Ghost in the Skill

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is."

— Erich Fromm

———

I dragged myself upright, my hand clamping onto the iron bed frame with crushing force. The infirmary tilted and swayed around me in a dizzying lurch, the pristine white walls blurring at the edges of my vision. A mere symptom to be ignored, catalogued and dismissed. Each breath was an intake of broken glass scraping against my damaged ribs, sending lightning bolts of agony through my torso with every shallow inhalation. A price I was willing to pay—gladly, even. The copper taste of blood lingered at the back of my throat, but pain was just another variable to manage, another obstacle to overcome through sheer force of will, another testament to what I was becoming.

Time to see what I'd bought with my blood and suffering.

I closed my eyes and reached inward, past the physical discomfort, diving deep into the metaphysical landscape of my being. My consciousness probed delicately, searching for the foreign presence that had taken root in my soul like an invasive parasite. There—nestled between my own abilities—a jagged, ugly thing that pulsed with borrowed malice and arrogance. Vance's [Power Strike] sat in my spiritual core like a splinter of broken glass, all sharp edges and hostile energy, still carrying the essence of its former wielder. I could feel his brutish nature embedded within it, the skill itself tainted by his desire to crush and dominate rather than simply defeat.

I grasped the skill with my consciousness. The moment I tried to channel mana, it ignited. Not a clean burn, but a violent, sputtering deflagration. Vance's arrogance, his raw need to dominate—it was all still there, tangled in the mana pathways like spiritual barbed wire. The energy slammed into my injured ribs with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

White-hot agony exploded behind my eyes, but I held on. Brute force. That’s all he knew. The realization cut through the pain. This wasn't a contest of wills; it was a hostile system takeover. I couldn't overpower the flood of Vance's ego, so I didn't try. I began to reroute it. I treated the skill like an engineering problem, carving new, more efficient channels around the spiritual barbed wire. The process was agonizing—like performing surgery on my own soul—but I felt the jagged edges of the stolen power begin to smooth out, the hostile energy slowly, grudgingly, bending to my design.

The problem isn't the skill itself—it's the methodology. Vance used brute force because that's all he understood. But I'm not Vance. I don't need to dominate the power; I need to redirect it.

My world narrowed to a single, sharp point: the agonizing surgery of carving my will onto a stolen power, reshaping it from a hostile parasite into a usable weapon.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of silent struggle, I felt the skill click into place. The mana flow stabilized, no longer fighting against my control. I opened my eyes and raised my right hand, channeling energy through the newly tamed pathways.

A corrupted light sputtered to life around my knuckles. It held none of the confident gold of Vance's original skill. This was a bastardized version, flickering between the bruised red of raw meat and a sickly, jaundiced yellow. It was the colour of his arrogance, a flame fed on the rotten wood of his soul.

But it was mine.

I let the power fade and leaned back against the pillows, exhaustion finally claiming me. My body was a ruin, ground into dust by the day's abuse, but my mind was a freshly sharpened blade. This was just the beginning. [Power Strike] was crude, brutal, and barely E-rank—but it was proof of concept.

If I could steal one skill, I could steal them all.

The scent of antiseptic and stale linen was broken by the creak of the infirmary door. I quickly composed my features into an expression of appropriate suffering, but the man who entered wasn't a medic. It was Rhys Blackwood, carrying a small basket covered with a checkered cloth.

His grey eyes scanned the room—not with the idle curiosity of a visitor, but with the methodical sweep of a man checking for ambush points. The spear was gone, but the tension in his shoulders remained. He knew the anatomy of a threat because he had likely disassembled a few.

"Didn't expect visitors," I said, letting weakness creep into my voice. "Especially not from House Onyx."

Rhys set the basket on the table. "Infirmary food is shit," he stated, not asked. "Eat."

I peered into the basket. Bread, cheese, some kind of dried meat—simple fare, but higher quality than what I'd expect a scholarship student to afford.

Nothing is free. Especially not kindness.

I kept my gaze on his face, searching for the tells. "A generous gesture," I said, my voice carefully pitched with humble confusion. "To what do I owe the honour?"

"You paid me." His tone was matter-of-fact, but there was something else beneath it—calculation, perhaps. "That gold you threw at me in the courtyard. Figured I owed you something in return."

"The gold was a debt repaid," I said carefully. "You saved my life in the western woods. I couldn't let that go unacknowledged."

Rhys pulled up the room's single chair and sat down, his grey eyes never leaving my face. "Vance had you. Everyone saw it. So tell me why you threw yourself into his last strike. Deliberately."

My blood went cold, but I kept my expression neutral. "I was disoriented. Hurt. Not thinking clearly."

"Right." Rhys stood up, smoothing down his worn tunic. "Well, I should let you rest. Broken ribs need time to heal properly."

The soft click of the closing door sealed me in with my thoughts. Alone once more, I raised my hand, and the crude, stolen light of [Power Strike] answered my call, flickering over my fingers like a phantom limb. The power felt more stable now, more responsive to my will. But Rhys's visit had reminded me of an important truth:

Stolen power was only as valuable as your ability to keep it secret.