A month went by. Then another month passed.. It did not feel like months. It felt like thirty days had become one breath. A thousand times of doing the thing had become one thing.
Ashur's training had become Kikimura's world. The world outside that place did not exist anymore.
Wake up. Train. Eat. Rest. Train. That was all that mattered.
The first week was about surviving. He learned to stand in positions until his legs hurt a lot. He learned to breathe in ways that felt weird until they became natural. The beast pushed him to his limit. Then, taught him to go even further.
By the second week, something changed. Ashur threw a rock with a lot of force and speed. Kikimura had to catch it before it fell.
He failed many times. He forgot to count how many.. Then his mind stopped thinking, and his body just knew what to do.
When he finally caught the rock, Ashur made a sound that meant he was satisfied.
The third week was about moving. Ashur showed Kikimura some movements that seemed to come from his energy. Kikimura learned that power was not about being strong. Power was about being in the position of moving smoothly, about letting his body do.
By the end of that week, Kikimura's movements did not look clumsy anymore. They looked like they had a purpose.
By the fourth week, Kikimura had changed. Especially his body. He had muscles in his arms and chest. His shoulders were broader. He stood up straighter. The limp in his leg was gone. The weakness had become a strength.
Ashur did not correct him much anymore.
By the end of the month, when Kikimura did the movements, the beast just watched. Sometimes the beast made a sound. It was not to correct him. It was just to observe. The way they communicated had become something beyond words. A look. A movement. A presence.
But the days were only half of Kikimura's life.
The nights belonged to the library.
This habit started on the third night of training. Kikimura could not sleep. His muscles hurt in ways he had never felt before. His mind was too alive, too aware of the power moving through his body during Ashur's lessons.
He got out of bed. Walked to the library without thinking about it.
He stood at the entrance of the forbidden section of the library, looked at the book covers, didn't touch any, and went back to bed after reading some other books from other sections.
On the fifth night, he finally took a book from the forbidden section.
By the end of the week, he developed a routine: he went to the library every night, sometimes reading for just an hour, sometimes for much longer.
He read about blood magic. Dark magic. Bone magic. Shadow magic. Rune magic.
Those are some of the other types of magic that the old man talked about.
Each night, he understood something.
But each night, he had more questions.
The books were not easy to read. They were complicated, technical and sometimes contradicted each other.. They were alive in a way that the academy's textbooks were not.
By the second week, Kikimura had read all the books he could find in the forbidden section.
He didn't study them; he couldn't, he only navigated through them.
Some books were so hard for him to read that he only observed the images.
Time passed, and his body was becoming stronger under Ashur's teaching. And his mind was becoming something entirely in the library's silence.
He was two people now: the trainee during the day, the scholar at night.
Ashur noticed that Kikimura was tired. The beast made a questioning sound one afternoon, watching Kikimura's movements.
But Kikimura didn't respond.
Ashur did not ask for an explanation. The beast just nodded, as if accepting that Kikimura had his path and his own secrets.
One month passed, and Kikimura finished training earlier than usual. Ashur seemed happy with the session. It had shown him nothing, just let him practice what he already knew. The beast's way of saying: you understand now.
The sun had not fully set yet. The sky was that color between day and night. Still light enough to read by.
Kikimura stood at the edge of the clearing and made a decision: he would go to the library now. Not waiting for night.
The house was quiet.
He entered the library in daylight for the first time since the beginning of his training.
Everything was different.
By lamplight, the library had felt special, mysterious, and dangerous. But in daylight, it was only a big room full of books.
Kikimura moved deeper into the forbidden section.
Today, something drew him to a shelf he had overlooked before.
A book with a spine worn that the title was almost unreadable.
"The...". Then nothing readable.
He pulled it down carefully. The paper was old. Older than the forbidden texts. The binding was leather. Cracked in places as if it had been read many times long ago and then forgotten.
When he opened it, he understood why.
It was not a textbook. It was a journal. Pages filled with handwriting, dense and personal. The ink faded in places, suggesting the book had been written, forgotten, recovered and written again.
The first entry was dated in a year that meant nothing to Kikimura. Some numbers from centuries
He began to read.
"I have studied blood magic for years. I have learned to channel my energy through spells. Each spell costs me. Ages me noticeably.. I accept this. The price is the point. The power justifies the cost.
Dark magic eludes me entirely."
The writer's name was Valorin.
Kikimura read entry after entry, reading about a mage struggling against something he could not understand.
"I invoke the shadow. Nothing comes. I open myself to the void. It remains silent. I have tried every technique, every discipline, every ritual the old texts describe. My inner energy is strong, my will is strong, my discipline is unmatched."
The handwriting grew more erratic as the entries continued.
"I am not weak. I am not failing because of a lack of effort or understanding. The dark magic itself rejects me. It is as if the void looks at me and finds me unworthy. As if I lack something, something that cannot be learned or developed."
Years passed between entries. Decades, perhaps.
Then, an entry changed everything:
"I have discovered, while travelling, ancient writings inside a tomb by accident. Symbols that should not exist. Notes written in a hand that predates history."
Valorin had found something.
Kikimura's hands trembled as he read the entry.
"These came from a clan. A bloodline clan. They called themselves 'Servants of the void' in the texts.. What they wrote about dark magic changes everything I thought I understood."
The passage Valorin copied was in a hand. Older, more formal:
"Dark magic is not a skill acquired through study and discipline. It is a heritage. A covenant. Those who were born with it can feel it calling. The void recognises them. It answers their call because their blood carries the pact."
Kikimura reread the passage three times.
"It comes naturally to them ", Valorin had written, analysing the clan's words. "A mage, from this bloodline, can hear the void. The magic recognises them. Not because of effort or understanding. Because of what runs in their blood."
Kikimura sat down on the floor beside the shelf, the journal in his lap. He read the passages again and again. The words said "Bloodline magic," "Only the bloodline endures", and "Born knowing the darkness".
He had always thought that magic came from sensitivity and was developed by studying and working hard. The academy had taught him that. It was common knowledge... Now he was not so sure. Dark magic seemed to work differently.
If dark magic was something you were born with, then you could not teach it.
Valorin wrote that this clan was hunted and destroyed. Why would people do that?
"Because they were afraid. The Servants of the Shadow had power that could not be controlled". Valorin's words were clear.
Kikimura thought about what this meant. If there were families with special powers, what did that mean for the world? How many secrets had been hidden? How many truths had been destroyed?
He held the journal tightly. This was forbidden knowledge. It was not just dangerous, it was also heretical. It went against everything he had learned.
Then he heard footsteps. Kikimura's body became rigid. Someone was coming to the library. He quickly put the journal back on the shelf. Tried to look like he was just browsing through the normal books.
The girl appeared in the doorway. She saw Kikimura. Looked at the forbidden section and then back at him. She did not say anything. Her face did not change. It was like she expected to see him.
She just stood there watching him. Then she turned and left. Kikimura stood still in the middle of the library. He thought she knew his secret. How long had she known he came to the forbidden section? Did the old man know?
Kikimura could not sleep that night. He kept thinking about the journal and what it said. "Bloodline inherent magic". Born knowing the darkness". He thought about Valorin, who was a mage but could not use dark magic.
As the night went on, Kikimura realised that dark magic was not mysterious because it was evil. It was mysterious because it worked differently. All other magic could be studied.. Dark magic was something you were born with.
This explained why people were afraid of it.. Now it was forgotten.. It made Kikimura wonder: if the family with dark magic was destroyed, who still used it? Were there people who survived? Were they hiding?
The world was more complicated than he thought. There were secrets and more secrets. People died to protect these secrets, and people tried to destroy them.
Kikimura had found proof of this in the library. Tomorrow, he would go back to the forbidden section. Read the journal again. For now, he just lay in bed, lost in his dreams.