“Ouch!”

  “Stay still.”

  “Uuuf!”

  “Leo! I told you to stay still!”

  “But Mum, it hurts. I can’t help it.”

  “Deal with it. Pain is one thing all Knights have to endure.”

  “But I’m seven years old!”

  “All the better. You’ll have more time to adjust!”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Life’s not fair. Now, turn your back. I’m done with your chest.”

  I had needles sticking out of my chest like I was a human-shaped porcupine with a master as cruel as any human. I had more on the fronts of my legs and then some around my feet. I had needles everywhere in my body, and it was getting to a point that I couldn’t feel them anymore.

  This reminded me of that one acupuncture video I’d watched back in the day. I remembered I was thinking who’d be so crazy to believe this sort of procedure would help them with anything.

  Never in my whole life had I thought one day I’d be willingly putting myself under such torture. Hell, I mentally trained myself after college with such diligence that until that damn plane crashed into me, I didn’t have to suffer through anything painful at all!

  That was me distancing myself from the whole world, but hey, it’d worked! I was happy! I didn’t have to endure nightmares about needles and cruel mothers and their twisted underlings!

  I spotted an aged butler peeking out from the stairs, one hand clamped tightly around the hem of his shirt. We crossed eyes, and I screamed in my mind.

  Belfray!

  Help me!

  He just averted his gaze in shame, but the same couldn’t be said about the maid standing behind him. Her name was Mary, and she seemed painfully delighted to witness my pleas! She was enjoying this!

  “Aaah!” I faked another cry as I felt the needle somewhere around my neck. It actually wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t have Mother notice that. I needed her to be as gentle as possible, which in this case forced me to play the unjustly tortured captive who happened to be a little kid.

  “Stay still!” Mother took me by the shoulder and turned me around, glaring down into my eyes with strength. “We’re nearly done. Take a deep breath, and hold it in. Don’t move!”

  I did as I was told and chewed at my under lip.

  Becoming a Bronze Knight demanded me to go through five different stages. Of those, the first one was the classic Cleansing, also referred to as Initiation. This was a fairly simple procedure of awakening the internal channels. There was no escaping from it.

  My body had already begun leaking filthy liquid from the pores through which I’d been brutally stabbed. I was getting rid of all the filth unnecessarily clogging my internal channels. Thankfully, there wasn’t much of it to speak of since I was only a kid.

  The second step was the Refinement. This was essentially strengthening the internal energy vessels through breathwork, workouts, and practice. Circulation, which was the third step, was where you’d actually begin moving your energy with true intent. Once you got a hang of your energy, you’d then move to the Condensation part of the equation, a.k.a. forming an internal energy Core to control your output. That done, you’d finish it up with Integration by unifying all the flow of nine channels into your Core like a light bulb being fueled by nine different electric cords.

  In theory, it was similar to how Mages formed their Mana Cores, but there was a difference. While a Mage could rely on ambient mana and make it their own, a Knight had to work with what was available in their body, which wasn’t fair. Mages could tap into a grand mana source, like the Core of a strong magical beast, while Knights didn’t have that option.

  They had to grow their own internal energy to reach for the stars.

  Uh…

  Why didn’t I have any talent with magic? Why did I have to go through this gruel training regimen? I mean, Mother had managed it just fine, but how long it actually took? How long—

  “Mum, how old are you?” I blurted out mid-sentence.

  Mother’s head jerked back to me with such force that I froze.

  “What did you say?”

  “N-Nothing.”

  It felt like she put a bit more strength into the next needle when she stabbed it into my back.

  Feeling completely out of touch and out of spirit, I waited until we ran out of needles. The final count was a hundred, all of them sticking from my body and their tips dangling in cold glee. Such was the fate of a Knight’s son. I had only myself to blame for my lack of magical talents.

  It also reeked like holy hell. I had a puddle of my own making under my ass, and its stench wasn’t unsimilar to a pound of meat left out for three months straight. For a second, I’d thought I’d be laying on this pile of human filth before Mother gestured at a frightened Belfray up around the stairs, who came running with a cloth toward me and picked me up from the ground.

  There we went to a heavenly bath, but it wasn’t as smooth and relaxing as I’d expected. Not when I had needles everywhere. I mean, where should I put my ass? I had only part of my buttocks to manage somewhat of a comfortable position, which I did, then that part began aching since I’d relied on it too much.

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  My skin was brazenly red. I supposed it did look smoother than before, though. Inside, my formerly silent internal channels had started squirming with the outside interference. I could sense the disturbance caused by the needles in my feet, in my chest, under my skin like a tingling sensation that I couldn’t scratch at.

  Then they itched.

  A lot.

  It was like the time when I got measles.

  No.

  It was a hundred times worse.

  And I had to sit like that for the whole day.

  ……..

  “Tell me, Belfray, it’s only going to get worse, isn’t it?” I asked that night when Belfray kindly volunteered to be the one removing my needles.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Young Master,” the old butler said as he dutifully pulled the needles from my ass. That was where it itched the worst. I knew he’d get me. We were literally kindred spirits who’d gotten tortured by the same master. Probably.

  “I read something about flames. Will there be flames, too?”

  “I’m afraid there will be flames, Young Master.”

  “Then there will be cold, huh? But there’s no way Mother would leave me alone barefoot out in the middle of a blizzard, right?”

  “I…” Belfray swallowed loudly. “I believe to become a true Undying Knight you will have to learn your way around blizzards as well, Young Master.”

  “Uh… At least there’ll be no more needles.”

  I tried to come at it from a positive standpoint. It was toxic, but I needed it. To make the best out of it I couldn’t let the future possibilities get to me. I had to be hopeful. I couldn’t shrink back.

  But damn, it hurt! I couldn’t even begin to imagine what a blizzard or a firestorm — they definitely had those in this world — would feel like. What if I died? Then there would be no more future Runemaster to speak of. How could they be so careless about these things?

  “Is this… really necessary?” I asked Belfray, who’d moved to my chest. He was so diligent, so gentle that I regretted not having him do the stabbing. “There has to be other Manuals, right?”

  “Are there others? Yes.” Belfray raised his head and looked into my eyes. “Are they better than The Undying? I’m afraid the answer is no, Young Master. This Manual is our strength.”

  “Our strength?” I scowled at him. “So you’re an Undying Knight too, like Mother?”

  “We all are.” Belfray had a bit of pride in his eyes when he said that. “It was thanks to the Grand Marshall that we can stand before you today. I myself had something of a reputation back in the day.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “They used to call me The Reaper.”

  “That sounds bad-ass… So you killed people? Like a lot?”

  “An unfortunate side effect of being involved in certain complications,” Belfray said. “One that I’m afraid every single one of us had to endure.”

  “And what kind of complications were these?”

  “That, I can’t disclose. We wouldn’t want certain someone to get angry, would we?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Oh, this is the last one.” Belfray pulled one annoyingly painful needle from my neck, then set it aside on top of the rest that lay in a large basin. The bloody things took too much from me, and yet I felt completely fine right now. Better than fine, in fact.

  I felt invincible.

  Alright, it wasn’t that high, but still it was as though I’d become lighter. My internal channels were still adjusting to the sudden interference of a hundred needles, but I could already sense the strength that lay underneath my skin.

  To actually bring forth this strength, though, would be hard.

  If it was easy, everyone would be a Knight out there in the big wide world. They weren’t. Knights and Mages, especially ones that were higher in rank, were important people. People feared them just as well as they respected them because no one sane of mind would go through such torture just out of curiosity.

  I myself had quite the challenges ahead of me. To be a Runemaster who could hold his head against Knights and Mages, I had to work extra hard.

  But again, be positive.

  I had runes. I had ones that could increase the output of one’s internal energy by quite a lot. Soon, I could put them to use.

  “Take a rest, Young Master. You’ve earned it.”

  Belfray took the large basin in which lay the equipment of torture that had been a part of my body for the better part of the day and gave me a smile before he closed the door on his way out.

  I was left alone in my giant bedroom with much to think about.

  …….

  My true training started the next day, on the very stone arena I’d been stabbed through by a hundred needles. A stone-cold woman stood in the middle of it, holding me hostage with her eyes as I dragged myself toward the place.

  Being a failure that I was, I had my fair share of gym drop-outs in my whole life. Often the case was that I’d get worked up after a motivational video, then find a gym and pay for a single month, thinking to change my life I had to start by managing my body. The thought itself probably had some merit, but the problem was, after a hell of a first day I’d wake up all sore and miserable the next day and use that as an excuse to stay in bed. For the next month.

  So, I’d thought there was a good possibility of, at least mentally, that happening here in my second life too, except I woke up to a body that knew no pain and wasn’t sore at all. I was fine. More than fine, in fact, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life.

  “I see that your internal channels were busy at work, Leo. How do you feel?”

  “Fine, I guess?” I muttered after changing into what I’d decided to call arena-clothes. “I don’t feel any pain.”

  “Good. That means your internal energy channels have managed the disturbance just fine.” Mother nodded and gestured at me to come closer. “Breaking the mold could cause severe pain if not done right, or if it’s done under forced circumstances. The same is true with breakthroughs. You can’t force it. You have to do everything by the book, understood?”

  I certainly doubted Mother was the kind of person who’d do everything by the book, but there was a chance this was her way of trying to instill in me some sense of discipline, so I nodded without hesitation.

  “So, have you read the first chapter?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “Then you have an idea of our general plan for the first few months?”

  “I think I do, but I do have my doubts about it,” I answered.

  “Oh? Tell me.”

  “Is there really no other choice?” I asked, hopeful. “I mean, is breaking the body over and over again the only way to practice this Manual?”

  “Already looking for a way out, are you?” Mother raised an eyebrow at me. “Is this my Runemaster who skipped meals just to practice his runes? Who climbed on a stool when he couldn’t hold his head high just to glimpse into books?”

  “You can’t break your bones while scribbling on a paper with an ink pen. There’s a difference.”

  “You’re right. There is. This feeling you’re experiencing right now is coming from your very primal being,” Mother said, her voice low. “That part of our nature is dedicated to keeping us away from harm’s way. It fears the pain and the dark. It does it by instinct. Which is precisely why the first step of the Path of Glory is called breaking the mold. You’re not just any man now, my Leo. You can’t think like one.”

  “I have to act like a true Knight, is it?” I asked doubtfully.

  “That depends on the particular Manual you’re cultivating. In our case, The Undying will have you learn how to manipulate your primal being. How to betray your instincts against reason. How to break yourself over and over again just to become unbreakable. Fear is a tool our minds use to shackle our potential. You are to shed those shackles.”

  In theory, I could see where my stranger mother was coming from. Just like any human, I feared anything that could harm me in some way. My instincts would nudge me the other way if they could. It was just like how people couldn’t help but wince when a punch comes straight into their face or they hear the shrieking of a car braking to avoid a crash.

  That didn’t change the fact that it was uncomfortable, however.

  “You’ll spend the next week familiarizing yourself with your internal energy channels. Manage your breathing according to the first chapter of The Undying. Nudge your internal energy to motion with each swing, or movement of your feet. Be aware of your emotions.”

  “Swing?” I looked down at my little wooden sword with doubt. “What exactly are we going to practice here?”

  Mother pulled out a much bigger, but still decisively wooden, sword from her ring and hefted it with two hands.

  “I’ll be here to make sure you’re not slacking off.”

  Then she took a swing at me.

  ….

  Here!