POV: Ren
The journey to the Eastern Mountains was the first time I realized that reading about a fantasy world and living in one are two vastly different experiences. In The Academy's Supernova, travel was often summarized in a single paragraph. For me, it was three days of blisters, aching joints, and the constant fear of being eaten by something with too many teeth.
I had hitched a ride on a merchant's cart for the first leg of the trip, pretending to be a farmhand traveling to visit relatives. My E-rank Stamina was a cruel joke. By the time we reached the foothills of the Tristan range, I felt like a discarded rag.
But the goal kept me moving.
In the novel's lore, there were three "First Generation" scrolls hidden in the Cave of Whispers. Ashton, the protagonist, would eventually take the Solar Flare—a technique of overwhelming power and fire. But the one I wanted, the one he had deemed "too simple" in his internal monologue, was the Flash Sword.
The legend of the Flash Sword's creator was a chilling one. It was said he was a man of no talent and no mana. He was a commoner, just like me. He spent his entire life practicing a single motion: the draw. He didn't want to learn a thousand forms; he wanted to master the space between the sheath and the strike. It was said that at the height of his power, he could unsheathe his blade and decapitate an entire frontline of knights in a single, invisible pulse of movement.
Efficiency, I thought, wiping sweat from my brow as I began the steep climb up the gorge. That's what I need. I don't have the mana for Ashton's sun-fire. I don't have the grace for a noble's dance. I just need to be faster than the eye can see.
According to the book, the entrance to the cave wasn't just hidden; it was locked behind a trial that tested the "essence of the seeker."
As the sun dipped below the jagged peaks, casting long, bruised shadows over the valley, I found it: The Monument of the Unspoken Word. It was a jagged pillar of black basalt, worn smooth by centuries of mountain wind. There was no door, no cave mouth—just the wall of the cliff and this lonely stone.
I approached the monument. Carved into the base were letters in an ancient script that I could read only because my Intelligence stat acted as a universal translator for the world's "hidden lore."
"I have no voice, but I speak for the light. I have no body, but I follow the blade. I am the end before the beginning. What am I?"
I stared at the words. In the novel, Ashton had solved this by luck, or rather, "protagonist intuition." But for me, it was a logical puzzle.
"The end before the beginning," I whispered. "The movement that finishes the fight before it officially starts. The shadow that follows the steel."
The answer was simple, yet profound in the context of the technique.
"The Flash," I said firmly.
The monument didn't move. I frowned. Was I wrong? I re-read the puzzle. I speak for the light. I follow the blade.
"No, not the flash," I corrected myself, looking at the lengthening shadows on the ground. "The Shadow of the Strike."
The moment the words left my lips, the air hummed. The basalt pillar glowed with a faint, silver light, and the cliff face behind it shimmered like a reflection in a pond. The illusion dissolved, revealing a narrow, dark fissure in the rock.
I took a deep breath, checked my status panel—Stamina was hovering at a dangerously low 2—and stepped inside.
The interior of the cave was unnervingly silent. The walls were damp, and the only light came from moss that glowed with a pale, sickly green hue.
After a few minutes of walking, the tunnel opened into a wide grotto. In the center was a perfectly still, black lake. Beside the lake stood a stone pedestal, but it was empty. Instead, a voice—hollow and ancient—echoed through the chamber.
"Seeker, you have dropped your tool into the depths. Which shall you reclaim?"
The water bubbled, and three objects rose from the dark surface, floating in the air.
One was a sword made of solid, brilliant gold. It radiated a heat that made my skin prickle.
One was a sword made of pure silver, cold and elegant, humming with a high-pitched magical frequency.
The third was a rusted, battered iron training sword. Its hilt was frayed, and the blade was notched and dull.
I laughed. "The classic 'Honest Axe' trial. Really?"
In the original tale, the spirit of the lake asks the woodcutter if he dropped the gold or silver axe. The honest man says 'neither,' and is rewarded with all three.
But this wasn't just about honesty. In the context of the Flash Sword, it was about intent.
The gold sword represented fame and destructive power. The silver sword represented noble grace and refined magic. The rusted iron sword... that represented the billions of repetitions required to master a single strike.
I reached out my hand toward the rusted iron sword.
"I dropped the piece of junk," I said. "Keep the pretty ones. They're too heavy for me anyway."
The gold and silver swords vanished instantly, dissolving into mist. The iron sword didn't fly into my hand. Instead, the water of the lake began to drain away with a thunderous roar, revealing a massive, circular pit in the center of the grotto.
At the edge of the pit was a ladder made of cold iron, descending into a darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow the light of the glowing moss.
"The final hurdle," I whispered.
In the novel, Ashton had faced a different trial for his Solar Flare scroll. He had to fight a manifestation of his own fire. The book mentioned that each scroll had a trial tailored to the soul of the technique.
I didn't know what this ladder was. Ashton had never seen it.
I stepped to the edge and looked down. There was no bottom. My B-rank Intelligence told me this was a psychological trap, but my E-rank Strength told me I was going to regret this.
"Well," I muttered, gripping the first rung. "I didn't come this far to turn back and be a Prince's punching bag."
I began to climb down.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sound of my boots hitting the iron rungs echoed up the shaft. For the first hour, it was easy. My mind was sharp, and I was calculating how deep I could possibly be.
Two hours passed. My shoulders began to throb.
Four hours passed. The skin on my palms began to chafe against the rough iron.
"It's just a ladder," I told myself. "It has to end."
But it didn't.
Six hours in, the darkness began to play tricks on my mind. I couldn't see my own hands. I couldn't see the rungs above me. I was suspended in a void, moving my limbs in a rhythmic, mechanical cycle.
Grip. Pull. Step. Breathe.
Grip. Pull. Step. Breathe.
A day passed. I knew it had been a day because my stomach was cramping with hunger and my throat felt like it had been scraped with sandpaper. My muscles weren't just aching anymore; they were screaming. Every time I moved my arm, it felt like a hot wire was being pulled through my bicep.
I checked my status.
[Stamina: 0.1/10]
[Status: Extreme Fatigue, Muscle Tearing, Dehydration]
"I... can't..."
My consciousness began to haze. I was no longer Ren, the guy who read novels. I was a machine. A machine designed to climb down a ladder.
Time lost all meaning. Was it the second day? The third? My hands were bleeding now, the iron rungs slick with my own copper-scented warmth. I couldn't feel my fingers. I was holding on by sheer stubbornness, my grip tightening through a state of semi-consciousness.
Just one more step.
Just one more repetition.
I began to hallucinate. I saw the faces of the villainesses. I saw Stella Romanoff looking down at me with contempt. I saw the Prince laughing as he stepped on my neck.
"No," I wheezed, my voice a ghostly rasp. "I won't... be an extra..."
My body was failing. The E-rank stats were a cage, and I was hitting the bars until my bones broke. My back was a sheet of fire. My legs were numb, dead weights hanging below me.
And then, the darkness won.
My fingers, shredded and raw, finally gave out. I felt my grip slip. I didn't even have the strength to gasp.
This is it, I thought as I fell into the abyss. I reached the end of my rope. Literally.
I let go of the ladder. I let go of my breath. I let go of the academy, the novel, and my life.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the void. "I guess I wasn't... a protagonist after all."
I closed my eyes and waited for the impact. I waited for the crunch of bone against stone.
Silence.
It wasn't the silence of death. It was the silence of a library.
I opened my eyes. I wasn't at the bottom of a pit. I was lying on a soft, white stone floor in a small, square room. My body felt... strange. The pain was gone, replaced by a profound, hollow emptiness.
I tried to sit up and winced. My hands were bandaged in shimmering white light.
Sitting right in front of my face, resting on a small stone plinth, was a scroll bound in simple, unadorned black leather.
I looked at the wall. There was a smooth tablet of grey marble, and as I watched, words began to etch themselves into the surface as if an invisible chisel were at work.
[Trial of the Flash: Concluded]
[For your patience and perseverance, you are truly worthy to inherit the Flash.]
[For it is not the art of strength, nor the art of magic.]
[It is the Art of Repetition.]
[Over and over, until the world slows. Over and over, until the blade is an extension of the thought.]
[You have shown the will to repeat the cycle even as your soul crumbled. You have climbed the ladder that leads nowhere, and in doing so, you have found the path to everywhere.]
I stared at the tablet. The "Infinite Ladder" wasn't a distance test. It was a test of the specific mindset required for the technique. The Flash Sword didn't require talent—it required the ability to do the same boring, painful thing a billion times without stopping.
I reached out and touched the black scroll.
[S-Rank Sword Art: The Instantaneous Flash]
[Claim? Y/N]
"Yes," I whispered.
The scroll dissolved into a swarm of black motes that entered through my fingertips. Unlike the D-rank scroll from earlier, this didn't just give me information. It felt like a cold needle was sewing a new set of instincts directly into my nervous system.
My vision blurred, and a new tab flared to life in my status panel.
[Sword Technique: The Instantaneous Flash (S-Rank)]
[Mastery: 0.00% (Rank: Initiate)]
[Growth Path: Fixed Repetition]
I blinked. Fixed repetition?
I tapped the Mastery bar, and a list of requirements dropped down. It looked less like a magical skill tree and more like a hellish fitness routine.
[To reach Rank: Novice (0.01% - 5.00%), the following must be completed daily:]
Unsheath and Sheath the blade: 10,000 times. (Must be a clean, singular motion).
Push-ups: 100.
Pull-ups: 100.
Running: 5 Kilometers.
Wait, I thought, my jaw dropping. This is just the One Punch Man workout with 10,000 extra steps of sword-play.
But I saw the potential. The Flash Sword didn't rely on my Strength or Mana stats. It relied on Mastery. If I did the reps, the system would artificially boost the speed of the strike, regardless of my base Agility. It was a cheat code for a commoner with low stats.
I stood up, my legs still shaking. The shimmering white light on my hands faded, leaving behind new, tough callouses.
[Strength: 12 —> 15]
[Stamina: 10 —> 14]
[Agility: 18 —> 21]
The trial itself had forced my body to evolve just to survive.
Then, I looked at the corner of my vision where the system clock lived. My heart nearly stopped.
"No... no way."
The climb. The ladder. The void.
I hadn't been in there for a few hours. According to the internal clock, I had been in that cave for four days.
"The Opening Ceremony," I gasped, scrambling to my feet. "It's tomorrow morning!"
I looked around frantically. A small door had opened in the back of the room, leading to a natural staircase that spiraled upward.
"I have to get back," I muttered, grabbing my satchel. "I have to get back right now."
I ran toward the stairs, my new Stamina points being put to the test immediately. I didn't have time to marvel at the S-rank technique. I didn't have time to practice the draw.
If I wasn't at the Grand Hall by 0800 hours tomorrow, my scholarship would be revoked. I'd be kicked out of the academy, and all of this—the pain, the ladder, the bloody hands—would be for nothing.
I burst out of the cave mouth and into the cold mountain air. The sun was setting on Sunday evening. I was miles away from Crestwood, and I had less than twelve hours to make a three-day journey.
"Status!" I yelled as I sprinted down the foothills.
[Agility: 21]
[Intelligence: 45]
"Think, Ren. Think. Ashton used a 'Wind-Strider' potion he bought in the village. I don't have that. But I have the mountain stream."
I remembered a detail from the novel. The upward-flowing stream I had seen earlier—the mana vein. It didn't just flow up; it flowed back toward the academy's ley lines.
It was a dangerous, high-speed mana current. If I could find a sturdy log or even just ride the current using the Flash technique's basic posture to keep my balance...
"It's either a watery grave or S-Class," I said, gritting my teeth.
I headed for the river, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The story was starting, the stars were aligning, and I was currently a ragged mess of a human being sprinting through the woods.
I'm coming, you noble bastards, I thought. And I'm bringing ten thousand repetitions with me.