Swords and Seeds

After her admonishment, Teacher Lorel explained the diagram and the proper amount of mana usage when cycling. Lorel had Kai scan her with his meager mana sight as she moved her mana in example.

Kai worked with her diligently until he understood at least how much mana to use, not really showing the finesse that Lorel had, but his sledge hammer was put away and he now wielded a needle of mana.

By the time he got his grip on proper mana control, he was sweating profusely.

"Okay, now that we're done with the warm up, let's see you actually put it to use. Your mana control has improved greatly in this short time and now we should work on your meditation to nourish your Mana Seed." Lorel stated after Kai had time to wipe himself off with a towel she provided.

"Cycling mana the way you have been is beneficial during training, travel, or combat. However, it does not properly grow your cultivation as not much is being absorbed during the cycling. You'll need to sit down here in a lotus position and follow this breathing pattern I'll show you."

Kai sat on the floor in front of Lorel. She explained the breathing pattern and began to demonstrate. Her back was ram rod straight and her face became expressionless, eyes closed. Kai mirrored the lady as she spoke.

"Breathe in for a count of five and hold it for a count of three." Kai did as instructed as she continued, "Breathe out for a count of six. Then repeat."

After she finished, she joined Kai in breathing. As time passed, their breathing was completely in sync and she spoke one more, "Now you must clear your mind as you continue to breathe in this pattern. Once your mind is clear, you will need to connect with your soul space. Since you've never done this before, it will be disorienting and difficult to enter, but this only counts for the first time. Once you've connected with the soul space it will be much easier in the future."

Kai breathed. He wanted to forget the world and focus on his Mana Seed. He needed to get stronger to clear out the mine and this was his best bet.

White shapes flitted across the back of his eye lids as his mind continued to race. Kai breathed. Comets and starry flashes beamed around the darkness.

'What if this is a trick?' Kai's anxiety rose.

Flashes of memory popped into the never ending spin cycle of his mind. Kai breathed. He began to feel slightly light headed from the breathing pattern as he wished his mind would cease all thought.

'What if she's going to attack me?' Kai dared not open his eyes nor stop his breathing technique.

Boss and Bones. Slim Jim and Tory. Nickle and Dime. Busting into the door of the small two story vacant house Kai was sleeping upstairs in.

Kai escaping the house through a window and running through back yards to escape the thugs.

Lorel watched on as Kai's eyebrows squirmed across his forehead in a dance. She saw sweat trickling down his forehead and was beginning to become worried. She'd never seen someone having this much trouble with this process.

He breathed.

Kai getting attacked as he tried selling a pilfered phone to Tory's gang, before Boss absorbed it into his. Kai barely escaping, bleeding from cuts and gashes, wearing bruises on his face like women wear makeup, eyes wild with fear, always shifting left and right, scanning every inch of the dark alleys from them on.

He breathed. But his mind did not clear. A cold sweat was pouring from his head, but he continued to breathe.

'What if she wants to kill you like every brigand and thug wherever you go?' His mind would not or could not clear.

'How about you shut the hell up so we can get on with this?!' He shouted to the part of himself that feared and survived.

'What if it's a trick?'

He breathed and breathed. Hearing a soft voice from far away, he took it in as his mantra, begging his mind to shut the hell up.

"Just breathe. Worry is for another time. Just breathe."

'Just breathe... Just breathe...' He repeated, he shouted, he roared to himself in his mind. If peace and calm wouldn't work, maybe overwhelming anger might.

The scenes faded as he breathed. Rage boiled inside him from every bad hand he'd ever been dealt. He forced the rage to burn away his thoughts.

'Just breathe!' He chanted, breathing in a strange cadence that made his head feel light.

In for a count of five. Held for three. Out for six.

'Just breathe...' The rage simmered after his mind was cleared, it was not gone, but it was no longer burning a path of destruction through his mind. It had done its job and rested now in the bit of his being.

He opened his eyes without opening them. He breathed.

He felt like he was in his own brain. Or in his soul. He was out of his body by being in it. He looked around and saw a river flowing by.

He was intrigued, and wishing himself closer, he was there. It was more like an endless trail of smoke, flowing by as it tried imitating a river.

He followed the stream and as he willed it, he flowed along with it. He noticed strands of gold smoke flowing along the bottom. He willed himself to "feel" or maybe it was "sense" the gold strands and they seemed denser. Like a cloud in a steamy bathroom after a hot shower. One step from condensation.

He flowed along in the stream as he felt himself breathe. He saw the golden wall of his veins. As he breathed in, the stream seemed a little quicker, steadier as he held, and breathing out slowed the stream once more.

He didn't know how much time passed as he felt himself follow the path through each part of his body, but he finally saw a cavern ahead.

A glowing golden pod sat in the middle of the empty space. Globs of blue spattered the pod, some of it sinking in slowly, as the rest sped off into another tunnel. Gold tendrils leaked from the bottom of the seed and rejoined the flow, dragging along the bottom of the streams.

'So that's why she said it wasn't efficient... Only a small part of my mana is being absorbed,' he thought as he watched the beginning and end of his mana flow.

He continued to breathe as he adjusted his cycling pattern to the one provided by Lorel. As the flow was adjusted, he saw a distinct change coming from the streams of smoky mana and the seed.

He cycled the mana twice around his body in the pattern shown, bringing it to the chamber at a different rate than before. With the added time, he flowed the mana directly around his seed instead of just passing his flows by it.

The seed seemed to have more time to gobble up the mana as it circled by it instead of just ramming into it. As the seed cleansed the mana and made it more tuned to him, he found controlling the golden strands was much easier than the wild mana.

He finished one cycle, and as the gold mana re-entered his mana vein, replaced by fresh wild mana encircling the seed, he felt invigorated. He was able to do a few more cycles before he began to feel his seed ache a little bit.

He didn't want to hurt himself so he exited his meditative state and looked around. He smelled that putrid smell once more as his hands felt incredibly sticky.

"Ah, fuck... Don't tell me this is going to be an every time thing!" Kai cried out. The horrific stench worse than anything he smelled on the streets.

The teacher burst out in laughter, "Of course it's an every time thing! You're cleansing your body of it's impurities, which will eventually lead to replacing with with mana and ascending, if you find yourself at the end of the cultivation road," she said wistfully.

'Ascending? Replacing my body with mana? What the hell kind of cult have I gotten myself into?' Kai thought, worry creeping itself into his mind.

"We've got a wash room and you can borrow a change of clothes as well, we have plenty of training robes available in there as well. Once you're cleaned up, I can show you some sword basics if you'd like. I don't have any dagger skills, unfortunately, but I do know a thing or two about the sword if you're willing to learn."

As Kai sat in the empty wash room, steaming in the near boiling water, he thought about what he'd been taught today. He went ahead and analyzed his stats to see if he'd made any sort of progress.

[Status]

Main Stats:

-Agility: 26 (16+10)

-Dexterity: 37 (20+17)

-Fortitude: 23 (8+15)

-Mana Capacity: 49 (15+34)

-Strength: 17 (10+7)

-Willpower: 77 (63+14)

[Equipment - Hidden]

[Skills/Abilities]

Acrobatics: Novice Tier 4 (41%)

Cooking: Novice Tier 2 (10%)

Dagger Proficiency: Novice Tier 3 (22%)

Elemental Proficiency:

Air: Novice Tier 1 (2%)

Earth: Novice Tier 1 (78%)

Fire: Novice Tier 1 (1%)

Shadow: Novice Tier 2 (82%)

Goddess' Blessing: Novice Tier 1 (6%)

Mana Cycling: Novice Tier 4 (22%)

Sleight of Hand: Advanced Tier 1 (1%)

Survival Instincts: Advanced Tier 4 (3%)

Throwing Skills: Novice Tier 6 (66%)

---

Kai saw his improvements across the board and smiled. The more he thought the more a frown started to appear on his face. 'Why am I so obsessed with checking this status? Is this something that was instilled during the Goddess' fooling around in my mind?'

Kai decided he would try his best to ignore his status from now on, only checking it after big milestones. He believed the stat sheet didn't bring much benefit to him as it was more a "this is your full potential" marker than an identifier of current skill.

He had been cocky from seeing his stats, which led to him wasting a potion in the mines. Wasting money that could have been used on good food instead. He sighed.

'I'll just have to test my own strength before doing anything stupid again. I wonder what Lorel wants to teach me about the sword.'

Kai finished languishing in the exquisite scents of cleanliness and walked toward the open gym area. His hair was tied in a bun on his head with a short black ribbon, his body wrapped in a black gi and comfortable soft shoes adorned his feet.

He approached Lorel who was meditating in the center of the floor, eyes opening upon his arrival.

"You look just like a student of ours," she beamed, seeing him in the gi, "Let me teach you the basics of swordsmanship. I cannot teach you our sword arts because they are for Godons alone, I apologize. But I can give you basic stances to practice and drills. Learning a sword art can pair well with your mana arts and increase your damage potential tenfold." Lorel expounded her beliefs.

"Sure, I would love to learn, thank you, Teacher." Kai gave a respectful bow, palm clenching fist.

Seeing the bow, Lorel's opinion of Kai soared even higher and she quickly showed him some basic stances after giving Kai a short sword. The blade curved near the end, similar to a falchion. The handle was wrapped in a dark material that felt comfortable to the touch, but also provided a firm grip that didn't slip. The looping hand guard would protect the hand from being chopped off during a fight. Kai thought it looked beautiful, and the blade was dulled for practice.

Lorel walked through the eight basic attack angles. She swung vertically, horizontally, diagonally both way, and reverses of each cut as well. These made up the eight basic attack angles.

Kai clumsily slung the sword around. It was much heavier than his Tusk Blades and he was not used to swinging around something bigger than his daggers.

He was glad for his increase in strength, because if he'd tried this during his combat test, he'd have died to his first opponent. He was not used to swinging the sword around at all.

He practiced diligently and Lorel eventually gave him a passing grade for a beginner, he'd have a decent start now to train on his own in the future. She also explained feints, counters, blocks, parries.

"The top of the sword is weak, don't defend with it, deflect with it. The middle can also absorb the shock of a hit, but you want to defend with the forte, the lower end near the hilt," she explained as the pointed out each part of the blade.

"Attack with the pointy end... Got it." Kai gave a cheeky grin.

Lorel rolled her eyes as she began to demonstrate each move she'd explained. Kai attempted to follow along but he felt his arm becoming tired, even with his mana circulation refreshing him slowly.

By the end of the hour, Kai was sweating as bad as he had been earlier and his arm was numb.

"Okay, Kai, next arm now."

'Next arm? What next arm?' Kai was flabbergasted, but he dared not say a word out loud.

The teacher seemed to read his mind saying, "What if your right arm is cut off during a fight? Are you going to hold your sword with your feet? Your teeth? You must know how to fight with both arms equally. I know you fight with daggers, so this should be much easier for you to learn than most."

Kai was skeptical of the training Lorel was giving him, but he persevered. What changed his attitude was Lorel showing him what trained swordsman could do.

Lorel stood with her legs apart, right foot forward slightly with her knees bent. Kai watched for any disturbance of mana and saw it cycling in a specific pattern he'd never be able to emulate. As Lorel breathed out, he saw the mana flow into the blade and create a sharp aura around it.

Kai felt a pressure on his soul, similar to the Goddess', but no where near as strong. But coming from a person who wasn't deified, it was quite scary and impressive. The aura seemed to want to cut into him. As if it could lead her blade directly to him.

She sliced forward in the empty air and a shimmering silver light flowed across the gym and sliced a straw training dummy directly in half. Kai's jaw dropped seeing the spectacle and vowed to learn a strong sword art. Lorel turned to him with a cocky grin on her face and told him to get back to training.

As Kai lay in his bed that night, he cursed Lorel for everything he was worth.

'Next arm my ass, she just wanted to torture me! She's as bad as the Goddess... Dare I say worse!' Kai thought sullenly as he drifted off into the dream world, being chased by endless gangs on the streets of Summerville.