With the weight of the world pressing down on me, I struggle to follow Croff’s movements as he glides through a form’s different steps. His elegance and flowing movements are crudely mirrored by strained steps and awkward swings. By the end of training, Croff has shown me five different forms and determined that two of them don’t fit me at all—but rather than being disheartened by that I am ecstatic that I will be able to add three new forms to my weapon training which should give me some flexibility when dealing with difficult opponents in the future.
After close to five hours of constant training, the gravity array turns off and I collapse in on myself from exhaustion and muscle fatigue. Between weapon training with Croff and evasion training with the torture array, I don’t know how I’m supposed to have the mental capacity to return to my pavilion and start meditative training. As promised, Dross is waiting for me at the end of my training and he leads me back to my pavilion. Thankfully, he has already prepared some food for me and lets me know I have an hour built into my training plan to recover before I should start my meditation.
Before I dismiss him to eat my meal, it occurs to me that I have yet to pick up my spiritual herb allotment for the month. I was too distracted with Sagaryn’s payment to remember the more common herbs I can pick out every month. Dross confirms that with my permission he can pick up anything from the merit exchange with the servant medallion he carries. I ask him to pick up a copy of all the spirit herbs that are available for exchange. Soon after I hear him leave the pavilion and I activate Tea Service to start off another round of meditation.
A few hours later, I slowly open my eyes and exit the meditative trance I was locked in. Disappointment crosses my mind as I notice that there were no new levels for my skills and my inheritance remained stagnant. I have to remember that cultivation and inheritance growth is a marathon and my rapid growth is not sustainable in the long run. I note an incremental growth in my mana pathways and the purity of my mana has improved as well, if only a minuscule amount; so at least I know the tea and meditation are helping.
At some point during my meditation, Dross returned and left a small pamphlet in the room detailing all the common herbs that are available for my monthly allotment. I’m actually quite impressed with the quality of information—not only is there a picture of the herb, but it is also accompanied by the name, the attributes it generally improves, and what other herbs it’s beneficial to mix with. Even though I am quite impressed with the list, I’m still clueless when it comes to what ChaLong needs. I try to initiate the bond with ChaCha, but again I’m met with silence, and I’m starting to worry about him a little. If I’m not able to connect with him in the morning, I will go to Sagaryn and see if he can help.
After an incredibly long day, I sit in contemplation—not meditating or making further plans for training, but just reflecting on the day and the gains I’ve received from training. Progress is pretty minimal after just one day of training, but especially when it comes to evasion, I was able to glean a lot of inspiration in effective movements and reducing big techniques when only small adjustments are needed. A lot of that inspiration is not only applicable to the evasive techniques Sagaryn taught but also improving my combat forms that Croff has been teaching. One place of improvement that immediately sticks out to me is that because I am much smaller than Croff, I don’t have to make the same big movements he does to maneuver the monk’s spade. If I instead take smaller moves, my damage output will decrease, but the fluidity and speed of the form will match more closely to Croff.
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After reflecting for a few hours, I can’t push sleep away anymore and I close my eyes and slowly drift into dreamless sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, I’m abruptly awakened by a blaring headache as ChaLong is desperately trying to initiate a bond with me.
Worry grips me and I quickly accept the bond with him. [ChaCha, what’s wrong!?]
I can feel confusion in the bond, as if he doesn’t get why I’m panicked. [Huh? Nothing’s wrong, I just wanted to tell you how successful the planting has been.]
[Well, what did you do to initiate the bond? Because I was asleep and woken up by a strong pressure letting me know you needed to connect with me.]
Nothing comes through the bond for a few seconds, and then just the slightest bit of guilt comes through. [Um, nothing out of the ordinary. I tried to initiate the bond. When you didn’t answer right away, I waited a minute before trying again. And I, uh, kept doing that until you answered.]
The last bit was said very quickly like he was hoping I might have missed it. [Don’t do that again, unless it’s an emergency.] I pause for a second thinking about what an emergency for this spirit is. [And by emergency, I mean a real emergency where you’re hurt or something went wrong with your cultivation. Not just because you’re excited about something. Okay?]
In the chastised weapon spirit’s defense, I do feel some shame trickle through our bond. [Okay,] He says very disappointedly.
After a second, I can hear some excitement creep back into his voice. [Now, can I tell you about all the cool stuff that happened?]
I theatrically sigh, but internally I’m happy that me lecturing him didn’t hurt ChaCha’s feelings too much. [Alright. You can tell me about all the cool stuff now.]
ChaCha proceeds to tell me over the next thirty minutes about the improvement of his mana, and that he can feel himself progressing with the spirituality of his Spirit Space. He definitely will need more spirit herbs to continue progressing, but he believes that within a year he will be able to progress in power.
All-in-all, his growth is pretty impressive for only being out of it for about a day. He finally lets me go so I can get more rest, and sleep quickly overtakes me.
