irritating, and full of broken swords. But for the first time, the difference between him and Ester did not feel like an impossible wall.

It felt like a technique.

And techniques could be learned.