He backed up until there was a real gap between himself and the dummy, more distance than he’d used all morning, and switched his grip, handle in his left hand, the curved blade held in his right, tilted back toward himself like a javelin about to be thrown.
He stepped forward and released the full length of the chain in one motion.
The blade tore through the air in a wide, sweeping lash, the chain singing as it uncoiled behind it, and struck the dummy dead center with a crack that echoed off the clearing’s treeline.
He pulled the chain back. It came in a long, curving arc through the air, and he had to jog three quick steps forward just to be under it in time, catching the handle cleanly in his right hand as it dropped.
’Once more. But this time—’
He struck the same point again, only instead of pulling back after the first hit, he rotated his wrist in a tight, fast circle, sending the chain spinning in a loop that snapped the blade back into the same spot on the dummy a second time before he finally reeled it in.
Two strikes. One retrieval.
He caught his breath for half a second, then went again, three rotations this time, the blade striking, spinning free, striking again, spinning again, striking a third time, the chain tracing a shape through the air that looked less like a weapon pattern and more like something drawn, deliberate, almost beautiful in how ugly its intent was.
Then he pulled it home in one final arc and caught it.
Four strikes on the next attempt.
His arm burned by the third rotation, the chain fighting him harder each time it changed direction, but he held the rhythm together anyway, forcing his wrist to keep dictating the shape instead of letting the shape dictate his wrist, sweat sliding down the side of his face by the time the final loop came home.
"Wow!" Zara had gotten to her feet without him noticing. "That was, that was insane! You did that way better for someone doing it for the first time, I swear. I guess the chain practice from before really helped, especially that figure-eight you were doing with just the chain alone. Chain really fits you, I think."
"Yeah," Alex said, chest still heaving a little, unable to fully wipe the grin off his face even though he tried. "The chain training really did help. I don’t think I could’ve done any of that without the basics I drilled last week. And my Aspect, I’m running it constantly right now, and it’s actually showing results."
He didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t pleased with himself.
It felt too good to pretend otherwise.
’It felt really good,’ he thought, flexing his fingers once. ’I like this feeling.’
He didn’t let himself sit in it for long.
’Chain wrap targets next.’
He looked over at the training post standing off to the side, the one with a crude wooden arm bolted onto it at shoulder height, meant to simulate a limb.
He pictured an enemy holding a weapon in that hand.
’If I can wrap the chain around a wrist, I can strip the weapon right out of it before they even understand what’s happening.’
He threw the chain out in a low, sweeping arc, aiming not for the post itself but for the wooden arm jutting from it, and the length of chain caught around it on the second attempt, coiling twice before he yanked back hard with his whole body weight behind the pull.
The wooden arm cracked at the joint and swung wildly, still attached but hanging loose, torn half off the post from the force of the yank.
’That’s what a disarm looks like,’ Alex thought, staring at the wreckage of it with something between satisfaction and mild guilt about the post’s structural integrity. ’Wrap, yank, and whatever they’re holding either comes with the chain or their arm doesn’t work right anymore. Either way, I win that trade.’
He ran it twice more, wrapping different angles of the arm each time, the wood groaning a little louder with each pull, until Zara finally called it and brought him water again.
He drank it down in one go.
"This weapon feels much better for you," Zara said, studying him with her head tilted slightly. "To me, you already seemed good with the Viper’s Spine. But with the Amethyst Paradox, I don’t know how to put it, it’s like your movement comes naturally to you. Even more than it did with the Spine. Though that’s just my read on it for now."
Alex didn’t answer right away, turning the scythe over once in his hands, feeling the balance of it settle differently now than it had an hour ago, the weight distributed in a way that felt less like a tool and more like an extension of his own arm, something almost natural in his grip.
Then he headed for the mana formation, needing every drop he could recover before the spar.
’I’ve never gone into a spar at full mana,’ he thought, settling into the formation and reaching for the ambient current the way he’d trained himself to all week. ’Not once. The gap between weapon training and the spar just isn’t long enough to fill what the Aspect burns through.’
He kept pulling at the mana anyway, patient, steady, feeling it gather slower than he wanted but faster than it used to.
’Better absorption. Not more mana. Not faster control. Just better at taking in what’s already there.’
’If I had to guess, I’ve probably got as much mana right now as the strongest recruit in this entire hall, and they’re sitting somewhere around level ten. But my attributes are barely around level 1, level 2 if I want to push it.’
He let that thought settle, quiet and satisfied, and kept absorbing, the current threading through him a little easier with every breath.