The training yard at Silverwood Spire was a masterpiece of beauty and functionality. It was here, under Elara's watchful gaze, that Nihil's personal hell began. He held an Elven practice sword, which felt foreign and awkward in his hands. Across from him, Princess Lyraelle stood ready, her twin swords sheathed.

"Start with the basics," Lyraelle said sharply. "Stance. Feel your center of gravity."

Nihil tried to mimic her position. In his mind, data from `Void Memory` swirled—diagrams of a hundred perfect stances. But as he attempted to translate them into action, his body felt like a stiff wooden puppet.

Lyraelle sighed. She stepped forward and, without hesitation, kicked the back of Nihil's knee. "Lower." Then she pressed on his back. "Straighten."

"Again," she commanded. "Now, basic swing. Power comes from the ground."

Nihil lifted his sword. He could see the echo of a legendary Elven General in his mind, swinging a greatsword in a perfect arc. He tried to imitate it. The result was a weak, unbalanced swing.

Lyraelle's thought: Strange. He knows the theory. I can see from his eyes that he understands exactly what I'm saying. But his body... his body refuses to obey. As if his mind and body are two separate entities.

"You're overthinking it," Lyraelle said. "Sword fighting isn't just about geometry. It's about flow."

They continued for hours. Stances. Swings. Thrusts. Blocks. Every movement was a struggle. Frustration began to creep into Nihil's mind. This wasn't efficient. It was slow.

"This isn't going to work," Nihil said flatly after hours of futile practice. "At this rate, I'll need years. Time we don't have."

"Do you expect to become a master in a day?" Lyraelle asked, a touch of mockery in her voice.

"I'm not an Elven genius," Nihil replied. "I'm an anomaly. And anomalies require anomalous solutions." He looked at Lyraelle, his red eyes gleaming with a new, dangerous idea. "Don't teach me. Fight me."

Lyraelle raised an eyebrow. "I won't fight you. You have no chance."

"Not a real fight," Nihil said. "A sparring match. Use your full speed. Use all your skills. Hold nothing back. The goal isn't to win. The goal is for me to gather data."

Elara's thought (from her seat): Oh no. I know that look. It's his 'crazy hypothesis' look.

Lyraelle hesitated for a moment. It was an odd request. But she saw the determination in Nihil's eyes. "Alright," she said, unsheathing her twin swords. "But don't blame me if you end up bruised."

"I'm counting on it," Nihil said.

He raised his practice sword. Lyraelle attacked.

She moved like the wind. In the blink of an eye, she was in front of Nihil, one of her swords pointed at his neck, stopping just a few millimeters from his skin. Nihil hadn't even had time to react.

"Dead," Lyraelle said succinctly. She stepped back. "Again."

She attacked again, this time from the side. Nihil tried to block, but he was too slow. The hilt of Lyraelle's sword struck his ribs with a sharp impact.

THWACK!

A dull pain spread through his side.

[WARNING: LOW-LEVEL PHYSICAL DAMAGE DETECTED.]

[Absence Reconstruction (Rank A) activated. Initiating low-stage recovery.]

Nihil felt the cells beneath his skin vibrate as microscopic black dust instantly repaired the bruise. He wasn't winded. His body didn't care. But his mind was noting the sensation.

"Dead," Lyraelle repeated.

They went through the motions repeatedly. Lyraelle was an unstoppable steel storm. She attacked from every angle. And every time, Nihil failed. He was struck, slashed with the flat of the sword, disarmed. Each blow triggered silent regeneration notifications. He never landed a single successful attack. But he never showed any signs of physical fatigue. His perfect body didn't sweat, didn't gasp for breath. All that existed was the immense mental exhaustion as he processed thousands of battle data points.

Elara watched from the sidelines, her data tablet recording every movement. She didn't see a failing student. She saw something else. Nihil's eyes never left Lyraelle. He wasn't seeing the attacks. He was recording every weight shift, every muscle twitch, every angle of her blades. He wasn't learning to fight. He was directly downloading combat data from the source.

After nearly an hour of one-sided "slaughter," Lyraelle finally stopped, her own breathing slightly quicker. "Enough," she said. "You've learned nothing but how to take a beating."

Nihil stood there, his body conceptually "bruised" but physically perfect, his mind buzzing with data overload. "I've got enough," he said.

He closed his eyes for a moment. In his mind, he replayed every one of Lyraelle's attacks as a holographic simulation. He broke them down into thousands of variables. He then overlaid that data onto the theoretical knowledge he had "downloaded" from ancient swords. He began to see patterns. He began to see the gaps.

He opened his eyes. "Again," he said.

Lyraelle sighed but took position. She attacked with the same initial move—a quick thrust to the neck.

This time, something different happened. Nihil didn't try to block with brute strength. He moved. His feet shifted into an awkward yet perfect position, his body tilting sideways at an impossible angle. Lyraelle's sword grazed just centimeters from his neck. At the same time, Nihil's practice sword arced in a slow yet precise motion, parrying Lyraelle's blade and redirecting its momentum.

Lyraelle stumbled slightly from the sudden miss of her attack. She stared at Nihil in total shock. The movement... awkward, slow, but technically... perfect. It was a parry from the ancient Shadow Dance Style, something that hadn't been taught at Silverwood in five hundred years.

"How..." she whispered.

Nihil didn't answer. He simply resumed his ready stance, his mind now filled with cold calculations. He had found his shortcut. He didn't need muscle memory. He had something better. He had real-time combat simulations running in his head. He might not be able to defeat Lyraelle... yet. But he wouldn't be a stationary target anymore.

While Nihil found his painful shortcut to combat competence, in Solara Magna, a middle-aged woman with the appearance of a harmless scholar stepped out of the city's Great Library at dusk. She was known to a select few as the 'Librarian,' but her real name had long been lost, sacrificed in service to Princess Selene Solaris. Her mission: to locate and make contact with the anomaly known as Nihil.

She knew that trying to track him directly was folly. The Silverwood Forest was an impenetrable fortress, and now, with the Inquisition and the Empire watching, it was a hornet's nest she had no desire to disturb. So, she employed the method she knew best: research.

She wasn't looking for Nihil. She was looking for Elara Moonveil.

Over the last week, she had infiltrated the Dimensional Guild archives in Solara Magna, using her cover identity as a visiting scholar. She bribed several low-level archivists, hacked a few data terminals, and gradually pieced together a profile. She found records of Omega Base, Elara's research on "spatial anomalies," and most importantly, she uncovered something everyone had missed: fragmented communication logs between Elara and an informant in The Undercroft known only as "The Weaver."

That night, the Librarian descended into The Undercroft. She didn't wear her scholar's robe. She was dressed in practical leather clothing, her face hidden by a veil. She carried no visible weapons, but anyone with a trained eye could see the deadly efficiency in every movement.

She wasn't looking for The Weaver directly. That would trigger every alarm in the underworld. Instead, she went to a seedy bar known as a hub for information brokers. She sat in a dark corner, ordered a cheap ale, and waited.

She planted a rumor. A whisper she paid a bartender for with a few silver coins. A whisper about a scholar from the upper world willing to pay a very high price for information about a "curse remover" with white hair who had operated there a few months ago.

She waited for three hours. Just as she was about to leave, a small figure wrapped in a burlap sack sat across from her.

"The price for information like that is very high, miss from above," a raspy voice came from within the sack. The Weaver.

"I have the price," the Librarian replied calmly. She pushed a small, heavy leather pouch across the table. "I don't want to know where he is now. I want to know where he has been. Who he met. Who his associates are."

The Weaver took the pouch, weighing it. "He had one associate. A Dwarf weapon-smith. Thorek Ironhand. But you won't get to speak with him. He's very protective."

"I don't need to speak with him," said the Librarian. "I just need to know where his workshop is."

An hour later, the Librarian stood across the street from Thorek Ironhand's now-repaired workshop. Lights were still on inside, and she could hear the rhythmic sound of hammering. She didn't try to enter. She just observed.

She took out a small device from her pocket. It looked like a silver compass, but the needle spun wildly. It was a "Conceptual Resonance Detector," a prototype device designed by Princess Selene's secret engineers. It couldn't track people, but it could detect strong "echoes" of unusual energy left behind in a place.

She activated it. The needle spun for a moment, then slowly pointed toward Thorek's workshop. A dull light began to pulse on the compass.

Librarian's thought: So it's true. The anomaly spent a lot of time here. The emotional bond it has with this Dwarf left a strong trace. This is its first anchor in this world.

She had no way to track Nihil from here. But she had something else. An idea. A crazy gamble.

She returned to her safe house in the scholar district. There, she began preparations. She took out an artifact given to her by Selene—a very rare and powerful long-distance communication crystal. She wouldn't use it to speak.

She began modifying it, combining it with her own technology. She worked through the night, her mind as sharp as a scalpel.

Her plan was simple and extremely complex. If she couldn't send a message to Nihil, perhaps... she could send herself. Not physically. But conceptually.

She would attempt to use the resonance energy she found at Thorek's workshop as a "conceptual address." She would turn the communication crystal into a "consciousness projector." She would try to send an echo of her own mind across the world, hoping the echo would "lock onto" the anomaly that created the original resonance.

It was a shot in the absolute dark. If successful, she could open a communication channel. If it failed, her mind could be shattered, lost between dimensions.

As dawn broke over Solara Magna, the Librarian placed two fingers on the modified crystal. She closed her eyes and focused all her will. "Princess Selene sends her regards," she whispered, sending that thought as the first pulse.

At Silverwood Spire, a thousand kilometers away, Nihil had just finished his training session. He sat down, his mind buzzing with combat simulations, when a strange sensation pierced his thoughts.

It wasn't an attack. It wasn't a voice. It was... a whisper. An echo inside his head that wasn't his own.

[WARNING: FOREIGN CONCEPTUAL DISTURBANCE DETECTED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN.]

He immediately activated `Sanctuary of Absence`, wrapping his mind in silence.

[Activating: Sanctuary of Absence (Rank F)]

[Capacity: 35/50 → 34/50]

The whisper vanished. But he knew it was real. Someone, somewhere, had successfully touched his mind. The hunt had begun, but not by the hunters he had anticipated. A new player had entered the chessboard. And they weren't using swords or magic. They were using methods far more subtle... and far more dangerous.

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