An old man sat on the frozen lake, thin as a winter reed.
He wore nothing but a shirt so worn you could count the threads, and patched trousers that let the wind whistle straight through to his wrinkled skin. Snow had settled on his shoulders like a second, colder cloak. He wasn't fishing, wasn't meditating—just staring at the ice as if waiting for something long overdue.
I hesitated. My commission was simple: smash the ice and spear the fish that came up for air. Doing so would shatter the silence he guarded, yet anyone who could sit half-naked in this cold was no ordinary elder. I approached with the respect you give a sleeping dragon.
"…Senior?"
No answer. For a moment I feared the frost had sealed his voice forever.
At last a rasp, soft but startlingly clear, drifted from his lips.
"Young one… greetings."
The sound was that of a man whose next breath might be his last, yet every syllable rang sharp as steel.
"I've a fishing quest," I said, bowing. "May I open the ice?"
A single word, dry as dead leaves:
"Proceed."
I exhaled, relieved, and set to work. Fire magic would melt the surface, but the sheet was thick and my mana modest; I shaped a crude stone sword instead and began to hack. Each blow jarred my arms; progress was slow.
"Strike too early, withdraw too late."
The comment floated across the ice. I looked around—no one else. The old man's gaze rested on me, faintly amused.
I tried his correction. The next swing bit twice as deep, but pain flared in my wrists. I reverted to brute force.
A sigh, almost parental.
"Old habits…"
He rose—not quickly, yet the snow slid from him as though dismissed by royalty. He crossed the ice without a sound, each step as natural as walking on stone. Stopping before me, he extended a hand.
"Let me see the blade."
I surrendered the stone sword, half expecting it to crumble in his frail grip. Instead he adopted the compact stance of the Sword-God style. A flicker—no more—of motion.
A single note rang out, metallic and pure. Three metres of ice exploded upward in a spray of crystal shards, the fracture line clean as a ruled edge. The old man stood unmoved, as though he had merely waved away a fly.
"Slow enough for you?" he asked.
I stared, throat dry. Saint-rank? King-rank? Beyond?
"Right foot first, then left arm," he continued. "But that is mechanics. Tell me—what did you think of the cut itself?"
I swallowed.
"Efficient. No waste… yet it severed more ice than seemed necessary."
He studied me the way a whetstone studies a blade.
"Good. The first answer shows talent; the second shows talent that may surpass mine."
Before I could stammer a reply he turned toward the pines.
"Come. We are not finished."
We walked only a little way into the woods. He tossed me the stone sword, took up a fallen branch.
"Cut me."
"…Pardon?"
"I will show you where you fail. Then you will cut again."
For two hours I swung until my lungs burned. Whenever my edge neared its full arc, his twig tapped the flat and the strike died. Only once did the branch miss its mark; the old man parried with a smile so slight it might have been wind.
At last he let me collapse.
"Recall the stroke that escaped me," he said. "Reproduce it at will and you will stand at the threshold of Sword-Saint."
I gaped. He only looked away, as if discussing the weather.
A growl—his stomach. He announced it without shame. I offered dried rations; he declined.
"Fish will do."
We returned to the lake. I kindled a fire; he gathered kindling without asking. Side by side we roasted the day's catch.
Between bites he spoke quietly.
"Sword principles travel. What you learn of Sword-God may serve Water-God or North-God alike. Remember the one clean cut."
I hesitated, then confessed.
"Truth is, that cut felt like luck."
"I know," he answered. "Luck is enough. A single perfect stroke proves the blade within you."
He lapsed into silence, gnawing a half-charred tail. When he spoke again his voice was softer.
"My wife died ten winters ago. Her last wish: that I see the world for both of us, then return and tell her of it. I have wandered south and north; in three or four more years I will go home and wait for my own ending."
The words were spoken without drama, yet the weight of them settled on my shoulders like fresh snow. A hero grown old, choosing the quiet fade.
"Desire sharpens steel," he continued. "In your eyes I see none—only potential. When desire awakens, seek me at the Sword Sanctum. If I still breathe, grant me the honor of a final duel."
He rose, took two more fish—still half-raw—and walked into the dusk. No name, no title—only the fading crunch of boots on snow.
I sat alone by the dying fire, the taste of ash and possibility on my tongue, wondering whose legend had just brushed mine.