CHAPTER 3: First Flame
I sat there for what felt like an hour, but was probably just ten minutes in real time, breathing like a monk and trying not to think about how utterly stupid I probably looked. Back straight. Eyes closed. Muscles relaxed. Sword within arm's reach, just in case. Always in reach.
And there it was.
Ki.
At least, I think it was. Calling it a "flow" felt generous. It wasn't pouring or surging. Hell, it wasn't even trickling. It was... there. Barely. Like someone lit a match on the far end of a tunnel and then walked off with it.
I focused, narrowing my mind until all I could feel was the tiny flicker in my core. It wasn't painful, but it wasn't pleasant either. Like trying to wiggle a muscle you didn't know you had. It resisted. Sluggish. Ungrateful.
But the more I sat with it, felt it, the more I realized something else: it wasn't staying still.
It was spreading. Slowly. Weakly. As if unsure it had permission to move.
A thread of warmth crawled up through my chest, branching faintly toward my arms, down to my legs. Not like blood. Blood rushes. This? This crept.
I tried to move it, will it toward my hands.
It barely responded. Like pushing a car in neutral up a hill with one arm and a bad attitude. Still, it budged. A little.
I exhaled through my nose and laughed softly.
"That's it?" I muttered. "This is the power that split mountains and blew up moons?"
I felt a strange sense of pity for myself. Here I was, meditating in a death cave, surrounded by bloodthirsty goblins, and the best I could conjure was a tepid body warm-up and a hopeful sigh.
I opened my eyes.
The glow was gone but the feeling wasn't. Dull, but present. Like an ember hidden under ashes. Useless if I didn't fan it, but real.
I stood slowly.
And then something strange happened.
My entire body felt... lighter.
Like I'd been carrying weights and someone finally unstrapped them. My movements weren't superhuman, no anime speed blurs or gravity-defying hops but I noticed the difference. Every step felt easier. Every flex of muscle came with a sense of control I hadn't known I was missing.
I rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck. No stiffness. No aches.
I picked up the shabby bronze sword.
It felt like plastic. My grip curled around the hilt and I almost laughed. I remembered how clunky it felt before, how hard I had to swing just to get momentum. Now? I could spin it around like a baton. It was still garbage. But it was light garbage.
I looked at the wall opposite me, solid stone, uneven and aged.
A part of me wanted to test it. Just slam my fist into it and see if I could leave a crater like a Dragon Ball character on a bad day. But I didn't. Mostly because I wasn't an idiot. Breaking my hand here would mean death by goblin shank. No thank you.
I took one more breath and stepped toward the narrow entrance of the chamber.
That's when I heard it.
A growl but not like the others. This wasn't low and animalistic. It was sharp. Wet. Almost... whispered.
I froze.
Another growl, this time followed by a soft hiss.
Voices. Two. And they were close.
I inched toward the entrance and peeked out.
What I saw stopped me cold.
Two goblins. But different.
Taller, for one. More upright. They didn't have the same hunched-over posture as the grunts I'd seen earlier. They wore robes, actual cloth robes. Dirty, frayed at the edges, but undeniably stitched garments. Around their necks hung bones, skulls, feathers, and God-knows-what. One had a belt covered in what looked like shrunken hands. Human? Goblin? I didn't want to know.
And both were holding staffs.
Long, gnarled, wrapped in leather and bone. One was topped with a shard of glowing red crystal. The other had what looked like an animal skull mounted on top, maybe a bird, or something more... reptilian.
Magic users.
That's all I could think.
Goblins with magic. Because of course that was a thing. This world wasn't going to hand me low-level fodder forever. I'd killed a few with poor coordination and bronze blades. But now the difficulty curve was kicking in.
Before I could even think of a plan, it moved.
The goblin with the red crystal staff raised its arm, hissed something, and suddenly…
FWOOM!
A ball of fire erupted from the staff and rocketed straight at me.
No chant. No warning. Just a snap-cast, and I was the target.
My eyes went wide. My body moved before my brain did.
I dove sideways, barely making it through the narrow passage before the fireball slammed into the chamber behind me. The explosion was loud and vicious. Heat blasted my back, singeing my clothes. Stone cracked. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
I hit the ground hard, rolled, and scrambled to my feet behind a nearby outcropping.
Breathing fast now. Not from exhaustion but from the realization that I was this close to being barbecued.
"Okay," I hissed to myself. "So they've got wizards. Goblin wizards. That's... fine. This is fine."
The cave echoed with more guttural incantations.
Another fireball incoming.
I gritted my teeth and bolted.
I ducked just in time as another fireball tore past my shoulder and exploded against the stone wall with a violent boom, showering me with sparks and hot dust. The cave shook, and I stumbled forward, coughing through the smoke as the heat rolled over me like the breath of a furnace.
I didn't need a class in magic theory to get the point, those robed bastards weren't just for show. And they didn't need to chant or wave their hands in circles. It was point and shoot. Real-time, no-delay, weaponized incineration.
I zigzagged between jutting rocks, keeping my profile low, sword still in hand. My back stung from the residual heat, my clothes half-scorched, and my brain was screaming at me to do one thing:
Move.
Another flash of red light. Another burst of sound. A third fireball roared past, missing me by inches as I ducked behind a crumbling stone pillar. The blast hit the far wall, splintering it in a fountain of sparks and molten rock.
I peeked out.
The two goblin mages were advancing now, staffs glowing, mouths dripping some kind of dark, foamy saliva. They moved with intent, like they weren't just trying to scare me. They were hunting.
And I was running out of space to hide.
"Alright," I whispered to myself, heart hammering in my ears. "Time for something stupid."
I darted out from behind the pillar and ran.
Straight at them.
Their eyes widened in shock, maybe. One of them raised its staff, light building at the tip. I raised my sword, not to block. I couldn't block that. I wasn't Goku. I wasn't even Kuririn.
But I didn't need to be.
I took two more steps, shifted all my weight to my back foot, and hurled the sword like a javelin.
It spun through the air, whistling end over end and then thunk.
It buried itself deep in the chest of the goblin on the left.
It let out a screeching howl, stumbled backward, and collapsed with a wet smack, limbs twitching.
One down.
But the other didn't flinch.
It bared its sharp teeth and screeched something that sounded very much like a curse in its native tongue. Its staff flared a deep purple now, darker than before. It jabbed the crystal forward and the air in front of it distorted.
Not fire this time.
Something worse.
The ground beneath my feet shimmered, then cracked. Thin veins of purple energy split the stone open like spiderwebs. I jumped backward, narrowly avoiding what I now saw was corrosion, the rock itself was melting.
"Nope!" I shouted, twisting around and sprinting back the way I'd come.
I could barely see through the smoke and rising steam, but I remembered. Two kills ago. I'd left a body behind, a sword too.
I just needed to get there in time.
Another blast followed me. This one missed by feet, but the heat caught the hem of my sleeve and ignited it.
"Shit!" I hissed, slapping at the flames as I slid behind a jutting boulder.
More smoke. More heat. The mage was relentless, barely pausing between casts, like it had a bottomless mana pool and a vendetta.
I pushed myself up and kept moving, zigzagging through narrow paths and sharp corners until—
There.
The goblin I'd stabbed in the spine. Face-down. Still leaking.
And right next to it: his sword.
I dove for it just as another spell screamed past me. It detonated against the wall, blasting a chunk of rock into the air. A shard scraped across my arm, deep, hot pain flaring just below the elbow. I clenched my teeth and ignored it.
I grabbed the sword.
It wasn't balanced. It wasn't clean. But it was metal and sharp and in my goddamn hands again.
The mage rounded the corner just in time to see me come up swinging.
I charged, not wildly this time. Not swinging like a maniac. I kept the blade low, waited for the next flicker of light, and when I saw it, I sidestepped the incoming fire and closed the gap.
The goblin tried to backpedal, but it was too slow.
I drove the sword into its gut with a scream, and then twisted it hard, wrenching the weapon free with a wet snap. The creature howled and fell backward, dropping its staff with a clatter of bone and crystal.
It writhed once, then went still.
I stood there, panting, body trembling, sword dripping with green-black blood.
My arm throbbed where the stone shard had torn it, but I was alive.
Barely.
I leaned against the wall, every muscle buzzing from adrenaline. My hands were shaking, but not from fear. It was the crash after the high. I could feel my Ki now, a little more than before if you could even call it that. Not just that pathetic thread. It was still faint, still far too soft for anything dramatic but it was there. Like my body was learning to breathe through it.
I looked down at the two dead mages.
"Guess you weren't expecting that," I muttered, spitting blood and dust from my mouth.
My fingers flexed around the hilt of my new weapon, still trash-tier, but better than nothing.
I looked up at the floating red numbers still ticking in my periphery.
29:14:48... 47... 46...
Long way to go.
But I was still here.
And now?
Now I knew what these bastards could do.