Mira's knees hit the muddy ground, not because she wanted to kneel, but because her quadriceps muscles had just given out.

  Her breathing sounded like coarse grating, the only sound daring to break the silence of the Jangberg forest that morning. The damp, cold autumn air pierced her lungs, mingling with the metallic scent of blood from her bleeding nose. Around her, the yellowing needles of the larch trees fell slowly, contrasting with the commotion she had caused.

  “Wake up.”

  The word was spoken in a flat tone, without pity, without urgency. Kars sat casually on the roots of a giant tree that protruded five meters in front of her. That man was peeling the skin of a winter berry with a small silver knife, as if he were on a picnic and not torturing a teenager to her physiological limits.

  “I... need... a minute...” Mira coughed, spitting thick saliva onto the ground.

  Suddenly, a pebble shot through the air, striking Mira squarely in the middle of her forehead. Not hard enough to crack her skull, but hard enough to leave a painful red bump.

  “Your enemies won't give you a minute, Princess,” said Kars, not even bothering to look up from the fruit in his hand. “You're leaking your Intian again. I can smell it from here. Like burning ozone. You're not using magic; you're wasting it.”

  Mira growled, forcing her trembling legs to straighten. She stood. The world swayed slightly to the left, but she held it steady.

  She raised her right hand. Her skin was red and blistered, not from fire, but from the friction of the Intian she couldn't control.

  “Focus on your fingertips,” Kars commanded. This time, his voice was sharper. “Your problem is greed. You're trying to summon all the stars when all you need is a grain of sand. Condense.”

  Mira closed her eyes. She ignored the pain in her muscles and searched for the Intian sensation in her chest. It was there, a hot, turbulent spot. For the past three hours, she had been trying to force it out in an explosion, and the result was only burns and exhaustion.

  Condense, she thought.

  She didn't imagine a bonfire. She imagined a needle.

  Mira took a deep breath, holding the oxygen in her lungs. She guided the energy to flow from her chest, through her shoulders, down her arms, and stop at the tip of her index finger. She held it there—building pressure.

  It felt like a hot nail had been driven under her fingernail.

  “Don't let it spread!” Kars warned, his eyes now fixed intently on Mira's hand. “Light spreads. Its nature is to run in all directions. Your job is to be a prison for that light. Force it to obey.”

  Mira's hand trembled violently. The tip of her finger began to glow. It wasn't the dazzling white light that spread in all directions like before, but a small, pale blue dot that flickered unsteadily.

  “Good,” Kars whispered, his tone softening slightly. “Now, don't push it. Flick it.”

  Mira opened her eyes. Her target was an X marked on the bark of a pine tree ten steps in front of her.

  She didn't throw the energy. She released the pressure valve.

  There was no explosion. Only a sharp hissing sound like water dripping onto hot iron. A thin beam of light—the size of a stick—shot out from Mira's finger.

  It missed.

  The beam struck the ground half a meter to the left of the tree, leaving a small, smoking hole in the frozen ground three inches deep.

  Mira dropped her hand, disappointed. “Missed.”

  “But the shape held,” Kars descended from the tree roots, his gray robe sweeping the forest floor. He walked over to the small hole in the ground and nodded. "See this? There's no scorching around the edges. The hole is neat. That means you managed to condense photons into physical matter. It's no longer just light, it's a projectile."

  He turned to look at Mira. “Accuracy can be trained with thousands of repetitions. But condensation? That requires mental discipline. Do it again. Until you pass out or until you hit that X mark ten times in a row.”

  ***

  Two hours later, Mira hadn't fainted, but she wished she had.

  Her right index and middle fingers were completely numb. She had managed to hit the tree, and the poor tree's bark was now covered with small, smoky holes, but Kars didn't seem satisfied.

  “Enough with the shooting games,” Kars said suddenly, extinguishing the small campfire he had made to warm the tea. “You already understand the principle of Projection. Now we move on to the really painful part. Construction.”

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  Mira wiped the cold sweat from her temples. “I thought condensing light into bullets was the hardest part?”

  “The bullet is easy. It only needs to be solid for a fraction of a second before hitting the target,” Kars walked closer, then suddenly pulled a short dagger from his own waist and threw it at Mira.

  Mira caught it awkwardly.

  “Hold it. Feel its weight. Feel its balance,” Kars ordered.

  Mira weighed the steel dagger. Cold, heavy, real.

  “Now,” Kars took the dagger back. “Make one.”

  Mira stared blankly. “What?”

  "Make a dagger from light. When you fought the scorpion monster yesterday, you managed to create a spear of light in a desperate situation. Try again in a different situation.“ Kars said it as if it were the most reasonable request in the world. ”In battle, we definitely need weapons. But do you think you can carry a pile of iron everywhere? A true Stealix doesn't need a blacksmith. He is his own weapons warehouse."

  Kars raised his empty hand. In the blink of an eye, without a spell, without a shout, white light erupted in his grasp. But the light didn't spread. The light froze.

  In an instant, Kars held a dagger made of pure light that hummed softly. Its shape was perfect, with a handle, hand guard, and double-edged blade. The light was so dense that it was opaque, looking like glowing milk glass.

  “This is called Hard Light,” said Kars, twirling the light dagger between his fingers. The air around the blade distorted from the heat, but Kars's hand was unburned. “This is the transitional stage between energy and matter. You have to force it to stop moving, force it into a crystalline structure, while continuously feeding it new energy to replace the energy dissipating into the air.”

  He squeezed the knife, and it shattered into a cloud of light that vanished.

  “Your turn.”

  Mira swallowed hard. She extended her right hand, palm open.

  She tried to imagine the shape of a dagger. She channeled her Intian energy, asking it to come out and take shape.

  The Intian energy came out. But instead of forming a knife, it exploded into a shapeless ball of light in the palm of her hand. The heat immediately stung her skin.

  “Argh!” Mira flicked her hand away, cutting off the flow of Intian energy. Her palm was bright red.

  “You imagined the image of a knife,” Kars criticized sharply. “Don't imagine the image. Imagine the structure. Imagine the edges. You have to create a barrier with your own determination. If your determination leaks, the light leaks, and your hand burns.”

  Mira tried again. She closed her eyes. She built an imaginary wall in her palm—the shape of a knife. Flow, hold, solidify.

  A shape began to emerge. Faintly. Trembling violently. The shape was ugly, more like an elongated lump of light than a knife. And it was hot. Very hot. It felt like holding burning charcoal with bare hands.

  “Hold it,” Kars' voice sounded close to her ear. “Ignore the pain. The pain is just your nerves confused. Your skin won't burn as long as you maintain a thin protective layer on the surface of your skin. Focus!”

  Mira gritted her teeth until her jaw ached. The ball of light in her hand began to sharpen. A pointed tip formed. A rough handle formed.

  The vibration was so strong that it spread to Mira's arm bones, making her teeth chatter. A humming sound of energy appeared and sounded unstable, like an angry wasp.

  “Good... the shape is starting to stabilize,” whispered Kars.

  Then, without warning, Kars swung the wooden stick he had been holding since who knows when. He hit Mira's wrist.

  Mira's concentration broke. The half-formed light dagger exploded in her hand.

  “DAMN IT!” Mira screamed, clutching her hand, which now felt like it had just been dipped in boiling water. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath from the shock and pain. “Why did you do that?!”

  Kars stood towering over her, his face cold as an ice sculpture.

  “Do you think the enemy will wait for you to finish painting?” he asked cruelly. “In battle, you have to create that weapon in a tenth of a second, while running, while dodging swords, while bleeding. If even the slightest distraction causes your weapon to explode in your own hands, you are more dangerous to yourself than to your enemy.”

  He threw the wooden staff at Mira's feet.

  “Get up. We're not done until you can hold that knife shape for at least ten seconds.”

  Mira stared at the man with a murderous gaze. Exhaustion, hunger, and pain mixed into one pure emotion: anger. But she didn't attack Kars. She knew she would lose in a second.

  Instead, she channeled that anger into her Intian. She stood up, her legs trembling but refusing to collapse.

  “Again,” Mira growled.

  She extended her blistered hand. This time, she didn't ask her energy to obey. She commanded it.

  The light came out again, faster, more aggressive. Mira forced it to condense with a new mental violence. She imagined the particles of light pressing against each other, locking together, becoming dense out of fear of her anger.

  The shape emerged, a dagger. Still rough, its edges still jagged and uneven, but this time it didn't flicker. It hummed with a low, dangerous tone. Its light blinded the eyes beneath the shade of the dark Jangberg forest trees.

  Mira felt its heat, but she wrapped her hand in a thin layer of other energy, rejecting it.

  “One,” counted Kars.

  Mira's hands trembled. Sweat dripped into her eyes. It stung.

  “Two.”

  It felt like holding a small storm that was about to explode.

  “Three.”

  Kars suddenly moved. He picked up a fist-sized river rock from the ground and threw it with all his might at Mira's face.

  This time, Mira wasn't startled. Her eyes were locked on Kars's shoulder movement. She didn't dodge. With a stifled scream, she swung the unstable light blade forward.

  The light blade met the stone. There was no loud collision. The Hard Light blade—composed of super-hot energy and high vibrations—sliced through the stone. The stone split in two, its cut surface glowing red from the friction heat.

  The two halves of the stone fell to the left and right of Mira's feet.

  The next moment, the dagger in Mira's hand went out, disappearing into a thin wisp of smoke. Mira fell to the ground, completely out of breath as if she had just run a marathon. Her hands were smoking.

  Silence. Only the sound of two pieces of stone hissing on the wet ground could be heard.

  Kars stared at the split stone, then at Mira, who was gasping for breath on the ground. For the first time that day, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. Very slightly.

  “The shape is still ugly,” said Kars, turning and walking back to his campfire. “But at least you didn't blow up your own hand.”

  He tossed the leather water bag toward Mira.

  “Drink. Rest for five minutes. After that, we'll try making two daggers at once.”

  Mira let out a long groan, looking up at the forest canopy covered in yellow leaves. Her whole body ached, her hands felt like roasted meat, and she was sure she wouldn't be able to move her right arm tomorrow.

  But when she saw the neatly split piece of rock with its glowing edges beside her, the pain was overshadowed by another feeling. A heady sense of satisfaction.

  She had just cut the rock with light.

  Mira grabbed the water bag, drank greedily, and grinned between heavy breaths. “Two daggers... who's afraid?”