The Anomaly's Path

”...Space,” Roran repeated, his voice dropping into a low, focused hum. He did not look impressed anymore, he looked cautious.

”Now, you already know that affinities are connected to your soul, right?”

I nodded. ”Yes.”

”But you also know that some people get their affinities from their bloodline. Most nobles get theirs that way. Their families have used the same affinities for generations, and it becomes part of their blood. Part of their soul.”

I thought about my family. ”Lightning is from my bloodline. My family has used lightning for as long as anyone can remember.”

”That makes sense. It is in your blood. That is why it came easily to you, even when you did not know how to control it.”

I nodded again.

”Let me tell you something,” Roran said. ”Some people awaken their affinities later in life. Just like you. I awakened my Earth affinity in my early twenties, years after I started fighting. There are people who go their whole lives without knowing they have an affinity, and then one day, something happens, and it wakes up.”

”What kind of thing?”

”Trauma and desperation. A moment where they need something more than they need to breathe. Affinities are part of your soul. Sometimes, your soul does not reveal itself until it is pushed to the edge.”

”Space,” Roran continued, ”is different. It is not about emotion. It is about perception. You have to see the world differently. You have to understand that the space between things is just as real as the things themselves.”

”...”

”Space is not like lightning or fire. It is not an element you throw. It is a medium—the ’where’ everything else happens. Most people think distance is a fixed rule, that ten paces is ten paces, but for a space user, distance is merely a suggestion.”

He gestured to the air between us, trying to bridge the gap between my game-logic and this reality. ”To use it, you have to stop seeing the trees and the rocks as separate things. You have to see the fabric that connects them. Think of the world as a piece of parchment; normally, you walk from one side of the paper to the other, but a space user simply folds the paper.”

I gripped my wooden katana, my mind still racing from my earlier thoughts about the gods and their restrictions. ”Have you met a space user before? How do you know so much about them?”

Roran walked over to the edge of the training ground and picked up a handful of smooth, heavy river stones.

”Yeah, I met a person a long time ago during my mercenary days. He was a space affinity user, and space affinity users are quite troublesome to deal with. He was quite fond of that affinity too. I used to think having space affinity meant you could just teleport or do similar things. But that crazy bastard...”

Roran laughed, a loud, genuine sound. ”HAHA! That bastard changed my whole perception. He used that affinity for anything but teleportation. He infused his attacks with space affinity. That guy was incredible. I never met anyone like him.”

”What happened to him?” I asked, noticing the way Roran’s gaze lingered on the stones.

”He died,” Roran said, his smile fading into a grim line. ”...A few years before I met Clara. A mission went wrong—too many demons, not enough luck. He held a choke point alone for six hours so the rest of us could escape, and when we finally went back for him, there was not much left to bury.”

I was quiet for a moment, feeling the weight of the sacrifice. ”...I am sorry.”

”He knew the risks. We all did,” Roran said, tossing a stone in the air and catching it with a sharp snap.

”But he taught me that space is not about power, it is about perception. Most people look at the world and see obstacles like trees and walls, but he looked at the world and saw gaps. He did not break through things, he went around them, through them, and between them.”

He turned to face me. ”Now, close your eyes.”

I did as I was told, activating the Flowing Vessel Art. I felt my mana move through my body, pulling it tight into my muscles.

Usually, my Flash Instinct acted as a silent alarm, a passive hum in the back of my mind that alerted me to danger. Now, I tried to lean into that sensation, pushing my mana outward to sharpen the skill even further.

”Space is a void,” Roran’s voice drifted from my left, sounding distant yet clear. ”It has no weight, but it has inertia. When something moves through space, it leaves a ripple, like a fish swimming in a pond. Do not look for the stone. Look for the ripple.”

Whiz!

Even with my eyes closed, my Flash Instinct flared white-hot. I felt a spike of danger near my shoulder. I flinched, but the stone still clipped me.

”You are trying to hear it with your ears!” Roran shouted. ”Stop! Use your mana. Spread it out like a spiderweb. Do not try to block the stone, try to pull the ’nothingness’ in front of it.”

I breathed out, allowing the Flowing Vessel Art to stabilize my heart rate. I let my Flash Instinct take over, turning the jungle into a grid of raw sensation. I stopped trying to ”see” the stone and started feeling the pressure of the world. I felt the humidity, the vibration of insects, and then—

There.

A stone was flying toward my ribs.

My Instinct did not just tell me it was coming, it showed me the exact point where the air ”pinched” before the impact. It was a tiny distortion in the fabric of the clearing. I reached out with my mana and tugged at that cold spot.

My head suddenly felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. The mental strain was immense, like trying to lift a mountain with a single finger. I felt a pop in my ears.

The stone did not hit me. It did not drop either. It hit an invisible glitch in the air three inches from my chest and simply vanished, only to reappear a split second later falling harmlessly to the grass behind me.

I snapped my eyes open, gasping for breath. My vision blurred for a moment, and a trickle of blood ran from my nose.

”You folded it,” Roran noted, his voice carrying a hint of genuine approval. ”A tiny, messy fold. You did not move yourself, and you did not move the stone. You moved the space the stone occupied. You created a shortcut to the ground. You have got good senses, kid. That instinct of yours... it is like you are built to find the cracks in reality.”

”It... it hurts,” I wheezed, clutching my forehead.

”Of course it hurts. You are trying to rewrite the laws of the world with a mana core that is only just starting to hold together,” Roran said, walking toward me. ”Space has pressure. When you fold it, it wants to snap back. That is the headache—the recoil of reality.”

He stood over me, looking down at the stone on the ground. ”You have felt it now. That cold, empty vacuum. That is your second tool.”

Huff... huff...

I looked up at him, the blood still dripping from my nose. ”...Is that why you are teaching me this? To make sure I do not need a leash?”

Roran grinned, that predator’s look back in his eyes. ”I am teaching you so you do not end up as someone else’s dog. Now, stand up. We have got hours of light left, and you are going to fold the air until you can do it without bleeding on my boots.”

We trained for hours.

Roran threw stones at me from every angle, faster and faster, pushing my Flash Instinct to its absolute limit, and I tried to fold the space in front of them.

Most of the time, I failed.

The stones hit my shoulders, my chest, my arms. I was covered in bruises by the time the sun started to dip.

But every now and then, I succeeded. A stone would vanish and reappear on the ground. A branch would snap in two without me touching it. A patch of dirt would shift, creating a small divot where there had been none.

Each success came with a splitting headache and blood from my nose. But each success also felt like a small victory.

_

”The man I learned from,” Roran said during a break, ”he could do things I still do not understand. He could make his sword strike from two directions at once. He could walk through walls like they were made of mist. He once told me that space affinity is not about teleportation. It is about choice. Every moment, you choose where you are. A space user just learns how to make different choices.”

”Choice?”

”Every moment, you choose where you are. A space user just learns how to make different choices.”

I looked at the stone in my hand. I thought about what it would be like to fold the space in front of me. To step through a wall. To strike from two directions at once.

”That would be so cool,” I said, grinning.

Roran snorted. ”Cool? Kid, that is not cool. That is terrifying. Imagine fighting someone who could stab you from across a room without moving his sword. Imagine trying to run away from someone who could fold the distance between you.”

My grin faltered. ”Okay, that is terrifying.”

”But it took him years to get there. Do not expect to master it in a day.” Roran tossed me a water flask. ”Drink. Rest. Then we will try again.”

As the sun began to set, Roran finally called an end to the session. ”Enough for today,” he said. ”Your head will split open if you keep going.”

I collapsed onto a log, my body aching, my head throbbing. But I was smiling. I had done it. Not perfectly. Not even well. But I had done it.

Roran sat down across from me. ”Now,” he said, ”about your other affinity.”

I looked at him. ”Black Flame?”

Roran’s expression darkened. ”No. We are not touching that yet. Fire is hungry, but black fire? I never really heard about it before but that is an affinity that sounds dangerous. If you try to wake that up while you are this exhausted and your mana control is still leaking, you will burn yourself from the inside out until there is not even ash left for a grave.”

I frowned. ”...So when will I learn it?”

”Later. When your soul is thick enough to handle the heat. For now, you have two other affinities to work on. Lightning and Space. That is already more than most people have in their entire lives. Focus on those. Master them. The black flame will wake up when it is ready, or when you need it most.”

I wanted to argue, but I knew he was right. I could barely control my lightning. Space was giving me nosebleeds. Adding another affinity would probably kill me.

”...Fine,” I said.

”Good. That means you understand.” Roran stood up. ”Now, one more time. Fold the space in front of you. Make that stone disappear.”

I stood up, gripping the stone in my hand.

I closed my eyes and reached out with my mana. I felt the space around me—the cold, empty void that connected everything. I felt the stone in my hand, the weight of it, the space it occupied.

And I folded.

The stone vanished from my hand and reappeared on the ground behind Roran.

My head throbbed and blood dripped from my nose, but I was smiling.

”Again,” I said.

Roran grinned. ”That is the spirit.”

_

I stood there, breathing heavily as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows across the clearing. The headache was still there—a dull, rhythmic pounding behind my eyes—but the satisfaction was stronger.

Roran watched me for a long moment, his arms crossed over his chest. The predator’s glint in his eyes had softened into something resembling respect.

”...You are a fast learner, kid. Most people would have spent a month just trying to feel the ’pinch’ in the air. You managed to fold it in a few hours.” He stepped forward and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, the weight of it nearly buckling my tired knees.

”But do not get cocky. A stone is easy. Moving yourself, or moving a blade while it is mid-swing... that is where the real danger starts. You are not just fighting an opponent then, you are fighting the world itself.”

I wiped the dried blood from my upper lip with my sleeve. ”...I know. I will not stop here.”

”Good. Because you have already learned the mana technique from me, and you have found the seed of your space affinity. Both are weak, but they are yours now. You have stopped leaking mana like a broken bucket, and you have started to see the gaps in the world.”

He turned toward the trees, his voice growing serious.

”The black flames are different. Like I said, they will need more push than you think. Fire is hunger, and black fire is a starvation that never ends. If you try to force them now, they will consume you before you even get a swing in. We will awaken that later. For now, you focus on the circulation and the space fold. You make them as natural as breathing.”

He paused, looking back at me over his shoulder. The orange light of the setting sun made his eyes look like glowing embers.

”I have spent enough time throwing rocks at you. It is time you saw what a real art looks like in the wild. Tomorrow, we leave the clearing behind. We are going on a hunt in the deeper woods.”

”A hunt?” I asked, my grip tightening on the wooden katana. The soreness in my body seemed to vanish for a second, replaced by a spike of adrenaline.

”...A real one,” Roran said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous tone. ”I want to see if you can keep your mana hidden when something is actually trying to tear your throat out. I want to see if you can fold the air when your heart is hammering against your ribs. Practice is over, Leo. The jungle will not give you a second chance if you miss a ripple.”

He started walking back toward the path that led to the orphanage, his stride effortless despite the grueling day.

”Get some sleep. Eat everything Martha puts in front of you—you will need the calories. Tomorrow, the jungle will be your judge.”

I watched him go, then looked down at the stone I had folded earlier. It sat innocently in the dirt, several feet from where it should have been.

The history of this world was a mess of lies and missing pieces. The gods were watching from behind a curtain of restrictions, and the System I thought I knew was nothing more than a leash.

But as I followed Roran back into the twilight, the confusion in my heart started to settle into a cold, hard resolve. I did not feel like a dog on a leash anymore.

I felt like a wolf learning how to bite back.