For the next two months, Boneroot did nothing but cultivate and learn about the Empire. No matter how hard he pressed his teacher, Kroshieshi refused to show him any techniques, or do any sparring, hunting, or really anything that didn’t involve sitting directly in front of the perpetually unimpressed mass of fur.

Worse than that, he hadn’t seen Kuroki once since that night Felindei sent him away. He hoped the little cat would show up soon. He’d rather listen to a hundred scatterbrained, overlapping stories than another hour of Kroshieshi’s lectures. Boneroot still winced when he remembered his master realizing he’d have to explain the concept of money. Frankly, it sounded pointless, anyway, so Boneroot wasn’t sure why the tsovar had made such a fuss.

To be fair to the old hellecat, though, some of it was interesting. He enjoyed hearing about the humans living outside the forest, particularly when Kroshieshi described some of their cultivation arts. He was more excited than anything to meet them at this Brightmoon Sect he would apparently be going to. Those were another kind of lesson he’d quite enjoyed. The sect sounded incredible. He was sure the parts about the awful ‘nobles’, or whoever, were just exaggerations. Kroshieshi rarely had anything good to say about anyone, after all.

He wasn't mean, exactly. Just strict. And demanding. And a liar. Boneroot was almost certain about that last part. He still couldn’t grasp exactly the passage of time during his cultivation, but he had a strong suspicion his teacher was lying about how long he could go without messing up.

When he finally admitted that Boneroot could maintain peak efficiency for the entire ten hours of his daily cultivation, the bastard had started distracting him throughout. Staying in a productive meditative trance was a lot harder when there was a few hundred pounds of predator growling in your ear. Then, he’d had to differentiate what was a distraction and what was a real threat. Still, he’d managed to get the hang of it after a couple weeks. He could only hope that now, finally, they would start incorporating something else into the sessions.

When his mentor entered his room to begin the day’s training, he noticed right away that Kroshieshi had changed genders. The first time she’d done it, Boneroot was distracted for quite a while trying to figure out why something seemed off. When he’d finally guessed it, Kroshieshi was surprised yet again at the depths of the boy’s ignorance.

While she giggled to herself, Boneroot admonished himself for not paying more attention to Kuroki’s ramblings. He could have sworn something like this came up before. Yet, even if he had remembered, for a non-tsovar like Boneroot, the differences weren’t obvious. There were some changes to the cat’s musculature, a shrinking of stature, and, admittedly, more noticeable shifts in posture and gait, it hardly mattered anyway. Male or female, Kroshieshi never gave him an inch of leeway in his training.

When she entered, the hellecat gave Boneroot a quick visual assessment. For a moment, he thought today would finally be different, but his hopes fell flat when his teacher spoke,

“Begin.”

After successfully suppressing a groan, he did just that. However, Boneroot was surprised when Kroshieshi roused him after only a few minutes.

“No way! My cultivation was fine!”

“It was. I just needed to confirm something. You’ve reached mid Red realm. It’s about time, too. From now on, you can scale your meditation back to eight hours per day and use a spirit stone every other day. I’ll still be checking in, though, so don’t start slacking. With the rest of each day, though, we can start to refine that muddled plagiarism you call a cultivation art. Follow.”

At that, Kroshieshi left Boneroot’s room. The boy was a bit indignant at the slight. He really thought he’d done well for someone with no guidance. Nonetheless, he was too excited at the prospect of a change in routine to dwell on the insult.

When he caught up to his teacher, Boneroot looked around at the new environment. They had moved to some sort of training grounds. The tsovar stood in the middle of a large, open space, which was lined with what appeared to be dummies of various sizes and shapes made of thick plant fibers. There were obstacles and hiding spots littered throughout the area, though they clearly weren’t designed for use by any bipeds. The entire area sat under a dome of twisted branches and thick foliage.

“Let’s begin with techniques,” Kroshieshi’s voice thrummed in his head. “In addition to your base of cultivation, techniques make up the heart and soul of any worthwhile art. Show me.”

The excitement written plainly on his face, Boneroot exclaimed, “Alright! Let’s start with my Integrated Shadow.”

He started cycling his Shadow ki, pushing out clouds of it into which he could meld. Since he first developed the technique, he’d been able to disappear with less and less of his own Shadow ki in the air. This helped tremendously to conserve his energy and he’d come to think rather highly of himself because of it. He had no sooner removed himself from sight than his teacher’s voice rang out in his head.

“Maybe you should have spent more time refining this technique and less time thinking of an awful name for it. This ‘Integrated Shadow’, as you call it, is a mess. You’re hidden only to one reliant on sight and, even then, not entirely. Anyone in the red realm could find you if they looked hard enough. More importantly, though, emanating shadow ki is a dead giveaway. You’re lucky that the lower realm tsovars have no reason to constantly sense for ki around them. That’s not the case for one like Kuroki, though. When he sensed the technique, he thought you were preparing, how did he put it... a mega beam. Yes, he was sorely disappointed, to say the least.”

Boneroot mentally vowed to develop an actual mega beam technique, while Kroshieshi continued, “To erase your presence in such a way, you would probably need to coat yourself in a much thinner layer of Shadow ki. I think. We have no need for such a technique, so I can’t say for certain. It may bear fruit if you approach it in a different way, but, as it is, it’s functionally useless. Let’s move on.”

That wasn’t how Boneroot expected the exchange to go, but, he probably should have known he wouldn’t impress Kroshieshi that easily. Integrated Shadow was a technique he created at the very beginning, not long after awakening, so it wasn’t exactly surprising it had some issues. Or a lot of issues.

Next, Boneroot decided to showcase his Shade Step. In his experience, it was the least useful of his repertoire, but he wanted to save the best for last. He channelled Shadow ki out ahead of him, preparing to shift forward. When he began to move, he slipped through the space in front of him as if sliding across the ground toward the shadow ahead.

Upon reaching his destination, he turned to assess his mentor’s reaction. Again, though, he wasn’t thrilled by what he saw.

“Not as bad as the last one, but still no gem. For one thing, the entire process takes too long. Someone with Orange realm qi could likely do the same thing with physical movement alone. And faster. That’s not even addressing the excess energy you’re using to do it. When you want to use Void ki, you have to keep in mind that you’re not trying to move through space quickly, you’re trying to subvert space entirely. We can get more into that later. Let’s move on. So far, these are unimpressive. You are not a Shadow cultivator, though, so it is not quite as important. Show me your Light techniques now.”

Grumpily, Boneroot responded, “Well I only have one of them...”

“So you have more techniques in your off-attunement? What kind of cultivator are you?”

“The kind who didn’t have any help, obviously! Almost everyone from my village was attuned to Shadow. It took me months to figure out I wasn’t, even after awakening.” Boneroot was getting frustrated with his flaws being laid bare, though he should’ve been used to it by now. This seemed to garner at least a bit of sympathy from Kroshieshi, however.

“Yes, that is truly unfortunate. Perhaps, under those circumstances, these techniques are an accomplishment. I cannot say. Let’s do with the last of them, then. Show me.”

Taken aback by the admission, but still slightly discouraged by the poor impression his two Shadow techniques had left, Boneroot resolved to make the next one count. He walked toward the plant dummy set up at the other side of the training field. When he was five feet away, he gathered Light ki into his fingers and pushed it out into the world, forming a claw that rocketed forward toward his inanimate enemy.

When the technique bit into the green sinews that would otherwise have been a shoulder, it sank in almost half a foot toward the heart. Had the dummy been a human, it would be without use of that arm for a while. The source of the technique, however, was unhappy with the result. Maybe he had overestimated the resilience of the animals he was used to hunting, but he had expected his Radiant Claw to cut clean through the whole dummy. When he turned his dejected expression toward his observer, however, he found approval on her face.

“This one is good. Shocking, I know. You’ve relied on this heavily, haven’t you? It’s not perfect but it has clearly been honed into an effective killing tool. Yes, this we can work with. Show me again. Until your ki is exhausted.”

Spurred on by the praise, Boneroot started to launch attack after attack from different angles, whipping his hands through the air as he released Light ki from his fingers. He was only just getting into a rhythm, however, when he was halted.

“And now we’re back to mediocre. You’re consistent, I’ll give you that.” The boy rolled his eyes, while Kroshieshi continued, “It’s like your meditation efficiency all over again. After a few successes, your form deteriorates and the technique drops off drastically in its effectiveness.”

“It’s not my fault,” the boy protested weakly. “It’s the Light ki. I can’t get it to stay solid for more than a few swipes. It’s not like I ever need to use more than a couple of them, anyway.”

The tsovar’s eyes narrowed. “Light? Boy, this is a spatial technique. If those claws were Light ki, they’d have to burn through the dummy, rather than tear at it. You do understand the difference, right?”

Boneroot had learned a month ago to stop responding to rhetorical jabs at his incompetence. This time, though, he was genuinely confused.

“What do you mean? It’s a Light technique. It uses Light ki, doesn’t it?”

Kroshieshi rocked her head side to side as she responded, “In a sense, it is Light ki, yes. Most Light techniques will manifest as heated energy, not entirely unlike Fire, or Lightning techniques. Like any essence type, though, Light can take different forms. For some Light cultivators, like you, that can mean space itself.”

His mentor must have noticed Boneroot’s imagination running wild, as she clarified, “Now don’t get too excited. The practical application is hardly what you’re thinking. At least, for anyone below Violet realm. For a lowly Red realm such as yourself, especially, spatial techniques are just another simple, albeit powerful, expression of your own Light ki. Powerful if cultivated correctly, I should say. Still, I’m surprised you managed to copy our technique to this extent without knowing that.”

This time Kroshieshi looked sincerely impressed. Boneroot, however, didn’t notice. He was hunched over in thought. After a moment, he muttered,

“How can I use a technique that I don’t even understand? That makes no sense.”

His master barked out a short laugh uncharacteristic of the day’s feminine form.

“Now you’re just describing cultivation. Every technique we use, every sliver of essence we pull into our bodies, it is all a futile attempt to understand the way of the world. The higher up you go, the more complete a picture you’re supposed to get. White realm cultivators like Felindei, or your Emperor, are supposed to know the truth of reality in full, as if they were deities. Sure, they’re the closest thing that any of us will ever know, but at some point you have to wonder how much of that is what they know and how much is what they want us to think they know. If you repeat any of that to Felindei, I’ll eat you.”

Boneroot was still hunched over as he listened to Kroshieshi’s explanation. It did make sense, in a way. Light ki, or no, there wasn’t any visible light involved in his Radiant Claw. He was primarily hung up on the larger issue, however, so he voiced that concern.

“So, when you mentioned ‘Void’ ki earlier, that’s like Shadow? Or when you told me about those Ice cultivators, or those Thunder techniques...”

“Tsovars make use of Void ki fairly frequently, yes, though we still focus primarily on Shadow techniques. As for the others, Water ki for ice, Lightning with a touch of Wind for thunder. I’m told it’s all a fairly contentious issue among human scholars. They can’t decide if these are separate types of essence, or just specific techniques which aren’t learnable by all cultivators of the larger ki type. I may not know the reasons behind it, but I can tell you that if you tried to learn some Solar techniques, your Light attunement would help about as much as a Water one. It’d be the same if I tried to cultivate Lunar ki.”

His teacher ended with a shrug. Boneroot couldn’t help but agree with the gesture. As much as he wanted to know how all of this worked, he couldn’t afford to get bogged down in the minutiae.

Getting back to his feet, he thought about his Radiant Claw technique. It certainly didn’t look like the Light techniques he’d seen some of his village kin using. Those usually had to do with, well, light. For some, that was projecting it, for others that was focusing it into a spear of sorts. For Boneroot, though, he’d started to develop the Radiant Claw soon after he realized he wasn’t actually attuned to Shadow ki. He’d seen the tsovars using something like it and he’d sensed, albeit vaguely, something like Light ki in the area when it was used, so he’d just made the assumption and ran with it from there.

Tentatively, he threw a few more claws at the unfortunate plant dummies. Seizing on the feel of the technique in this new light, he threw a few more. And then more.

Kroshieshi watched as Boneroot bore into the dregs of his ki reserves to throw out claw after claw, each one slightly different from the last. After a few minutes, the hellecat realized what improvement the boy was trying to make. The edges of her lips perked up and she felt, just for a moment, Kuroki and Felindei may have found the right person after all.