The wooden sword cut through the morning mist like a blade of light.
HHAHH!!
He sighed, his breath clearing the mist in front of his face.
Jaeron's breath came in steady clouds, his bare feet planted firm on the dew-soaked grass behind his aunt's cottage.
Eighteen years of this same motion, this same relentless repetition that his body knew better than his own name.
Swing - Step - Pivot - Breathe.
His muscles burned with that familiar ache, the kind that felt like home now. The sword — really just a carved length of ashwood, worn smooth by his palms over countless dawns—moved through the forms he remembered from the animes or movies.
It sort of helped him gain the understanding that the training started with a sword.
He knew that he had no mana or any magic in him. He tried every thing he knew but he couldn't sense it. So instead he chose the sword and trained with it all these years. There were no techniques, he didn't know any. He just swung it and swung it.
From the books he read over the years, the qi is accumulated by training with the sword.
In the stories he read that people coated their blades in shimmering energy, to move faster than thought, to cut through stone as if it were silk.
His wooden practice sword just made a dull whooshing sound.
But he swung anyway. Because what else was there?
Jaeron was somewhere around five thousand now, by his count.
He watched in one anime that swinging the sword with the perfect stance was really difficult and once you ahcieved that, you can learn any sword technique. Though he wasn't sure that rules of his world would be applied here.
Nonetheless, he tried, hoping someday he would be rewarded for his labour.
The sky had shifted from deep purple to that particular shade of gray that meant dawn was truly breaking. Sweat traced lines down his bare chest despite the autumn chill. His dark hair, tied back with a fraying cord, clung to his neck.
At 18 years old, his body had filled out from the scrawny child who first picked up this sword. His shoulders were broad, his arms corded with lean muscle, his abdomen marked with the definition that came from brutal consistency.
Not that it mattered much. Without formal training, without access to the breathing techniques that unlocked qi cultivation, he was just a particularly fit commoner swinging a stick in his backyard.
Still. He swung.
Jaeron moved through the sequence with finesse — high diagonal cut, low sweep, thrust, spin, double slash, rising cut, and the final devastating overhead strike that would split a man from crown to groin.
Or would, if he had a real sword.
And qi and an opponent.
Instead, he had grass, mist, and his own stubborn refusal to accept that some dreams were meant to die.
"Foolish boy."
His aunt's voice cut through his concentration. The wooden sword wavered mid-strike.
Jaeron turned to find Aunt Mannisa standing on the back step of the cottage, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression somewhere between exasperation and concern.
She was a stunning woman in her forties, her hair still more brown, her face lined but strong.
She had never understood the sword.
"Good morning, Auntie," Jaeron said, lowering the practice weapon. His breath still came heavy.
"Morning," she replied, though her tone suggested it was anything but good.
"You've been out here since before the roosters. Again."
"The forms require practice."
"The forms," she repeated, and there was something sad in how she said it.
"Jaeron, come inside. We need to talk."
His stomach tightened.
Conversations that started with "we need to talk" never ended well.
But he nodded, wiping the sweat from his face with his discarded shirt before following her into the cottage's warm interior.
The kitchen smelled of porridge and honey, of the chamomile tea his aunt favored in the mornings. She gestured for him to sit at the worn wooden table while she poured them both cups of the steaming brew. Through the window, he could see the main road beginning to wake—shutters opening, smoke rising from chimneys, the baker's boy making his early rounds.
"You can't keep living like this," Aunt Mannisa said finally, settling across from him. Her hands wrapped around her cup as if drawing strength from its warmth.
"Like what?"
"You know what? This... obsession with becoming a swordsman. All that fantasy nonsense. You're 18 years old, Jaeron. Most young men your age are married by now, learning trades, building lives."
She paused, her eyes searching his face.
"When was the last time you thought about your future? Your real future?"
"This is my future," he said quietly.
"It's all I've ever wanted."
"Wanting doesn't make it possible." Her voice wasn't cruel, just weary.
"How long will you swing that wooden sword before you admit that some doors are closed?"
Jaeron stared into his tea, watching the steam spiral upward.
She was right, of course. She was always right about these practical things. But rightness and truth weren't always the same thing.
"Your father believed a lot of things. Though I am not sure he is. He did believe. Beautiful things. Impossible things." Her hand reached across the table, resting on his.
"I loved my brother deeply. But he left you with dreams instead of a plan, and dreams don't feed you. They don't keep you warm in winter."
Before Jaeron could respond, a knock sounded at the front door—three sharp raps that echoed through the cottage.
His aunt's expression shifted, a flicker of something unreadable crossing her face.
"That'll be Martha," she said, rising from her chair. "She's coming by to borrow some flour."
But it wasn't Martha.
Through the doorway, Jaeron heard the low murmur of his aunt's greeting, and then a voice that made his pulse quicken despite himself—warm and knowing, carrying the particular cadence of someone who understood exactly the effect she had.
Angela Torrell.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway a moment later, and Jaeron's mouth went dry.
She wore a simple dress of deep green that complemented her hair, currently pinned up in a style that suggested she'd been awake and preparing for the day for some time.
In her forties, she possessed the kind of beauty that didn't fade so much as deepen, laugh lines around her eyes, a fullness to her figure that drew the eye, and a confidence in how she moved through space that younger women rarely managed.
"Good morning, Jaeron," Angela said, and there was the slightest emphasis on his name, a subtle intimacy that his aunt would never notice but that sent heat through his veins.
"Still at your morning exercises, I see."
"Just finished," he managed.
"I could tell. You're still flushed." Her smile was perfectly innocent and utterly knowing.
"I was hoping to borrow your aunt's herb garden shears. Mine have gone dull."
"Of course," Aunt Mannisa said, already moving toward the pantry where they kept tools.
"Let me fetch them for you."
The moment his aunt disappeared into the next room, Angela stepped closer.
Not much, just enough that he could smell the lavender soap she favored, could see the way her green eyes held fragments of gold in the morning light.
"Tonight?" she whispered.
"The old barn?"
"Angela—"
"Midnight. Jared's staying with his father in town for the merchant's meeting." Her hand brushed his shoulder, the touch lasting a heartbeat too long.
"I need to see you."
He should have stopped it. Should have pulled away, should have remembered loyalty and friendship and all the things that made a man decent. Instead, he had kissed her back, and now they existed in this impossible space, secret meetings, stolen hours, the constant weight of betrayal mixed with a desire he couldn't seem to kill.
"I don't know if--" he started, but his aunt's footsteps were returning.
"Midnight," Angela repeated, her voice returning to normal volume.
"I do hope you're taking care of yourself with all that training, Jaeron. You work yourself so hard."
"Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Torell," he said formally, and the use of her married name felt like swallowing glass.
His aunt returned with the shears, and Angela thanked them both with perfect politeness before departing. Through the window, Jaeron watched her walk back toward her cottage next door, the home she shared with Jared when he wasn't away on business with his merchant father.
The home where tonight, at midnight, he would once again become someone he didn't recognize.
"That woman worries about you," Aunt Mannisa said, settling back at the table.
"As do I."
"I'm fine, Auntie."
"You're not fine. You're lost. And these morning practices with that stick, Jaeron, what are you really hoping to achieve? Do you think that one day you'll wake up and magically become famous?"
"I don't know what I think anymore," he admitted, and the honesty of it surprised him.
"I just know that if I stop, if I let go of this one thing, then what am I? What do I have?"
His aunt's face softened. "You have a life to build, dear boy. A real life. Not some heroic fantasy from the stories."
But that was exactly the problem.
The world beyond this small town was built on those heroic fantasies.
Sword cultivators who could level buildings with a single strike. Battle mages who commanded elements. Warriors who lived for centuries, their bodies sustained by refined qi. That was the real world or at least, the real world for those lucky enough to access it.
For everyone else, there was farming. Or merchant work. Or swinging a wooden sword in the backyard, pretending that dedication alone could bridge the gap between the possible and the impossible.
"I should go help with the morning chores," Jaeron said, standing.
"Wait." His aunt's voice stopped him. "
There's something else. I've been speaking with Master Carwin, the wheelwright. His business is doing well, and he's looking for an apprentice. I may have... mentioned your name."
"Aunt--"
"Just meet with him. Please. For me. See what he has to offer. Wheelwrighting is respectable work, and with your build and your dedication to practice, you'd be good at it. You could have a real future, Jaeron. Marriage. Children of your own someday. Isn't that worth considering?"
The walls felt suddenly close, the cottage too small.
Jaeron could feel his pulse in his temples, could feel the weight of expectations and practicality pressing down on him like stones on his chest.
"I'll think about it," he said, because what else could he say? That he'd rather die than spend his life fixing wagon wheels while the warriors of the world carved their legends in steel and starlight? That surrender felt like a kind of death?
His aunt nodded, satisfied with this small victory.
"Good. Good. Now go on, get dressed properly. And for heaven's sake, consider that maybe there's more to life than chasing impossible dreams."
But as Jaeron climbed the stairs to his small room, as he cleaned himself and pulled on fresh clothes, he found himself gripping the wooden sword one more time.
18 years of practice. 18 years of the same motions, the same forms, the same stubborn insistence that effort mattered.
Outside his window, the sun had finally broken above the horizon, painting the town in shades of gold and amber. It was a beautiful town, peaceful and safe.
A good place for ordinary people living ordinary lives.
Jaeron set the wooden sword down and tried to imagine being one of those ordinary people. Tried to picture himself as a wheelwright with calloused hands and a quiet contentment. Tried to see himself married to some local girl, raising children who would never understand why their father sometimes stared at the horizon with such longing.
The image wouldn't come into focus.
Instead, he saw Angela's eyes. Saw the old barn where they met in secret. Saw his aunt's disappointed face. Saw his wooden sword resting against the wall like an accusation.