Ludger read it again, fast, precise, eyes flicking over each line like he was scanning a contract for hidden knives.
It matched. It matched exactly.
The sa reinforcent concept. The sa parater lift. The sa mana tradeoff. The System had finally decided his “technique” was real enough to be nad thanks to the class.
A laugh almost slipped out of him, more relief than humor, more triumph than joy.
Then Ludger grinned. Herack’s smile faltered for the first ti.
Because from Herack’s perspective, the boy was still half-pressed into the snow, still bracing under a downward grind that would’ve broken most fighters, still holding back a blade that should’ve bitten through… And yet he was grinning like he’d just been handed a gift.
“What—” Herack started, surprised despite himself.
Ludger didn’t answer. He reactivated it after equipping the class. Not with clumsy ignition.
With the sa practiced ntal switch he’d used a thousand tis, only now the System caught the motion and amplified it, smoothing the flow, tightening the shape, locking the aura into a cleaner, more obedient layer.
The world tightened. Ludger felt the reinforcent settle over him like a fitted shell, bones steadier, joints quieter, muscles suddenly cooperating in a way that made his previous “best” feel slightly… wasteful.
The pressure from Herack’s blade didn’t vanish. But it stopped being absolute. Ludger’s knees straightened a fraction. Not because Herack eased up. Because Ludger’s body had just gotten better at refusing.
The cracks in the ground beneath him spread again, then stalled, as if the earth itself couldn’t decide whether to give or hold. Herack’s eyes narrowed, genuine interest sharpening into sothing hungry. Ludger’s grin widened.
And then the most absurd part happened. The skill didn’t just activate.
It began to level up. Not the slow, stingy progress the System usually dripped out like it was doing you a favor. This was a flood.
Like the System had been waiting years for him to finally “qualify,” and now that it had stamped his technique with an official label, it was dumping every ounce of accumulated practice into raw advancent.
Overdrive has leveled up 10 XP.
Overdrive has leveled up 20 XP.
Overdrive has leveled up 30 XP.
Overdrive has leveled up 40 XP.
Overdrive has leveled up 50 XP.
…
Ludger’s eyes flicked across the numbers mid-pressure, mind racing even while his arms scread under the grind.
It’s leveling like… Like nothing before. Like soone had removed a limiter.
Herack’s sword still hissed against his guard, sparks still bursting in hot fans, but Ludger could feel his aura tightening further with each percentage tick, becoming more efficient, less wasteful, more stable under load.
Herack stared at him, surprise giving way to a grin that matched Ludger’s in shape if not in aning.
“Oh,” Herack said softly, like he’d just realized the boy wasn’t only stubborn.
He was growing in real ti.
Herack could feel it.
Not in so vague, poetic way, oh, the boy’s potential is blooming, but in the only way that mattered to fighters who lived by pressure and response. Ludger’s resistance was changing.
The texture of it.
Herack’s grin widened. “You’re already refining it, at a pretty impressive speed as well,” he murmured, pleased in a way that didn’t sound kind.
Ludger didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Herack let the sword pressure go, not because he was losing, but because he’d gotten what he wanted from that test.
He took a half-step back, rolled his shoulders, and then spun his body with lazy precision. The movent looked casual. It wasn’t.
His hips snapped through the turn, and his leg ca around in a tight arc, heel driving for Ludger’s stomach with the kind of force that was ant to fold soone in half and teach their ribs humility.
Ludger moved for the first ti like he was truly awake. He didn’t retreat. He lifted his right leg and t Herack’s kick with his knee. Bone slamd into bone.
KRAK.
The impact jolted up Ludger’s thigh and shot into his hip like a spike of ice. He felt his defenses catch most of it, felt the reinforcent clamp down and keep his joint from buckling.
Herack’s leg rebounded slightly, not from pain, but from surprise at being stopped cleanly.
The crowd roared at the collision. Herack landed light, almost amused, and his eyes narrowed as he studied Ludger’s stance.
“Good,” he said again. “Very good.”
Then, without warning, he changed.
Not his posture. Not his position. His aura. The thin Overdrive layer coating Herack’s body shifted, and Ludger felt it instantly, like the air had suddenly acquired teeth.
Herack’s mana stopped being smooth glass.
It started to move.
It rippled, then curled, then licked upward in thin tongues that resembled fla. Not actual fire, no heat wave rolled off him, no smoke, just the behavior of it. The aura beca aggressive, restless, hungry, sliding along his skin and blades like it wanted to burn through anything it touched.
A Fla Overdrive.
Ludger’s frown deepened.
Not because it was scary, though it was, but because it answered a question he hadn’t wanted answered.
He’d hoped the “secret art” was his. Sothing unique. Sothing Ludger had carved out alone, the way Valk had carved breath-control into muscle and Shera had carved pacts into soul.
This? This looked like a template. A known path. And that ant… Ludger’s eyes narrowed, disappointnt flickering through his usual calm.
“It’s not yours,” he muttered.
Herack’s brows lifted, amused by the reaction. “What?”
Ludger stared at the dancing, fire-like aura coating Herack’s body and swords.
“That technique,” Ludger said, voice flat, almost irritated. “It’s not sothing you invented. It belongs to , it belongs to a son of Arslan.”
Herack’s smile widened into sothing almost delighted, like Ludger had just proven he wasn’t only tough, he was observant.
“Who said it had to be mine?” Herack asked, fla-like aura curling tighter around his blades.
Ludger’s disappointnt didn’t vanish. It sharpened. Because if Fla Overdrive existed… then there were other forms that Herack also knew of...
Other refinents. Other people who had taken the sa base and turned it into sothing specialized. And suddenly, Ludger understood what kind of “master” Herack really was. Not a lonely hermit guarding a single secret.
A gatekeeper. A man standing at the mouth of a larger system of arts, one that had never been “inexistent” at all. Just hidden.
Herack didn’t give Ludger ti to sit with that disappointnt.
The mont the fla-like aura finished settling, Herack moved again, this ti with a different kind of violence.
It wasn’t just stronger. It was explosive.
His foot hit the snow and the aura flared, pushing the motion like a burst of pressure behind muscle. He crossed distance in a snap, blades drawing bright arcs through the torchlight. Each swing carried a sharp, spring-loaded acceleration, like the last inch of motion had been fired from a chanism instead of thrown by arm strength.
Downward cut, fast. Ludger caught it on his forearm guards, sparks jumping again as mana-coated steel scraped reinforced plating. Herack didn’t linger to grind this ti.
He recoiled and struck from the other side imdiately, reverse slash, then a short stab that looked lazy until the aura surged and it turned into a sudden lunge.
Ludger reacted anyway.
He shifted his weight a finger’s width, angled his guard, and let the stab glance off the side of his bracer instead of taking it head-on. The shock still rang through his bones, but his stance held.
Herack’s eyes narrowed. He spun his hips and kicked low, the fla aura snapping behind his shin like a whip. Ludger lifted his leg and checked it, shin to shin, absorbing the impact with Overdrive reinforcent.
KRAK.
The crowd roared at the sound.
Herack flowed into the next sequence without pause, two quick slashes ant to herd Ludger’s guard high, then a sharp body-step to change angle, then a thrust that should’ve split the gap before Ludger could reset.
It was textbook surprise pressure: change the rhythm, change the speed, change the feel.
Fla Overdrive made it nastier, each burst of movent ca with that extra kick, as if Herack’s aura was spitting him forward.
And still… Ludger blocked.
He wasn’t perfect. A few hits rattled his guard hard enough to make his elbows sing. A couple slashes kissed close to his ribs, leaving faint heat-lines where aura skimd armor instead of flesh.
But he was there for all of it. He kept reading the line. Kept eting the blades with tight economy, his body responded a fraction faster than it had any right to. Herack’s expression shifted from amusent to genuine confusion. Because this should have caught Ludger by surprise.
The first ti anyone changed an aura aspect like that, it always did. The rhythm difference alone usually stole half a second, long enough to open soone up.
Herack stepped back a fraction mid-combo, eyes sharp. “How are you still tracking it?”
Ludger’s breathing stayed steady.
His Overdrive was humming clean, smoother than it had been minutes ago. His guard was tighter. His timing better. He felt it in his own movents, less waste, more structure, like his body was learning the new language on the fly.
He answered without drama.
“While you were getting comfortable,” Ludger said, “I was improving too.”
Herack stared at him for a beat, then barked a laugh, shorter than before, edged with disbelief.
“That fast?”
Ludger didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.
He wasn’t about to explain that the System was carving his previous practice into real progress, rewarding him for learning a technique before it was part of class, and rewarding him for being a problem the world hadn’t finished labeling yet.
He just lifted his guard again, eyes calm, stance rooted. Herack’s fla aura flickered, eager. Then Herack smiled, wide and sharp, like confusion had turned into hunger.
“Good,” he said, voice dropping. “Then keep up.”
Herack’s smile widened like he’d finally decided to stop playing polite.
The fla-like aura around him snapped inward, compressed, condensed, then shifted.
It wasn’t subtle. Ludger felt it the way you felt a storm front hit your skin: the pressure change, the bite in the air, the sudden wrongness of the space between breaths.
Herack’s aura stopped moving like fire. It began to whirl.
Thin, pale streams curled around his limbs and blades, not hot, not aggressive, fast. The mana moved like invisible wind around a cliff face, smooth until it wasn’t, the edges sharpening into sothing that could slice without touching.
Herack didn’t announce it this ti. He just moved.
WIND OVERDRIVE turned his first step into a blur. He didn’t charge; he slipped forward like the distance had been erased. His right blade flicked out in a short diagonal slash, too quick to read by shoulder motion alone.
Ludger barely caught it.
He angled his forearm guard and felt the sword kiss the tal with a shriek of friction and sparks. The force wasn’t heavier, it was faster, a cut that tried to pass through the gap before the mind finished naming it.
Herack was already gone to Ludger’s left.
A second slash ca from a new angle, aid at the back of Ludger’s knee, dirty, efficient.
Ludger twisted, heel digging into snow, and checked the blade with the edge of his shin guard. Pain flared bright, but Overdrive clamped down and kept his leg from buckling.
Herack laughed quietly and the aura snapped again, wind collapsing, turning dense. The air around Herack thickened like wet clay.
His mana shifted into a heavy, grounded flow that hugged his body low, pressing down. The torchlight seed dimr around him, as if the world had decided to respect weight.
EARTH OVERDRIVE.
Herack’s next step wasn’t fast. It was heavy and inevitable.
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