I registered everything I had in my skill tab aside from my Unique Skill.
Lying by omission felt wrong at first but it passed quickly. Survival has a way of reshaping morals into something more flexible. As far as anyone was concerned my profile was painfully ordinary.
Name: Ronald Bryce J. Oobleck
Class: Magic Knight
Mana: 7,000 out of 7,000
Skills: Magic Missile, Mana Enhanced Strike, Mana Enhanced Physique
Three base skills. No rare passives. No flashy titles. No hidden domains or islands living inside my chest.
Perfect.
The staff barely glanced at it before clearing me for training.
With the invasions still ongoing and the sudden surge in mana users it was clear that anyone capable of holding a weapon would be urged to fight. Age limits were flexible now. Skill mattered more than years lived.
The training grounds were built into a reinforced section of the bunker. Wide open halls lined with practice dummies, mana resistant walls, and scorched floors from people who learned their limits the hard way. The air constantly smelled of sweat and ozone.
I was not special there.
Most people around me looked like they had been preparing for this their whole lives. Former soldiers. Athletes. Long time guild members who had survived earlier breaches. I was one of the few that only needed a few days of training before being marked as deployable.
That fact did not make me feel proud.
It made me nervous.
Classes dictated more than just what spells you could learn. They shaped instincts. Reactions. The way mana flowed through your body. A Knight had access to almost every weapon and could channel mana through nearly all of them. A Magic Knight was more limited.
Swords and shields.
That was it.
Mages could bend reality in ways I could barely understand but they folded the moment something got close. Knights could take punishment but lacked the raw power to turn the tide alone.
A Magic Knight sat between them.
A backup.
Someone who could hold a line or fill a gap.
My first sword felt heavier than I expected.
It was a standard issue training blade. Dull edge. Reinforced core. Designed to survive abuse rather than deliver it. The instructor placed it in my hands and corrected my grip immediately.
"Do not choke the hilt," he said. "Let the blade move."
I nodded and tried again.
The first few swings were awful. Unbalanced. Slow. My body remembered the injury even if the damage was gone. Every step felt hesitant like I was waiting for pain that never came.
Mana Enhanced Physique helped. The moment I consciously let mana flow my muscles responded better. Stronger. More coordinated. Like my body finally listened to what I was asking of it.
Still not enough.
"Again," the instructor said.
I swung.
Again.
Again.
Sweat dripped down my face and soaked into my shirt. My arms burned. My hands ached. Mana drained slowly with every enhancement and I learned quickly that pouring too much into a simple swing just wasted energy.
Control mattered.
I practiced footwork next. Forward. Back. Pivot. Guard. Repeat. My legs shook by the end of it but I did not fall. That alone felt like progress.
Magic Missile came easier.
The skill was simple. Shape mana. Release. Aim.
I lined up shots at distant targets and focused on consistency. The missiles were not powerful but they were fast and accurate. The instructors noticed that quickly.
"Backline potential," one of them muttered.
That stung more than it should have.
Mana Enhanced Strike was trickier. Channeling mana into a sword felt different than into my body. The blade resisted at first like it did not recognize me. When it finally accepted the flow the metal hummed faintly and struck harder than its dull edge should allow.
The training dummy cracked.
Not shattered. Just cracked.
I stared at it like it was proof that I belonged there.
Days blurred together.
Mornings started with conditioning. Afternoons were weapon drills. Evenings were mana control exercises until my head throbbed and my reserves dipped dangerously low. I slept hard and dreamt of steel and green scales.
I trained with a shield next. Learning how to absorb impact without letting it rattle my bones. Learning how to brace without freezing in place. My arms were covered in bruises by the second day.
I fell once.
Someone clipped my leg during a sparring match and I hit the ground hard. The room went quiet for half a second like everyone was waiting to see if I would stay down.
I got up.
My heart was pounding but my foot held. No pain. No weakness.
That mattered.
Sparring came next. Controlled bouts. No lethal intent. Even so I lost more often than I won. Experience showed. Every mistake I made was punished immediately.
But I learned.
I learned how to raise my guard without thinking. How to step inside an opponent's reach. How to use Mana Enhanced Strike sparingly instead of panicking and dumping everything at once.
Between sessions I checked the System constantly.
Mana regeneration improved slightly. Skill proficiency ticked up by fractions of a percent. Small gains but steady.
That was enough.
What kept me going was not pride or duty.
It was greed.
Every report from the surface mentioned monster drops. Low grade magic stones. Crystals. Scrolls. Items that the System treated like currency.
One summon required about a hundred low grade stones or a single summoning scroll.
That was all I could think about.
The Summoning Circle waiting for its first use.
The army I could not access yet.
I wanted to be on the battlefield as soon as possible not to be a hero but to collect what I needed. To stop being helpless. To stop relying on luck and held breaths.
On the final day the instructor handed me a proper sword.
Still basic. Still unremarkable.
But it was mine.
I held it and felt mana flow without resistance this time. The blade responded like it recognized me.
"You are deployable," he said. "Stay alive."
I nodded.
Sword in hand. Mana steady. Body whole.
For the first time since the invasion started I did not feel like prey.
I felt like someone who could hunt.