The day after receiving the contract, Swift dove into the one task that didn’t involve lying, sneaking, or risking divine wrath—writing the training manual. He locked himself in his barracks room, spread out every spare scrap of paper and notes he had collected over the past ten weeks, and got to work.

  He wasn’t starting from scratch. Back in his old life, he had written training plans for students and instructors, formatted with a methodical structure burned into his memory. So he mimicked the framework for firearms instruction—translating his combat knowledge into digestible, repeatable lesson plans.

  Gain attention. Overview. Safeties. Purpose. Principles. Fundamentals. Demonstration. Imitation. Practice.

  He applied the format to every single topic, from basic stances and weapon familiarity to recoil management and range estimation. It was clean, logical… and incredibly tedious. By the third lesson, Swift felt like he was writing the same sentence a dozen different ways.

  But worse than the repetition was the illustration problem.

  He was a soldier, a pilot, a tactician—not an artist.

  And his attempts at drawing people—or worse, hands—were laughable. Stick figures holding rifles. Stick figures crouching. Stick figures pointing downrange like they were confused about which direction to breathe.

  Swift stared at the pages, scowling.

  I can’t turn this in.

  He kept writing, but by evening, he knew he needed help.

  So he packed up the thick draft and headed straight for Lee’s workshop.

  The bell above the door rang as he stepped inside. Lee looked up from a half-finished mug she was etching and raised an eyebrow.

  “You look like you’ve been through war.”

  “I wrote a training manual,” Swift said, setting his papers on the counter. “For the recruits.”

  She turned over the first few pages. “Looks good.”

  “Until the drawings.”

  Lee flipped another few pages, looked up. “Are… these supposed to be people?”

  “I never claimed to be an artist.”

  “These look like scared noodles holding sticks.”

  Swift smirked. “Hence the visit.”

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  She sighed, smiling. “I can do better than this, yes.”

  “Perfect. That gives me an excuse to stay here the next couple days. I still need to practice the glass blessings anyway.”

  Lee nodded. “Alright. But I’m not drawing abs on any of your stick people.”

  “Fair enough,” Swift chuckled.

  It took two more days to finish the manual.

  While Lee cleaned up Swift’s disastrous sketches with proper linework, Swift practiced glass etching with failed scraps, trying smaller, more precise blessings than before—tweaking curves, balancing symbols, studying the faded language of the old book.

  He didn’t attempt anything serious. Not yet. He needed to be rested and sharp.

  On the evening before departure, Swift wrapped up his last recruit training session at the barracks. The new batch had grown on him. Some had potential. A few might even make it to Marksman one day—if they didn’t die first.

  After handing off the completed training manual to an instructor, he packed up and made his way back to Lee’s.

  Tonight’s the night.

  The workshop was empty, quiet except for the sound of ticking from a wind-up lantern. Lee was packing up for the night when he stepped in.

  “I might be a while,” Swift said, eyes on the covered helmet resting on the back table.

  Lee gave him a nod. “No rush. Lock the door on your way out. And if it starts glowing or screaming, just toss it out the window.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She blew out the front lights and gave him a quick smile. “You’ve got this, kiddo.”

  Then she was gone.

  Swift was alone.

  Swift placed the helmet on the center of the table and slowly peeled off the cloth. The final product still made him pause—a real fusion of Earth-born combat tech and the strange ingenuity of this world. The Kevlar base cap sat backwards just as designed, with pivot arms holding a smooth mask and crystal-clear visor. The slim ear protectors hugged tight to the sides—built for real use, not flair.

  He picked it up and turned it over gently in his hands.

  It’s time.

  But not for night vision.

  The glass needed to survive first.

  The last thing he wanted was a shattered lens in a firefight—especially in a place crawling with spiders or worse. No, the first blessing had to be shatterproof.

  He placed the helmet carefully in front of him, turned on a soft lamp, and retrieved his etching tool. Then, on the inside of the visor—out of sight and well below the direct line of vision—he began to carve the delicate runes.

  The pattern was compact. Meant to be efficient. He etched it slowly, each line controlled and deliberate.

  Shatterproof.

  The only word in his mind.

  When the final stroke was complete, he felt the lurch of BP draining—but this time, it was manageable. No dizziness. No loss of balance. Just a deep pull, then silence.

  He let out a slow breath and inspected the work.

  The etching was almost invisible from the outside. Just faint ridges in the glass, low and tucked against the frame. More importantly, his vision through the visor remained completely unobstructed—no distortion, no distractions.

  Swift smiled. “One down.”

  But he wasn’t done.

  He waited.

  The time passed in silence, during which he walked slow laps around the workshop, sipped lukewarm water, and reviewed the next sigil in his mind over and over. He needed to be sure his Blessing Points had fully recovered before moving on.

  When the color returned to his tattoo, he sat down again, centered the helmet before him, and began the second blessing.

  Night vision.

  This one was bigger—more complex.

  The symbol curved across the inside of the lens on the right side, delicate but larger than the first. Swift had practiced it dozens of times on scrap glass, memorized every stroke. He etched, then focused.

  Let me see in the dark.

  As the final line closed the circuit, the drain hit him like a wave.

  Too fast.

  Too… much…

  He tried to brace himself, but the room swam instantly, colors bending, gravity tilting.

  His body slumped forward across the workbench—