The Ground!
‘Not just a starving beast, but one with leisure. If she even gestures once.’
She’d kill him.
Rune’s eyes darkened as his thoughts concluded.
The reaction was chillingly calm, the kind triggered by survival instincts.
‘...It’s been a while since I felt this tension.’
The thrill burned away distractions, forcing total focus.
A shiver that demanded every ounce of concentration.
The sensation awakening every cell had an oddly addictive edge.
Crack.
Rune lightly cracked the joints in his grip.
‘Just a little.’
To suppress his urge for all-out battle, he exhaled, hiding the creeping smile.
The level of power a hatchling like him could show without suspicion.
Exactly that much, no more.
Silent darkness gathered at the tips of his index and middle fingers.
Christina’s face lit up with admiration at the sight.
‘A child who’s only just become aware of darkness and started handling it.’
The edge of the night sky teased.
Christina’s gaze was briefly captivated by that darkness.
Thwack!
Rune didn’t miss the opening, darting into her blind spot.
Aiming for the angle hardest to react to instantly, he targeted the optimal strike point where distance suddenly shifted.
‘The throat.’
Whoosh!
The tail of dark light stabbed precisely at her neck.
In that instant.
Tap.
Christina swatted Rune’s wrist aside with her hand, reaching with the other to pin him.
Rune had waited for that hand, leaning his head back at the last second to dodge.
Using the momentum of the evade, he flipped backward in a fluid aerial somersault.
His small frame spun rapidly, the tip of one foot checking and batting away the grabbing hand with rotational force, while the other aimed for Christina’s chin.
A leisurely expression crossed her face as if pondering how to handle it, then she leaned back just like Rune to dodge.
She wasn’t pressing harder—clearly holding back.
‘Good. As expected, she’s going easy because it’s a child’s body.’
He had to seize the chance from the strong one’s leisure.
Rune landed on the ground and sprang back elastically, ready for a counterattack.
“Good judgment, Rune.”
No time was given to land and regroup.
Christina, who had only tilted her head slightly to dodge, reached for Rune’s still-airborne back.
Bam!
The sound of skin bursting.
Christina’s open palm slapped Rune’s back.
“...!”
Unable to plant his feet, Rune flew off, crashing through a tree before stopping.
“Urgh.”
Unlike Rune, who groaned and rose from the broken tree, Christina gazed down at the hand that had delivered the palm strike to the child’s back.
“Hmm.”
Then, with an intrigued smile, she lightly shook out the striking hand.
“Rune, when did you learn Dragon Skin?”
It felt like striking not human flesh, but a thick, solid shield.
Christina quickly realized the palm strike hadn’t landed properly.
Rune’s back had his clothes torn, but that was it.
The true terror of a palm strike was the shockwave to the body’s internals, not the surface.
Yet Rune had activated his sturdy Dragon Skin in that split second, sending the pain right back at her.
Meanwhile, Rune sank into despair.
For damage minimized through offset and counter, the impact he took was immense.
‘I didn’t expect it to throw off my balance this badly.’
He’d been hit midair but had definitely braced for it.
The ability he’d naturally used to endure deep-sea pressure had protected his body in that moment.
‘It manifests unconsciously when I visit Amelia, so the timing was spot-on.’
Even so, the destructive force had shredded his clothes.
Within, faint scale patterns briefly shimmered and vanished.
“At this level, I can put a bit more power into it.”
Dread flickered across Rune’s face.
“Ch-Christina...?”
The golden-haired beauty smiled gently, her eyes crinkling softly.
“Don’t worry, Rune. I know my healing powers very well.”
“...”
He’d never imagined her usual kindness could be so terrifying.
Only now did Perdikion’s advice come to mind.
‘Just focus on surviving, no matter what.’
Cold sweat soaked his back.
The training had only just begun.
“Eek!?”
Heungmi scurried over to Rune, who sat at the table looking haggard, and fussed over him from all sides.
“Master Rune, why do you look so much older all of a sudden?”
“...”
With eyes full of worry and impatience, Heungmi stood on tiptoe and placed a hand on Rune’s forehead.
“No fever... Did you have a scary dream?”
Rune just shook his head silently.
He looked exhausted and worn out, but strangely free of external wounds.
He’d already received perfect healing.
‘Who’d have thought she’d heal me every time I got hurt, then beat me again...’
It was ruthless to the point of nausea.
Beat to near-fatal, heal.
Repeat.
Thanks to that, Rune had rolled on the ground with palm prints all over his body.
Only then did he realize why she’d set training at dawn.
‘If she did this after meals, everyone would notice.’
But what truly mentally battered Rune wasn’t even that.
‘What’s ridiculous is that Christina only used palm strikes.’
His insides boiled.
Palm strikes were useful for subduing foes.
Using the palm meant no self-injury for the user, and adjustable to avoid lethal wounds.
Of course, used seriously, they caused severe internal damage.
A 10-year-old hatchling couldn’t match a divine beast over 3,000 years old at full power, so it was a natural choice for Christina.
He knew that, but it still pissed him off.
‘And the real infuriating part wasn’t even that.’
Rune recalled Christina’s words as he slumped.
At the point where he thought he’d die for real.
Right when he felt like quitting training altogether, Christina had asked.
‘Rune. Are you going to back down now, after declaring you’d grow strong on your own?’
Acknowledging it would shatter his own pride and will.
Unable to accept that, Rune somehow mustered strength and rose.
He fought on, unbowed by defeat.
But the world didn’t bend to whims so easily.
‘...To pass out pathetically like that!’
Just thinking about it heated his neck, drawing a sigh.
But he couldn’t blame himself or her.
As consciousness faded without rising again, Rune recalled Christina’s words.
‘Rune, you must never die. If peril ever comes, you need to sense and respond better than anyone.’
Healing light enveloped his body.
Christina lifted the limp Rune, whispering warmly like sunlight.
‘So, even if I push you to death’s door, I can’t go easy. Of course, you won’t actually die.’
‘...’
Snapping from the memory, Rune stared blankly at the pudding bowl before him.
He’d volunteered for training to grow strong, but ending up with his back exploding like this?
What dumbfounded him was that his skills were steadily improving.
‘Lessons three times every ten days.’
It felt like the gates of hell from day one.
“Here’s dessert: chocolate pudding and vanilla pudding.”
Wobble.
Oblivious to his mood, the sweet chocolate pudding jiggled temptingly.
Half-resigned, Rune scooped the glossy surface and popped it in his mouth.
‘...! Delicious.’
Chocolate sweetness and milky smoothness.
The pudding’s faint honey scent healed not just his mana and internals, but soothed his mood.
By the time he finished, Rune steeled himself.
‘Right. I’m not one to quit at this level.’
He gripped the spoon tightly.
Christina’s provocatively weighted question burned hotter with rumination.
This was no longer pure training.
It was the pride of an imugi who’d trained alone on a harsh island for 999 years.
The young black hatchling ignited his will.
‘Let’s see who wins.’
His challenge and resolve fueled the lessons onward.
Rune kept up steadily, even as his back split open.
He’d keep secret the nightmare of Christina whipping him mercilessly to run, but he was growing strong as desired.
Slam!
A few days later, Heungmi finally received the usage manual for the communication artifact from Jed.
The method itself was intuitive, so even Rune picked it up easily.
‘So... Tap the mana stone plate to check letters, and write what you want with your fingertip.’
Rune awkwardly tapped the mana plate.
‘...This guy’s hands are insanely fast?’
Rune wasn’t slow to learn, but dwarf Jed’s typing speed was unmatched.
Perhaps due to their dexterous race, watching sentences appear felt like Jed chatting right beside him.
Jed’s excited ramble, fueled by Heungmi’s cheers, boiled down to this:
Mages in the human world already had communication orbs.
But they guzzled mana, so only mages could use them.
Jed’s ‘Mana Communication Stone’ was different.
Anyone could use it!
As long as the built-in mana lasted, you could keep sending text!
It saved mana maximally, so only text—no images yet—but more text features were coming soon.
‘And he plans to develop it further so you can check messages left while away...’
Impressive for a prototype.
There were spots with no mana flow or failed transmissions, but those could be fixed over time.
‘Credit where it’s due.’
Thrilled at the recognition, Jed subtly hinted he wanted name ideas for his invention.