The damp mist of the Western Woods clung to the mossy trunks of ancient oaks like a funeral shroud. It was the kind of place where the royal guards deliberately did not venture—there were too many shadows, too many whispers of ancient, forgotten beasts that ate raw mana for breakfast.
Arthur Fenric stood in a small, damp clearing, his leather boots sinking slightly into the soft, unyielding earth. He wasn't looking at the towering trees or the dense foliage. He was looking entirely at the air. To anyone else, the atmosphere was empty, serene space. To Arthur, it was a roiling, suffocating sea of jagged, crimson static.
[Skill: Crimson Command (Lvl 2) Active.]
[Observation: Atmospheric mana density is high. Ambient temperature: 12°C.]
He began his grueling morning routine. It did not resemble the elegant, flowing katas of the High Knights of Oakhaven. It was a brutal, deeply repetitive sequence of strikes, blocks, and lunges. Every single movement was calculated by his cold logic to maximize muscle tear and accelerate physical recovery.
Thrust. Retract. Pivot.
Thrust. Retract. Pivot.
[Skill: Swordplay has leveled up to Lvl 12.]
[Skill: Physical Fortitude has leveled up to Lvl 14.]
"You're early," Arthur said without turning around, his blade slicing through the heavy mist with a sharp hiss.
From the edge of the treeline, Elara stepped out, followed closely by the three squires from the banquet. They looked utterly ragged. They had clearly spent the entire night navigating the treacherous briars and avoiding royal patrols just to find him. Elara's armor was severely dented, and her eyes were heavy with fatigue, but when she looked at Arthur, there was a spark of something incredibly dangerous in her gaze: hope.
"We didn't want to miss the 'target practice,'" Elara said, her voice raspy from the cold air.
Arthur stopped his sword mid-swing, the blunt tip hovering inches from the ground. He turned slowly, his eyes glowing with a faint, involuntary red hue as he activated his new perception.
[New Skill Detected: Sovereign's Appraisal (Lvl 1)]
[Effect: Analyze the 'Flow' of others. Identify bottlenecks in their growth.]
As he looked at the four outcasts, translucent blue screens flickered into reality directly over their heads.
Name: Elara of the Broken Shield
Bottleneck: Rigid Discipline. (She fights precisely like a textbook, actively ignoring her sharp instincts.)
Potential: High (Berserker/Guardian Hybrid).
Name: Kael the Unfinished
Bottleneck: Malnutrition/Weak Core. (His mana circuits are wide, but his physical body is a sieve.)
Potential: Mid (Mana-Slinger).
Arthur wiped a layer of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "I'm not a teacher. I'm a man who was legally and physically supposed to be dead three days ago. If you choose to follow me, the King will eventually notice. My brothers will eventually notice. And when they do, they won't just strip your ranks. They'll take your heads."
"They already took our pride, Your Highness," one of the younger squires, a boy named Jory, muttered fiercely. "A head is a small price to pay to feel like a real soldier again."
Arthur sighed heavily, running a hand through his damp hair.
[Skill: Tactical Analysis has leveled up to Lvl 6.]
[Note: You are currently forming a 'Unit'. Training efficiency increases when practicing in groups.]
"Fine," Arthur said, reaching down and tossing a heavy, jagged river stone directly toward Elara's chest. "Don't catch it with your hands. Catch it with your intent."
The Grind
For the next six hours, the secluded clearing became a literal torture chamber of self-improvement. Arthur didn't teach them how to properly hold a sword—they already knew the fundamentals of warfare. Instead, he taught them how to break their limits.
"Elara! You're fighting the air as if it has established rules!" Arthur barked, his voice echoing through the woods. He lunged at her, his practice blade humming with a faint, vibrating crimson aura.
[Skill: Crimson Command used to augment physical speed.]
He moved vastly faster than a man with no internal mana circuits should ever be able to. He moved like a sudden glitch in reality—sliding an inch further and faster than his joints should naturally allow. Elara parried perfectly, her form flawless, her feet firmly planted in the mud. Arthur simply dropped his center of gravity, swept her front leg, and pressed the blunt tip of his sword to her throat before she could even register the movement.
"Your 'perfect form' is a self-imposed cage," Arthur hissed down at her. "The world doesn't care about your posture. The world wants to crush you. Stop fighting like a pristine knight and start fighting like a survivor."
[Skill: Brutal Pedagogy (Lvl 1) Acquired.]
[Effect: Your students learn 5% faster when they are frustrated or experiencing pain.]
"Again!" Elara snarled, her pride stinging. She rolled away instantly, coming up with a handful of wet dirt that she flung directly at his face.
Arthur grinned, a rare, genuine expression of amusement.
[Skill: Reflexive Evasion (Lvl 4)]
His head tilted a fraction of an inch, the flying dirt missing his eyes by a mere hair's breadth. "Better."
Over by the rushing stream, Kael and Jory were performing what Arthur grimly referred to as "The Grind." He had them lifting massive, water-logged river stones while trying to vocally hum a very specific, low frequency—a frequency that matched the chaotic vibration of the crimson world-mana.
"I can't... see it!" Kael gasped out, his entire body shaking violently under the weight of the rock. "The red... it's just... it's just air, Prince!"
"Close your eyes," Arthur commanded, walking over with silent steps. He placed his bare palm firmly on Kael's trembling shoulder.
[Action: Shared Perception.]
[Warning: This action will drain 50% of your current stamina.]
Arthur pushed. A sudden, violent surge of raw, unrefined energy flowed directly from his palm into Kael's back. It wasn't the soothing, gentle warmth of a standard royal healing spell; it felt like the agonizing sting of a thousand hot needles.
Kael screamed in agony, dropping to his knees, but then his eyes snapped wide open. For a split second, his reality fundamentally altered. The vibrant green leaves turned a dull grey. The bright blue sky faded into nothingness. And the air... the air was suddenly filled with thick, swirling, violent ribbons of deep, bloody crimson.
"It's... it's everywhere," Kael whispered in absolute awe, the massive stone rolling away into the mud. "The whole world is bleeding power."
[Follower 'Kael' has unlocked Skill: Primitive Mana Sight.]
[Your 'Crimson Guard' bond has strengthened.]
The Red Harvest
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in deep, bruised hues that perfectly matched Arthur's mana, the exhausted group finally collapsed into the mud. They were severely bruised, completely covered in filth, and smelled strongly of iron and sweat. But the hollow, defeated look in their eyes was completely gone, replaced by a frantic, hungry light.
Arthur sat on a fallen, rotting log, his own body screaming in deep exhaustion.
[Status Update:]
Physical Fortitude: Lvl 18
Crimson Command: Lvl 5
Sovereign's Appraisal: Lvl 3
As he sat there, he felt a strange, humming sensation deeply rooted in his chest. It wasn't the brittle, agonizing cracking of his old internal mana circuits. It was a profound resonance. Every single time one of his newly sworn "followers" gained a level or understood a difficult concept, a tiny fraction of that raw experience flowed directly back into him.
[Passive Ability Unlocked: The Red Harvest.]
[Effect: You gain 1% of all experience earned by those who swear fealty to the Crimson.]
"I didn't ask for this," Arthur whispered quietly to the silent system interface.
[System: The User's actions dictate the System's growth. You are a 'Leader' because you refused to be a 'Follower'.]
"Highness?" Elara approached him slowly, nursing a dark purple bruise that was rapidly forming on her cheek where his practice blade had clipped her earlier. She knelt before him—not out of standard royal protocol, but out of a deep, genuine respect. "The King's scouts were patrolling near the edge of the woods earlier. They saw the residual red light. They think you are practicing forbidden blood magic."
Arthur looked down at his own hands. Tiny crimson sparks danced wildly between his knuckles. In this dogmatic world, blue was holy. Blue was royal. Red was universally considered the color of demons, of brutal war, of the taboo "Low Magic" utilized exclusively by those who did not belong in the light.
"Let them think it," Arthur said, his voice flat. "Fear is just another skill I can level up."
"What is our plan?" she asked earnestly. "We can't train in these woods forever. The Autumn Hunt begins in exactly two weeks. All of the royal princes are required to participate. Your brothers... they will try to 'accidentally' abandon you in the deep forest for the high-tier monsters to slaughter."
Arthur stood up slowly, his stiff bones popping in the quiet air. He felt immensely stronger than he ever had in his previous life as a weary, overworked salaryman. He felt like a deadly weapon being forged in a slow, incredibly steady fire.
"The Autumn Hunt?" Arthur smiled. It was a cold, razor-sharp expression that made young Jory visibly shiver. "Good. I've been needing a more challenging training ground anyway. Tell the others to return to the city immediately. Don't speak to me in public. Don't even look at me. But every single night, precisely at midnight, I want you to practice the breathing intervals I showed you."
"And what will you do, Highness?"
Arthur turned his gaze toward the dark, menacing heart of the Western Woods, where the raw mana density was so incredibly thick that the very air looked like clotted blood.
"I'm going to go find something bigger to hit," he said simply.
[Quest: The First Hunt]
[Objective: Slay a Mana-Saturated Beast (Tier 4 or higher).]
[Reward: Skill: Crimson Armor.]
As he walked forward into the absolute darkness of the ancient trees, the "Leavings" watched his retreating figure. They no longer saw a royal disgrace. They didn't see a fragile glass prince. They saw the undeniable center of a cataclysmic storm—a man who was actively rewriting the fundamental laws of their world through sheer, stubborn repetition.
Arthur didn't look back a single time. He was far too busy watching a cascade of new notifications fill his vision.
[Skill Acquired: Stealth (Lvl 1)]
[Skill Acquired: Trackless Step (Lvl 1)]
[Skill Acquired: Predator's Focus (Lvl 1)]
The grind never stopped.