When I wake up the first thing I notice is the pain in my muscles, I'm not used to working out at all, and getting beat up while working out doesn't help with the pain too much either. But I can manage, so I stand up and walk outside.
Outside Goba is looking up at the sky, his back is turned to me so I can't see his face, he seems lonely. I think I should just act normal, if he wants to talk, he'll talk.
"Goodmorning Goba, what will you teach me today?"
The loneliness around Goba breaks, he turns around and looks at me. I think he looks pretty eager, eager to kink my but.
"We'll continue training your battle awareness. We'll battle to take care of your lack of experience, I've seen youngsters your age that aren't Creators that wouldn't even give you the opportunity to come close as you are now."
And here I thought I was getting pretty okay. I think he's right, even in that dream I just got lucky. I can't help but letting my shoulders drop slightly. But while I was walking towards the scythe my shoulders rise again, and my head held high. So what that others are better than I am now, so what that I might not be the biggest genius. I'll work myself upwards, I'll become strong on my own way, I'll beat up all those others who think that they can beat me even before I can get close.
With the scythe in my hand I turn around and look at Goba, I get in stance, the blade on my right pointing forward and the staff horizontally in front of my body.
"Come!"
~~~~~~~~~
I'm cleaning myself and my rags in the creek after the training, Goba helped me getting here. My body is bruised and even has some marks that burst open after getting hit with a stick. But what surprises me the most is that the bruises from two days back are mostly gone already. It's way faster than what I'm used to, who knew exercise could do this to you.
It's great that I heal this fast, otherwise I'd look like that blue and green man I saw once, he looked scary. When he looked at me everything in me screamed at me to run, so I did.
"You did good today, you're getting better faster than I expected, we might speed up the training."
This makes me quite surprised, I didn't get any hits in today, but I did get hit less today. Maybe that's why he said I'm doing good today. As long as I don't get hurt there will be a moment where I can hurt the opponent. But for now I can only try my best to become better.
"I'll do my best to become stronger Goba, and I will if you keep teaching me!"
I'm excited about that idea, this few days are the happiest I've been I think. Maybe it's not all happiness, but normally I'd just be trying to survive another day, there wasn't anything to be happy or unhappy about.
Goba nods and soon after we return to the shed.
~~~~~~~~~
Once we're there he watches me start meditation, as I'm getting more and more focused on imagining the flow go through my body I faintly feel something sharp touch my hand. But as it's barely there I ignore it, and as I continue I think I actually feel warmth flowing in my hand, following where I imagine it to go.
"Today I want you to think about where you want to go with your scythe, it's not the most simple weapon to wield, it has many bad points, but it also has many good points. This makes it a weapon that doesn't have any fixed paths, that's why I want you to think about your path, a way to let your scythe become an extention of yourself."
After this I don't hear Goba anymore, and I lose myself in my thoughts. The warmth slowly flowing through me following my flow helps me relax my muscles and makes it easier to imagine where it flows.
As for my path? What do I expect from my scythe? I think I want it to be another limb that isn't stuck to my body, a limb that will take hits for me, a limb that will create openings to take advantage of, and a limb that will take down the opponent in a single hit given the chance.
But this isn't enough, I also need to use the opponents force against them. Otherwise I need to give up speed to make myself stronger. I also don't think that I want to use small weapons, if that's enough to brake the others defence my hands should be enough too. Palm strikes feel like I need to use them, I don't know why, but it's something I want to learn how to perform properly.
So when I sum it up, I want explosive speed to create and take adventure of openings. I also want to up my defence, if there's someone who takes advantage of my weak points I still won't get hurt, and when he's surprised, I can take him down.
For what feels like hours and seconds at the same time, the day flies past. Just as the last light leaves the shed Goba comes in, we greet and he gives me a piece of bread.
"So, do you have an idea for your path?"
I look at Goba with a face that shows him I've thought about it. And I start explaining the things that I thought of.
"... So to sum it up, I want explosive speed to create and take advantage of openings, and to get my scythe where I want it to be to defend me. I want to learn how to do a proper palm strike that gives such a punch that the opponent is at least stunned. And I want an unrivalled defence as my hidden ace, that even when they get past my scythe they still won't be able to do anything.
Goba, is this all possible?"
He's stunned, absolutely stunned. He takes a big breath and looks me in the eyes.
"It's all possible, but it'll be hard. As a monster tamer you'll need at least 3 monsters to get that effect, one for your perception, one for your flesh to let it exert explosive strength, and one for your skin to be stronger than steel. But it'll be hard and it'll take a long time."
He sighs again and continues.
"Now we're talking about that, you'll need to know how to evolve your monsters to give you what you need. So listen up and remember everything I say."