The Gap in the Skill
Practice didn't end in a single day. The next day, and the day after that. Once class was over, Tae-geon and I met at the training grounds. We hadn't made any formal plans, nor did we bother exchanging messages. We were simply both there at the same time.
The first few days brought almost no change. Hero Step. Dash. Slash. And failure. If I moved in too late, I missed. If I moved too soon, I was too early. If my timing was off, he simply stepped aside. Tae-geon kept changing the conditions with every attack—distance, speed, angle. Sometimes he pressed straight from the front; other times he came in from the side.
“That was too slow.”
“You were only watching with your eyes just now.”
“Not just the mana flow—watch the breathing too.”
His words were brief. His explanations never dragged on. Yet those short remarks stayed with me. Every time I failed, I replayed the moment in my head. Why had I been late? Why had I been early? Why had my body moved first? The answer was always the same. I had tried to see and judge everything at once. When I focused on the mana flow, I missed the breathing. When I tried to read the breathing, my distance calculation lagged. The problem was attempting to process it all consciously.
Around the third day, I began to shift my approach. Don't just look—feel it. I stopped trying to perfectly observe Tae-geon's skill. Instead, I focused on the changes right before he activated it. The moment his breathing shortened. The weight shifting onto his feet. The angle of his wrist gripping the sword. And after the slash ended, that tiny pocket of emptiness. I tried to treat them like signals.
Things began to change, little by little. Failure was still failure, but now I understood why.
“That one was a bit late,” Tae-geon said.
I caught my breath and nodded. “I know.”
Before, that lateness had been a vague sensation. Now I could point to it and say, Ah, right there. My body was slowly learning to remember the interval.
On the fifth day, I stopped thinking about moving in at all. Tae-geon used Hero Step. Dash. Slash. I dodged. And did nothing else. After his sword cut through empty air and he regained his balance, I simply let the moment pass.
“What are you doing?” Tae-geon asked, lowering his stance. “Why didn't you go in? If you're not feeling well, we can try again tomorrow.”
“It wasn't the right time yet.”
At my answer, Tae-geon raised an eyebrow. “Oh.” He let out a short laugh. “Sounds like you figured something out?”
“Not yet.”
“Still, that's good. Let's go again.”
After that day, the nature of our practice changed. I no longer forced myself to succeed. If the timing wasn't there, I let it go. I gave up nine chances just to take one. My body hated it. The urge to move in surged countless times—right after his sword passed, right after the mana cut off, right when his feet seemed to stop. But every time, I held back. Not yet. Not now.
And then came the seventh day. I hadn't been counting the days so much as my body had simply noticed. I could now clearly distinguish between the feeling of outright failure and the sensation of barely missing the mark.
Tae-geon was quieter than usual that day. He stood across from me with his sword as always, but his eyes were different. No teasing, no deliberate adjustments. He simply stood there like he always did. That made me more tense.
“Here I come.”
With those short words, Tae-geon closed the distance in an instant. Hero Step. The mana began flowing along its familiar path. I knew it now. His skill started from his feet, passed through his waist and shoulders, and burst out through the sword. Dash. The distance vanished in a blink. Slash. The blade tore through the air toward me.
This time, I didn't dodge. I didn't retreat. I turned my body just slightly. Barely the width of a hair. The sword grazed past my shoulder. And in that moment, Tae-geon's breathing clearly skipped a beat. The signal that the skill had ended. A tiny gap formed where the mana had just been. A sensation like his center of gravity bounced upward from the soles of his feet. I didn't see it so much as feel it.
Now.
My body moved before the thought fully formed. The exact point where I had failed hundreds of times during training. This time, there was no hesitation. One single step forward. I didn't raise my sword. I didn't even think about swinging. That would have been greedy. Instead, I lowered my shoulder and drove my weight into his torso.
“—!”
A dull impact. Tae-geon's balance clearly broke. He took a step back, his sword tip scraping the floor. The sound of metal against stone rang out louder than it should have. A brief silence settled over the training grounds.
Tae-geon stared at me with wide eyes. “…Hey.” He let out a hollow laugh, his breathing slightly rough. “Just now.” He glanced at his feet, then back at me. “That was a success, right?”
I stood there catching my breath. My heart was pounding wildly. A thudding sound echoed inside my ears. My hands trembled faintly. My legs felt like they might give out. But I didn't fall. This time, I held.
“Probably,” I said, swallowing air. “It happened so fast I didn't even have time to use my sword.”
Tae-geon raised his sword again. “Yeah. You succeeded, but honestly, it wasn't perfect.” His tone was calm. “In a real fight, you wouldn't have dealt meaningful damage, and he would've counterattacked right away.”
He wasn't wrong. I knew that too. But after a short pause, Tae-geon looked me straight in the eye.
“Still,” he exhaled. “This is a huge improvement.”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “See some hope now?”
Those words sank slowly into my chest. It wasn't a grand victory. I hadn't taken him down. I couldn't even call it a win. But it was the first time I had stepped into an awakened person's tactics without awakening, without a skill. For the first time, I felt it. It was possible. No—not just possible. I could make it happen. It wasn't complete yet. It was dangerous, and one mistake would end everything. But this wasn't a delusion anymore.
The training hall lights stayed on quietly as time passed. The mid-term evaluation was drawing closer, and I still hadn't awakened. But now it wasn't baseless belief. The sensation left in my body. The result I had actually produced once. It was accumulating, little by little. Truly, just a little at a time.
Tae-geon was quiet for a moment. He tilted his head slightly. “Let's try it again.”
At those words, I reflexively gripped my sword. Before I could even steady my breathing, Tae-geon had already taken his stance.
“It could have been a fluke,” he said evenly. “I'll set up the same situation one more time. Come at me.”
I nodded. My heart was still racing, but my mind was strangely calm. Just like before. The flow of mana. The angle of the slash. The moment his breathing cut off. Once more.
Hero Step. The distance closed just as fast. Slash. I turned my body exactly as I had before. And stepped forward. Wrong. This time I pushed into empty air instead of his shoulder. Tae-geon didn't lose his balance completely. Instead, he planted his foot and pulled his sword back.
“That's enough.”
The tip of his sword stopped right in front of my neck. This silence felt different from before. I stood there catching my breath.
“…Just now,” Tae-geon said. “Do you know what was different?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. And I knew immediately.
“I,” I took a breath and continued, “was too fast.”
Strength gathered at my fingertips. “After succeeding once, I guess I got impatient.”
Tae-geon nodded silently. “Last time, you didn't move in because you saw the skill end.”
I looked down at the floor. “I moved in because I was sure it would end.”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Nice.” He lowered his sword. “At least now you can tell the difference.”
“Just now, I went in based on prediction.” Tae-geon pointed his sword tip in the direction I had moved. “Last time, you confirmed it first, then moved in.”
The difference was bigger than I thought. Only then did I notice my hands were trembling. Not because the failure was frustrating. Now I can definitely tell. That success hadn't been a coincidence. That failure wasn't vague anymore. Last time I had watched the timing. This time I had trusted it. That tiny difference had decided the outcome.
Tae-geon looked at me for a moment, then spoke briefly. “In the end, it seems like you have to prepare everything for that single moment.” He gripped his sword again. “Focus, stamina, breathing.”
“Yeah.”
“For now, let's just aim to make it succeed somehow.”
At those words, something in my chest stirred quietly again. I nodded. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't stable. I had succeeded once and failed once. But now I could explain the difference between the two. That was the biggest change. In the end, during combat, I had to use every sense to confirm and wait for that fleeting instant. And then move in.
The mid-term evaluation was getting closer, and this tactic was still dangerous. One mistake could end everything. But now I knew. This wasn't some miracle. It was something I could reach through practice. And that fact pushed my feet forward once more.
For a long time, I had stood outside the world of the awakened. Even when I was in the same classroom. Even when I was in the same training grounds. Even when I walked the same path. I had always been like someone standing just beyond a single line. But now it was different. For the first time, I was seeing a way to cross that line. Not through awakening. Not through a skill. Through the senses and judgment I had built up. It was only for a moment. Truly just a single beat. But that gap was definitely there.