Summer Courtyard

Summer Courtyard turned out to be one quarter of the broad Magistrate Hill. It included five acres, six structures, a spring with a small waterfall, pool and stream, many flowering trees, and nine different training grounds.

The Magistrate Pavilion was the face of Summer Courtyard. It was the largest and most accessible of the structures and was located at the bottom of the hill, facing the main road. There Master Huang arbitrated, adjudicated, administrated, assimilated, and a whole lot of other long A-words. It was his workplace and office.

Behind the Magistrate Pavilion was a drill yard. It had a brick floor, a stage, some drum stands, torch-stands, and stands for other equipment. Around the drill yard were three other structures, with corridors, each two meters wide, roofed, and half-walled (the walls were waist-high, like safety railings).

The east wing was where Master Huang, his family and his Closer Disciples stayed. The north wing held the kitchens and store rooms. The west wing was actually a combination of a stable and a barn. Master Huang kept two donkeys, a war stallion, and three ponies in there. Madam Huang kept cats there too.

The fifth structure in the Summer Pavilion was a dojo. It was located farther back, higher up the hill, behind the north wing, at the other end of a stone path. Therein were training dummies, training weapons, training armor, training diagrams, and lots more training things. Around it were different kinds of training grounds including a sand-pit, an obstacle course, a field of cut bamboo, and a rock-climbing wall.

As for the sixth, it was a forbidding looking tower at the very top of Magistrate Hill. Apparently that was where people went when they wanted to be alone. It was supposed to be a good place for meditation. The view from the top was supposed to be breath-taking, assuming that the hill wasn't covered with mist at the time. One could see for miles, and observe the entire length of Widon Town below…

The one place that you couldn't see was the pool between the dojo and the tower and to one side. That particular place was artfully shaded by heavy tree covering. Absolutely no men were allowed anywhere near it at the hour of sunset, or else.

As for the mysterious underground vault… nobody even mentioned it. Given the 100m radius of the east wing, however, it had to be somewhere beneath the main four structures, perhaps under the drill yard.

Shui and Jin showed him around, then brought him to the dojo where Mu was waiting.

Mu was sitting, legs folded, on a rattan mat when they entered. She faintly glowed with a yellow light. As they entered, she gestured to mats around her, motioning them to sit.

"Riku… learn Inner Force before?" Mu asked.

"Not really. My studies were heavily focused on Spirit Smithing and mundane academic subjects."

"Learn now. I breathe, you breathe. Follow." Mu gestured.

Shui nudged him. "Copy the way she breathes. The depth, and the rhythm. Don't mind the way she speaks, that's just how she is."

"Mu grew up in the woods. Master found her living in a ruined tree-house in the middle of the Zidun Forest." Jin added. "She grew up wild."

Mu whacked him on the back. Open palmed and very loud.

"Ow! Okay, okay, sorry!" Jin retreated and ducked like a turtle.

"Is there prohibition against fighting and violence against each other?" Riku asked.

"Not really, no. Mu and Huo bully us all the time."

WHACK! Another palm went down on Shui.

"I-I mean… they spar with us and give us valuable pointers…" Shui said hurriedly.

Riku had been watching this time. He felt that Mu's back whacks were more noisy than painful. Shui and Jin didn't really seem to be hurt as much as embarrassed and mischievously delighted at having teased their Senior Sister. Even Mu seemed startlingly happy at being teased, or rather, at being able to whack them one or two. It seemed for a girl of few words, the ability to express herself so clearly was a boon.

"Shui! Punishment! Explain Life Force!" Mu instructed.

Shui sighed. "Inner Energy, or Life Force, or Inner Force, is something everyone already has. What we want to do here is train it and cultivate it so we have more of it, and are able to use it actively, on a whim..."

System cut in. [Match found: Reference 'Psuche'. Activating User's 'Psuche'. Routing control algorithms. Measuring overall volume; 9 PSU. No data on Soul Forging or Soul Force found.]

Shui was going on and on. "By breathing according to the rhythm of nature with the human body, we get to bring our minds to a meditative state…"

System cut in. [Irregularity detected. Vocalized method will not match User's current soul profile. Adapting method… 10%... 20%...]

Riku sat there half in a daze as Shui talked about meridians and pressure points and something called a dantian and all sorts of secret, exotic knowledge… only for System to completely disregard everything he was saying. Riku cautiously probed. [So… I'm different?]

[Very different. You are not a soul of this world.]

Well, that was obvious. [So… their cultivation methods won't work on me?]

[Not without adaptation.] System clarified.

[Just how much of their system can I use without adaptation?]

There was a short pause. [The rankings and equivalent strengths measurement?]

Goodness. That was all?!

[It is a good thing you have a system like me. You would kill yourself trying to cultivate otherwise.] The system said not-so-modestly.

"Now, the lowest level, the Novice Level." Shui said, pausing to ensure Riku was really listening. This seemed important, so Riku paid more attention. "Is when you're able to actively control your Life Force. For example, being able to gather it at one point of your body…"

"Like this?" Riku decided to give poor Shui a break from talking and just gathered energy into the air above his right hand.

"Wha-?!" Jin gaped.

"YES! Exactly like that! You've DONE it! We're FREE! FREEDOM!!!" Shui howled to the sky.

"Not so fast!" Mu pounced suspiciously. "How?"

"She wants to know how you learned it so fast." Jin translated for Riku. "Most of us take at least a week to learn that…"

Riku already had an excuse in mind. Twenty years in information-age life gave him plenty of experience in coming up with excuses or faking stuff. Just like saying it didn't hurt when it did, or saying it was okay when it wasn't. "Spirit Smith training. Our methods and techniques are different, but we can manage that much at least."

Who was going to call his bluff? The Xi Clan was gone. The very thought brought him a deep pain in the center of his chest, like someone had stabbed him with pure grief. But Riku turned away from it, refusing to acknowledge it.

Riku spoke to his ten year-old memories. {Your pain, your hatred, your anger… do I need to suffer for it? Do I need to spend my life trying to ease your burdens? You're dead already. This body is mine. Maybe one day I'll have the chance to take revenge for you, but right now there's just no way, so stop bothering me!}

Riku was no stranger to pain.

In one past life, he lived his entire teenage life in pain. When he was twelve, the doctor told him he'd been diagnosed with type-1 diabetes. Him! Skinny, run-with-the-dogs-all-day him! That was impossible, right? Only really fat people who ate lots of sugar became diabetic, right?

But no. This was genetic, something he'd been born with. His pancreas simply no longer functioned. Normal life would be impossible for him, and his life expectancy dropped by at least half. No eating sugar. Take serious care not to get cut or injured. Oh, and by the way; he'd have to inject himself several times a day forever more.

He tried to deny it. To rebel. To struggle for a normal life. The consequences of trying were terrible.

Pain. His whole life was filled with pain. Year after year, until he struggled to manage it, and the medical costs ran so high, the guilt of costing his family so much weighed down on him like a 1990's school backpack.

Following which, in his later teenage years, his organs began to fail. His eyes had to be laser-burned to avoid excessive bleeding… and then the bleeding happened anyway. He avoided all sorts of foods and went through all kinds of diets to save his kidneys… and then his kidneys failed anyway and pretty soon he was spending three days a week with inch-long needles in his arm plugged into a dialysis machine for four hours, waking up late at night vomiting, or struggling to breathe, just to breathe…

Normal life? What was that? School? Fun? Hanging out with friends? Only by limited means, with a price to pay in suffering, and trying very hard not to be obvious about it.

And then there was this-world Riku's memories. This boy only lived till ten, so the information-age him who lived a bit past 20 had the advantage, but this body's past could not be discounted either.

This was a boy born into a semi-prestigious family, the Most Prestigious, the way his mom talked about it, but really just an upper-middle class clan of craftsmen. Nevertheless, they were ambitious, they had an advantage with talent in forging Spirit Swords, and they were proud, so very proud of themselves. Strong warriors and ranking officials alike treated them with respect and gave them good money for their products. The original Riku had had many demands placed on him when he was young.

Often, sitting at a desk trying to understand books he could barely read, he'd look out the side of the workshop and watch other children his age run around and play. From time to time, he'd daydream, and the cane would come slapping down, and more studies and homework and household chores would be piled on him. Study, study, study! Anything less than 95% was a failure in his mother's eyes, and anything between that and 99% was barely tolerable. His elder brother and sister never had such low grades, she swore. They made her proud. But him? Clumsy, accident-prone klutz him? He needed to study harder! Eight hours of school and tutoring and six hours of study a day was not enough!

This was the reason that Riku would never, ever fulfill Madam Huang's good intentions for him.

He would never make study the highest priority in his life. Never again.

Still, the original Riku had been a soft-hearted boy. He loved animals. He loved his family, and his dad was his hero. When the darkness came, and the Xi Clan perished, he'd risked it all to take up a Spirit Sword and fight to save his father…

That risk killed him. The original Riku had actually died just before his father kicked him out of the burning house to safety. That was when the impossible happened and the sickly him ended up here in this world in the form of a boy half his age.

Maybe this was God's way of giving him a chance to live that teenage life he'd never lived. Only, without computers and internet, and without air conditioning or toilet seats. It was a good thing he knew how to use squatting toilets…

Between one past and the other, Riku's main desire in this life was to avoid pain. It was really that simple. No more suffering. That was all he asked.

"Great! So you're already at the Novice Level! Now we just have to get you to be able to use techniques! That should take a few weeks, maybe…" Shui trailed off. "Depending on your elemental affinity. And the technique in question. Actually, we already know you're earth-element. Master Huang said so. That means, you should learn the Stone Skin technique."

Mu got up. "Jin. You teach."

"Right. This is something both Tu and I had in common. At its most basic level, Stone Skin is used to harden the skin around your knuckles when you want to punch somebody." Jin hesitated, then said, "Tu was able to cover both arms and hands with it at the same time. He used it for attack and defense like that. It was too bad he couldn't cover his midriff."

"He could also harden soil into stones, given enough time. At the very least, he could just pick up loose sand at a moment's notice, make it stick together and throw it like a rock." Shui remembered.

"Tu… made good soil for plants. Good garden." Mu added sadly. "Good food."

System perked up. [Analyzing Resonance Sequence for hardening skin, increasing matter density, enriching soil nutrient levels. Error: insufficient information. User, please acquire related data.]

"So… can you teach me? The Stone Skin technique?" Riku asked Jin.

"Right. It is an enhancement technique." Jin began. "You basically need to…"

***Note: The following information has been censored to protect the secrecy of the Huang Style Stone Skin Technique***

Mu and Shui left halfway in the middle of Jin's monologue. Riku himself nearly fell asleep after the first ten minutes. But at last, Jin stopped for breath, and Riku had a chance to gather his thoughts. [System, is that sufficient information?]

[Attempting to adapt. 85% success. Limited version of technique is now usable. System speculates that 6 levels of advancement could be possible upon experimentation and analysis.]

[So… trial and error. You want me to test it out and practice? I can do that.]

"Did you understand all of that?" Jin asked Riku, seeing him sitting there in a daze.

"Something like…" With a thought, Riku hardened the tip of his right pointer finger.

"Yes! Yes, that's it! Now, just do that with your whole hand!" Jin jumped up excitedly. "My word, I'm such a good teacher! My future disciples will be so blessed to have me as their Master one day!"

Riku hesitated, and then faked a lot of effort and only a tiny bit of progress. It took roughly five minutes before Jin finally sighed and said, "Well, you have the idea. Now it's just a matter of practice. Just keep at it. You'll make it one day."

"Right." Riku heaved a sigh of relief that he wouldn't have to fake incompetence any more. "Thanks, Jin. I'm going to have to practice."

Indeed he was. He would very much like to see just how much more advanced he and the System could take this Huang-style Stone Skin technique of theirs…