It was dim all around.

The wounded boy opened his eyes.

The world before Rhode was dim as well. Like the hour right before dawn, when daybreak was close, yet still hadn’t arrived.

Rhode lay sprawled atop a fortress. A violent wind mixed with white sand blew so hard he could barely open his eyes.

He looked around with curiosity, taking in this astonishing world.

“Tch. Bad luck. It’s just some brat.” A middle-aged man sat cross-legged on a brick platform above, resting his chin on one hand as he looked down at Rhode.

The man had black hair, red eyes, and a blood-red scarf around his neck.

His plain clothes looked a little worn, but not dirty.

“Where is this? The Empire’s border?” Rhode stared at the man and asked.

The man raised a brow. The boy was far calmer than he’d expected.

Coming to a place like this, asking “Who are you?” or “Where is this?” wasn’t strange.

What mattered was the tone.

“In a sense, you’re right. This is a border.” The man paused. “But it’s not the Empire’s border. It’s the border of the heart.”

“The border of the heart?” Rhode thought that sounded incredibly chuuni. He liked it a lot. “Really?”

That chuuni line almost made him forget that just a moment ago, he’d still been trapped in a sea of fire.

“Of course it’s real.” In the next instant, the man appeared behind Rhode and spoke in a meaningful tone.

“This is the Mind Manifest Realm, a world formed by the intertwining hearts of the sword’s maker and the one who wields it.”

“The Mind Manifest Realm is a world that can be inherited. Of course, this world wasn’t formed by you. You’re its inheritor.”

“The fragment in your hand is called the Black Key, and I am that weapon’s self-will.” The man spoke faintly, his red eyes examining the boy before him.

Then he stood up, folded his arms, and looked down at the much shorter brat once again.

His scarf fluttered wildly in the wind. His bangs were blown up, revealing the fierce eyes beneath, eyes that seemed to scorn everything.

“And you are my current master.”

After being smashed into fragments beyond repair, he had fallen into slumber. Now, this boy had awakened him.

There was only one way to wake him.

The master of the Black Key had to appear.

Of course, becoming his master wasn’t as simple as some blood-binding ritual.

It had to be someone capable of understanding this Mind Manifest Realm. Strength didn’t matter. Only the state of one’s heart did.

The complete sword had shattered into countless fragments and scattered across the world. That did raise the odds of finding a master.

Of course, there could only be one master.

This brat becoming his master also meant the fragments elsewhere would no longer serve as tools to search for one.

As for restoring the weapon, that now seemed pretty much impossible too.

Bad luck.

“Why did you bring me into this world?” Rhode looked straight at the imposing man before him.

The man’s presence was stronger than anyone Rhode had ever seen.

The strongest he’d ever met. No contest.

“I didn’t bring you here. You came here yourself,” the man said.

“But this works out. I wanted to see what kind of person my master actually is,” the Black Key said in a careless tone.

“Is that so?”

“Oh, right. You said you’re that dagger I bought?”

“A dagger?” The man’s expression turned a little strange. “I guess so.”

After getting his answer, Rhode stood at the edge of the fortress and stared blankly at the desert before him.

“This fortress waiting for dawn is breathtaking, isn’t it?” The man looked proudly over the land.

“The master of this fortress must bear the duty of protecting everything until dawn arrives.”

“What is the Mind Manifest Realm?” Rhode asked.

“Brat, didn’t I just tell you? It’s a world projected from the resonance between the wielder’s heart and the heart of the one who forged the object.”

“Sounds like it can make people stronger.” The boy leaned over the wall and murmured.

“Strictly speaking, no. But in a certain sense, yes.” The man gave an ambiguous answer.

Rhode had never been especially obsessed with becoming stronger.

But he had realized that being too weak wouldn’t do.

If you were too weak, you could do nothing.

You could only let that assassin leave, then go kill your little brother.

Whether it was strength or knowledge, if you had no edge at all, that wouldn’t do.

If he’d been strong enough, he could’ve stopped the assassin.

If he’d been smart enough, he could’ve stopped him too.

“Can this place make useless people become capable?”

“You may have some misunderstanding about what ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ mean,” the man said heavily.

“Everyone has their own talent. If you never pick up a sword, you’ll never know you might become a sword saint. If you never command troops, you’ll never know you might become a god of war.”

“Anyone can be useful.”

“We, the wills of these objects, only follow our masters and help them do what they want to do,” the middle-aged man said at an unhurried pace. “Even if you want to stop the assassin before you, even if you want to break through your own limits, I’ll help you.”

“Whether you do evil or do good, you can use me.”

“But there’s no such thing in this world as becoming strong overnight for free. A meteoric rise usually comes with a heavy price. I’ve seen too many tragedies from those who paid it.”

“Even I can’t make a brat like you instantly strong enough to surpass that assassin.”

“Though that guy was just mob-tier,” the man added.

“You’ll have to struggle on your own.”

“So dazzling.” Rhode didn’t answer. He just raised his head.

The sky above was dark, and the sun couldn’t be seen.

There was clearly no sunlight, yet he said it was dazzling.

Right now, he seemed to be going through the kind of chance encounter only a story’s protagonist would get.

And yet he didn’t feel like some chosen one at all.

He often read novels about heroes, but at this moment, he felt no sense of stepping into that role himself.

He had always known from the start that he could never become that kind of person.

That was why he admired them.

“Yeah. Very dazzling.”

“Do you feel like, at this moment, you’re someone chosen by fate?”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“Hahahaha—ahahahaha!” The fierce-eyed man burst into exaggerated laughter.

“Right. You’re just a kid who happens to suit a sword like me,” the man said. His smile was a little wild, but his joy was genuine.

At first, he’d wondered why this boy had become his master.

Now, it seemed there was some reason to it after all.

No two people could ever be exactly the same. In every way, this boy was unlike his previous master.

But maybe, in many ways that couldn’t quite be put into words, he was also very similar.

“You must be really strong.” Rhode wasn’t flattering him. He said it with complete sincerity.

“Of course. I am strong,” the man said.

“Brat, I’ll teach you properly. Swordsmanship, for example.”

“I don’t like using swords.” Rhode shook his head.

“I like daggers.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re all bladed weapons. You only need to learn how to fight,” the Black Key said disdainfully.

There was a lot the man wanted to tell the boy, but there was no need to rush it all at once.

This world was too complicated. It would be too hard to make the boy understand everything in one go.

“What should I call you?”

“If you want to learn from me, call me Black Sword,” the man said. He’d long wanted to change his damn name, so he quietly gave himself a new one.

“Black Sword? Not Black Key?”

“The weapon is the Black Key. I’m Black Sword,” Black Sword said unhappily. “Got it?”