Chang Guan's eyes opened abruptly. He was, once more, floating in his mind. Chang Guan glanced around, with nothing in sight. `I lost, did I?´. In truth, this was the first time in a very long time Chang Guan had lost against Ryuu Kiyoshi. Normally, Chang Guan wins by a landslide, but this particular time, he stood no chance.
Chang Guan closed his eyes and began reviewing the battle. It didn't take long for Chang Guan to find his first error.
"The Rotation Intent?"
Yes, one of the reasons Chang Guan had lost was due to his first move, using the Rotation Intent to increase his R/s. Although this made his Qi more destructive and gave him amazing senses, it made him partially lose his ability of rational thought.
Make no mistake, if it were someone else, say Ryuu Kiyoshi, this would have been a brilliant move, but Chang Guan's real power came from tricking people with his throwing knives, and for that, he needed rational thought.
In the end, the battle ended before he even had a chance to use the increased destructive power from the Rotation Intent, making the first step more of a hindrance than a boost.
Although this was the main reason for his loss, it was not the only one. He made 2 more major mistakes.
The first was underestimating Ryuu Kiyoshi. Although Chang Guan wanted to insist that he had taken him seriously, he knew himself that this was false.
Chang Guan had beaten Ryuu Kiyoshi the last many times they had battled before this, which made him subconsciously underestimate his enemy.
The second mistake was waiting for Ryuu Kiyoshi to attack. Of course, Chang Guan had a reason for this, he wanted to find out if Ryuu Kiyoshi was going to attack. But looking back at it, If Ryuu Kiyoshi was filled to the brim with killing intent, which he was, then odds were he was going to attack.
By allowing Ryuu Kiyoshi to attack first, he lost the ability to surprise his enemy and was therefore put on the defensive until he was taken out. He had no chance to properly strike.
Once Chang Guan had analyzed his major mistakes, he began looking at his smaller faults.
"When I threw those first throwing knives if I had adjusted the position of them by just 2 centimeters, Ryuu Kiyoshi would have been unable to block it..." And "If, when I had jumped back, I had changed my angle a little, it would have set up my next attack better." Were both thoughts going through his mind.
Chang Guan didn't know why he started looking through even the smallest of details. It wasn't the first time he had been in a close battle, yet he never studied his actions as deeply as he had now.
In truth, this was an effect of the Rotation Intent. In order to enter his mind, Chang Guan first has to calm himself to the point of extremity. Even if he doesn't feel like he is in such a state in his minds room, he is absolutely composed. Then, his calm state of mind will naturally observe and evaluate his every move.
But Chang Guan had no idea about that and assumed it was because he had just 'Died'. He stayed in this state for about 2 and a half hours before had finished contemplating his actions and drawn a firm conclusion.
Chang Guan stood up and said,
"It's been about 3 hours, I should probably leave."
After stating this, he closed his eyes and left his mind's room. He woke up, to see that the sun had moved a bit in the sky. He contemplated for but a moment before mentioning,
"That's peculiar, it's only been about an hour."
Chang Guan didn't know exactly how long it had been seeing as he could see no clocks, but a short look up at the sky told him that it couldn't have been longer than an hour.
"I guess, for now, I'll just assume that time goes by 3 times faster in my mind's room."
Well, what else could he do? Chang Guan knew that the Rotation Intent may very well be his largest asset in the future, and so wished to understand it.
"I've had a long enough break, time to continue."
Although he wasn't very enthusiastic about the notion, he knew he had to force himself to move. Although the day was no longer young, it wasn't old either. If he just decided to call it a day and go to sleep, no doubt about it, he was going to stay here for a very long time.
Chang Guan continued moving at a relaxed pace. Although he had to get revenge for his family, he was able to relax due to his policy. `The early bird gets the worm, but the tardy mouse gets the cheese. Rushing is never the way.´
On the boring path, Chang Guan invented a fun game. It involved thinking of a word, then, turning each letter to its corresponding place in the alphabet (Eg. A=1, B=2, so on). Then, you would have a string of numbers.
After this step, you need to add the numbers together so that there is only a single digit number left over. Then, think of a word that had the same amount of letters as the number you have and repeat.
(Eg. Cat -> 3120 -> (3+1)+(2+0) -> 4+2 -> 6 -> Double)
This game was a great waste of time for Chang Guan, who had nothing to do, and acted as a form of entertainment. He thought thoughts like, `Yeah, it's a great game. It doesn't need many people and it can make you think.´ and `Hey, this is kind of like word chain isn't it? I think I'll call it Word links... SHUT UP, it's not a rip-off!!!´
He kept on wandering while playing Word links up until the point where the sun began setting.
"Ahhhh, this is life..."