Breathing... But Everyone Can Breathe

…

As the morning sun hung over the earth, a young man could be seen swinging a blade, but it wasn't just any blade.

It was a Katana.

The scabbard was on the youth's back.

The scabbard had beautiful intricate designs on it.

Surrounding him was a shabby house that while looking old still had a charm to it, there was also green shrubbery planted around the house to add to its earthly feel.

The youth had black hair, light brown skin and deep blue eyes that made one seem as if they were looking at an unlimited void.

Except this time the void was colored blue, a very deep shade of blue that was as mysterious as it was beautiful.

This boy was Jason Hachiman; the "cripple", the only one in the history of the clan that had been born with no potential for mana, also one of the few people that possessed the Null eyes, one of the innate bloodline techniques of the Hachiman Clan.

He currently wore a complete blue training suit while practicing.

The training suit had a sleeve cut off, more correctly, the right arm sleeve cut off.

"This shit." Jason couldn't help but curse. He clumsily slashed at the air, even though he was trying his best she still couldn't replicate the magic he could do with his right hand.

There was still a way to combat it: Blade Strike!

The talent he had copied from Zane that allowed him to become proficient in the way of the blade. This technique could be used with anything: sword, daggers, knifes, forks and even pencils.

For someone to be able to use it they had to be at least good in the way of the blade, it was because of this that Jason was able to fight at the same level of Zane when he finally copied it.

And throughout the years he had never actually done the actual blade strike.

In fact, he even rendered the skill redundant after he got what he wanted.

"I guess now is a good a time as any." Jason muttered to himself.

This technique didn't need mana to activate, that was good news to Jason as he didn't need to worry about letting go of the precious nature energy.

But that was also the reason he abandoned it for so long, a move that didn't have any requirements to use wouldn't seem impressive.

Especially after it already a good skill passively, what good would it do when it was active?!

Jason let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in before focusing on the weapon in his hand.

It glowed in a light red light despite no energy being poured into it, Jason's eyes expressed confusion before he got back to the task at hand.

He poured all his concentration into the katana, it was as if he was trying to remove the presence of every other thing except his weapon.

Suddenly Jason moved his right foot forward, the ground underneath it cracking under the force put behind it.

He took in a deep breath.

Jason swung the weapon diagonally.

The air around him whistled as it parted due to the force surrounding it, the wind distorted due to the unnatural force behind this.

Jason twisted his foot before spinning in a circular rotation. The same whistling sound reverberated through the air again, as he moved the katana in a circular motion before slashing again.

"This is actually kinda good." Jason grinned at the revelation of a new move in his arsenal that he would make sure to spam.

"But, the only problem is tha-" The sentence was stopped mid-way as Jason felt something inside him shift.

He felt an indescribable pain in his lungs.

Jason instinctively gasped for breath, or he would have. Somehow, his oxygen intake got blocked.

It felt like someone had forcefully grabbed his lungs and squeezed them hard so that he couldn't breathe anymore.

Jason fell onto his knees as he gasped for air, each time he tried to breathe the pain increased in intensity.

His vision blurred, and for a moment, it seemed like death was calling him. He clutched at his chest, the pain a reminder to the events of 15 years ago, the cars ran over him and rewarded him with a gruesome death.

The katana slipped from his left arm, it's glow fading entirely as it left his hand. His body trembled, sweat pouring down his forehead as he struggled.

If not for the presence of nature energy in his body he would have died long ago.

'What in hell is happening?!' Jason thought.

Just then, Jason felt the pressure on his lungs losing its strength. As he had thought, the pain began to recede into the corners it came out from.

After a minute Jason was alright, there was no lingering sensation in his body.

Without wasting time Jason began to dig into his memories, he tried to find out what caused the unbelievable pain to activate.

After some minutes of digging Jason slapped his forehead.

He couldn't believe himself.

How could he had been so foolish and careless!

Before he performed the technique he forgot to activate it properly.

A requirement to use the technique was that to use Blade Strike they had to regulate their breathing.

Of course, it was 100 % possible to do without regulating breathing, however they would suffer the pain Jason had just experienced.

Blade Strike didn't require any mana to use, thus it would only activate properly after the organs were boosted beyond the ordinary capabilities.

Capabilities that normally required breathing to learn.

"But wait..." Jason suddenly had an epiphany.

"Aren't I breathing now?! Doesn't that still count as breathing? Do I have to breathe correctly? How do you even breathe correctly?" The questions in his brain swirled around like never-ending thoughts with answers as big as the universe.

The mysteries of unreasonable breathing confused him. His thoughts went to mana.

If breathing techniques allowed one to boost their bodies to superhuman proportions why wasn't it used more often by cripples like him?

Was it because their organs weren't strengthened enough to endure breathing techniques?

"If that's the case, then the author was truly a legendary racist! To even make something as easy as breathing deadly." Jason mumbled.

The author of this novel must have experienced some really devious things to be such a racist.

Jason could almost imagine the horrible things the author cooked up, there were already several restrictions placed on him due to his condition. But there were surely much more horrible things he had yet to encounter.

"On another note... How should I start breathing?" Jason pondered.

He suddenly laughed out loud at the thought when he realized something. It was something that he knew but didn't think about much.

The use of the Talent System.

Unlike other systems he read about that gave the Host quests with rewards he had something else.

His system granted him the ability to copy the talent with the same mastery as the person he copied it from.

"I forgot... I instantly mastered the skill. Breathing will be as easy as pie."

A/N: So yeah... Drop a gift?

And add this to your collections!