Hit two came forty minutes later.

Not for lack of trying. Luna was moving at what she kept insisting was restrained speed and Orion had his own opinions about that but arguing with her mid-drill was a good way to get a sleeve grazed by actual claws so he kept his thoughts to himself.

The problem wasn’t speed. He could track her. Mostly. The problem was that his body wasn’t catching up to what his eyes were telling it fast enough. His brain would register her position, process the angle, calculate the swing and somewhere between that calculation and the actual execution there was a delay. A fraction of a second. Small enough that against a human opponent it probably wouldn’t matter.

Against Luna it was the entire difference between hitting and missing.

Reduce the gap, he thought, circling. Stop thinking. Start responding.

Easy concept. Brutal to actually do.

Luna drifted left. He didn’t track her, he just moved right, cutting across the space she was about to occupy rather than chasing the space she’d left.

The sword tip caught her on the shoulder.

She stopped.

He stopped.

They looked at each other.

"That was different," Luna said.

"Yeah," Orion agreed, breathing harder than he wanted to admit.

"You didn’t watch me that time."

"Watched the room instead." He lowered the sword slightly. "You can’t be in two places at once. If I know where you’re not I can narrow down where you are."

Luna stared at him for a moment with an expression that was doing several things simultaneously. Proud. Impressed. Slightly unsettled, the way something feels when the thing it’s been hunting turns out to be hunting back.

"Hehe," she said, and the smile that followed was the warmest and most dangerous version of it yet. "Master is smart."

"Master is desperate," he corrected. "Different thing."

◈ SIDE MISSION PROGRESS ◈

Clean Hits Registered: 2 / 5

◈ ◈ ◈

Three more.

He reset his stance. Luna reset hers. The morning light had shifted properly now, proper daylight cutting across the training ground at a low angle, catching the dust they’d kicked up and making the space look almost cinematic. Orion was aware of the aesthetic and completely indifferent to it.

"Come on," he said.

She moved.

This time he didn’t even try to track the initial movement. Just watched the geometry of the space. She had patterns, everyone did, even someone as instinct-driven as Luna. Her first move was always lateral. Never straight in. She’d approach from an angle, never head-on, because she’d evaluated him as someone who handled direct pressure better than flanking.

Which was true. But knowing she knew that meant he could use it.

She appeared on his left. He was already rotating, already committing weight to the left side, and the swing came low and she jumped it cleanly because of course she did but the follow-through spin put him facing right and she was already landing and he was already there and the sword caught her across the hip.

Luna blinked.

Orion blinked.

"Three," he said.

She looked at her hip. Then at him. Her tail was doing something complicated that he’d learned generally meant she was feeling multiple conflicting things at once. "You used your own movement to predict mine."

"You adapted to me," he said, still catching his breath. "So I used your adaptation against you."

"...Master," Luna said, with the voice of someone who had just discovered a problem they hadn’t anticipated.

"Yeah?"

"You’re going to become genuinely dangerous, aren’t you."

"That’s the plan."

She looked at him for a long quiet moment.

Then she smiled with all of her teeth. "Hehe. Good."

The next hour was brutal.

Not because Luna got vicious, she stayed disciplined, she kept it controlled, she did everything right. It was brutal because Orion’s body had opinions about being pushed through consecutive all-out movement sessions with almost no sleep and was expressing those opinions loudly through every muscle group he owned.

Hit four came from pure stubbornness. He’d missed eight attempts in a row, each one getting marginally closer, and on the ninth he simply refused to stop the swing when his brain screamed too slow and the wooden blade caught her forearm dead solid.

Luna actually said "oh" which felt like a significant achievement.

Hit five came from something else entirely.

He wasn’t thinking about the mission anymore. He’d stopped counting. He was just in it, just moving, just reacting to her movement with his body and leaving his brain mostly out of it. She shifted right and he felt rather than saw the opening and his arm moved and there was contact and he didn’t even register it as a hit until the system chimed.

◈ SIDE MISSION COMPLETE ◈

[Land 5 consecutive clean hits on a moving target]

Reward Received:

Mythic Energy x15

Combat Instinct (Basic) UNLOCKED

◈ PASSIVE SKILL ◈

[Combat Instinct :: Basic]

Your body recognizes threat patterns faster than conscious thought.

Reaction time improved. Telegraphed movements become readable at subconscious level.

Effect scales with combat experience.

Passive. Always active. No cost.

◈ ◈ ◈

He felt it immediately.

Not like a switch. More like something that had been slightly blurry going into focus. The training ground didn’t look different. Luna didn’t look different. But there was a quality to how he was perceiving the space around him that had shifted just enough to be noticeable. Like a background hum he hadn’t known was there had gotten slightly clearer.

"Something changed," Luna said. Not a question.

"Got a passive skill," he replied.

Her ears perked forward. "What kind."

"Combat instinct. Basic level." He looked at her. "Come at me again."

"Master you’ve been training for hours."

"I want to feel what it does."

"Master."

"Luna."

She gave him a look that was the summoned beast equivalent of you are going to be the death of yourself and I refuse to be blamed for it. Then she moved anyway because she also couldn’t resist the experiment and they both knew it.

She was faster this time. Not holding back as much. And the difference was immediate and stark.

He saw the hip rotation before she’d even fully committed to the direction. Saw the weight transfer in her leading foot. His body was already adjusting before his brain caught up with why, moving into position based on something that operated below conscious processing.

He still missed the swing.

But he missed it by less.

Significantly less.

Okay, he thought, with a satisfaction that was almost physical. Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Luna lowered her hand from where she’d redirected his swing. Looked at him with eyes that had gone soft in a way she usually tried to hide. "You’re going to be strong, master."

"Working on it."

"No," she said, quieter. "I mean. You’re actually going to be strong. Not summon-strong. You personally."

He understood what she meant. Most summoners in this world were strong by proxy. Their beasts fought. They directed. The personal strength of the summoner mattered mostly for their mana capacity and their contract stability. Very few of them were genuinely dangerous on their own terms.

Orion intended to be the kind that was.

"That’s the plan," he said again.

She smiled. He looked away before it could do whatever it was doing to his general composure.

He checked his Mythic Energy. 154 now, with the mission reward added. High enough for another summon several times over. He’d been sitting on that deliberately. The timing mattered. Summoning another beast now, publicly, before the selection trial, would draw exactly the wrong kind of attention.

The elders were already watching.

Let them watch a fifteen year old beat up training dummies. Don’t let them see the full hand yet.

He was rolling his shoulder and considering breakfast when the system screen appeared without being called.

◈ HIDDEN MISSION TRIGGERED ◈

[Condition Met: Unknown]

MISSION: Follow the cat.

Details: A stray has appeared on the estate grounds. It knows something you don’t.

Reward: [LOCKED :: Reveal on completion]

Time Sensitive: YES

◈ WARNING ◈

This mission will expire in 2 hours.