On my way back to my room, I find a servant who is going around taking food orders for various staff, I stop him politely, asking for some dumplings and noodles, where I tell him where my room is, before continuing on my way. When I arrive back at my room, I set my work stuff aside in a nice pile, and relax for a few minutes. While waiting for my food to get back, I idly go through the large stacks of scrolls, books, and other documents, grouping them into three piles of different subjects, with the scrolls on the top, just to make it easier to aimlessly grab what I need to keep my [Split Focus] Technique working. When my food arrives a half hour later, I set it down on my desk, with my scrolls propped up on the edges of my desk. I pay extra attention to not get any food on the scrolls while I start the reading grind.

Hours pass, long ago my food being set aside, and a book being set in its place, going full in on reading four different things. When it’s almost 3pm, and a handful of scrolls and half a book have been read, leaving me with another couple dozen scrolls, and a dozen books still to go through, I decide it is time for a short break. I get everything put away that I have finished, leaving out the book I haven’t finished with a place marker in the book. I set a few shorter books on the desk as well, hoping to be able to finish them all tomorrow. Changing out of my more formal clothes into something that still distinguishes myself as a Young Master, but in more of a casual manner, I decide to do another trip through the inner courtyard.

After a brief walk through the corridors, with the odd nod from servants and Clan members alike with the classic “Young Master” mumble as we passed by each other. I used the short-range teleport to pass by the eternal traffic jam corridors, chuckling to myself “it isn’t even rush hour right now”. I eventually find my way into the inner courtyard, where I stroll around the park, enjoying the fresh air. After walking around for a couple minutes, I come across a small pond rimmed with small, smooth rocks. Thinking this would be a nice time for some casual formations practice, I began to channel a Telekinesis to pick up a few round rocks. I spend a little while just figuring out how to mentally control independent movements, as I definitely have to strain myself to do anything beyond just a clump of rocks hovering in one direction. At one point I manage to get them to spread out a bit and form two roving clumps, but that almost leaves me sweating.

While doing some slow breathing to recover from the mental strain, I eventually get the idea to try [Split Focus]. That Technique almost immediately showing results, as I could not now manipulate up to eight different rocks through the formation, assuming they weren’t all at different speeds and directions. I could one of my four “screens” to have them all be going the same speed, while another could split the group into two different groups going different directions, and then my last two “screens” would be used to change the individual directions of each rock. Once I think I have the movement under enough control to not hurt myself, I start to have a little fun with the rocks. I end up spending about five minutes putting the rocks through some relatively complex movements, such as making pairs of orbiting rocks, orbit around me, and eventually some classic rock skipping.

I have to redo the formation every ten or so minutes while I was practicing finer control of the rocks, and eventually when I begin skipping rocks using the formation, closer to every couple minutes, which began to tire me out after there began a small bald patch of dirt beneath where I was standing. When I pause for a few minutes to rest, I notice a couple younger kids were watching me, and I even noticed Zhonglei, and another woman with him, walking my way.

“Water you doing over here buddy? It looks like you’re having a rockin’ time” Zhonglei says in his dad tone. Shortly afterwards, the girl smacks his shoulder, scolding him for the two puns. “Excuse me, this is my sister Zhao Baoli, and this Zhou Mingzie, who is a Young Master with the Main Branch” he says, introducing us to each other. I then talk about me practicing some formations I have recently been learning while I relax for a bit. Unbeknownst to everyone present, the Young Master Crushers were nearby, monitoring the situation. As they had a six sense about what was going to happen.

Zhonglei picks up a couple stones, gets a practice throw in, before doing a serious attempt. His second throw lands over half a dozen skips, just barely beating out the record he saw me making. “You seem to need some pointers with rock skipping, don’t you?” He asks me, a slight grin on his face. As he says this I shoot a rock forward into the water. It skips several times, as soon as it skips the sixth time, the water dips noticeably where the seventh skip would’ve been. I just glare at him, as this is just childish messing around, but he then he decides to up the jokes, and I hear [Let’s Trade Pointers” get muttered. I sigh deeply, before going along with it. Taking this as a small victory, he throws a stone into the pond. While the stone is being thrown, I channel a Shield formation right in front of the skipping path, stopping it after it skips three times.

“I thought you said you could give me pointers?” I say innocently, before throwing another stone myself. As the stone is about to get its seventh skip, a familiar sinkhole in the water appears, but I was expecting it. One of my shields pops into place over the dip in the water, where it bounces off the shield, managing to get two more skips before it sinks into the water. I give him a grin back, in which he scowls slightly before he throws one last stone. The events almost repeat this time, a shield popping into place after the second skip, but then water slides up my shield, and the stone skips off the water, reversing direction, and keeps skipping. Right when the stone hits its seventh skip, I channel a fireball cantrip, sending it into the pond, completely messing up the attempt. We then both grab another stone and attempt to skip our stones. When both of our stones get to the third skip, the rocks and a few inches of water surrounding the stones suddenly freeze.

Zhonglei looks back at his sister, glaring at her. She just shrugs and says we were getting too serious with this, at which we both chuckle a bit. I decide it’s been a long enough break, patting Zhonglei on the back, and begin to walk back to my room. I mention to them that I have some work I need to finish and that I have been messing around long enough. Once I get back to my room, I begin to settle down for some more reading and note taking, knowing that this is going to be a struggle to focus on after the pond skirmish.