Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything!

Water splashed violently onto the ground as Asher’s body was hauled from the icy depths, the chains clattering like the tolling of some grim bell.

Steam rose in thick white mists from his skin, mingling with the air like the breath of a dying beast. His pale hair, clung to his chest, shoulders, and back, slick with water.

His chest heaved, drawing in great gulps of air as if the very act of breathing had become a battle. His piercing golden eyes, those defiant orbs of fire, remained hidden behind heavy, shut eyelids, too drained to open just yet.

“You have until the sun sets to regain whatever strength you can,” I’ron said, his voice firm, steady, a blade sheathed in calm but forged of unyielding steel.

Frost, watching from nearby, only shook his head, his expression a mix of disbelief and resignation.

Without a word, he turned and strode away, leaving the young lord and the war-forged mentor to their brutal ritual.

Time slipped by like blood from a wound. Asher, given this fleeting reprieve, seized it. He allowed himself the simplest of mercies: rest. He sank into a deep, dreamless sleep, where pain was but a memory. He ate, the food tasteless but necessary. He meditated, his mind reaching for clarity amid the storm of agony and ambition. He pondered, on his enemies, on his purpose, on the unbroken will that still burned within him.

And as the sun dipped low, casting long shadows over the land, the sound of approaching footsteps stirred him from his solitude.

Asher stepped out from his cabin, the crisp air filling his lungs, and his eyes, sharp, narrowed, ever watchful, fell on I’ron, who stood a few meters away.

“Follow me,” I’ron said simply.

With a weary sigh that did nothing to dull the fire in his heart, Asher fell into step behind him. Their path led to the base of a hill, a monstrous rise of grayish-white stone, towering nearly two hundred meters. The steel steps that coiled up its face glinted in the fading light, a path for the determined, or the damned. The hill wasn’t merely tall; it stretched for miles, a leviathan of stone, ancient and unyielding.

But what drew Asher’s eye and made his breath catch was the towering heap of logs waiting at its foot. Bound together with vines as thick as a man’s arm, the stack rose at least five meters high.

Each log, he realized with a sinking feeling, was hewn from whitewood trees that had stood for over three centuries. Their weight was immense. Stacked together, they were a mountain in their own right, several dozen tons of weight.

“What’s that for?” Asher asked, though the answer seemed to loom over him like the hill itself.

I’ron’s gaze was as cold as iron. “Each of those woods weighs more than most beasts you’ve faced. You will carry them to the top of the hill, and back.”

Asher’s eyes widened, the enormity of the task crashing down on him. “And if I fall?” he demanded, his voice low but taut.

I’ron’s stare did not waver. “If you fall,” he said, his tone like stone grinding against stone, “I will crush your skull, let your body heal, and you will start again. Fail five times and I will leave a scar upon your face that no magic or time will erase. Remember this: you will either come out of this training reborn… or broken, a coward unworthy of his King Body.”

Without waiting for a reply, I’ron turned, his steps heavy with finality, and left Asher standing there alone, at the foot of the hill, staring up at the weight of his next trial.

Asher approached the towering heap of ancient logs, his breath slow, measured, as if he sought to steady his spirit before the ordeal. With great effort, his arms strained, veins bulging against scarred skin as he lifted the bound mass.

The pressure forced him to lean forward, the colossal weight bending his torso, threatening to drive him to his knees, but he held still, teeth clenched, eyes burning with defiance.

His first steps were like the tolling of a death knell, heavy, deliberate, as he began the climb. One step. Two. Three. The stone steps seemed to groan beneath the burden he bore. A dozen steps up, and it felt as if the weight had doubled. No—it was exhaustion, the thinning air, the unrelenting slope conspiring to crush him.

But Asher pushed on, his resolve harder than the stone beneath his feet.

Sweat poured from him in rivulets, soaking his tunic, tracing the lines of old wounds and fresh scars. His legs trembled, muscles quivering under the merciless load.

His fingers, wrapped around the bottom of the logs like iron bands, throbbed with the ache of holding on, but he refused to release them.

Behind the tall trees, I’ron and Frost watched in silence, their forms half-shrouded by the forest’s shadows.

“When do you think he’ll finally fall?” Frost asked, arms crossed, his voice low with grim expectation.

“He’ll last another dozen steps,” I’ron replied, his tone flat, as if speaking of a certainty carved in stone. “That will be his limit.”

And so they waited, watchers of the trial. They saw Asher slow, his movements becoming labored as he approached the twenty-fourth step, the edge of human endurance. But when his foot came down upon it, planting firm despite the shaking of his limbs, both Old Ones shared a glance, their certainty shaken.

Then Asher did the unthinkable. He took another step. And another. From twenty-four to thirty. From thirty to forty. His progress was a torment’s crawl, but the climb continued.

Hours bled into days. Their initial shock deepened into unease, then horror. The mortal they thought would falter had defied their predictions.

A week passed, and still Asher ascended, high upon the hill’s face, one agonizing step at a time. So slow was his progress now that a single step consumed half a day, his body moving as if through a mire of stone and will.

Another week slipped by, the sun and moon witnessing the struggle in their endless cycle. Asher, gaunt and hollow-eyed, neared the summit. His lips were cracked, his body a map of strain and suffering, yet his grip on the logs never loosened. At last, only a single step separated him from victory.

But in that final moment, the flesh failed where the spirit would not. His body buckled, his legs gave out, and he collapsed beneath the crushing mass. Together, man and burden tumbled down the hill, crashing, rolling, until they lay broken at its base.

For days, Asher lay still, recovering in a haze of pain. When he rose again, it was without complaint, without hesitation. He returned to the hill, shouldering the weight anew. And so it went, weeks of torment, sparring with I’ron who shattered his bones time and again, drowning in the frigid lake that grew colder with each trial, and climbing the unyielding mountain of stone and wood.

An endless crucible. A path meant not for a man.

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