Preparations

Blink was still shook up by the time the first tendrils of dawn cracked the darkness. There's a hollow feeling inside his chest. His heart seemed to skip a beat now and then. On top of that his nerves were jumpy, but his mind felt numb.

He had never killed anyone. Sure, he had killed beasts in the forest, but he hunted them for food. This was the first time he killed something purely for the sake of killing it. Besides, Blink never considered those game animals as nothing more than food. The monster he just killed was much more intelligent than boars and rabbits.

The monster beast begged for its life. Yet, Blink went on to kill it anyway. However, Blink was sure if the beast just held on a minute longer, he would have lost his nerve and walked away without killing the monster again.

Instead, the monster went berserk and attacked Blink relentlessly. If not for the calming effect of the fiery teardrop gem buried under his forehead, he would not have been able to regain the initiative and eventually kill the beast in the last battle.

It was the first time for Blink to face an enemy that was so determined to kill him. He knew there would be many more similar battles that he would have to face in his life. And if he were to live through it all, he must do better than he did this time.

[Seismic Palm] was a gamble, and he knew it. What if it didn't work? Would he have fought the huge monster with his [Returning Palm Style]? That would have been disastrous on his part.

He had his master's sword in his dimensional ring, which he had just received from an old man whom he wanted to acknowledge as his second master. But Blink knew if a magical spell made of pure flame could not penetrate the monster's scale, how could he expect a sword, no matter how special it might be, to even scratch the monster's hide?

Blink started mumbling to himself: "I need to get stronger. I have to get stronger. I must get stronger…"

He was in such a state of talking by himself when his Namgan Magra arrived at the monster's lair. She was holding a torch in her hand and bolo on the other. This time she wore pants and rain boots.

Seeing that the area was fully illuminated by moonlight and as the sun was about to rise anyway, Magra put off the flame and put away the torch.

She looked at the unmoving monster in front of her brother and looked a little terrified by its bloody appearance.

Based on the many scratches and indentations on the ground, even she could easily see that it had been quite a battle. Just one look at her brother's state could easily confirm this: dusty clothes, torn robe, ripped pants, bruises and cuts all over his hands, and a very dirty face. She had never seen her brother look so poorly except after the fight with that perverted jilted suitor of hers.

"Is it dead?" she asked.

It was only then that Blink realized that there's someone else around. He was actually quite disoriented still when he looked at his sister and didn't seem to recognize her at first.

He had to squint his eyes a little before he recognized who it was.

"Namgan?" he asked as if unsure.

Magra didn't notice him squinting. His eyes were quite chinky such that him squinting hardly changed their appearance.

Upon realizing that it really was his elder sister, Blink replied to her question. "It's dead," he said simply. He said it like he lost something of himself.

Magra approached her brother. Standing next to his right shoulder, she put down the bolo and knelt beside him. She extended a hand to his shoulder as if wanting to console her.

Blink wanted to hug and hold her just then. However, the two of them had never shared such a thing as a hug all those times they had lived as brothers and sisters. While it's true that they weren't truly related by blood at all, in their hearts they had always treated each other as true kin. Thus, the moment made up for a terribly awkward moment for the both of them.

The only response Blink was able to return was a light tap on her hand over his shoulder.

"I'm fine, Namgan," Blink assured her. "I just need to settle my nerves."

He laughed at himself.

"Look at me fretting over a monster I had killed when I really had no choice," he said still laughing. "I'm such a silly guy, am I not?"

"No, there's nothing silly about it at all. Will you please stop it?" Magra found herself laughing with him.

Even as Blink laughed, his eyes moistened and his nose turned runny. He laughed at himself once more. He wiped the side of one eye with the sleeve of his robe.

"It almost got me," he said. "It had so many to kill me it's just pure dumb luck that I was able to survive."

He held his left knee with his right hand and lowered his head against his arm. He kept laughing but, at this time, he also kept sneezing. Then he made a few sobbing sounds as his shoulders bobbed up and down.

By his side, Magra still had her hand on his right shoulder. Tears were falling down her eyes as well. She seemed lost and uncertain of herself.

When Blink stopped sobbing, Magra stood up and wiped her eyes with the base of her palm. She laughed at herself and sneezed at the same time.

"What do you intend to do with this very large beast?" she managed to ask. "Surely you don't intend to leave it here like this."

"I honestly don't know, Namgan. I only just wanted to kill it."

Magra took a deep breath. "Perhaps there's something you could make out of it besides eat it."

A sudden thought struck Blink. He said, "Now that you mentioned it, its scales does have some resistance to fire magic.

"If its skin could be fashioned into armor pieces, I bet you could sell them for a fortune."

Magra shook her head. "You'd need that set of armor much more than we'd need money," she said firmly. "I'll have a set made for you if you care enough to skin it."

"Alright, let's do that now. We shouldn't be late for coffee time with Namgun."

Blink conjured a flame dagger and slit the monster starting from its throat going down its belly. Because of the size of the beast, Blink needed to cut up the beast from the inside first as he couldn't ask his petite sister to help him roll it over.

After Blink had cut up the meat and separated the scaly skin, Blink burned the internal organs. He then placed everything inside his dimensional ring. The sight caught Magra in shock, so Blink had to tell her how he met an old man that night who left it and a few other items for him. He left out the part about the teardrop gems and his ordeal with the one that entered through his forehead.

With everything taken care of, the two walked back towards home. The sun was rising by then. A new day had begun.

Over the next few days, Blink got back to his usual routine: run up and down the hill, to the forest to practice martial arts and a little magic, morning coffee with Jogr and Magra, study magic with Magra, instruct the trainees at the Kasgar training center, train Hubr, Zugr and Jogr, and train in magic and martial arts again.

Under his guidance Hubr and Zugr had risen to the top among the trainees of the Kasgar training center. Meanwhile, Jogr was able to quickly attain Beginner Proficiency for the Third Movement of the Returning Palm Style. He was already very close to reaching Advanced Proficiency with it.

Despite his hectic schedule, he didn't forget to study the journal and grimoire of the "Prince of All Time" and learned some very valuable lessons that had allowed him to finally cast [[Whirlwind]] and two other Tier 0 spells: [[Rock Hurl]] and [[Air Punch]].

[[Rock Hurl]] was exactly as its name implied. It was a magically materialized rock that is hurled towards the target using mental energy. As for [[Air Punch]], it was concentrated wind energy that could knock down even a really large man. However, it could only work if the caster's mental energy could sustain the demand of a high-velocity impact. For [[Air Punch]] to feel like an actual punch, the caster must have enough mental energy to make a fist-sized rock move like an arrow shot out from a powerful bow.

Blink appreciated very much how the journal explained some usually overlooked details in the casting of a spell. For a very talented wizard or apprentice, just browsing over the grimoire might be enough for them to make the spell their own. However, reading the journal would save them a lot of trouble with some of the different spells' intricacies.

Through the journal, he found a meditation technique that was more appropriate for a beginner like him. With this new meditation technique, Blink was able to shorten the duration by which his mana got fully recharged. With his old martial arts meditation technique, his mana filled up in about thirty minutes. With the technique from the "Prince of All Time", he now needed only slightly more than twenty minutes to replenish his mana.

Interestingly, not only was the meat of the monster beast absolutely tasty, it seemed to induce a boost in the eater's physical toughness allowing the person to ignore punches and kicks as long as the opponent's strength wasn't overwhelming.

As for Blink, he discovered that the meat was also a potent source of fire magic energy that got absorbed into his body and helped refine his mana.

Speaking of mana, Blink that his mana had not actually made a jump in quality as he initially thought. After drinking coffee with Jogr and Magra that morning, Blink went inside the common room to meditate. To his dismay, when his soul had filled up, he saw that his mana went back to its faint blue with speckles of white color theme. With this eventuality, Blink was left to ponder what actually went on that night while he meditated with his back flat against the rock platform by the river.

The next day after Blink defeated the monster beast, Magra went to Shramez to deliver coffee beans and mangoes as well as to negotiate a market for the crops that Jogr would harvest over the next few days.

Magra had a second purpose in going to Shramez. She was going to visit the biggest blacksmith forge in town to have their craftsmen make a set of armor for Blink. In a matter of ten days, the armor set was finished. It was made up of a body armor, a pair of bracers, a pair of greaves and a cap.

A pair of boots was also especially handmade by a master cobbler at Calandra. The cobbler recognized Magra and asked if Blink who went with her that time was who the cobbler thought he was. The middle-aged proprietor of the shop was glad to finally meet in person that boy from seven years ago who beat up a much older and much bigger boy in a street brawl.

Now, Blink was fully armored and equipped for the journey ahead. He couldn't help admiring the armor set and the pair of boots when he arranged them against the wall of the common room. Most leather armor worn by young masters of powerful clans were made of ox skin. They would all look cheap when put beside Blink's armor. Not only could the monster beast scale armor absorb a much greater amount of damage than any high quality leather armor, it even had a strong resistance to fire and who knows what other elementals.

The only thing he lacked was a wardrobe, and Magra saw to that as well. Despite Blink's insistence that she only sew two simple robes for him as he wanted to look inconspicuous as he moved about, Magra made him half a dozen robes of high quality fabric of various colors. A purple satin robe and a crimson red toga with a headpiece stood out from the bunch.

Blink protested that he won't be able to use them as he would be travelling a lot, but Magra waved her finger at him telling him that there was bound to be times he would stop by a kingdom and be invited for a social function. Blink tried to argue that he didn't like to stand out in a crowd, but Magra laughed in his face.

"Nimgun," she said, "you may go to any corner of this continent and try to NOT stand out and I'm telling you now; it's not happening."

With his black hair, fair complexion and chinky eyes, everybody looked at Blink before they looked at anyone else. Magra had known this fact to be irrefutable. It helped that her nimgun had an enviable posture and the disposition of a noble warrior, but the fact that he had shiny black hair and a pair of slits for eyes when everybody else had blonde or brown hair and round or almond-shaped eyes ensured that he would be the first person anyone noticed in a crowd.

Everything was ready. Its just the journey that needed to take place.

Blink looked all around their kitchen, his eyes resting at the skull of the monster beast hanging above the fire stove.

In the few days past there was an uproar among the villagers. Nearly every river stone of a particular size used for building foundations for walls had been either crushed or broken clean, like they were sliced by a sword.