Logan calmly looked at Septer, his expression unreadable beneath the mask.

Septer gasped, recovering from the exhaustion of the constant drain on his stamina.

Glancing at Logan, he frowned, just slightly, then smoothed his expression out.

"Thank you for the battle. I have a lot to learn."

Logan returned the gesture with a nod.

The announcer’s voice finally echoed through the arena, his tone tinged with regret.

"Legion wins, 1 more victory remain—" he paused, then cleared his throat. "One more victory remaining."

He had just received news mid-speech that the student from the origin academy had arrived.

"Legion’s next challenger is Dominion."

The instructor kept it brief, as he had before.

He didn’t want to build the challenger up only to watch him fall once more.

The crowd could sympathize. The majority had already placed their bets on Legion.

Another relatively young man walked through the arena door and moved briskly toward the stage. The moment he entered, his eyes paused on Logan before shifting to Septer.

He had encountered Septer before. Back then, they were evenly matched.

A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he glanced over.

Septer gave a slight shake of his head. A signal.

Without anything further, he walked off the stage.

The announcer glanced between the two and didn’t beat around the bush.

"Fight begin!"

"I admit defeat."

"What?" Even the announcer was taken aback, not expecting Dominion to concede.

Logan was slightly surprised.

A thoughtful look settled into his eyes as he recalled the brief exchange between Dominion and Septer. They seemed close enough to be considered good friends, and Septer had warned him about Logan.

"He... really did it! Ten wins in a row!" someone in the crowd shouted, and the rest erupted, expressions shifting quickly into disbelief and then exhilaration.

Their excitement had another edge to it. Most of them had won coins without losing much.

The announcer’s lips twitched as he glanced at the two on stage.

"Legion wins. Congratulations on achieving a streak." A warm, genuine smile spread across his face.

Logan noticed a slightly heavyset middle-aged man approaching with a smile fixed to his face.

Upon reaching him, the man paused, staring intently into Logan’s eyes as though trying to peer through the mask to whatever lay behind it.

Still, his expression stayed smooth as he continued.

"Please follow me backstage to choose your treasure."

Legion nodded without a word. Internally, he was excited.

[Congratulations on completing the mission. You have received 30 system points!]

Astra echoed quietly at the back of his mind.

The two moved forward, leaving the noise of the crowd behind.

...

Cecilia hadn’t moved. She stood frozen, still absorbing what she had just watched.

"He... really did it..." Her chest was full of something she couldn’t quite name.

A new world had opened itself up to her.

’So someone my age can be that strong...’ The thought settled into her, restless and stubborn.

’I remember he asked me to meet him...’ She recalled the piece of paper, the address scrawled on it that she’d figured was the intended meeting spot.

’Oh no... I left the paper back there!’ A flustered look crossed Cecilia’s face as she quickly hurried back to her desk.

...

Avery clenched her fist, resolve burning in her eyes.

She wanted to go and complete her two battles immediately.

But she reined herself in.

She wasn’t at Legion’s level. He was at the origin apprentice realm, where victories came easier. She was at the origin adept, a rank above, where one’s abilities ran deeper and wins were far harder to pull from.

’I still need to train more... but he has given me the motivation I need.’ She sat with that a moment longer, then finally left.

... 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Logan stepped into a secluded chamber.

A middle-aged man perched at the edge of a table inside, a cigarette loose in his fingers. He took a slow drag and exhaled, letting the smoke drift upward and thin against the air.

"Sir..." The announcer entered with a flustered expression, leading Logan in.

The man’s gaze found Logan the moment they walked through the door. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"You’re the one who just completed a streak?"

"Yes sir." Logan’s voice came out unhurried. He was in the presence of an origin master and he knew it.

The ranks of origin were: origin initiate, origin apprentice, origin adept, origin master, origin king, and so on. Being in the presence of one of humanity’s major fighters, he kept his full respect forward.

"Hmm..." The man took another slow drag, exhaled a thin thread of smoke. "A youngling at that..." The youth in Logan’s voice had caught him off guard. He estimated Logan wasn’t above twenty. That only made it more surprising.

"You know the rules. After completing a streak, you’re permitted to take a low-grade technique from our stash."

He waved his hand, and scrolls poured out of his origin space in a loose scatter across the floor.

Since they weren’t high-ranked techniques, none came in crystal form.

Logan began going through them without any sign of hurry. He set the first one aside, then the next.

One by one, he worked through them.

More than an hour passed.

The announcer’s brows had long since drawn together.

Couldn’t he just take one? It was a low-grade technique. There was nothing to deliberate over.

The origin master remained unfazed. He smoked calmly, and when the cigarette burned to nothing, he exhaled, produced another without a word, lit it, and continued. The smoke curled upward in slow, unhurried spirals.

Finally, after a long search, the light returned to Logan’s eyes.

He had found it.

Glancing down at the scroll, he noted the name written across the top: Coin Toss Origin Technique.

Watching Logan’s selection from the corner of his eye, the announcer nearly choked.

All that deliberation for a coin toss technique? He felt like he was being made a fool of, but the boss wasn’t saying a word, so who was he to speak?

He stayed quiet as Logan passed the scroll across.

"Hmm. This is a good technique. I wish you luck with it."

The boss said it offhandedly, his attention already somewhere else. He had no knowledge of the technique and no particular interest in it.

Logan soon left, leaving the announcer and the boss inside.

Outside, he opened the scroll and began studying its contents, pressing each line carefully into memory.

The moment he reached even a faint comprehension of the technique, a system notification appeared before his line of sight.

[Ding! Congratulations on Acquiring a Mythical Ranked technique.]

Logan was about to dismiss it when his gaze snagged on the word.

’Mythical.’

’What?’

’How is it mythical?’

He had written the novel himself. He had explicitly ranked this technique as common. So why was the system calling it something else entirely?

’Astra, what’s going on?’ Logan had no choice but to ask the system.

[Master, your initial perception of technique ranks while writing the novel differs greatly from what they become when actualized in a real-world setting. Some origin techniques may grow far more powerful, or far weaker, depending on how they function in practice.]