The hooded man's first strike was a blur it was fast enough that Max barely raised the weapon in time. Metal clashed against metal, sparks snapping through the darkness. The impact jarred his wrists all the way to his shoulders.
"Too slow," the man said, stepping back. "Again."
That became the rhythm of their nights moving forward for a week of training inside a barrier unknown to Max so nobody could detect them.
On the first night.
Max learned quickly that the hooded man didn't waste words. Every movement was instruction. Every mistake was corrected with a precise tap of his daggers a shove, or a sweep that dumped Max flat onto his back.
His arms ached. His legs trembled. The sewer had been nothing compared to this.
"Your stance is weak," the man said after Max tripped over his own weapon for the fourth time.
"My stance is tired," Max muttered.
The man didn't smile. But he didn't disagree either.
The second night brought drills—endless drills. Swing. Block. Parry. Recover. Again and again until Max couldn't unclench his fingers from the hilt of his sword.
"Fight smart, not loud," the man said, moving around him like a drifting shadow. "You're thinking too much."
"Because every time I stop thinking, you hit me!"
"Then learn faster."
Max learned.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But he learned.
By the third night, the weapon felt less like a burden and more like an extension of Max's arm. It hummed when he gripped it, resonating with each swing. Sometimes he thought he felt it guide him with tiny shifts, and subtle nudges.
"Good," the man said after one particularly sharp combo. "It's responding to you."
"Is that… normal?"
"Nothing about that thing is normal."
The night ended with Max gasping for air, but standing, when the man launched a flurry of blows. He blocked two. One grazed him. One knocked him down. That counted as progress.
Max's days were spent resting. Meditation and drinking enhanced recovery potions from his strange teacher.
Rain poured over the courtyard, but the man insisted they continue.
Max slipped on the wet stones multiple times until the hooded man barked, "Use the ground. Don't fight against it."
Max adapted. Learned how to move differently with the slippery surface. How to pivot faster. How to fall without cracking or breaking something.
For the first time, the man's voice carried a hint of approval.
"Tonight we fight for real," the man said.
Max's heart jolted. "This whole week wasn't real?"
The man attacked without answering.
This time Max didn't fall immediately. He read the man's stance, blocked early strikes, and countered with moves the weapon seemed to help him shape his own. There were moments, brief, flickering moments when Max actually felt dangerous.
When the man disarmed him with a twist of his wrist, Max growled and lunged to reclaim the weapon. The man raised a brow.
"You're learning to want the fight," he said. "Good. But don't let that desire get you killed. Now rest."
The week was coming to an end.
By now Max's body felt like a patchwork of bruises and exhaustion. But he kept going. Something inside him pride, maybe as he refused to give up.
The man increased the pace of their bouts, forcing Max to predict instead of react.
"Trust yourself," he said.
"I am!"
"Then why do you keep flinching before you attack?"
Max hadn't realized he was doing that. But by the end of the night, he corrected it.
The Final Bout on the last day.
The last night felt heavy, like the air itself knew something was ending. A weeklong war between a genius and his master.
The hooded man paced in front of him. "One week. You've survived that long. This final match will show whether you've learned anything."
Max nodded, tightening his grip on the weapon. It thrummed under his palms.
They clashed.
For the first minute, Max held his ground. He matched the man's rhythm, countered his steps, even forced him back once. A rush of triumph surged through him.
He pushed harder.
Too hard.
The man saw the overextension before Max even realized he'd made it. With one clean, elegant motion, the man swept Max's legs and pressed a gloved hand to his chest, pinning him to the ground.
Max gasped, the fight knocked out of him.
The hooded man didn't mock him. Didn't scold him. Instead, he stepped back and offered a hand to help Max up.
"That's enough," he said.
Max blinked, unsure if he'd heard right. "But… I lost."
"You weren't supposed to win." A faint smile tugged at the edge of the man's mouth beneath the hood. "You were supposed to grow. And you did."
Max stared at him, breath still shaking.
The man turned away, pulling his hood tighter against the night. "We will meet again, Max. When you're ready for the next step."
"Wait but when will that be?"
The man paused. "When the weapon tells you."
Before Max could ask another question, the hooded figure melted into the shadows, leaving Max alone in the quiet courtyard exhausted, bruised, and stronger than he'd been seven days ago.
But also aware that his journey was only beginning.