Kai woke to someone throwing a bucket of ice water on his face.
"Up. Now."
Wei Long stood over him, already dressed in training robes. Outside the window, it was still dark.
"What time is it?" Kai groaned, his body protesting every movement.
"Four in the morning. Combat training starts in fifteen minutes. If you're late, Master will make yesterday look like a warm-up."
Kai forced himself out of bed.
His wounds from yesterday were still healing, the bandages tight around his torso.
Every step hurt.
[HP: 95/120]
[Status Effect: Wounded - Physical capabilities reduced by 15%]
He threw on his training robes and followed Wei Long to the training hall. Other Shadow Hall disciples were already there—about twenty of them, all wearing the same black training robes.
Master Shen Yue stood at the front, looking as fresh as if she'd slept twelve hours.
Kai suspected she didn't sleep at all.
"Line up!" she commanded.
Everyone snapped into formation.
Kai scrambled to find a spot.
"Shadow Hall disciples are weapons," Master Shen Yue began, pacing in front of them. "Weapons must be sharp, precise, and reliable. Today, we sharpen you."
She gestured to the training hall.
It had transformed overnight.
Now it was filled with obstacles—wooden posts, hanging chains, platforms at different heights, and what looked like spinning blades near the ceiling.
"You will complete the Shadow Path. Start to finish. Anyone who takes longer than five minutes fails. Anyone who falls fails. Anyone who stops fails."
[Quest Alert!]
[Training Quest: Complete the Shadow Path]
[Time Limit: 5 minutes]
[Reward: +50 EXP, increased Agility]
[Penalty: Unknown punishment]
"Begin!"
Everyone rushed forward.
Kai followed, his wounded body protesting immediately.
The first obstacle was a series of wooden posts, each one narrower than the last.
Kai leaped from post to post, his balance wavering. A disciple next to him slipped and fell into the padding below.
"Failure! Twenty lashes!" Master Shen Yue's voice echoed.
Twenty lashes? For falling?
[Time Remaining: 4:32]
The next obstacle was hanging chains.
Kai grabbed one and swung forward, his shoulder wound screaming in protest.
He barely made it to the next chain.
[HP: 95/120 → 90/120]
[Wound reopened slightly]
Blood seeped through his bandages, but he kept moving.
Wei Long was ahead of him, moving through the obstacles like they were nothing.
Other disciples struggled, some falling and being marked as failures.
[Time Remaining: 3:18]
The spinning blades were next. They rotated in a pattern—three seconds open, two seconds closed. Kai watched the timing, waiting for his moment.
He rushed through.
The blade nicked his arm.
[HP: 90/120 → 85/120]
But he made it through. Only one more obstacle—a wall climb with barely any handholds.
[Time Remaining: 1:45]
Kai's arms were shaking.
His wounds burned.
His qi was nearly depleted from using Shadow Step to get through some of the faster sections.
[Qi: 70/70 → 15/70]
He grabbed the first handhold and pulled himself up.
His fingers slipped on his own blood.
"Move, new guy!" someone shouted from behind.
Kai gritted his teeth and climbed.
One hand over the other. Don't look down. Don't think about the pain.
[Time Remaining: 0:47]
He reached the top and rolled over the edge, collapsing onto the platform.
"Four minutes, thirty-two seconds," Master Shen Yue called out. "Pass."
Kai lay there, gasping. He'd made it.
But eleven disciples hadn't.
Master Shen Yue looked at the failures coldly.
"Eleven lashes each. Wei Long, administer punishment."
Wei Long nodded and pulled out a whip from his storage ring.
The failures lined up, faces pale.
CRACK
The sound of the whip made Kai flinch.
The first disciple screamed.
"Watch," Master Shen Yue commanded. "This is the price of failure in Shadow Hall."
Kai watched.
All of them watched.
Each crack of the whip was a reminder.
Weakness meant pain. Failure meant suffering.
[Warning: Psychological pressure detected]
[Shadow Hall training methods are designed to break disciples]
[Recommendation: Develop mental resilience]
After the punishment, Master Shen Yue dismissed them for a fifteen-minute break. Fifteen minutes to recover, eat, and prepare for the next session.
Kai wolfed down a meat bun from the meal hall and drank water like he'd been in a desert. Around him, other disciples did the same. No one talked. They just ate and rested.
"You're bleeding," a voice said.
Kai looked up.
A girl about his age sat down across from him. She had short hair and a scar running down her left cheek.
"I know."
"You should get that checked before afternoon training. Master doesn't like it when disciples bleed on the training mats."
"Thanks for the tip. I'm Kai."
"Ling Xiu. I've been here three months." She took a bite of her bun. "You did okay on the Shadow Path. But tomorrow will be worse."
"Worse how?"
"The obstacles change every day. And Master reduces the time limit by ten seconds each week."
Kai stared at her. "That's insane."
"That's Shadow Hall." Ling Xiu stood up. "Get your wounds treated. Afternoon training starts in ten minutes."
Afternoon training was technique practice. Master Shen Yue stood at the front with a wooden dummy.
"Shadow Movement is the foundation of our art," she explained. "It is not simply moving fast. It is moving without being perceived. Watch."
She vanished.
No sound. No movement. One moment she was there, the next she was gone.
Then she reappeared behind the dummy. "This is true Shadow Movement. You will learn to do the same."
She looked at the assembled disciples. "Kai Zhang. Front and center."
Kai's stomach dropped. He walked forward.
"Demonstrate your movement technique."
Kai activated Shadow Step. His body blurred forward, covering ten meters instantly.
"Pathetic." Master Shen Yue's voice was cold. "I could track you with my eyes closed. You're fast, but you're loud. Your qi flows inefficiently, wasting energy and leaving traces."
She appeared next to him. "Again. This time, focus on silence. Suppress your qi signature."
Kai tried. He activated Shadow Step while trying to keep his qi contained.
He crashed into a wall.
[HP: 85/120 → 80/120]
[Qi: 15/70 → 5/70]
"Better. You're learning." Master Shen Yue grabbed his arm, and qi flooded into his body. Not healing qi—instructional qi. It showed him how to move his energy more efficiently.
[Temporary Buff: Master's Guidance]
[Qi circulation improved]
"Try again."
This time, when Kai activated Shadow Step, it felt different. Smoother. His qi didn't explode outward—it flowed like water through his meridians.
He moved ten meters, completely silent.
[Shadow Step → Shadow Step (Improved)]
[Qi Cost reduced: 30 → 25]
[Detection chance reduced]
"Acceptable. Practice this ten thousand times." Master Shen Yue moved on to the next disciple.
Ten thousand times.
Kai looked at Wei Long, who was practicing nearby. The senior disciple nodded. "She's not exaggerating. Ten thousand repetitions. That's how we master techniques here."
Night came, and with it, assassination theory.
The class was held in a dark room lit only by a single candle.
Master Shen Yue stood in the shadows, her crimson eyes reflecting the light.
"Assassination is an art form," she began. "The goal is not just to kill. Any idiot with a knife can kill. The goal is to kill without being detected. To make death look like accident, illness, or natural causes."
She pulled out a jade slip. "These contain information on poisons, pressure points, and anatomy. You will memorize all of it. Tomorrow, I will test you. Failure means you drink one of the poisons."
Kai caught the jade slip she tossed to him. When he pressed it to his forehead, information flooded his mind.
Hundreds of poisons. Symptoms. Antidotes. Kill times. Detection methods.
Pressure points that caused paralysis. Points that caused cardiac arrest. Points that caused delayed death hours later.
Weak spots in human anatomy. Where to cut for maximum blood loss. How to make a kill look like natural causes.
[Warning: Receiving large amount of deadly knowledge]
[This information could be dangerous]
[System will help organize and retain information]
The information kept coming.
Kai's head throbbed.
His nose started bleeding again.
But he absorbed it all. The system helped, organizing the knowledge into categories, making connections, highlighting important details.
[Intelligence +1]
[New Skill Unlocked: Poison Knowledge (Beginner)]
[New Skill Unlocked: Anatomy Knowledge (Beginner)]
When the jade slip finally released him, Kai collapsed forward, gasping.
"Good," Master Shen Yue said. "You didn't pass out. That's more than the last three managed."
Around the room, other disciples were in various states of distress. Some were bleeding from their noses. Others looked pale and sick. Two had actually passed out.
"Class dismissed. You have two hours until lights out. Use them wisely."
Kai stumbled back to his room. Two hours. He needed to cultivate to recover his qi, tend his wounds, and rest.
He chose cultivation.
Sitting cross-legged, he began the Blood Qi Circulation technique.
The qi in the environment was thicker here in Shadow Hall—darker, more violent, but also more potent.
[Cultivation Session Begin]
His wounds slowly healed as qi circulated through his body.
The pain faded to a dull ache.
[HP: 80/120 → 95/120]
[Qi: 5/70 → 45/70]
After an hour, someone knocked on his door.
"Come in," Kai said, not opening his eyes.
Ling Xiu entered. "Just checking if you survived your first day."
"Barely."
"That's normal. The first week is hell. The second week is worse. The third week, you either adapt or break."
She sat down against the wall. "I wanted to give you some advice. Master Shen Yue... she's testing you. Not just your strength or skills. She's testing your will."
"What do you mean?"
"The last three personal disciples? They were all strong. Stronger than you, actually. But they broke mentally. One couldn't handle the pressure. One couldn't handle the guilt of learning to kill. The third couldn't handle Master's expectations."
Ling Xiu looked at him seriously. "Shadow Hall doesn't just train assassins. It breaks you down and rebuilds you into something else. Something colder. Something deadlier."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I don't want to see another personal disciple fail. It's bad for morale." She stood up. "Get some sleep, Kai. Tomorrow's combat training is against real opponents. Master likes to use captured criminals as training targets."
She left before Kai could ask what she meant.
[Warning: Training difficulty will increase]
[Estimated survival probability: 31.2%]
Kai lay down on his bed. His body ached. His mind was exhausted.
[Day 1 of Training Complete]
[Status: Wounded but surviving]
[Next objective: Survive Day 2]