By direct order of Duchess Sophia, the first to push him was Albert, his tutor and guardian since childhood.
No one in the Douglas estate dared question him—least of all when it concerned the young heir. A descendant of the duchess's bloodline, Albert had served the Douglas family for three generations. His loyalty was as unwavering as the steel he carried. He was not only responsible for the young duke's safety, but also for training him in combat.
Sophia had given the order in a firm voice that allowed no room for argument.
"A weak body breeds a weak mind."
She had spoken those words that morning while watching the sunlight spill across the training grounds from the balcony.
Albert carried out her command with his usual severity.
The moment he stepped into Lusian's room, his presence filled the chamber—the scent of worn leather, the metallic clink of his armor, the quiet weight of duty behind every movement.
"The reason you fell ill is because you haven't trained enough," he said bluntly, his gaze leaving no room for excuses. "Starting today, you'll move that body of yours, even if I have to drag you to the training grounds myself."
Lusian tried to protest, still clinging to the laziness he mistook for weakness.
"I... I still don't feel well. Maybe another day..." he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper, more to himself than to Albert.
Albert stepped closer, standing like an unbreakable wall.
"There is no another day. Wasted time is danger. Every moment you squander here pushes you one step farther from surviving in this world."
Lusian swallowed.
He knew arguing was pointless.
Yet something stirred inside him.
The first spark of defiance.
A quiet reminder that although this body wasn't truly his, his mind could still choose its own path.
Before he could say another word, Albert shoved him toward the training grounds.
The training field stretched out before him—a wide courtyard of sand and stone, surrounded by low walls and watchtowers where soldiers practiced swordsmanship and spellcasting beneath the commander's watchful eye.
"Greetings, Young Master Lusian!"
The knights saluted in perfect unison as he walked toward the center of the field.
Their voices echoed against the stone walls.
For a brief moment, Lusian felt the weight of every pair of eyes fixed upon him.
Embarrassment settled over him like a heavy cloak.
He wasn't a player sitting safely behind a computer screen anymore.
He was a young duke expected to live up to everyone's expectations.
Albert stepped beside him and picked up two practice swords with a casual flick of his wrist.
"You still haven't learned, Lusian," he said. "Carry yourself according to your station. Today, you'll remember what real training feels like."
He tossed one of the swords toward him.
Lusian caught it on instinct, nearly stumbling under its unexpected weight.
"Master..." Lusian lowered his gaze. "...I can't feel mana."
Albert frowned, studying his disciple with a stern expression.
"Can't you feel mana... or are you simply looking for another excuse to avoid training?"
The air around him trembled.
A crimson glow enveloped his arm, coating his fist in a layer of mana that crackled like living embers.
The sharp scent of ozone spread across the training field.
"Let's find out."
Lusian barely managed to raise his sword.
Albert's fist struck directly into his chest.
Everything disappeared.
The world spun violently before he crashed into the sand.
The air was ripped from his lungs.
He couldn't breathe.
He tried to push himself up.
Another strike.
This time, it hit his abdomen.
Pain folded his body in half.
He felt something break inside him as he rolled several meters across the ground.
The soldiers watched in silence.
No one intervened.
No one questioned Albert.
Every blow was a lesson.
Every fall was an obligation.
Lusian gritted his teeth as he tried to stand.
His legs refused to move.
The sword slipped from his hands.
The sand tasted like iron.
Then he understood something.
This was not a video game.
There was no health bar.
No message would appear telling him how much damage he had taken.
There would be no second chance by loading a save file.
There was only pain.
The weight of every breath.
The taste of blood sliding down his throat.
So this...
This was what dying felt like.
The thought crossed his mind with terrifying clarity.
For days, he had tried to convince himself that this was still the world of a game.
That everything was under control.
That knowing the story was enough.
He had been wrong.
Here, death was not a mechanic.
It was final.
Albert advanced once more.
His aura burned with overwhelming intensity.
"Stand up."
Lusian placed one knee against the ground.
His body trembled.
Then it happened.
Something inside him reacted to Albert's mana.
A current slowly traveled through his veins.
First came warmth.
Then a deep cold.
Then the two merged together.
Lusian opened his eyes.
The emptiness he had felt since awakening in this world...
Was gone.
A thin black thread slipped from the palm of his hand.
Then another.
Then dozens more.
Shadows began to coil around his arms like ink spreading through water.
The sunlight around him seemed to weaken.
The air grew heavy.
Cold.
Silent.
Even the scent of fire disappeared.
Only a faint trace of ash remained.
Lusian stared at the shadows crawling across his skin.
He did not feel surprise.
He felt terror.
He knew this power.
He had seen that darkness spread across entire cities.
He had seen fortresses vanish beneath that black veil.
He had seen entire armies consumed, leaving not even a single corpse behind.
He had seen Emily face that darkness.
He had seen heroes fall.
And he had also seen the true Lusian Douglas die.
His breathing stopped.
"No..."
He took a step back.
His hands trembled.
"That can't be..."
Lusian's breathing grew ragged.
The shadows continued wrapping around his arms as if they possessed a will of their own.
He could barely tear his eyes away from them.
Albert stepped forward.
There was no fear in his eyes.
No surprise.
Only a faint trace of satisfaction.
"At last, you can feel mana."
The old man rested his sword against his shoulder.
"Then stop staring at your hands."
"And fight."
Albert vanished.
Lusian reacted on instinct.
The fear disappeared.
His body moved before his mind could.
Dark mana surged through his muscles like an uncontrolled torrent.
Without needing to think, it reinforced his legs, his arms, every fiber of his body.
Lusian stepped forward.
The sand sank beneath his boots.
"What...?"
He had not spoken an incantation.
He had not consciously decided to use physical reinforcement.
It had simply...
happened.
Erwin's memories knew the theory.
Lusian's body remembered the practice.
Both acted at the same time.
The shadows crawled toward the sword.
The steel lost its silver shine, becoming covered in a liquid darkness that seemed to absorb the sunlight itself.
A chill ran down his spine.
Without stopping to think, he extended his left hand.
The mana responded immediately.
One.
Two.
Three.
Seven black spears emerged behind him, suspended in the air.
Their tips trembled with an unsettling energy as they slowly revolved around his body.
With an instinctive motion of his hand, they all shot toward Albert.
The old man did not retreat.
He smiled.
His sword erupted in scarlet flames.
He took a single step forward.
The first slash split a spear in half.
The second disintegrated the moment it touched the flames.
The third exploded into a shower of black sparks.
The fourth.
The fifth.
The sixth.
The seventh.
Not a single one reached him.
When the final shadow faded into the air, Albert was already standing before him.
The flaming sword descended without hesitation.
Lusian barely managed to move aside.
It wasn't even because of his own skill; Albert had stopped the strike before it reached its full force.
His heart continued pounding violently against his chest.
The fear remained.
Untouched.
And Albert did not grant him even a moment to recover.
The flaming sword came down again.
Lusian raised his weapon to block.
The impact shook his arms.
He barely managed to keep his balance.
"If anyone can use any element..."
Lusian took a step back and extended his hand.
He tried to shape water mana.
A crystalline vortex began forming before him, but the moment it appeared, he felt a hollow sensation in his chest.
His mana was draining at an absurd rate.
The spell lost its stability and dissolved into a cloud of mist before it could reach Albert.
The old man scoffed.
"Water? Use only the magic of your affinity. Everything else is a waste."
With a swing of his sword, the flames devoured the vapor and erased it completely.
"Never forget this. Anyone can learn magic from any element, but only your affinity allows you to use mana efficiently. Forcing another element will drain your reserves. On the battlefield, that is the same as handing over your life."
He gave Lusian no time to absorb those words.
Albert was already in front of him.
The blow sent him crashing into the sand.
He had barely managed to push himself up when another strike forced him to roll across the ground.
There was no rest.
Albert knocked him down, forced him to stand...
and knocked him down again.
The training continued for hours.
When the sun began to descend, Lusian lay sprawled across the sand.
His clothes were torn, his body covered in dust and bruises, and every breath burned his chest.
And yet, a faint sense of satisfaction remained within him.
He had endured.
Albert remained standing before him, arms crossed.
His expression was as stern as ever, but deep within his eyes, something had changed.
He had watched Lusian grow.
He had guided his first training sessions.
He had corrected every mistake since the boy was a child.
More than once, he had wanted to stop this brutal lesson.
But he could not allow himself to.
He had raised Lusian since childhood.
Every strike weighed heavier on him than the boy could ever imagine.
However, the world waiting for the heir of the Douglas family was far crueler than any training.
If he had to choose between being a cruel old man or an old man mourning Lusian's death...
the choice was simple.
From the balcony, Sophia watched in silence.
Every blow made her body tremble.
Her fingers gripped the railing so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
She wanted to go down.
She wanted to knock Albert away with a single strike, throw him to the ground, and make him pay for every bruise that appeared on her son's body.
But she didn't.
Because she knew Albert was not the enemy.
The true enemy was the world waiting for Lusian.
A world where the weak were never given a second chance.
If she protected him now, there would come a day when she would no longer be there to do so.
And when that day arrived...
Lusian would die.
Thunder let out a low growl, as if sharing her despair.
Sophia closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Her nails dug into the wood of the railing.
"One more hit, Albert, and..." she whispered, her voice trembling.
Every second was torture.
Every instinct demanded that she run to her son.
Yet she remained still.
Because she would rather endure the pain of watching him suffer today...
than the pain of watching him die tomorrow.
The training continued for hours.
When it finally ended, the sun had already shifted across the sky, casting long shadows over the field.
Lusian lay on the sand, breathing heavily.
His clothes were torn, his body covered in sweat, dust, and bruises.
Every muscle ached.
"In my old life, my biggest problem was my back hurting after sitting in front of a computer for eight hours..."
He let out a bitter laugh.
"I thought going to the gym was suffering."
"What an idiot."
Still lying on the ground, Erwin continued to breathe heavily.
Every muscle in his body protested.
He closed his eyes.
Until now, the power system of Kuria had always seemed ridiculously simple.
Level up. Become stronger.
From behind a screen, everything had been reduced to a number.
But not here.
Now he understood what a level truly represented.
It was not a reward for defeating enemies.
It was the result of years of training, countless hours of practice, and a diet that very few people could afford.
Bodies grew stronger through mana as well.
The flesh of powerful monsters, fruits grown in mana-saturated regions, and spiritual herbs accelerated that process.
Without access to those resources, advancing was painfully slow.
That was why reaching level twenty before the age of fifteen was already considered the achievement of a prodigy.
The nobles played by different rules.
From childhood, they trained under masters, consumed food that commoners could never even dream of tasting, and inherited techniques refined over generations.
That was why Lusian...
Erwin lowered his gaze toward his hands.
He was only fifteen years old.
And this body had already reached level forty-five.
A talent that would have made almost any army cadet envious.
But level was not everything.
There was also affinity.
That could not be trained.
It could not be purchased.
It was inherited.
An innate connection to one of the primordial elements: fire, water, earth, wind, light, darkness, ice, or lightning.
Those born with an affinity could manipulate mana with extraordinary ease, consume far less energy, and achieve a level of power that others could never reach.
Then he remembered the heroes from the game.
Now he understood why they had been so monstrous.
They did not possess impossible levels alone.
They had acquired extraordinary affinities.
And, on top of that...
They had the favor of the gods.
They did not follow Kuria's destiny.
They rewrote it.
Erwin let out a tired laugh.
He knew the mechanics.
He knew the characters.
He knew the story.
But no game guide had ever taught him how to survive when he was the one taking the hits.
He opened his eyes and looked at Albert.
According to the game, that man would eventually become the right hand of the future Lusian.
Always loyal.
Always respectful.
He never would have imagined that, before that day came, the man would try to beat him into the ground with nothing but a sword.
Suddenly, Adela came running across the training field.
Her skirt fluttered in the wind as a massive white tiger followed closely behind her.
She carried two vials in her hands.
One contained a green liquid that shimmered with a faint healing light.
The other held a dark blue potion, its strong mint scent revealing the concentrated mana within.
She dropped to her knees beside Lusian without hesitation.
"My lord..."
Her hands trembled as she offered him both potions.
Until then, Garet had remained silent.
Finally, he stepped forward.
"You didn't need to go this far, Albert. He hasn't even fully recovered yet."
Albert ran a cloth along the edge of his sword without even looking up.
"He's young. He can endure it."
"You could kill him."
"If this is enough to kill him, then the world will do it sooner or later."
Garet frowned.
His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"If something happens to him..."
Albert raised his gaze for the first time.
"Then the responsibility will be mine."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Neither man drew his weapon.
There was no need.
The soldiers kept their eyes forward, pretending not to hear, though everyone could feel the tension hanging between them.
Lusian uncorked the green vial and drank.
The liquid burned as it traveled down his throat before spreading throughout his body.
The pain slowly began to fade, replaced by a warm tingling sensation that returned some strength to his limbs.
He took a deep breath.
"Adela... thank you."
She immediately looked up and froze.
Thank you.
The words felt strange.
Painfully strange.
The old Lusian would never have thanked her.
He would have demanded another potion.
He would have found some flaw to criticize her for.
He would have acted as if serving him was everyone's natural obligation.
But the young man before her simply drank in silence.
Asked about his level.
And thanked her.
For the first time since she had known him...
She felt like she was speaking with someone else.
Adela lowered her gaze for a moment, unsure of what to say.
There was something different about him.
It wasn't obvious.
It wasn't something she could point to with certainty.
But it was there.
The other servants watching nearby exchanged confused glances as well.