After the hunt on the goblin camp, the old man started teaching Teclos his ways in earnest.

He did not begin with normal lessons like every other mentor.

He began with suggestions on every hunt.

Small things, at first. Casual remarks slipped into their conversations as though they were important, but Teclos could decide for himself if he wanted to follow his advice.

Pointers about his movement—how he could evade sight better, how he could be stealthier, about positioning, even about the way Teclos approached problems.

"You rely too much on brute force when you don’t have the strength to back it up," he had said once, after a completed job.

Teclos hadn’t thought much of it then. Just the old man’s rambling again.

One day a merchant had arrived in Kolma, agitated and loud, speaking of stolen goods and a figure they had seen slipping through the treeline at dusk the night before. Not a beast, but also not quite a man either.

Most of the hunters dismissed it, as the thief was probably gone by now, with that kind of head start.

But the old man had a keen interest in this job for some reason.

And later, he found Teclos.

"I have a simple task for you," he said, his tone even, almost bored. "Track this culprit and retrieve what was taken." He showed him the flyer.

Teclos frowned. "A tracking job... that’s new. Let me guess, you’re sending me alone?"

The old man paused, then gave a faint smile.

"Would you prefer an audience?"

Teclos ignored the jab and read the job description.

The old man’s shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. "This should test your stealth... if you can’t even find and catch a thief, then there is no hope for you."

Something about that answer had felt... strange.

But Teclos had taken the task anyway, just another oportunity to get stronger.

—

Once there, at the site—he found subtle clues.

Subtle tracks along the trail. The thief was careful, but not perfect.

He followed the tracks.

Hours passed before he found the hideout, going through a lot. The thief had used a lot of diversions and misdirections.

It was tucked into a shallow dip between two rocky ridges, hidden from direct sight. A small fire pit, long extinguished. A tarp lay over a few boxes—likely the stolen goods—resting in the center.

And a figure stood there, watching him.

Teclos was surprised he or she noticed him as he was wrapped in darkness.

Before he could do anything the figure dissapeared.

Teclos’s hand snapped to his weapon, darkness spreading around him as he tried to locate the foe.

But it was just... gone.

Teclos’s eyes narrowed, his senses flaring outward, but there was nothing to grasp at.

Then—

He sensed a strike from behind at the last second.

He twisted his body, barely catching the knife, but then a knee slammed into his side, sending him stumbling. The impact was heavy and precise.

Teclos recovered quickly, teeth gritted as darkness surged around him and protected him just before the impact—lessening the blow.

"Come out," he muttered.

Silence.

Dark tendrils rose from the ground, with Teclos as the center. Like an octopus, the tendrils snapped outward, striking all around him.

He hit nothing but empty air.

"Stop hiding," Teclos snapped. He tried to lure it out by pushing forward, making himself a target.

That was a mistake.

The ground suddenly disappeared beneath one of his feet—just when he tried to take a step. His balance broke for half a second.

That was all the thief needed.

He appeared behind Teclos, his blade slashing across Teclos’s back. It was shallow, but enough that pain surged throughout his body.

"Hah! They sent a boy? What a needless death..." a voice murmured from somewhere behind him.

Teclos’s jaw tightened. Darkness surged instinctively, making a spiked cocoon of darkness trying to impale the thief behind him, but it wasn’t fast enough.

"See you later, hunter..." Then the presence vanished again.

Teclos was bleeding from behind... but more alarming was the dizziness he was getting suddenly.

"Shit!" It was poison, he was sure of it.

’I have to run... now!’ he thought and quickly wrapped himself in darkness and sprinted off. Tendrils snapped around the trees and slingshot him into the air, trying to escape.

But the thief didn’t let him.

A rift in space suddenly appeared in front of Teclos, and he fell through it, planting himself full speed and face-first into the ground.

He broke his arm in the fall and was bleeding quite heavily.

In a last ditch effort Teclos lashed out with his sword. A shadow slash rushed toward the thief but was easily devoured by another void rift. Then the thief jumped down onto Teclos’s back with full force.

Making him spit out blood and lose consciousness.

The thief drew his knife. "Nothing personal..."

Teclos passed out and then—

Darkness.

—

After a while, Teclos stirred. ’Huh? Am... am I dead again?’ he thought, as he didn’t feel any pain anymore.

He got up, and that’s when he saw that the old man was waiting.

"Well?" he asked. "Aren’t you going to thank your saviour?"

"Huh?" Teclos was flabbergasted. Now that his vision and clarity returned, he saw a dead beast-man at the old man’s feet. A bloody corpse of it anyway.

It was somewhere around a meter and a half tall and looked like a raccoon.

Its death was anything but pleasant, it seemed, as it was literally wrung dry of blood like a towel is wrung dry of moisture.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Well... you rushed in, got caught with poison, and didn’t escape successfully," the old man said calmly. "You engaged in a direct confrontation against someone who had no intention of giving you a fair fight."

"I meant with this... raccoon?"

The old man crossed his arms and leisurely said, "Oh...I handled it."

A pause.

"After you got exposed, you should’ve re-stealthed," the old man continued. "Instead, you walked into his territory, no knowledge if he had traps, no knowledge how strong this thing really was... Well, I suppose a thief can’t be strong, right? Maybe that’s what you thought?"

"No—"

"Hah! Try lying to someone else. Your powers are extraordinary, kid. In the right hands, you would be an apex predator in all of this county... but you waste them. Listen closely stealth, ambush, and silent kills is where your path lies. I thought you’d learned this by now."

He listened to the old man ramble after a long time, but no matter how reluctant he was, he had to agree with him this time.

"I can show you the path... but you have to listen."

"Alright, if it makes me stronger..." Teclos agreed.

—

A month after that, the old man trained him normally... sort of.

The first lesson had been simple.

He had to cross a clearing without being noticed.

Teclos had scoffed. It sounded way too easy.

As there was no one else there.

But he was very wrong. The second he stepped forward, he sensed a strange shadow move. A vine coiled itself around his legs and threw him back to the starting point.

"Again," the old man said.

Days passed like that, tossed around by vines, trees, branches... hell, even normal grass bound him one time.

By the third day, Teclos was paranoid of anything that moved even slightly.

By the fifth, he managed to be a bit stealthier and complete half of the course the old man had prepared.

By the seventh, he began to understand more of his powers and completed the first course for the first time.

He had to avoid literally everything the old man controlled, meaning he had to sense any shift or change in the mana of the foliage.

Relying only on darkness was his undoing.

Then, a day after he completed the first training, they camped in the forest.

And when Teclos woke up in the morning, he found a knife resting beside his bed.

Stepping outside the tent, he noticed that the old man was already waiting.

"Today, the only thing you have to focus on from now on is a swift kill in one hit if possible, but no more than two," the old man said.

Teclos almost wanted to argue with the old man, but decided that it wasn’t worth it so early in the morning, and just went along with his antics.

In this training, the old man would pick out targets.

Small animals that were quick, alert, and easily startled.

And Teclos approached them the way he used to now. Swift and wrapped in darkness.

But it wasn’t enough.

The small animals he picked out for Teclos had acute senses, feeling and sensing even the slightest disturbances.

He had to reach a higher proficiency with his darkness and do it on the same level or better than he did during the goblin hunt.

—

After a week of this training, he finally succeeded with his first kill.

His presence thinned to almost nothing as he approached from the animal’s blind spot, moving without making a sound.

After the first succsess, the training expanded from there.

Running had to be done as silently as possible.

Striking had to be done with pinpoint accuracy.

And he had practice and train his stealth throughout the whole day, every day. Until he did it subconsciously.

—

After a grueling month of this training.

One evening, as the sun dipped low and the forest darkened, the old man spoke again.

"You see the difference now?"

Teclos didn’t answer immediately.

His eyes remained on the ground, watching the dead poison fox twitching between his feet.

"...It is easier, yes," he admitted.

A faint smile touched the old man’s lips.

"Of course it is."

He turned slightly, hands folding behind his back.

"You are finally using your gifts... in a way that suits you best."

Teclos nodded slowly.

’I guess it makes sense.’

—

Half a year later, it finally felt like he was doing it naturally and subconsciously.

Each time he got better, the tasks that the old man gave him changed as well.

Small targets disappeared and simple exercises faded.

In their place came assignments that demanded more—from hunting bigger game to even hunting bandits, and thieves again.

One day, the next task the old man brought to him had been a larger than expected beast.

A fire bear.

Its presence alone warped the air around it, heat rising in shimmering waves that bent the forest into a distorted and unstable blur. Its fur was burning hot, embers pulsing with every slow breath it took.

It wasn’t something hunters approached lightly.

It wasn’t something anyone approached lightly.

And naturally, it made Teclos nervous.

After half a day of searching, he found it.

Watching that beast perched high up in the trees and wrapped in shadows, he remembered the old man’s words. "Always observe first, and wait for the best possible moment before you strike."

The creature was currently tearing into a charred carcass. He could hear the bones breaking from its bite force.

Beneath it, the soil had long since dried and hardened from the fire bear’s body heat.

As the bear was happily munching on the corpse and oblivious to its surroundings, Teclos decided that it was now or never.

As quietly as he was currently capable of.

He moved.

Down the tree and across the clearing.

The heat pressed against his skin. It was oppressive and domineering.

’Phew, this isn’t good for my heart.’

The closer he got, the more his nerves acted up. With all his focus entirely on the beast, he made a rookie mistake and stepped on a branch.

Making the bear’s head snapp up.

Teclos lunged forward in panic and as quickly as possible making use of his shadow steps. His blade was drawn and aimed precisely for the throat.

But it was too late.

The creature spun around and roared out a stream of flames.

They engulfed Teclos for a second. The shadows around him broke apart under the enormous pressure, scattering like smoke in a violent storm.

He threw himself sideways just in time, barely avoiding being burnt to a crisp, but the opening was gone, and so was his chance to strike.

A second later a massive paw swung after him.

The impact hurled him through the underbrush, the world blurring as he hit the ground hard and rolled. A layer of dark mana absorbed the worst of it, allowing him to keep moving, but burned claw marks still seared across his chest. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The bear was already on him again.

Teclos ducked, stumbled, barely avoided the full weight of its fire and claws that tore through the ground where he had stood a heartbeat earlier.

It was faster, stronger, and more destructive.

The situation was getting desperate. The bear had already come close to killing him several times, and when Teclos finally rolled the wrong way, he left himself wide open.

The bear took that chance but luckily, that was when the old man came to the rescue again.

When he appeared, the bear’s corpse fell.

Headless.

Teclos fell onto his ass, breathing unevenly. His body was scorched, beaten, and tense. The remnants of his mana flickered around him erratically.

The old man didn’t look at him and stepped toward the fallen creature, crouching briefly to inspect it.

"Stand up, kid," he said.

Teclos pushed himself to his feet, jaw tight with anticipation of the old man’s criticism.

He waited for a second, but it didn’t happen.

Instead—

"You were too hasty."

Teclos frowned slightly... that was it?

"You saw an opening," the old man continued, still not looking at him. "And you chose to act on it."

A pause.

"That in itself isn’t wrong, but being nervous and letting your fear take over and cloud your mind..." he didn’t finnish but teclos knew what he implied. "You should have waited a little longer."

Teclos nodded in understanding, but still felt frustrated about his loss.

"Listen kid, you are moving well. Better than before, and you are properly implementing my teachings. The only thing you are missing is experience now."

—

After half year more of this training, Teclos was almost unrecognizable. The old man said that he still lacked in some aspects and needed more training, but he definitely felt stronger and sharper than before. All thanks to his teachings...

’If only he didn’t have such a shitty temper.’