Ravi spent the next week turning his ruin into a slightly-less-ruined-but-still-mostly-a-ruin home. It was a painstaking exercise in self-control. Every nail had to be held between two fingers and tapped in with the gentlest of nudges. Every floorboard had to be laid as if it were spun glass.
The hole in the wall remained his proudest, most incriminating achievement.
He funded his one-man renovation crew by taking on F-Rank quests. He retrieved a merchant's escaped pet lizard (he caught it when it tried to bite his finger, nearly shattering its own jaw). He cleared a farmer's field of oversized, melon-like rocks (he 'rolled' them into a pile, though he could have thrown them into orbit). He guarded a shipment of ale from bandits (the 'bandits' were three drunk kids who took one look at his dead-eyed stare and ran).
It was mind-numbingly dull work, but it was safe. It paid for food, new clothes, and reinforced steel tools that bent after a single use.
Lyanna became a regular visitor. She'd stop by after her own S-Rank expeditions, bringing food or news from the guild. She never mentioned the impossible stonework again, but he could feel her watching him. Her visits felt less like friendly check-ins and more like casual surveillance.
Today, she found him in the small yard behind his cottage, attempting to dig a small garden plot. His third steel shovelhead had just crumpled like a piece of tin foil.
"Having trouble?" she asked, leaning against the sturdy new fence post he'd installed (by simply pushing it four feet into the solid earth).
"The craftsmanship on these tools is abysmal," Ravi grumbled, tossing the mangled shovel aside.
She smirked. "Or perhaps the user is too enthusiastic. All that strength you're building up from… clearing fields of rocks."
The sarcasm was gentle, but it was definitely there.
"You should learn to control it," she continued, pushing off the fence. "All that power is useless if you can't apply it properly. I could teach you."
Ravi froze. "Teach me? What, like sword fighting?"
"Exactly. An adventurer needs to know how to handle a blade, even an F-Rank. You can't rely on 'luck' to save you forever."
Her offer was a minefield. A training session meant he'd have to hold back with pinpoint precision. One wrong move, one split-second lapse in concentration, and he'd shatter her sword, her arm, or her perception of reality. But refusing would be even more suspicious. Why would a weakling turn down free lessons from one of the strongest warriors in the kingdom?
"I… I don't know," he hedged. "I'm not exactly a fighter."
"You were when you took that club for Elara," she said, her voice dropping the playful tone. It was a statement. An undeniable fact that hung in the air between them. "Come on, Ravi. The guild has training grounds. Let's see what you're made of."
He was trapped. "Alright," he conceded with a reluctant sigh. "But you'll have to go easy on me. I've never even held a sword before."
The lie tasted like ash. Back on Earth, he'd been a historical fencing nerd. Kendo, HEMA, sabre—he loved the theory and artistry, even if he lacked the physical talent to be any good at it.
The guild's training yard was a dusty, open field behind the main hall, littered with weapon racks and battered training dummies. Kaelen and a few of his cronies were there, hacking away at a straw-filled mannequin. They stopped when they saw Ravi and Lyanna enter.
"Well, look at this," Kaelen sneered, wiping sweat from his brow. "The Princess is trying to teach her little pet how to bite. This I gotta see."
Lyanna shot him a glare that could have frozen lava. She ignored him and pulled two wooden training swords from a rack. They were thick, heavy dowels, meant to simulate the weight of a real blade. To Ravi, they felt as light as twigs.
She tossed one to him. He deliberately fumbled the catch, barely hanging onto it. "So, uh… pointy end goes in the other guy?"
Lyanna's lips thinned, a sign of her strained patience. "Just hold it like this. Feet apart. Knees bent. Watch your balance."
She walked him through the absolute basics—the stances, the simplest parries. He played the part of the uncoordinated beginner perfectly, his movements awkward and stiff. Kaelen's laughter from the sidelines was a constant, grating soundtrack.
"Alright," Lyanna said after ten minutes of excruciating basics. "Let's try a simple exchange. I'll attack slowly. Just focus on blocking."
She adopted a relaxed guard stance, the wooden sword held loosely in her hands. She was beautiful when she was focused. The afternoon sun caught the silver strands in her hair. Her icy eyes were sharp, calculating.
Then she moved.
Even going "slow," she was a blur. Her attack was a simple overhead chop, but it came with the speed and power of a viper's strike. All Ravi's Earth-world fencing theory screamed at him—parry, riposte, disarm!
His body, now freed from Earth's limitations, screamed to do it.
He had to fight every instinct. He couldn't dodge. He couldn't counter. He had to play the part of the fumbling amateur.
He brought his wooden sword up in a clumsy, two-handed block, just like she'd shown him. He angled it slightly, bracing for an impact that he knew wouldn't hurt.
Crack.
The sound of splintering wood echoed across the training yard.
Lyanna's sword hit his, and the universe chose that moment to remind Ravi about physics. Even holding back, his dense body, rooted to the spot, was an immovable object. Her swing, for all its power, was the resistible force.
Her wooden sword exploded.
Not snapped. Exploded. It disintegrated into a shower of splinters and sawdust on impact, leaving her holding nothing but the handle. The shock of the impact jolted her, making her stumble back a step, her eyes wide with disbelief.
The yard went silent. Kaelen's jaw was on the floor.
Ravi stared at the remains of her weapon, then at his own perfectly intact sword. He tried to look just as shocked as everyone else.
"I... I don't know what happened," he stammered, dropping his own sword as if it were cursed. "Did I do that?"
Lyanna was speechless. She looked from her empty hand to him. SheFlexed her fingers, shaking them out as if to get rid of the phantom vibrations. Her attack had been met with the equivalent of a granite wall.
Kaelen was the first to find his voice. The mockery was gone, replaced by a strange, unsettled mix of anger and confusion. "What in the hells was that? That's not a block! You cheated!"
"How can you cheat at blocking?" Ravi asked, genuinely curious.
"I... I don't know!" Kaelen sputtered. "But you did! No F-Rank weakling can..." He trailed off, unable to articulate what he'd just witnessed. He stalked over, grabbing Ravi's wooden sword off the ground. He inspected it, looking for some kind of enchantment, some hidden metal core. He found nothing. It was just wood.
"Must have been a flaw in my blade," Lyanna said, her voice strained. She was making excuses for him, but her eyes told a different story. They were boring into him, filled with a million unanswered questions. She wasn't just suspicious anymore. Now she had proof. Illogical, impossible proof.
"A flaw? It vaporized!" Kaelen scoffed. He turned to Ravi, a menacing glint in his eye. "Let me try. Let's see you block me, you little liar."
Kaelen picked up a fresh training sword. Lyanna stepped between them. "That's enough, Kaelen."
"No," Ravi said quietly. "It's fine."
Refusing would look worse. He had to see this through. He picked up his own sword again, his heart sinking. How was he supposed to do this twice and still pretend it was an accident?
He met Lyanna's gaze. He saw the worry there, but underneath it, he saw something else. Expectation. She wanted to see it again. She needed to.
"Alright, pretty boy," Kaelen snarled, taking his stance. "Let's see your 'lucky' block stand up to a real strike!"
He charged, roaring, and swung with all the force his brutish frame could muster. It wasn't Lyanna's elegant attack. It was a clumsy, telegraphed haymaker of a swing.
And Ravi knew exactly what he had to do.