Ryo was late. Every day, right before sunset. That was the deal. We would go and spar until we covered ourselves in bruises. In these moments, our pent up aggressions would be released in a fury of blows. It was the best of times, and it was also the worst.
The day Ryo's mother became ill, I had never seen such passion in his sparring. He moved the 'bokken' as if it were another section of his own body. The fury he possessed that afternoon was uncanny.
After that moment, he improved his overall skill with the 'bokken' exponentially. I felt that if I don't improve soon, he's going to leave me behind. Today I was going to beat him. Today I was going to improve, just as he had. I kept telling myself positive things, hoping that they would become true.
The sun sank slowly into the horizon, and I was alone in the dark. Upset, I began to throw my 'bokken' as hard as I could muster, stopping myself. Still angry, I hit the 'bokken' against the oak that Ryo and I sparred at repetitively. Closing my eyes, I did this while lost in my thoughts. Before I knew it, heat singed my skin. Overwhelmed with pain I threw the now-on-fire 'bokken' down, instantly extinguishing the flame. What had just happened?
I bent down and picked up the cooled down, yet scorched 'bokken'. What in the-
"Ash?" I heard Ryo say. "Are you okay? Sorry I'm late." He then looked at my 'bokken' with confusion.
"Nothing that some cold water won't fix" I said lying about the severity of the burn on my hand. I began to feel blisters bubble up underneath my palm skin.
"You won't believe why I'm late." He said giddily, then told me about his apprenticeship. Quickly, I became jealous. The feeling faded when I thought about the scorched 'bokken'. Was that magic? I didn't even know how it happened. Did I do a spell?
"So I see you're improving just as much as I am?" he stated, with a questioning tone. He probably expected me to explain the charred 'bokken'.
"I don't even recall how it lit on fire in the first place." At the time I was distracted, and thinking to myself. Was that how I did it? Did I access some magic reservoir without attempting to?
The next day I went to the library to look into magic books, and found some on healing related spells.
For months, I couldn't access any magic. I had stockpiled on books, and knowledge, yet I couldn't do it again. Was it a fluke? I began to attempt to burn another 'bokken' to no avail. I wanted to give up, but then I found a book on magic that informed me that a scroll existed in which it could give a non-magic user magic.
The location of the scroll is not mentioned in the book, but it did have clues that an ordinary man wouldn't see. Many references to other books I've accumulated became apparent. I studied on this and eventually noticed a small rune in one of the books. I didn't recognize the symbol, as it had many curves and lines in it.
I began to look for similar runes in the other books that were referenced. Opening a book that I thought I had memorized, I saw it. a section of a map, in the shape of a rune. The only way I knew it was a map section is because I knew the shape of a nearby river. The rune wasn't a rune at all, but a puzzle piece in a greater map of the world. Soon, I began to find pieces of the map in books in the library as well. Interesting.