The water was freezing. It felt like a thousand knives stabbing Amari’s skin.

  He tumbled through the white foam, smashing against a rock. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he didn't let go of Elara’s tactical vest.

  She was thrashing, panicking. The heavy current was dragging her down.

  Swim, Amari commanded his legs.

  He kicked. His thighs, strengthened by weeks of squats and "poison" stew, acted like pistons. He fought the river. He wasn't swimming with technique; he was swimming with brute force.

  He saw a dark opening behind the curtain of the waterfall. A cave mouth.

  He grabbed a jagged rock near the opening. His fingers, hardened by the Iron Skin training, dug into the slippery stone like claws. He hauled himself up, dragging Elara with him.

  They collapsed onto the dry, sandy floor of the cave. The roar of the waterfall outside was deafening, but inside, it was just a dull thrum.

  Amari rolled onto his back, coughing up water. His left arm—the one the wolf had bitten—was throbbing. His uniform was shredded.

  He looked down at his feet. His cheap canvas sneakers were gone, ripped off by the current. He was barefoot.

  Great, he thought. Now I really have to rely on Iron Skin.

  He checked his wristwatch. The screen was cracked and black. The map device was dead.

  Elara curled into a ball, shivering violently. Her lips were blue.

  "C-c-cold," she stuttered.

  Amari sat up. He knew what hypothermia did. It killed faster than wolves.

  "Elara," Amari said, his voice raspy. "Fire."

  She looked at him, her eyes unfocused. "I... I can't... my wand..."

  "You don't need a wand," Amari said, crawling over to her. He grabbed her freezing hands. "You are a Fire Mage. You are the heat. Ignite."

  Elara focused on his grip. She closed her eyes. Slowly, a warm orange glow surrounded her hands. Steam began to rise from her wet clothes.

  She expanded the aura. The cave grew warm. The shivering stopped.

  For a long time, they just sat there, breathing.

  "You jumped," Elara whispered, looking at him. "You actually jumped."

  "It was the only way," Amari said, checking the bandage on his arm. It was soaked through.

  "Bronson would have let us die," Elara said bitterly. "He smiled when the wall went up."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "I know," Amari said. "Bronson thinks strength is pushing people down. He’s going to die in this forest."

  Elara looked at Amari’s chest. His wet shirt clung to his skin, revealing the scars and the lean, corded muscle he had built.

  "Why are you helping me?" she asked softly. "I'm just a client. You could have thrown me at the wolf and ran."

  Amari looked at her. In his past life, he had been solitary. He had fought alone, and he had died alone.

  "A shield is useless without a sword," Amari said. "I can take a hit. But I can't kill a Silver-Back Alpha by myself. I need your fire. We are a team."

  Elara stared at him. Then, for the first time, she smiled. It wasn't a nervous smile. It was a real one.

  "Okay," she said. "Team."

  She held out her hand. "Let me see your arm. The heat can cauterize the wound."

  Amari extended his arm. As Elara worked, focusing her warm mana on the bite marks, Amari looked around the cave.

  It wasn't a natural formation. The walls were too smooth. There were grooves in the stone—tool marks, precise and straight. Someone had built this.

  He stood up and walked deeper into the shadows, ignoring the cold sand on his bare feet.

  "Amari?" Elara called out. "Where are you going?"

  "Bring the light," Amari said.

  Elara created a small ball of floating fire and followed him.

  The light illuminated the back wall of the cave. It was covered in carvings. They were old—ancient. The stone was worn smooth by centuries of damp air.

  [System Notification] [Hidden Location Discovered: Old Way Reliquary] [Lore Unlock: Pre-System Combat Methods] [Void Body Compatibility: HIGH]

  Elara squinted at the drawings. "What are these? They don't look like spell formulas."

  They weren't spells.

  They were diagrams of the human body.

  The drawings showed figures in various poses—lifting heavy rocks, sitting in meditation, and striking with fists. But unlike modern magical diagrams that showed Mana Cores in the chest, these drawings showed lines of energy flowing through the muscles and bones.

  There were no Cores.

  Amari ran his hand over a carving of a man breathing in a specific rhythm. The text underneath was in a language dead for a thousand years, but the diagram was clear.

  Inhale. Compress. Explode.

  "It's the Breath of Iron," Amari whispered.

  "What?" Elara asked.

  "Look," Amari pointed. "These people... they didn't use mana. They hunted the monsters with their bare hands. This is a training manual."

  He traced the line to the next drawing. It showed a warrior eating the heart of a beast, and the energy traveling to his skin.

  Text (roughly translated in Amari's mind): The flesh of the beast becomes the shield of the man.

  Elara looked confused. "But... history class says humans were weak before the System awakened. We were just prey."

  "History is wrong," Amari said, his eyes gleaming. "We weren't prey. We forgot how to be predators. The System made us lazy."

  He looked at the carvings with a new sense of purpose. He wasn't inventing Body Cultivation. He was remembering it. This cave proved that humanity had a path to power long before the Mages and their "Gods" arrived.

  He found a section of the wall that showed a warrior fighting a massive wolf—a Silver-Back.

  The warrior wasn't using a sword. He was using a specific strike. His fingers were formed into a spear-hand, aiming for a soft spot under the wolf’s jaw.

  The Throat Latch, Amari analyzed. The only spot where the silver fur is thin.

  He memorized the image.

  "Elara," Amari said, turning back to the entrance. "Can you walk?"

  "Yes," she said. "Thanks to the heat, I'm dry."

  "Good," Amari said. His voice was cold, focused. "Because we aren't hiding anymore."

  He looked back at the drawing of the warrior killing the wolf.

  "We know where it bleeds now."