The day was the 19th of Kraal, year 991.
On the morning of that day Blink was enjoying coffee with his brother-in-law, the twenty-seven year old village chief of Kasgar, Jogr.
It had been fifty-seven days since Blink left the Ragha Martial Arts Academy. At this very moment Blink was a much different fighter from the one who left the academy.
In such a short span of time Blink had developed three fighting techniques: the [Returning Palm], [Curling Strike] and [Hidden Dagger Fist]. The [Hidden Dagger Fist] was actually the name he gave to the hammer fist style that he had been developing for Hubr. He called it that because the strikes were executed as if one were stabbing with a dagger held in the reverse grip.
Of the three, the [Curling Strike] had been Blink's most valuable martial art technique. It was the product of a profound moment of enlightenment. When integrated into some of Blink's techniques—be it with the fist, leg, sword or quarterstaff—the resulting technique would show glimpses of profound level mastery.
There were five known levels of mastery of a martial arts technique in Blink's world: Foundation, Novice, Advanced, Expert, and Profound. There was said to be a sixth and a seventh level called the Legendary and Godly levels, respectively. However, such levels of mastery were admitted by even profound level masters to be impossible at the current era.
Qat'l Banwar was said to have propagated a legendary level of mastery with spear and sword techniques. As for Milal, his swordsmanship was generally regarded as godly while his fist techniques were around the legendary level.
Over the past seven days, Blink didn't feel the need to increase the length of his "flame daggers". Instead, he focused on summoning "flame daggers" on both hands and shooting them from his hands. Technically, he failed at both objectives. However, Blink still benefited much from such failures.
When he tried summoning the "flame daggers" with both hands, he was able to bring them out successfully. However, it only lasted five seconds. He also felt drained of whatever it was that fuelled the fire in his hands. Aside from this, he also almost fainted from dizziness and a sharp pain in the middle of his brow.
Blink learned later on that his brain gave out warning signals when his magic fuel was about to run out. Thus, he had learned to retract his "flame daggers" as soon as he received the warning signal in his brain. He had also discovered that he could use the technique on both hands much longer if he reduced the length of the "daggers" to an inch only.
As for shooting his "flame daggers" into the air, Blink discovered after much experimentation that he could optimize the skill if he summoned only one. So, he designated his right index finger as the shooter for the flying "flame dagger". He would point his index finger on a target, summon the "flame dagger" then shoot it towards the target.
Since there was no difference in effect between a shorter "flame dagger" and a longer one, Blink decided to limit the size of his flying "flame dagger" to about half the length of his thumb. This allowed him to shoot more flaming "daggers" into the air before he had to recharge again.
Based on his most recent training, Blink estimated the most effective range of his flying "flame dagger" to five meters. Beyond that, it would be hard for his mind to sustain the trajectory of the projectile. Worse, he would also lose "fuel" much more quickly.
It was slow progress, but Blink was more than satisfied. It was still one nasty weapon to have at his disposal. Furthermore, with constant practice, he was quite sure he could still expand the effective range of the flying "flame dagger" by several meters more.
In fact, even at an effective range of five meters, this magical projectile was already a killer technique. Just the other day, Blink shot down an enraged boar with a blast from his index finger. The boar was so huge that half of its meat was still stewing on the stove as Blink and Jogr enjoyed Magra's brewed coffee.
As for his martial arts training, Blink was able to complete the third set of movements for the [Returning Palm] style. He had also started designing the fourth set of movement, the main feature of which would be the integration of the [Curling Strike] to the palm attacks. Blink made a mental note to draw up a manual for the third movement to be left behind for Hubr.
Blink estimated that Hubr should be ready to comprehend the nuances of the third set of movements by the time the Ragha Martial Arts Academy would conduct its recruitment for apprentices. The recruitment would be done a few months before the start of year 993. That meant that Hubr had a year and a few months more to prepare for the recruitment trials.
Just like Senior Brother Garth, Blink was very confident in Hubr's chances of getting recruited. This despite the fact that he would only be nine years old at the time. Like Berge, Hubr could very well be the youngest from among the fourth batch of apprentices to be recruited to Master Tszarek's school of martial arts.
Blink believed that Hubr's solid foundation and already superior blocking and evasion gqve the boy an almost assured probability of getting selected. If one were to factor in his development with the first two movements of the [Returning Palm] and his development with the [Hidden Dagger Fist], it should be impossible for Hubr not to get in. Blink was quite sure that Hubr would have trained the second movement of the [Returning Palm] to the advanced level in a year's time.
Having seen nearly every form of martial arts practiced in Ragha, Blink was very much certain that his [Returning Palm] would be unmatched in close quarter combat once it reaches an advanced level of mastery.
As for Senior Brother Garth, the techniques he was trying to develop and integrate into his "Gentle Brook with Hidden Depths" style only needed a few more sparring bouts to take form. In fact, Blink could almost see what the various techniques' form would be and he found them rather interesting. He was planning on adapting a few of them into his own fighting style as soon as he had reached an expert level of mastery with the three body of techniques he had created.
Sipping coffee from an almost empty cup, Blink contemplated his preparations for the journey ahead. There was still so much to be done and so little time to do it. But he was not so worried about it anymore. When one could shoot concentrated flames by just pointing one's finger, what was there to fear?
After drinking coffee, Blink accompanied Jogr to the farm.
The grains could already be harvested in a couple of days. Blink felt guilty that he had not bothered even once to ask Master Tszarek for a leave during harvest time like some of his fellow disciples did. It was as if he had forgotten that he was a farmer's son once he had entered the academy.
Seeing a flock of birds feasting on the grains near the south-eastern edge of the field, Blink went to shoo the birds away. He noticed that the scarecrow had been damaged, so he went to fix it up.
While fixing the scarecrow, Blink noticed his brother-in-law out of the corner his eyes. He was doing a few moves that were very similar to that from the first movement of the [Returning Palm].
After they were done inspecting the farm, Blink asked his brother-in-law if he wanted to learn martial arts.
"Nah, I'm too old for that," he replied laughing.
"Not really," Blink said.
Blink knew that his Namgun Jogr participated in the recruitment for the first class of disciples in the year 972 as a ten-year old but unfortunately did not make the cut. He had broken his hand from his first sparring and could no longer fight afterwards.
"You're not that old yet," Blink pursued the matter.
"So, you'll teach me?"
"Yes."
"And I'll have to call you Teacher?"
Blink twisted his lips and nodded his head. "Yeah," he said matter-of-factly.
"I'll think about it."
"That's good."
"Forever."
"…"