Plundering Worlds: I Have a Shotgun in a Fantasy World-Chapter 68: Chance?

[Training Grounds – Sector 4 – Early Morning]

The snow was retreating.

It clung to the yard in uneven sheets, thinning along the stone and loosening its grip on the walls. Dark wet rings spread at the base of the ramparts. Meltwater traced narrow paths through the packed earth, carving shallow veins across the ground. The air still cut against exposed skin, though its edge had dulled since the heart of winter. The season was nearing its end.

Kael stood in the center of the yard with a stone block at his feet.

He had taken it from the wall repair pile at the edge of the compound—quarried granite, roughly cut, dense enough that two men usually carried one between them. He had carried it alone, one hand, from the pile to here.

The wooden posts were finished. He had known it for two weeks, yet he kept striking them out of habit. The wood split under every blow.

Stone was different.

He set his stance and struck. The shock ran through bone and tendon. A narrow crack split the surface, running several inches from the point of impact.

He studied it. The fracture stayed shallow. The block remained intact.

The Aether had come first. 50.4 Aether flowed through him without interruption, soaking into muscle and bone day after day. It kept his body fed and fortified, thickening the flesh and reinforcing the frame beneath it.

The Qi came from the Returning Yang True Art. He drew it from his own flesh, from what he ate and broke down each day. The more he consumed, the more he could refine. It gathered in the body, fed by blood and meat, then turned back on the flesh that birthed it. Bones hardened. Muscle compacted. Nerves carried impulse with less delay.

Beneath the Aether and the Qi was the Dragon-Elephant method.

It was not another energy. It was a way of using the body.

He drew breath in a fixed rhythm. Each inhale tightened the frame; each exhale released it in measured pulses. The pattern sent a vibration through him. Muscle quivered. Tendons thrummed. Even bone carried the faint tremor. It continued without pause. Whether he trained, walked, or slept, the vibration remained—constant, internal, pressing outward from within.

The pressure created damage in small amounts. Fibers split on a fine scale. Connective tissue strained. Bone endured constant loading. In a normal body, the accumulation would outpace repair and lead to collapse. His did not. The Aether kept the structure from destabilizing. The Qi rebuilt what the strain broke down. Damage triggered repair. Repair returned thicker tissue.

The first stage forced adaptation to the constant vibration. After weeks, the tremor became normal to his body. The second stage increased the force behind it. The vibration drove deeper, loading the skeleton more directly. Progress slowed as the strain rose. Ten days ago, the body adjusted. The heavier vibration no longer threatened structural failure. It became sustainable.

Three systems. Three different logics. All of them running.

He looked at the crack in the stone.

He picked the block up, turned it, set it back down on an unmarked face.

He drew breath and pulled Qi into his right hand. The forearm hardened. Knuckles pressed against skin drawn thin and tight. The hand felt heavier, packed solid from wrist to fingertip.

He struck.

The block exploded.

The impact shattered it from the center. A crack ripped through the stone, and the whole mass broke apart. Two large pieces split cleanly and fell away, smaller fragments scattering across the yard. One half hit the wet ground and slid to a stop.

Kael lowered his hand.

His knuckles were intact. The skin lay tight over solid bone. His hand felt dense and unyielding, built to withstand the force it delivered.

He measured it plainly.

One punch would kill a man. The skull would split. The brain would not remain whole. His hands were weapons now, honed through months of strain and repair. Even unarmed, he carried killing force. His options had expanded.

He let the Qi ease back to its resting circulation and flexed his fingers once.

Then he noticed something else.

He had sensed it for several days but set it aside. Now, in the still air of the yard, it came through without distraction.

His heartbeat landed heavier than before. Blood moved through him with pressure, dense and hot, as if it carried more than oxygen.

It was different from Qi. Different from the constant presence of Aether. Different from the Dragon-Elephant vibration working through his bones.

He could feel the pulse of it in his wrist, in the side of his neck, in the deep vessels running through his forearms and thighs. A warmth that moved in rhythm, that carried something he couldn’t name yet—older than technique, older than anything he had been taught.

He picked up the two halves of the stone block, carried them to the debris pile at the wall’s edge, and went to find Valen.

[Command Building - Valen’s Office]

Valen was at his desk when Kael entered, reading a report. He set it aside and leaned back in his chair.

"Captain."

Kael took the chair across from him and sat.

"You told me that when I could feel the blood moving in my veins, I should come find you.

"I can feel it now."

"All the time?"

Kael nodded. "When I’m still, it’s clearer. I can feel it in my wrists. In my neck. In my legs."

Valen exhaled slowly. "I thought so."

He said nothing for a beat. Outside, meltwater dripped from the eaves.

"Blood Awareness," he said. "Stage Two. First threshold of Transcendence." He paused. "Congratulations. You’ve entered the path."

Kael inclined his head. "Thank you."

Valen rose from his desk and moved to the window. He stood there with his hands behind his back, looking out.

"There is an opportunity in front of you," he said, still facing the glass. "I can place you where it matters."

He turned.

"That opportunity begins with my house—Elira, my niece."

The room went still.

"My family’s estates are in the capital. Marriage into my house carries standing. Entry into the Royal City. Access to proper instruction. Doors that do not open for most men."

Kael was silent for a moment. "Does Lady Elira know?"

"She’ll agree."

"That’s not what I asked."

The air in the room seemed to still.

"She’ll agree," Valen said. The certainty in his voice left no opening.

He turned back toward his desk.

"The arrangements will be made. Prepare yourself." He picked up his pen. "You can go."

Kael walked down the corridor.

The passage ran through the heart of the command building—high stone walls, tall narrow windows cut between banners, a red carpet stretched the length of the floor. Meltwater scent drifted in faintly from outside, mixing with old wood and oil. His steps fell muted against the carpet.

Halfway down the corridor, he slowed.

The wrapped bundle rested in his coat.

He had intended to leave it on Valen’s desk for Lady Elira. He turned back toward the office.

Elira was coming the other way.

She carried a folded document against her side, moving with purpose, her attention elsewhere. She lifted her head only when they were three paces apart.

Her eyes lit at once.

She stopped.

"Kael."

"Lady Elira."

For a moment, neither moved.

"I have something for you." Kael reached into his coat and withdrew the package.

She looked at it, then at him, and did not move.

He held it out.

"May I open it?"

"You can."

She took it. Her fingers were calmer than her breath. The cord took her two attempts to loosen. She folded the cloth back with care that bordered on reverence.

Inside lay a writing set. A single pen, balanced and clean, its nib cut from hard steel rather than the soft supply-issue metal. Two small stoppered vials of ink rested beside it, dark and dense in the light. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

She paused. For a moment she simply looked at it, as if adjusting to the fact that it was meant for her.

Her thumb traced the length of the barrel, slow, almost absent-minded. Then she straightened, as if remembering herself.

"It was expensive, wasn’t it?" she asked, her voice dropping.

"Not expensive," Kael said.

A faint breath left her—half relief, half something she made no effort to conceal. The corner of her mouth lifted before she could stop it. She looked down again, and this time the smile stayed.

"Thank you," she said. The words came softer than she intended.

Kael gave a small nod and moved to continue on.

"Kael."

He stopped.

Elira was holding the pen with both hands now, the cloth gathered carefully around it as though it might break. Color had risen along her cheekbones. There was light in her eyes that had not been there before.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

"No," she said finally. "Nothing yet."

He inclined his head. "Then I’ll see you later, Elira."

He walked on.

Behind him, she remained where she stood, looking down at the pen again, turning it once more in her fingers—slower this time, unable to suppress the small smile that returned when no one was watching.