Progress

Kazuki and Master Yi are on the training ground. They spent the whole day training sword skills. Bokken in hands, they repeat movements together on the dummies. Kazuki never loved training so much. He swings the bokken with enthusiasm. Master Yi really appreciates his energy. The both of them trained the whole day. The contact between the wooden bokken and the wooden dummy produces a distinct wooden-on-wood sound. It's a solid and resonant noise, echoing the connection between the two hard organic surfaces. As Master Yi strikes the dummy repeatedly, a rhythmic pattern of impacts repeats itself regularly. However Kazuki takes time before getting on the same rhymes, not having the same strength, speed and stamina as his master. The sound of his hits is quieter due to the difference in their physical capacities.

"- You're really good at it. Some more training and you'll fight against me !

- I'll win and become better than you ! You'll see, I'll be the one teaching you!

- I hope so ! And I'll also show you how to use some more weapons too ! But let's stop for now. We'll keep on training tomorrow"

Both of them are tired from this day, so the proposition of the old man is very well welcomed.They return to the temple. They sit in the main room where they rest their tired bodies in complete silence. When the sky becomes darker, Master Yi prepares a quick meal and they head to their bedroom after rapidly restoring, getting their body and mind ready for another day.

The next day was a gathering day. Together, they went into the forest to cut some trees and get necessary resources for their home, such as water. Once again, the sharp sound of the iron resonates in the silent forest. The blade of the axe meets the curved and hard surface of the tree trunks. Trees fell on the ground with a high-pitched creaking. The day was spent cutting the trunks into smaller wooden pieces. As the old man charges them on some kind of backpack, he tells Kazuki to take the two buckets and get some water from the river because they don't have enough right now.

He immediately takes the bucket and rushes to the river. There, he fills them up to the bring. The buckets are heavy, maybe even too heavy for him. He has difficulties holding them, which forces him to take some breaks once in a while. After some time, he finally gets the water to the temple where Master Yi helps him, right after he finished putting the wood in its place in a hangar made especially for it.

They get back inside and rest from this productive day. After a nice meal of meat and soup prepared by Master Yi, which warmed them up against the cold of the night, both of them went to sleep for another resting night.

And as the sun is setting up on a new day, both of their bedrooms are empty. Nobody is present in the kitchen nor the living room. The whole building is quiet. The Master and the Student are already outside, near the pond. They prepare for Art training. Kazuki sits in the water while his master looks at him from a rock.

"Focus yourself on the water. Feel it. Let it become you, and become the water."

In Kazuki's head, there was only him. Him and the sensation of the water below him. The rest is muffled to the point of almost not existing for him. Everything around him turned from the usual darkness to the clear infinite ocean. He knows that he is able to keep this world open by himself. And he also knows what Master Yi is about to do.

"Lower your defenses. Expand yourself until you reach me. Until you feel me. Your world must be out of the barrier of your body. Let it make one with the world around you, in a countain space for you and me."

The young boy carefully listens to his master and executes his orders. As Kazuki tries, he does reach Master Yi but he doesn't stop there. He keeps expanding himself to a point where he can't keep track of where he is. His spirit might have expanded further around the Domain, even beyond Fánróng. Slowly, he starts to feel a bit dizzy. It's a warm and very pleasant sensation. He feels like he is in pieces and roam freely, pushed by some spiritual current. He hears voices from a lot of different people. Yet everything feels the same for him, this warm and comfy sensation. He can't make the distinction of what he reached. People start appearing in his world. A young boy, with red hair, looks at him from afar. The others look like shadows, nothing recognizable. They are just big black shapes walking around, unrecognizable. But this one, he is fully visible. Kazuki looks in the direction of the red-head kid, and they make eye contact. And the kid warmly waved his hands to Kazuki, from afar. Intrigued but polite, he waves back to the kid. He tries to see where he has seen him. But before he is able to think further more, someone grabs Kazuki's hand in his inner world. He turns around to face Master Yi, visibly worried and angry.

"Do not expand yourself too much. It's dangerous. Focus on me and only on me. Retract your boundaries. I really hope the people who want to harm you didn't catch you using Art."

As he listens to his master, he tries to focus on the task. But it's hard for him. He manages to retract his inner world, to a range still too wide but enough to contain only him and Master Yi. The shadows and the young boy with red hair slowly fade away. The spirit of the master and the student connect to each other. Holes appear in the sky and pillars of stone emerge from the water. Even if he saw it once already, it is still amazing scenery for the young boy. The sky opens like it's a solid matter to make the holes appear. The rock pillars come from the

"- Alright. That's good enough. Why didn't you stop when you reached me ?

- I didn't know I reached you.

- How so ? You didn't feel nor hear me ?"

The question took the young boy by surprise. As far as he knows, the only thing he could have felt was the presence of the red-head kid and the voices of every person he reached with his inner world.

- N-no.. I didn't."

Master Yi seems to look around in this empty place. The folds of his face darken in worry at the young boy's answer. Kazuki follows him with his eyes but yet doesn't understand what he is doing. Suddenly, the old man's expression brightened, like he just had a revelation. He turns to Kazuki with a very serious expression on his face, which surprise the young boy.

"- Did you notice it ?

- Notice what ?

- The scar.

- The scar ? Which scar ? There is nothing but water and rocks here…"

The old man points under his feet. He points at the water. He points at the depth, the bottomless dark under the surface of the water. There, in the pitch black abyss, something seems to glow. A faint, microscopic red stain lies somewhere in the infinite void which lays beneath them. To Kazuki, it is very impressive that his master was able to spot it so easily and so fast. It shows that he still have a long way to go to reach his master's level in terms of Art's mastery.

"It's where the scar is. Here, you're only at the surface of yourself it seems. Only what extern people can see. And only the base of your art. I think it was the night of the incident. The pressure of their powers must have left a mark, a scar which disturbs your usage of the Art. It's not something you could get rid of easily. It requires techniques I fear to use because they might have a long terme negative impact on your art usage and your life in general. But it doesn't mean you can't learn the ways of using Art. However, it would be like fighting with one arm amputated. You'll be incomplete."

The old man takes some more time to think, letting the kid sink in that information which seems so far-fetched but very believable at the same time. After this short break, the old man starts talking again.

"I don't know how far you'll be able to go with this. But there is only one way to find out.. and it's by teaching you your first lesson about the 4 basics of Art manipulation, now that we have access to your inner world."

His déclaration slightly lightens the weight of the handicap he now possesses. It means that his master doesn't give up on him despite his new-found condition. So, with determination he listens to the old man.