Dinner ended without ceremony.
Plates were cleared. The mansion settled into its usual quiet, the kind that pressed gently against the walls rather than suffocating them. Outside, night stretched calmly over the land, stars sharp and cold.
Jake stood from his seat and lingered near the table longer than necessary.
"I need to learn how to fight," he said.
Kale looked up slowly. "You already do."
Jake shook his head. "No. I overpower things. That's not fighting."
Flo tilted her head, listening.
"I swing mana until something stops moving," Jake continued. "And every time I do, it costs something. Bones. Blood. People almost dying." His jaw tightened. "That's not control. That's luck."
Kale studied him with an expression Jake couldn't quite read—part irritation, part confusion.
"You have infinite success," she said flatly. "There's nothing to fix."
"That's the problem," Jake replied. "Success doesn't mean clean. It doesn't mean safe."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Kale exhaled through her nose. "Fine," she said. "We teach you."
Training began at dawn.
No mana.
No abilities.
No shortcuts.
Kale made that clear immediately.
"Stand," she ordered.
Jake obeyed.
"No," she snapped. "Stand properly."
She adjusted his feet with the toe of her boot, pushed his shoulder back, forced his spine straighter. Every correction felt small, almost petty—but the moment he relaxed, she noticed.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Flo watched quietly at first, then stepped in to demonstrate movement—how to shift weight without losing balance, how to let force slide past instead of meeting it head-on. Her motions were smooth, almost lazy, but Jake could feel the precision behind them.
"Don't fight the push," Flo said. "Redirect it."
Jake tried.
He failed.
Repeatedly.
His instincts screamed at him to flood his body with mana, to force success the way he always did. Every muscle remembered the ease of overwhelming power.
He didn't.
Sweat soaked through his clothes. His legs trembled. His breathing turned rough and uneven. Each correction from Kale felt sharper now, more frustrating.
"You're anticipating victory," Kale said after knocking him flat for the fifth time. "Stop it."
"I'm not," Jake gasped.
"You are," she insisted. "Your body moves like it expects the world to bend."
That made her pause.
She frowned.
Again.
They tried drills. Sparring without force. Balance exercises that seemed pointless until Jake realized how often he relied on brute output to compensate for bad positioning.
Hours passed.
Jake learned how bad he was.
And that terrified him more than any fight ever had.
By late afternoon, Kale stopped him mid-motion.
"Enough," she said.
Jake straightened, chest heaving. "That's it?"
"For today."
He nodded, wiping sweat from his face. "I'll practice tonight."
"No," Kale said sharply.
He looked up.
"You won't use any of this," she continued. "Not yet."
Jake frowned. "Why?"
"Because your mana will overwrite it," she said. "The moment you engage for real, your body will default to success. Instinctually. Automatically."
Flo crossed her arms, watching him with thoughtful eyes. "It's like trying to carve details into flowing water."
Jake looked down at his hands.
"So what's the point?" he asked quietly.
Kale hesitated.
That alone unsettled him.
"The point," she said slowly, "is that your success isn't normal."
Jake almost laughed. "You're just noticing?"
"No," Kale snapped. "I mean it shouldn't work like this."
She paced once, clearly frustrated. "Infinite success should make you flawless. Perfect execution. No wasted motion."
She stopped in front of him.
"But it doesn't," she said. "You win. Every time. At any cost."
Jake swallowed.
Flo nodded. "Your body doesn't avoid damage. It accepts it."
"And that shouldn't be possible," Kale added. "Success should include survival. Preservation. Efficiency."
She stared at him like he was a puzzle that refused to fit its own rules.
"You're succeeding incorrectly," she muttered.
Jake let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"So I'm broken."
"No," Kale said immediately. "You're dangerous."
Not as an insult.
As a fact.
Flo smiled faintly. "But when you can separate control from outcome…"
"When you can," Kale finished, "apply technique before success triggers…"
Her eyes sharpened.
"You won't just win," she said. "You'll decide how."
Jake looked at his shaking hands.
For the first time, infinite success didn't feel like a blessing.
It felt unfinished.
And for the first time since waking in a white void with nothing but a promise, that didn't scare him.
It grounded him.
Tomorrow, they would continue.
Tomorrow, he would fail again.
And someday—just not yet—success would follow his lead instead of dragging him behind it.