Moments later, a dull impact permeated through my feet. Opening my eye out of reflex, I found ground touching the soles of my feet. Stumbling forward a few steps to regain my balance, I ultimately ended up falling on the ground, trying to calm my beating heart.

From behind, Samuel’s laughter echoed through the surroundings as he asked, “How was it?”

My eyes narrowed as I replied, “Scary.”

“But that was fun, wasn’t it?”

“….” After a slight pause, I replied, “Maybe a little.”

After calming my spinning head, I stood up.

“Again!” I said, preparing myself for another attempt at defeating him.

Samuel nodded as he waved his hand, “Alright, take your position. Looking at how the last time went, I’ll go easy on you and won’t climb up on trees.”

My brow jumped as I could barely manage to hold back my lips from arching into a smile.

So I was right! No. No. No. Don’t get too hasty. Calm down. You should take some time to confirm and then plan things out.

With a sharp yet fiery gaze, I walked back into the ring, facing against Samuel in yet another match.

This time, the match went on relatively longer, with much more action to my name. We relatively constrained the area we fought in to one part of the ring, using trees and the boulder as obstacles and covers to block and trap our adversary.

In the end, Samuel cornered me against one of the three trees on the boundary before pushing me out, leading to my eventual defeat.

In a similar fashion, our bouts continued for a while. Although my losing streak grew by every match, I wasn’t dissatisfied. Instead, I focused on both the improvements I made and confirmation of my conjectures I came up with the day before, contributing ever so slightly to my so-called grand plan of success, which I was still in the midst of coming up with.

Nevertheless, I knew that at best, it would only be a minute chance and not a certainty. However, that was all I needed to pour in my efforts.

As such, the following days fell into a rhythm of waking up, exercising, eating and warming up before going at it against Samuel a few times, meditation while hoping to be able to resolve my issues with moving Ki, duelling a few rounds with Samuel when he finally returned with dinner before washing up and eating the dinner and at the end of the day, when I couldn’t continue, I took the time to rest and reflect on the day itself and get a good night’s sleep.

Every day, I made sure to squeeze up all the time possible to exercise and grow stronger, until I simply got too exhausted and couldn’t continue. To rest, I would spend most of my time in the study, browsing through the limited stock of books available, in particular, the ones related to Ki arts or Magic techniques. To me, almost all free time was hellish, as I would inevitably fall deeper into the quagmire of my nightmare.

Everytime I slept, the same dream would repeat itself and I would find myself waking up in the same state, cold sweat lining my whole body and a stream of chilly water flowing down my right eye as my chest trembled with an uneven breath.

During the duels, we would switch the area we fought on on a regular basis, sometimes even multiple times a session to spice things up. Gradually yet consistently, my proficiency in fighting grew, allowing me to hold my own against Samuel to an extent. Even so, I was far from winning and had much to learn.

To me, reading allowed me to wipe off all the accumulated fatigue and frustration from throughout the day, as if it was natural. And in turn, those books were like friends to me, being the only ones besides Samuel, and Amelia as well, if she could be as such.

The following days went by as if I had just woken up and slept through, the only thing to show for being my improvements one day after the other. Even so, within the days which passed by, I never managed a win.

On the 17th of that month, however, something changed. During one of the meditation sessions, I managed to influence the strand of Ki, guiding it through my body, mostly keeping it near the abdomen.

To my surprise, I noticed that a few more strands would follow along wherever the first strand went, as if attracted towards it. Trying a few times more, I did it again, holding out for longer this time because of the strand of Ki I latched onto being bigger than the one before.

A weary smile spread across my face as I thought, Now for the next step! And I can officially start learning and using Ki arts!

While still rejoicing, I got up, wiped the sweat off of my forehead, stretched a few times before returning to exercising, carrying on with the rest of the day. By now, my arms weren’t just bones covered with a layer of skin. Instead, they had a slight mass to them, similar to Samuel’s, representative of my effort.

The next step in progressing with Ki Arts is to guide the Ki to the heart, using the movement of the blood to circulate it through the body. And thus, before sleeping, I meditated once more, moving the strand over to the left of my chest, trying to move it around so it could get caught up in blood flow like the book mentioned.

But, in the end, all that happened was that it dissipated. I tried a few times more, all to no avail.

During the night later that day, it rained, filling the surroundings with mud. Yet still, we both duelled the same the next day. But I was sure that to anyone looking from afar, it would’ve looked like two children acting like lively young pigs, playing with each other in mud.

However, happiness is short-lived.

Three days later, Samuel came, his face red. Sweat dripped down his head as his chest heaved in and out erratically.

Furrowing my brow, I asked, “What happened? Why’re you in a hurry?”

While panting for breath on the doorstep, he reported, “Zack, we got a letter yesterday evening. The person… the teacher whom dad asked to tutor me… he will be coming a few days early. He said that if all went well, he’d drop by to pick me up in the next week. Most likely on 27th. You only got 6 more days.”

I blinked in shock before confirming, “R-really?”

Samuel looked at me solemnly before nodding.

After a slight pause, I said, “Come in. Take a seat and catch your breath.”

With a grim expression, I went to the study without uttering another word, sinking into one of the chairs, my expression grim.