…Jai smiled.
It was a pained, crooked smile—but real. He welcomed it.
"Yes, master."
---
Chapter Two: The Ones Who Teach (continued)
Pain became his scripture. The Training Dimension—limitless, merciless—echoed with the sounds of fists meeting flesh, blades slicing air, and energy roaring like oceans colliding.
Bang didn't stop. Not for a second.
> "Every weakness is a wound waiting to open. Strength isn't a number, boy—it's the refusal to stay down."
And Jai didn't. Every broken bone healed faster. Every time he coughed blood, it reminded him: he was alive. More alive than ever.
Jin Taejin stepped in next.
A roundhouse kick cracked the very laws of physics, sending Jai flying through a storm of kinetic force. Time fractured around the impact. Jai crashed into a floating mountain conjured by Merlin—for training purposes—and got up again.
> "You have no form, no flow. You fight like a wild dog. Good." Jin smiled. "Now let's sharpen those teeth."
Meliodas taught him to laugh at pain. To move with unpredictability, to channel wrath not as madness, but as clarity.
Ban taught him how to fight dirty—every unfair trick, every dirty feint.
> "If it means winning, you cheat. You think villains play fair? Don't just fight. Steal their will to fight."
Escanor burned his skin just by standing close, but Jai stood taller every time. Pride wasn't a sin—it was the armor of the righteous.
Merlin rewrote his understanding of magic. "You are your own spellbook now," she said, placing her palm on his forehead. "I'll teach you to wield the unknown. Not as a risk—but as your weapon."
Izayoi and Goku sparred with him at the same time. One used absurd gifts and mind games. The other pushed him beyond physical limits. Blood pooled beneath Jai's feet.
Anos Voldigoad killed him once—a simulated death of course. Jai screamed silently as his soul was erased and then remade.
> "You've tasted true death," Anos whispered. "Now remember: fear not dying—fear wasting your life."
Sun Wukong chuckled. "You're still stiff. Loosen up. You want to be unstoppable? Learn to enjoy the chaos."
Jai grinned mid-swing, golden staff nearly breaking his arm. "I'm trying!"
Dante and Vergil trained him with swordsmanship so elegant and brutal that time warped around their clashes.
Yamato nearly sliced his sense of self in two.
> "Every slash is a question," Vergil murmured, "and your opponent must answer with their life."
Lin Jie didn't teach with words. He just watched, sipping his tea, correcting Jai's stance with a glance. But the moment Jai tried to mimic his spiritual control—
> "Wrong. Again." He didn't even look up. But Jai's lungs almost collapsed from spiritual backlash.
Saitama taught nothing. He just stood there, stared blankly, and said, "Just hit harder."
Jai did.
Ashborn, cloaked in the remnants of war, stood behind Jai through every lesson. He taught him silence, the strength of restraint, of stillness. How to own power, not let it own you.
Gojo taught him how to weaponize confidence and infinity. "Just don't blink," he teased, standing upside down in midair. "That's lesson one."
Yogiri Takuto was the most terrifying.
> "You'll never match me," he said softly. "But you'll understand inevitability. You can make them fear you more than death itself."
---
Time passed.
A second in the real world. Ten years inside the Training Dimension.
And Jai? He didn't break.
He shattered.
Reforged himself.
Again.
And again.
And again.
---
Day 3,650 (in dimension):
Jai stood in the void. His hair was longer, tied back with a strip of shadow. His body lean, carved from pressure and pain. His eyes—no longer crimson, but the color of resolve. Like dying stars refusing to fade.
He exhaled.
The sword in his hand wasn't forged by flame, nor by metal.
It was forged by refusal.
Dark Jade, his will made manifest.
He walked to the center of the void, where every teacher stood waiting.
And bowed.
> "I am ready."
Saitama gave a thumbs-up. Ashborn nodded once. Bang smirked.
Anos crossed his arms, eyes sharp.
> "Then go. Return to the world."
> "Let them see what the Multiversal Dream Dungeon forged."
> "Let them see…" Escanor's voice echoed like the sun itself—
> "The one who walks as both man and myth."
---
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