Zen was led into a large chamber lit by enchanted crystals embedded in the walls. Training dummies lined one side, sparring mats another. It smelled like sweat, scorched fabric, and steel.
Four people waited for him.
All of them looked like they could kill a man without blinking.
Great.
The first to step forward was a tall man in his early thirties. Muscular. Buzz cut. A scar traced the line of his jaw.
"This one's Martin," the escort said. "Weapon specialist."
Martin gave Zen a nod, a broadsword casually resting on his shoulder.
"I'm here to make sure you don't chop off your own limbs," he said, voice deep. "Swords, spears, axes—you'll learn them all."
Zen sighed.
Of course.
Next was a woman who looked like she could turn you to ash with a look alone. Mia, late twenties, midnight-blue robes. A faint glow shimmered around her fingers as she held a flame, a crystal, and a drop of water—all at once.
"Mage," she said simply. "Fire. Ice. Wind. Healing. I'll teach you how to burn things… and how to patch them back up."
Zen gave her a look. "Do I get to choose which comes first?"
She didn't smile. "No."
Right. Figures.
Then came Joseph. Mid-thirties. Worn knuckles. A boxer's build and a quiet, dangerous calm.
"Hand-to-hand combat," he said. "No magic. No weapons. Just you and your fists. You'll hate me by week two."
Zen shrugged. "I hate most people by day one."
Joseph gave a short grunt. Maybe it was a laugh. Maybe not.
The last was Jean. Early forties. Long black beard. A silent mountain of a man.
"Body strengthening," the escort said. "Endurance, pain tolerance, stamina. If your body gives out, nothing else matters."
Jean didn't speak. Just looked Zen up and down like sizing up livestock.
Zen sighed again.
> Four experts. Four disciplines. All to prepare me to fight something I never asked for. And here I am—training for a war I didn't start, against a Demon Lord I don't care about.
He stepped forward, cracking his neck.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's get this over with."
> If I'm going to be dragged into someone else's story, I might as well survive it.
---
The training grounds were quiet now.
Dust still hung in the air. Weapons were scattered across the floor. A section of wall lay cracked where a body had struck it with too much force.
Zen stood at the center of it all, chest rising and falling with calm, measured breath.
There were times—too many—when he thought he wouldn't make it. Times when his body failed, when he collapsed mid-training, lungs burning, vision going dark. Healing magic pulled him back from the edge more than once.
Once, Jean made him cross a freezing mountain stream six times. On the sixth, he collapsed underwater. The healer said his pulse had nearly stopped. Jean didn't apologize. He just said: "Again."
Another time, Joseph's combo shattered three ribs and collapsed a lung. The healers wrapped his chest. Zen came back the next morning. "I don't need my ribs to learn where to strike," he muttered.
And during a magic trial, Zen tried combining flame, wind, and stone in a collapsing spell. The spell detonated backwards. Blood leaked from his nose and eyes. Mia found him barely breathing. She'd whispered, "Ten more seconds and you'd have torn yourself apart."
Six months.
That was how long it had taken to go from a summoned outsider to a force every seasoned warrior in the palace now watched with a mixture of pride and wariness.
He hadn't just trained.
He studied them.
Martin, the weapon master, had said early on: "Mastering one blade takes a lifetime. Trying to learn them all is asking for death."
Zen didn't argue. He just did it anyway.
Long sword. Spear. Daggers. Staff. Even improvised weapons—broken chair legs, chains, roofing tiles. Martin threw everything at him. Zen threw it back sharper.
"Most students memorize drills," Martin once muttered to Sayed after a sparring match. "He adapts mid-strike. He watches your stance and figures out your next three moves before you make one."
Martin was in his thirties. He had fought in wars. Seen real death. But during one of their last duels, Zen disarmed him in less than ten seconds.
And Martin had laughed.
"Remind me never to spar with you when you're angry."
---
Mia had been less amused.
Elemental prodigy. Scholar. Born to a mage clan older than the Ashton throne. Her magic bent light, air, and reality like paper. She hadn't met a Hero before—none had been summoned in her lifetime—but she had read every record left behind.
"They always struggled with magic," she'd told him on day one. "Your bodies aren't made for it. It takes years to even tolerate mana."
Zen managed a light-casting spell in a week. Wind shaping by the second. Flame control by the third.
It wasn't raw power that impressed Mia. It was how he asked questions no one else had.
What happens if you cast fire through frost?
What if you build a spell backwards—start with the explosion and shape it in reverse?
He burned through her lesson plan faster than she could update it. Eventually, she stopped teaching spells and started challenging him to invent his own.
When he created a delayed-cast echo spell that bounced off reflective surfaces like a trap—Mia just stared at the charred testing dummy.
"No one taught you that," she said quietly.
"No," Zen replied. "But I figured you might eventually."
---
Joseph was the only one who didn't speak much.
He didn't need to.
Fist met body. Body hit floor. Repeat.
Where the others had instruction, Joseph offered only pressure. He taught by pain. By endurance. By survival instinct. And Zen met every hit with one question in his head:
> How do I win without being stronger?
He learned footwork, leverage, rhythm. Where to aim to make pain last, and where to strike to end a fight fast.
Eventually, Joseph had to stop pulling punches.
"I've trained soldiers, monks, and pit-fighters," he said after Zen blocked a triple-punch combo and floored him with a hook. "But I've never trained someone who fought like they'd been doing it their whole life in their head, waiting for their body to catch up."
---
And then there was Jean.
The silent wall.
His training sessions were brutal. Running barefoot through snowfields. Holding his breath underwater in cold stone tubs. Standing under waterfalls until limbs went numb.
Zen never once backed out.
When his body gave out, Jean dumped cold water on him, handed him food, and started again.
Zen's breathing techniques improved. His pain tolerance hit abnormal levels. Even his stamina had reached near non-human thresholds, according to the palace healers.
Jean never gave compliments. Not once.
But at the end of the sixth month, after Zen dragged a wagon loaded with stone across a muddy field with his bare hands, Jean put a hand on his shoulder and gave one firm nod.
That was more than enough.
---
Now, in the echoing space of the palace's private arena, all four stood around him. They had just fought together—Martin with his blade, Mia with spells, Joseph with fists, Jean pressing physical pressure from all sides.
Zen had countered all of them. Strategically. Efficiently. Without showing off. No flair. Just results.
He didn't say much. Just pulled his gloves back on.
They watched him silently.
Martin crossed his arms. "He doesn't just learn. He predicts. And then he builds off it. We taught him the rules—he rewrote them before we finished."
Mia added, "There's something else. It's not divine. Not fate. It's clarity. He sees things like a mage, fights like a brawler, and plans like a tactician. He doesn't waste movement. Doesn't waste thought."
Joseph nodded. "No ego. Just focus."
Jean said nothing. Just gave a second nod.
Sayed, who had observed every session from the gallery above, stood and turned to the watching nobles behind him.
"This is no longer just a Traveler. He's an asset. The kind you don't waste. And the kind you don't try to control."
The court was quiet.
The king didn't speak.
He simply rose from his seat and looked down at the boy—no, the weapon—they had summoned.
Zen stood in the center of the ring, adjusting the wraps on his wrists.
He looked up at the king.
"When do we start?"
There were nights I thought I wouldn't survive the next sunrise.
Days my bones screamed, my spirit cracked.
But every time I wanted to quit—
I remembered I didn't ask for this.
So if I have to carry it…
Then I'll carry it farther than anyone ever has."