The world's a carcass," the old man used to say, hacking a lungful of grey phlegm into the forge-fire. "Most people just argue over who gets the choice cuts while the rot sets in."
He didn't give a damn about maps. If I wanted to know where the threats were coming from, I had to steal looks at the vellum scraps he kept buried under rusted slag and half-melted ingots. The world wasn't a "tapestry"—it was a jagged, broken bottle.
To the east, Catington. A bloated tick of a city where you could buy a god's favor if you had the coin. South was Arachon, filled with "Knights" who polished their plate armor and their egos in equal measure, obsessed with a Code that mostly seemed to involve looking down their noses at anyone who bled red instead of blue.
But Valos? Valos kept me awake at night. A northern empire of ice and arrogance that treated magic like a ledger. They didn't just want territory; they wanted the keys to the engine room of reality. Then there were the fringes: the stunted, soot-stained dwarves of Dermura; the elves in Verdonnia, clutching their dying tree like a moth-eaten heirloom; and the titans of Saraounia to the far south, men built of obsidian and old, mean magic.
Geography was for scholars. The old man cared about the meat.
And I assure you, I wish that were the case, but even books have become instruments of torture now.
"Oh well, that's my new life " I thought.
The smell hit me like a physical blow. Not the clean, sharp scent of ozone from the forge, but the low, heavy funk of wet fur, stale bile, and vinegar. A six-legged scavenger—something that had probably been screaming in the woods an hour ago—was splayed across the workbench.
"Stop staring at it and open it up," the old man spat. He tossed a scalpel at my chest. I caught it by the bone handle, the blade chipped and stained. "You think Alchemia is about bubbling vials? It's architecture, boy. You want to hit harder? You don't just 'get strong.' You strip the wires. You pack the marrow until your bones turn to stone. You make your nerves fast enough to outrun your own thoughts."
I shoved the blade in. The hide resisted, then tore with a wet schlick.
[Chessmaster] surged. The world didn't go "monochrome"—it went cold. The stench faded as my mind partitioned the creature into a map of stress points and levers. I saw the mana-lines, thin as spider silk, pulsing a sickly, frozen blue against the dark muscle.
"I see the conduits," I muttered, my pulse slowing.
"Then wake 'em up! Stop playing with your food!"
I shoved a needle-thin spike of mana from my Dantian into the creature's femoral bundle. The dead leg lashed out, a mindless reflex that nearly smashed my knuckles into the table.
"Careful, butcher," the old man grunted, a jagged sound in his throat. "A millimeter off and you aren't a god. You're just a heap of meat that can't walk."
The forge floor became a slaughterhouse.
"You're dancing again," Marduk roared, swinging a heavy iron bar that whistled as it cut the air. "This isn't a ballroom, you little shit! Survive!"
I wiped a mixture of sweat and copper-tasting blood from my mouth.
[Chessmaster] was screaming, throwing a grid of red lines across the room, but my legs were heavy. Sluggish. I took a ragged breath, letting the old ghost of the Annapolis grad take the wheel. The man who knew that a fair fight was a failed plan.
I dropped my weight. No more "footwork." Just the LINE.
I lunged. My fingers aimed for his eyes, a cheap flicker to draw his guard. As his hand rose, I didn't "pivot"—I collapsed my frame, driving a jagged piece of scrap metal toward his thigh while slamming my skull into his jaw. I heard the satisfying crunch of teeth meeting bone.
The old man's hand closed around my throat like a man-trap. He didn't just throw me; he launched me. I hit the stone wall, the air leaving my lungs in a pathetic wheeze.
"Disgusting," the old man said, rubbing his jaw. He looked almost happy. "No honor. Pure, gutter-trash filth."
"Efficiency," I gasped, tasting more blood. "I don't need a style. I just need them to be dead before they realize the fight started."
We went back to the table. If I was going to fight like a monster, I needed a chassis that wouldn't snap under the torque.
"The marrow," the old man wheezed.
He looked like hell. He hadn't cleaned the floor from yesterday's session, and the dark stains had turned into a sticky, black crust.
"We're densifying the forearms. Try not to scream. It's annoying."
It wasn't Alchemia. It was a lobotomy of the bone. Using the Arcane, I reached into my own skeleton. It felt like someone was dragging a red-hot serrated wire through my veins. I watched my mana act like a soldering iron, fusing calcium and fiber into something dense, heavy, and fundamentally wrong.
When the mana burned out, I was shaking, drenched in a cold, oily sweat. The old man leaned against the forge, his face the color of old parchment. He coughed—a wet, rattling sound—and didn't even bother to hide the crimson spray on his palm.
"World's moving, kid," he panted, his eyes glassy. "Valos is stirring the pot. Arachon is dreaming of crusades. And I'm... I'm running out of clock."
The [Chessmaster] didn't need to calculate. I could see his vitals red-lining. He wouldn't last the month. I gripped the scalpel, my knuckles white and aching. I'd come here for a mentor, but all I had left was a dying man and a pile of broken iron.
I looked at my hands. They were steady, even if my bones felt like they were made of lead.
"I'll be ready," I said.
The forge felt smaller now. The road ahead wasn't a "path"—it was a gauntlet. I wasn't a pawn, and I wasn't a king. I was the one who was going to break the board.