The walk into the dining hall felt like a royal procession. While Sarah merely smiled, her eyes twinkling with amusement, Arnold actually paused with a goblet halfway to his lips. He looked at Henry, then at Mia in her cream-colored dress, then back at Henry. His father's brow furrowed, not in anger, but in genuine bewilderment at how close his son had gotten to his maid.
The dinner was a rare moment of warmth. Mia, initially stiff as a statue, eventually thawed under Sarah's gentle questions and Howard's boisterous joking. For a few hours, the hierarchy of Master and Maid dissolved into something that felt like a genuine family.
But as the main course was cleared, the addiction to progress in Henry's mind—the one he had been trying his hardest to moderate—reared its head.
"Father," Henry said, trying to sound casual. "I was curious... we have Captain Garrett, but I haven't seen the Vice Captain around the grounds. When is he due to visit?"
Arnold set his glass down. "The Vice Captain? That post was vacant for years until just six months ago. Why the interest?"
Henry's heart skipped. 'Six months?' In his memory, Adar had always been the Vice Captain, a fixture of the Sinclair Knights. He realized now that, in his previous life, Adar had been vice captain for less than 4 years when he began training him.
"I just met the Captain last year," Henry lied smoothly. "I just wondered who his second in command was. Why haven't I seen him?"
"His name is Adar," Arnold said, leaning back. "A mysterious fellow. Showed up already at Rank F. I suspect he's from the Central Regions —his sword style is too precise for the borderlands. He rose to Rank D with remarkable speed and proved his loyalty ten times over. But you won't see him for a while. He's leading a joint expedition with the King's Army into the Willder Mountain Range. Squad B is with him."
"An expedition?" Henry asked, his grip tightening on his napkin. "For how long?"
"Two years," Arnold replied. "They marched out three months ago."
The news was a physical blow. Henry's face paled. 'Two years?' That meant Adar wouldn't be back until Henry was almost nineteen—dangerously close to the time of the disastrous troll attack in his last life. His primary source of precision training was currently miles away in a monster-infested mountain range.
Arnold's eyes narrowed, noting the sudden intensity in Henry's expression. It was far more than simple curiosity. But before his father could probe further, the servants brought out the honey-glazed cakes for dessert, and the conversation shifted.
As the final pieces of the dessert were devoured, the banquet came to a quiet end, and Henry began walking Mia back to the maids' quarters.
The walk to the maid's quarters was a stark contrast to the walk to dinner. The fiancée comment still hung in the air like a physical barrier between them. They talked about the food and Howard's jokes, but the electricity from the hallway had been replaced by a quiet, buzzing tension.
When they reached the heavy oak doors of the servants' wing, Henry turned to her, his mouth opening to finally address the elephant in the room. He wanted to tell her that a political engagement was a problem for a future Henry, not the one standing here now.
But Mia saw it coming. She wasn't ready to handle the weight of that reality tonight.
"Goodnight, Henry," she said quickly, stepping into his space for a brief, breathless hug. The scent of roses and the warmth of her body hit him for just a second before she pulled away, her face flushed. "Happy birthday. Really."
Before he could respond, she slipped through the door.
The sigh that escaped Henry as he watched the door to the maid's quarters close was a heavy mix of emotions. A part of him was relieved; the fiancée issue was a topic he wasn't quite ready to navigate on his birthday. But the rest of him was frustrated by the distance that reality had placed between them.
That frustration, however, vanished the moment he opened his eyes the next morning.
He felt a strange, electric hum vibrating in his marrow. His skin felt tight, his senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
A reminder of what a day off can do for progress.
In the front courtyard, the morning air was shattered by the rhythmic clashing of wooden blades. Dante signaled the start of the King of the Hill spars.
"Henry, center!" Dante commanded.
Henry stepped into the circle. The first opponent, a boy two years his senior, lunged with a standard Sinclair diagonal strike. In Henry's eyes, the movement looked like it was happening underwater. He didn't just parry; he moved with a tactical fluidity that bypassed the boy's guard entirely, trying to mimic what he had seen from Adar, tapping him on the ribs before the apprentice had even finished his swing.
One.
The second apprentice tried to overwhelm him with brute force. Henry met the strike head-on, and the resulting shockwave sent the other boy's sword flying into the dirt. Henry hadn't even buckled his knees.
Two.
By the third apprentice, the knights and apprentices had gone silent. Henry was moving with a speed that was foreign to him. He felt light, his muscles exploding with a density he hadn't possessed yesterday.
As the third boy scrambled out from the center of the encirclement, nursing a bruised ego, Henry stopped. The apprentices he had faced were nearly his equals just a few days earlier.
But yet he wasn't breathing hard. He wasn't sweating. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a great, shimmering veil.
He turned his head toward Dante, his eyes glowing with an exciting realization, Sir," Henry said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I think I need to be tested."
Dante didn't hesitate. He sensed the shift. He stepped forward and held out the metal rod. Henry pressed his thumb against the cold surface.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened, but then Henry felt the familiar jolt shoot through his thumb. A couple of seconds later, the rod display revealed the number Henry had been chasing for a year.
[ Level 10 ]
A collective gasp went up from the apprentices. Henry had done it. He had reached the absolute ceiling of human potential before the system took over. He had overtaken some of the apprentices who had more than a year of training on him, thanks to reckless, near-destructive training schedules and fierce intensity.
"You've reached the limit, Henry," Dante whispered, his voice thick with awe. "You've hit the Peak of Foundation."
Howard's boisterous laughter broke the stunned silence of the courtyard. He jogged over and nearly knocked the wind out of Henry with a massive bear hug, lifting his younger brother off the ground.
"You actually did it, you madman!" Howard roared, grinning ear to ear. "Level 10 in just a year. Father is going to lose his mind."
He set Henry down, but his expression quickly shifted from celebration to the serious look of an elder brother who had already crossed this particular bridge. He leaned in, his voice dropping so the other apprentices couldn't overhear.
"Enjoy the moment, Henry. Truly. But don't let it go to your head," Howard warned, his eyes flicking to the foundation rod. "Level 10 is the Peak, but it's also a wall. Most people stay at Level 10 for years—some for their whole lives. You can't just train your way past it with laps and push-ups anymore. To break through the Rank F barrier and unlock your System, you need real combat skills."
Henry nodded, listening to the advice he already knew to be true.
"I know, Howard," Henry said, his voice calm and brimming with a newfound self-assurance. "The wall is there, but I've spent the last year climbing mountains. What's one more wall?"
Howard blinked, not surprised by the lack of hesitation in Henry's eyes. He knew he felt unstoppable when he reached the peak of foundation establishment. The only remedy for the false sense of strength was the trial itself.
As Howard walked away to resume his own drills, Henry felt the sheer density of his muscles. Every movement felt more efficient, every breath deeper. The effort he had put in over the last year had forged a vessel that was perfectly tempered.
He wasn't worried about the trial; instead, he felt excitement knowing he was one step away from knighthood.