CHAPTER 231: FIRST SPARK

Dylan picked up the other two gems, their faint warmth pulsing against his bruised palm. He shoved them into the torn pocket of his pants, a silent promise to himself. Later. I’ll absorb them later.

Each stone was a step closer to strength, to survival. To never feeling this powerless again.

With slow, painful movements, he and Julius carved the best cuts of flesh from the still-warm carcasses. The meat was dark, sinewy, and reeked of wild musk. They wrapped the pieces in broad, sturdy leaves and set off back, dragging their prey like macabre trophies through the hostile thickets.

The cabin wasn’t much: four crude wooden walls, a roof of branches and moss, a door bound together with lianas. But against the creeping darkness of the forest, it was a sanctuary.

Inside, the air was heavy with smoke and the smell of sizzling meat. Flames danced, casting shifting shadows on the rough walls. Dylan sat cross-legged across from Julius, eyes fixed on a chunk of meat roasting at the tip of a sharpened branch. Fat dripped into the fire, hissing.

"See that smoke?" Julius began, slowly turning his own piece of meat. His voice had lost its usual sharpness, taking on an almost instructive tone that startled Dylan.

"It rises, it swirls, doesn’t really care where it goes—but it finds a way out. That’s what your essence is like right now. You’re letting it out like a brute, without control. You learned to run without even knowing how to put one foot in front of the other."

Dylan looked at him—really looked at him. In the firelight, Julius’s features seemed younger, almost boyish. Twenty-five, tops. Four years older than him. Too young to sound this... wise. And yet the words he used were raw, down-to-earth, far more real to Dylan than any lofty speeches.

"So how am I supposed to do it, then?" Dylan asked, fatigue roughening his voice. "I feel... something. A warmth. But it’s like a muscle I don’t know how to flex."

Julius smiled, a flash of white in the dark.

"Good. At least you felt the muscle. That’s a start. Close your eyes."

Dylan hesitated, then obeyed. The crackling fire and the smell of cooked meat grew sharper.

"Now imagine essence is like this beast’s fat," Julius said, calm, directive. "It’s everywhere in your body, in droplets. But instead of letting it drip anywhere and set everything on fire, you guide it. Down a single path. Simple. From your gut... to your fingertips."

He paused, letting the image settle.

"Feel the heat in your stomach first. Right where you took that hit earlier. Pain’s a good landmark. Now push it. Slowly. Like shoving a pebble through a bamboo tube that’s too tight. Don’t force it. Guide it."

Dylan frowned in concentration. He felt the throbbing heat of his wound. He tried to "push," just as Julius had said. Nothing.

"It’s normal to screw it up at first," Julius went on, sensing his frustration. "Try again. Inhale. And when you breathe out, push. Not with your chest. With your intent."

Dylan inhaled deeply, smoke burning his lungs. On the exhale, he focused again, imagining the warmth as a thick liquid crawling up his arm.

And then—something. A flicker. A tiny wave of heat that sprang from his gut and ran down his right arm, so faint it might have been an illusion, ending in a prickling at his fingertips.

His eyes snapped open.

Julius nodded, a faint smile tugging his lips.

"You felt it? That little shitty tingle?"

"Yes," Dylan breathed, incredulous.

"Good. That’s it. It’s pathetic, it’s tiny, but it’s the start of control. Now do it again. And again. Until the pipe widens. Until the fat runs smooth. And one day, you won’t just send it into your fingers, but into your blade. Right at the moment it strikes."

He bit into his meat with hunger.

"The difference between a good strike and a master’s strike isn’t strength. It’s delivery. You can have the best package in the world, but if the delivery guy’s an idiot, it’ll show up late and ruined. Your essence is the package. You are the courier. Learn the roads."

Dylan closed his eyes again, a new determination sparking inside him. The pain was still there, the exhaustion too. But for the first time, he had a map. A path.

And in the shifting firelight before him, his twenty-five-year-old teacher gnawed on his meat, watching him practice with the look of someone who had delivered many packages before.

Dylan repeated the exercise until his arms trembled on their own, no longer obeying him. His fingers cramped, his eyelids grew heavy, and yet he kept feeling... something. At times, a tiny spark, a shiver, a pulse sharper than the last. Nothing spectacular, but enough to keep him going.

At one point, a stronger warmth surged through his arm, burst into his palm, and crackled in the air—a minuscule spark that leapt from his fingers. It fizzled out instantly, insignificant. But Julius burst out laughing.

"There it is! You see? You’re starting to play with matches. Careful you don’t set your underwear on fire, kid."

Dylan shot him a look—exhausted, but strangely proud. Sweat dripped down his face, his hair clinging to his temples. Julius, meanwhile, stared at him with a smile that lasted longer than usual. A smile neither ironic nor mocking. Just... sincere.

Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the fire and Dylan’s ragged breath. Then Julius spoke, quieter, almost absently:

"I started like that too. Like an idiot, thinking I’d die every time I tried. Had nobody to explain shit. Just beatings and shouting. And I figured out that if I didn’t want to end up carrion, I had to invent my own way."

Dylan blinked, startled. Julius never spoke about himself.

The fallen captain shrugged, as if his own words had slipped out by accident. Then he leaned back against the wall, chewing his meat with studied indifference.

"At least you’ve got someone sparing you the beatings."

Dylan wanted to ask something, but fatigue nailed him to the floor. His eyelids shut against his will, and silence returned between them—heavy, but not hostile.

In his last fading moments of consciousness, Dylan thought that for a man so cutting, Julius hid wounds he only revealed in firelight.

And that, more than the lessons of blood or the strikes, might be worth remembering.