Chapter 59- Joining a Dojo in the real World.
Leo found himself once more in the familiar forge—a place he had not seen in some time.
The air still carried the faint metallic tang and banked coals.
He checked his HP at once.
Twenty-three.
...
"Hahaha... cough... cough... haha... haaahhh..."
A harsh, self-mocking laugh tore from his throat even as he choked on it, the sound scraping raw against the back of his mouth.
Spittle flecked his lips. He wiped it away with the back of a trembling hand.
"Sigh... I can’t believe I dropped to one HP and still survived."
His breathing remained shallow and ragged. Every skill icon on his interface sat grayed out, useless. Leo lay on the cool stone floor, staring up at the chamber ceiling. The hearth still burned at the center of the room; the eternal fire’s spark flickered steadily within it, casting slow orange light across the room. Warmth filled the space, seeping into his bruised muscles.
"Well, that was a defeat," Surtr’s voice broke the silence, low and resonant. "No point complaining. It was a thorough and complete thrashing."
He continued in a steady tone. "But don’t worry, boy. You are meant for far more than this. You will keep growing stronger."
Leo nodded and pushed himself upright. The motion sent dull spikes of pain through his shoulders and spine.
As he stood, instinctively his hand reached for the sword hilt at his hip—the familiar weight that had rested there since the day he began this game.
The Ember-Touched Sword.
His fingers closed on empty air...
Only the bare hilt remained, still strapped to his waist. The blade itself was gone, lost somewhere in the rubble of the battlefield from which he had barely escaped.
He remembered the moment clearly. The world dissolving into white heat, the impact that tore the sword from his grip as easily as a leaf from a tree. The sudden lightness of his hand had felt like losing a limb.
He stared at his empty palm for a long moment, then added the loss to the mental list already forming—the list of things broken, lost, or owed.
One: repay this defeat.
Two: recover the sword.
He guessed it now lay with his opponent. Until he could reclaim it, he would need another weapon.
Kael’s bored face and mocking voice echoed in his mind. Leo’s fist tightened until the knuckles whitened.
"Surtr." His voice came out hoarse, barely more than a rasp. "Kael’s core. That star-fire at his shoulder. Tell me more about it."
"Generally it takes a lifetime of discipline to form it," Surtr answered, the words measured and heavy. "Years of condensing flame cultivation into a single mote of controlled star-fire. Only a handful of flame-callers ever succeed. Most who try die in the attempt."
He paused, running calculation in his mind.
"That boy looked younger than you. Either he is extraordinarily talented... or he stumbled across rare opportunities."
Anxiety still gnawed at Leo after the loss, a low, constant pressure behind his sternum. He swallowed.
"Surtr... what should I do? The wall feels too high to climb."
"Tsk. What a stupid question." Surtr snorted in disdain. "You’re a blacksmith. Build something to climb it. Or build something that can smash it. Or make the wall smaller." He muttered under his breath, loud enough for Leo to hear, "How can anyone be this dense?"
Leo stood frozen, the words landing harder than any blow from Kael.
A long silence followed. Then, deep within his heart, Surtr’s presence stirred. Leo could almost picture the ancient consciousness smiling—kindly, for once, the heat of it gentle rather than scorching.
"Tsk. Idiot. Go get some sleep before you fall over."
Surtr’s presence faded back into Leo’s consciousness, leaving only the steady pulse of the eternal fire.
Leo opened his status panel.
The recovery rate crawled forward at a snail’s pace, each point of HP and MP inching upward. He pulled two mana potions and one health potion from his inventory and downed them in quick succession. The liquid burned going down, then spread a thin, chemical warmth through his veins.
That should be enough to let me walk, he thought.
This was the first time he had returned to the chamber since claiming ownership of the space. He summoned the dimension’s control panel. A map unfolded before him, translucent and glowing, marking distinct zones: the Forge Hearth, the Meditation Chamber, the Comprehension Zone, and others whose names he had not yet explored.
He made his way to the Meditation Chamber at the heart of the pocket realm. It was a small, circular room lined with smooth stone that seemed to drink the light.
At its center stood a statue holding a torch that burned without fuel and showed no sign of ever having gone out. The flame was steady, almost meditative, casting soft shadows across the room.
Leo lay down beside the statue, folding his arms behind his head. The stone was cool against his back. He watched his HP and MP bars inch upward.
After a while, his breathing evened. He unconsciously began circulating the Stage 1 mana-breathing pattern—the Ember Path. Faint fire-attributed mana gathered in his core, hesitant at first, then answering with a thin, warm thread. For the first time since the battle, something inside him stirred that was not pain or loss.
When his health reached seventy percent, he judged it would finish recovering on its own. He logged out.
....
Fresh air filled his lungs. The mental exhaustion of the game crashed over him at once, heavier than any physical wound. He slept like the dead dog for the rest of the day and woke only the next morning, the light through the smithy’s high windows already bright.
After freshening up, he stepped outside, bought groceries from the corner store, and cooked a simple meal in the makeshift kitchen inside the smithy: eggs, potatoes, half a package of bacon, and a stack of toast. The smell of frying fat filled the small space, ordinary and grounding. He ate until he was full, the plate scraped clean.
Midway through the meal he remembered Surtr’s claim that he could observe him even in the real world.
"Are you watching this, Surtr?" he asked the empty air, half joking, half testing. "Want some bacon? Wait... can you even eat?"
Silence.
Then a warm heat rose in his chest—brief, unmistakable, like a hand pressed against his sternum from the inside.
Holy shit. Was that you?
No further reply came.
Looks like I still can’t call you into the real world yet, he thought. But it won’t be long.
Later he stretched and performed light exercises in the open space of the smithy. Push-ups, stretches, slow turns of the waist and shoulders. It seemed he couldn’t get tired easily. His body answered with a quiet readiness that still felt new.
I should join a dojo, he decided. I need to learn how to fight with this body. Guns won’t help when the dungeon breaks begin.
He searched for well-known dojos nearby on the web but found nothing close. Twenty minutes from the shop, however, stood a fencing salle with solid reviews. Leo packed a change of clothes and shoes, then jogged the distance. He arrived in fifteen minutes, breathing steady, only lightly warmed.
The salle occupied a narrow storefront wedged between a laundromat and a shuttered diner. Cracked gold lettering on the sign read ROOK’S SALLE.
Leo paused on the sidewalk, taking in the weathered facade. The paint on the window frames had long since peeled, and the glass itself was reinforced with thin steel mesh—subtle, almost decorative, but clearly not standard for a simple sports club. A small brass plaque near the door, half-obscured by grime, read: Est. 1978.
Inside, a girl of about fourteen or fifteen sat at the reception desk. She still wore her school uniform; red hair fell in twin ponytails, and her large eyes held dark-yellow irises that caught the light like polished amber.
"Hello," she said, voice bright and sweet. "Are you here to join the fencing salle?"
Leo nodded. She handed him a registration form and a short paper that read like an oath: *I will not use fencing to harm others or do anything unlawful.*
He looked at her. Doubtful.
"Don’t worry," she said with an easy smile. "It’s just store policy. You can sign without concern."
Leo smiled wryly and signed both papers.
"Welcome to the salle!"
He nodded and stepped inside.
The main hall was larger than the narrow front suggested.
The floor was scarred oak, patched in places with darker wood, and the walls bore faint chalk outlines of old drill diagrams that no one had fully erased.
High windows let in dusty afternoon light, and along one side hung a row of antique foils and sabres—blades that looked far too heavy and practical for modern sport fencing. A faded banner near the ceiling displayed a stylized rook chess piece crossed with a broken sword.
A handful of students were mid-drill, dressed in padded jackets reinforced with metal plates. Heavy metal foils covered their wrists. The moment Leo entered, every motion stopped. All eyes turned toward him.
Master Rook looked as well.
Seeing the drills halt, the old man barked, "Back to practice!"
The students resumed at once while Rook walked toward Leo, his steps measured and quiet despite his age.
Master Rook was old—very old—yet he carried a sharp, dangerous aura that seemed to press against the air itself. His face was deeply lined, the weathered features of a man who had spent decades under hard light and harder discipline. Long white hair flowed past his shoulders; a thick beard and mustache reached his chest.
This old man looks like he stepped straight out of a Chinese kung-fu movie, Leo thought. Am I even in the right place?
Rook asked no questions about purpose or experience. He simply looked.
When that gaze settled on him, the hair on Leo’s arms rose. He took an involuntary step back.
This man is dangerous.
Rook examined him from head to toe, eyes lingering on every detail—the set of Leo’s shoulders, the way he balanced his weight, the faint residual heat that still clung to him from the game.
"Good. Well-toned muscle. I can feel a massive energy source in you, and your body is properly optimized for ki."
Without warning he tossed a wooden stick. "Swing it."
Leo set down his bag, gripped the stick with both hands, and swung it in a downward arc.
Master Rook’s expression hardened.
The motion felt wrong the moment it left his shoulders—too heavy, too blunt, as if he were trying to drive a post into the earth rather than cut air. Thought Master Rook as he watched Leo.
He stared dumbly for a while and couldn’t help but lash out.
"Brat, what the hell have you been doing all these years? You have a perfect physique, yet you swing like an amateur. Are you trying to use a sledgehammer?"
His voice rose, carrying easily across the hall. "Hell, even a child would handle a sword better than that."
Silence fell across the hall....
Students mid-drill froze, sweating on Leo’s behalf.
A few even shot him looks of pure pity.
Rook turned and walked toward the piste without looking back.
"Tomorrow. Six in the morning. You will begin learning the way of the blade—or you will learn why old men with blunted foils are still dangerous."
"Tomorrow," Leo answered and nodded. "Six."
He left the salle with the quiet certainty that he had just entered a contract that offered no forgiveness.
Self-defense. Combat skill. The discipline to hone what I already possess.
He glanced down at his hands as he walked home, the memory of the empty hilt still vivid in his palm.
Once back, he logged in again.
His health had fully recovered, though mana still lagged, the bar filling with the same stubborn slowness as before. While it continued to refill he decided to plan his next steps.
He laid out every forging material he possessed—ores and metals from Asgard, the soul crystal, and the souls stored in his receptacle. Faint-rank souls were plentiful, their residual energies flickering like dying coals. Two vivid-rank souls stood ready for forging, brighter and more defined. One epic-rank soul rested among them, dense and heavy with power that pressed against his senses.
The legendary- and myth-rank soul crystals were far beyond his current ability. The epic soul likely was as well.
Better to begin with the faint-rank souls, he reasoned. Gain experience, then attempt the vivid ones.
The Direfang Warg’s soul carried the Shadow Lunge ability. A pair of boots forged with that power could grant him the instantaneous movement skill he currently lacked—something that might have changed the outcome against Kael.
The Goblin Blood-Chanter’s soul held Blood Frenzy. An armor piece incorporating that skill might prove useful when the next fight turned desperate and prolonged.
But which materials should I use for the boots and armor?
He checked the time.
Fencing practice began at six the next morning. He needed to choose materials tonight and begin forging right after the fencing session.
Leo turned his attention back to the array of materials before him and began to consider, the glow of the eternal fire reflecting in the polished surfaces of the ores and the faint, shifting light of the souls.
He summoned the soul forging interface and let the information unfold.
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