Blake pulled his staff off his back like he was drawing a sword, then gave it a quick whirl. He spun around, searching for any sign of the attacker.

  Throwing knives. Could it be…?

  A normal cultivator probably would’ve been able to sense something. But senses required fine control, and Blake wasn’t even at Foundation yet. That was when your senses were really supposed to improve, wasn’t it?

  Focus! Ethbin snapped.

  Blake opened his mouth to reply, but a dagger raced forward. It hit the middle of his staff, embedding into the wood with its tip.

  To your right.

  Blake spun immediately. There was nothing, not even a swaying branch, and no more daggers flew. Not yet.

  He glanced down at the dagger embedded in his staff. He cursed himself for not remembering what Mingel’s daggers looked like, but it had been the heat of battle. The hilt of the knife in his staff had a red fabric wrap, and the ring at the bottom had been carved in the shape of a tiger’s head. Its fangs closed together, forming a complete circle.

  “Oh, it’s one hundred percent her,” Blake muttered.

  Behind you, Ethbin said.

  Blake whirled around to face a house. It was a regular family home from before the Integration, with a crumbling facade and broken windows. An abandoned police car had parked in front of it, half sunk into the mud.

  Blake dove over to the car and sheltered behind it, then peered over the top. A dagger flew toward him and shattered the bar of lights atop the car, and he ducked back down. “I know it’s you, Mingel! Literally no one else uses throwing knives!”

  Silence.

  “You know,” he said, “your attempts to kill me have been so halfhearted that I can’t help wondering if you actually want to do this at all!”

  To the left, Ethbin warned.

  Blake scrambled around the car to take cover from the new direction of attack, then shouted, “I mean, you’re able to throw knives harder than that! I know you have a Smite technique that makes them sharper!”

  “Unless I was trying to lull you into a false sense of security,” came her voice, cold and monotone, from the right. An icy dagger pressed into Blake’s chin, and he didn’t dare turn his head. He only glanced to the side. Sure enough, Mingel stood right beside him, holding a throwing knife up to his chin.

  “So then slit my throat,” Blake whispered. There was a faint twinge of pain on his chin, and a bead of dark red blood ran down the edge of the dagger. “But come to think of it, you’re pointing it up into my chin. That’s not exactly my throat.”

  “You’ll still die,” Mingel whispered.

  “Yeah but it’s not as much of a guarantee. What if you hit my skull and couldn’t pierce my enhanced bone? Half measures.” Inwardly, he asked Ethbin, Why didn’t you sense her?

  The ring replied, She has an Augmentation technique that makes her incredibly light and allows her to merge her physical form with the wind. She practically teleported to the other side of you.

  That must’ve been new. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she have deployed that against him in Mergewatch?

  Blake narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, about to speak, when Mingel said, “In the open, you may be stronger than me, but you cannot compare to a descendant of the Glass Dagger.”

  “So why am I still alive?”

  “How come you sensed me? You are only Tempering…three.”

  “Are we just going to refuse to answer each others’ questions?” he asked. He registered her blade slowly pulling away from his chin. Talk about lulling people into a false sense of security. She was no master assassin yet.

  “You’re the one with a knife at your throat,” Mingel snapped.

  “We just went over this. It’s pointing at my chin, not my throat.”

  Perhaps you should stop talking in circles, Ethbin said. You won’t beat her like this. But she didn’t tell you to drop your staff.

  Ethbin was right. Blake was still holding onto it.

  “Right, well, maybe you’re not as quiet as you think,” Blake tried. In truth, he hadn’t sensed her, but every second, every extra seed of doubt he planted in her mind made her drift away.

  Most cultivators will feel a surge of mana when you’re about to start an Augmentation technique, Ethbin said, but your Honour is invisible to them. She won’t know until it’s too late to defend against.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Blake waited until Mingel opened her mouth, about to speak again, then triggered his basic Augmentation and struck her in the back of the knee with an enhanced swipe of his staff. She staggered forward and dropped down, pulling her weapon away from his chin. Before she could retaliate, he launched himself back with a handspring and pointed his staff at her.

  Her rank seal had changed too. She was now at the third stage of Body Tempering, just the same as him. “You’re keeping up,” he said.

  “Our clan has more knowledge than most.”

  “Alright,” Blake said, tilting his head to the side. “So what do you want, hm? I don’t think you’re here to kill me, and I don’t really want to kill you.”

  “I would’ve killed you,” she said. “If…”

  “If what?”

  “If you’d been weak. Anyone else at our stage would’ve died to the first dagger.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Alright, let me guess. Heron’s a chicken, he doesn’t want to fight me, and he told you that you should go kill me to clear your reputation or save face or something like that?” After a few seconds of silence, he grinned and said, “Yeah, so something like that. But you still had me at your mercy, and you didn’t do anything.”

  “I know you went looking for me after our fight in Mergewatch,” she replied. She drew a dagger, and Blake tightened his grip on his staff. “The guard told me what you wanted.” She pulled her arm back.

  “Yeah, well, I felt bad about it. Is that so wrong?” He sprang forward, snapping his staff toward her and knocking the dagger out of her grip. “That’s not exactly how you treat someone who was just trying to make sure you were alive.”

  Grabbing his staff with her other hand, she redirected his motion, and with her enhanced muscles, pushed him down to the mud. He landed hard on his back. Expressionless, she crouched over him and said, “Are you sure you didn’t want to finish me off?”

  “Nah, man,” Blake shrugged, first feigning nonchalance. Then he drove his knee into her gut and wrenched himself to the side, flipping her onto her back and pinning her with his staff. “Really, do you think I’m lying?” he asked. “I could’ve killed you plenty of times. But I didn’t. So what do you want from me?”

  As a show of good faith, he released his hold and pushed himself back, then rose up to his full height and stepped back. “Mingel, I don’t want to hate you.” He squinted. Since he’d seen her last, she had a few bruises on her arm and a black eye, and one of her tiger ears had a chip taken out of it—which was still bleeding. “And by the looks of it, Heron’s already been nasty enough to you. So what do you want?”

  “I want you to kill Heron Silverbeard. You are the only one in this region with the potential.”

  “You’re an assassin, right? Why not do it yourself.”

  “Everyone would suspect me. My mother is the widowed wife of the former Green Bear patriarch, but he died in a private duel, and they are looking for a new patriarch.” She paused. “This is not public knowledge.”

  Blake wouldn’t have known either way. He just tilted his head. “Yeah, I’m not really seeing how that implicates you.”

  “If I don’t marry soon, sect leadership passes to my cousin. He is the top ranked male disciple of the sect.”

  “You’re the top ranked of them all, though. Why don’t you become the leader?”

  “The sect must have a patriarch. That is how it has always been.”

  “Okay?” Blake kept his staff up, ready to intercept another attack. “So they marry you off to Silverbeard. He joins the sect and becomes the patriarch. The Green Bears become the Steerman’s powerful army of enforcers on the ground. He tightens his grip further.”

  “Precisely.”

  “You’d have a comfortable life this way,” Blake said. He paused, thinking for a few seconds. “But that still doesn’t explain why if you killed him, they would blame it on you.”

  “Mother knows I don’t want the position, and she knows I don’t want to marry Silverbeard. I would be the prime suspect if he died.” She paused. “I don’t want comfort. Comfort comes with a leash.”

  “Well, same, I guess.” Blake crossed his arms, hugging his staff. “Not about marrying Silverbeard— Actually, wait, yeah, I don’t want to marry him, you’re right.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “How old are you, even?”

  “Twenty-three standard Kinghaven years,” she said. Kinghaven had about the same year-length as earth, given that both planets resided in their star system’s habitable zone.

  Going by what Ulfreld had said, Heron had to be at least three times that. He didn’t look it, sure, but that didn’t matter for cultivators. Blake said, “I take it you’re not pleased with the arrangement?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “Okay, yeah, not pleased.” He shook his head. “I promised Heron a duel. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to kill him.”

  “It would be bad form,” Mingel said. “But allowed.”

  “Would I still get into a Cohong guild aboard the Manaship?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Alright, then sure, I can try to kill him. Say I do, what happens?”

  “My cousin would take over the Green Bears. The Steerman’s grip on the entire region would loosen, and—”

  “What about you? What happens to you?”

  “I could work my way out of the sect with him gone.” She rolled her bottom lip inward and flicked her ears. “If you agree, I can help you beat Silverbeard. I know about his fighting style. I know about his strategies, and I can help train you to kill him. And I can tell you about the rest of his machinations.”

  Blake nodded. “Then you have yourself a deal.” He tucked his staff into his backpack straps and stepped forward, then reached out a hand as a show of good faith. She tucked her dagger back into her bandolier.

  “I’ll kill Silverbeard,” Blake replied. “And you’ll help me do it. But how are you going to explain not killing me right now?”

  “I’ll tell Silverbeard I’m still hunting for you. I’ll tell him you’ve been sheltering in the safety of the hunters’ pavilion. But we’ll meet here every two weeks and train.”

  “I think I can make it work,” he replied.

  “I never got your name.”

  “Blake.”

  She reached out and took his hand, then shook it. “It is a deal, Blake.”

  “Now…uh, if you don’t mind, I have some more hunting to do. What do you say we meet back here in two weeks and call that the first training session?”

  “Agreed.” She nodded. “A word of warning: The Path Paladins are here for a reason, and it’s not just to hunt for signs of the Dark Surge. They’re protecting someone important, and you’d be wise to not get in their way.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind,” Blake said. With a nod, he set off into the mists.

  Thrive: Unseen

  by DMA

  When the player is broken, the System doesn’t matter.

  Thrive Protocol—a growth system that turns life into a leaderboard.

  Merge: place two items inside, get one “combined” result. No combat value. Trash-tier.

  Before anyone notices him, it’ll already be too late.

  New chapters every week ? Progression Fantasy ? LitRPG