We passed through the city with no problems this time, a stark difference from the last city we were in, I know.
And that must also be why Kaz wants to get to the tower, which is after the next town on our route, as quickly as possible, which is to say without distractions or detours.
And worst of all, our training doesn't count as a diversion or distraction. A conclusion that I completely disagree with, even more so now that we only stop to eat and sleep. Kaz says our bodies should take a little harder training now, so he wants to test our limits before he has access to the tower's equipment.
Needless to say, the combination of the arsonist and vaguely described equipment makes me think of this monster running a torture room.
It must just be my resentment and trauma warping my thoughts, probably.
All in all the rings with the lapis stones are an interesting reward, and useful, since as Kaz said, they won't give me a flame just because I asked for it.
Damn it. I'm turning into an arsonist too, aren't I?
How long until I start setting fire to everything I see? No, calm down, Baha, just because everyone around me is kind of crazy doesn't mean I have to go crazy too.
It's no use worrying for nothing, before we get to the tower I'm going to ask Kaz and Mingten if the progression of a Synchroner can change the way the practitioner thinks.
Unfortunately I'll have to wait a while before clearing my doubts, I'm broken physically and mentally, I can't wait to throw myself on a bed, or anything even as long as I can sleep.
How did I end up traveling with these two lunatics who don't even stop to look at the scenery? Don't answer, I know how.
After the usual, going through the guards, bribing them not to ask too many questions, finding a forgettable inn and booking separate rooms for the night, I was finally able to rest.
When I make my way downstairs to where the two lunatics are starting breakfast, normal scene, the only time I wasn't the last to wake up was when Mingten went overboard in training and ended up exhausted.
I go to the table, take one of the apples that were in the fruit bowl and start eating, as soon as I finish the apple I look into Kaz's eyes and ask:
"How do I reach the second stage, and what are the risks that accompany the progression of a Synchroner?"
The monster looks at me, with the same look on his face as if he was woken up just after falling asleep, which he tends to get in the early hours of the morning.
"Opening a channel on your dantian." He responds like it's the most obvious thing in the world and leaves me waiting for the rest of the explanation for two minutes in absolute silence.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I ask, while internally regretting that the good manners I was proud of are going down the drain every day I spend with these two freaks.
"Baha, think about what you can currently synchronize?" Mingten responds with a question while Kaz continues to pretend to be mute just to annoy us.
"Fire, or rather the combustion process and different members of my body." I answer without thinking too much.
"Now why can you sync with these things?" She asks again, what a roundabout way to answer.
"Fire because I used it to create my dantian, and my body, I don't know, it just looked natural." I answer what I know for sure, I have a conjecture as to why I can sync different body parts but it's nothing worth mentioning as far as I know.
"Baha think again how do you manage to synchronize with the flames?" Can't you just answer at once?
Wait a minute, how did I get the ability to synchronize with the flames? I feel a cold sweat trickle down the back of my neck, and I turn to Kaz and see him staring at me with a sadistic smile as pronounced as when he increases the difficulty of our training.
"Not again. You can't be serious, I'm not going to have to go through something like that at every stage?" Now I'm the one answering with a question, which I hope the answer is a big 'NO' without any 'but'.
"No" Finish that sentence right there Mingten "exactly, but" fuck you. "may end up being very similar." She finishes the sentence without considering my renewed hatred for the word 'but'.
"Hugg, please stop this torture just tell me what I have to do and how much it will hurt." Another fact society may be hiding about Synchroners, everyone is masochist to some extent. I honestly want to be wrong about this.
"Okay, okay. I won't tease you about it anymore." Mintten speaks and then points to Kaz who is beside her "But as you know it's impossible to control this old man, so if he continues we just have to hold on."
I'm unfortunately starting to think this is just a rule of the world, like the sun rises in the east and then sets in the west and the seasons change in an orderly fashion Kaz can't be controlled.
That's how the world is.
"To proceed to the second stage you must first create an isolated space in your dantian, this space must not contain any Ki of any kind before you open the channel." Mignten begins to explain how to advance the stage, hallelujah.
"Why?" I ask right away.
"Some types of Ki conflict if used at the same time, so to avoid accidents we started to create a vacuum to isolate the new type of Ki from what was already in the dantian." Mingten responds.
"Okay, and after that?" I ask again.
"After that you will introduce the new Ki into that vacuum, and then condense and expand the energy in that vacuum until it pierces your dantian, and continue expanding that in an upward line stopping right in the center of your chest." She answers without showing impatience, she is without a doubt a better teacher than Kaz.
Which in retrospect isn't a very high standard.
"Hmm, puncturing my dantian and conflicting energies? This sounds troublesome, and I still have a lot of questions." I speak after reflecting for exactly three seconds on this new information.
"Which?" Mintten speaks, still no mood swings.
"First, why does every new Synchroner power seem to come with a risk of death, or a lot of pain at the very least?" Seriously, if all the stages are like this, my thesis that every Synchroner goes crazy as he progresses from stage may have some basis.
"Second, why stop the channel in the center of my chest, isn't there another place not so close to vital organs?" From what I can imagine of conflicting energies, placing the channel right in that area is like putting a bomb between my lungs and my heart.
"To the first question: I have no idea." She speaks by turning her palms up and shaking her shoulders.
More and more my thesis of the 'Crazy Synchro' gains plausibility.
"The second is for the same reason you create your dantian, in the lower part of your abdomen, in our body there are three points where energy tends to settle and flow better, as a Synchroner advances each of these points becomes a dantian ." Well I hadn't thought much about it, I just kind of boiled it down to 'it's Synchro so I must be raising my dantian in the same position as Kaz created his' but it seems it's more of a universal law than personal preference.
"And in the case of the former it's really dependent on the type of energy you're going to use, in other words not every Ki combination is a ticking time bomb in your body." Kaz finally resolves to speak up.
"Okay, so once I make this isolated space in my dantian and add another type of Ki I will have reached the second stage?" I ask to see if there is anything else.
"Yea." Kaz responds with an attempt at a poker face, it's getting better but not enough to fool anyone who's seen him do it before.
"What is he omitting from this explanation?" I ask Mingten.
"Whatever you must do to not destroy your dantian in the process and be a real Synchroner and not just in name." Mingten speaks with a sigh as he stares at Kaz who is still trying to keep his poker face.
"Okay can you explain to me why you skipped everything before the second stage?" Can you please just answer my question at once?
"Because what comes before is what we're doing now, increase our sync rate, our Ki control, the volume of it and compress it to the limit of our dantian and then use that condensed Ki with our control refined by training and our control over Synchro to create the vacuum bubble I told you about earlier." Mingten speaks quickly, leaning her head on one hand, looking exhausted from all this discussion. "Satisfied now?"
"Yea." Finally my answers! "After all, why do you guys bother so much to answer me?"
Mingten gives me a warning look and says:
"Do you want to get punched, Baha?"
"No." Obvious right?
"Then shut up for a bit."
What did I do anyway?
"We're leaving town in an hour and go get your things." Kaz speaks as if this whole chaotic exchange wasn't mostly his fault.
"Okay." Mingten and I answered at almost the same time.
Two more days and I'll see if this trip was worth it when we get to the tower, if not I'll go back and wander around.
Even though I have already become a Synchroner and since I won't have anyone who can guide me through the next stages I may end up following these crazy people until the 'basic from hell' training is over.
After the warning from the human monster, Kaz, each of us goes to our respective room and leaves the luggage we are going to take packed, not that it was difficult, each of us three are taking few things with us. And of course we took advantage of the free time until the departure time that we had agreed to cultivate.
*************
"Do you want to get punched, Baha?"
Seriously airhead, the brat is trying to explain the process to you in general terms because she doesn't want to reveal too much about the type of energy she uses.
How did this guy not notice that she always tries to mask her attacks with Wind Ki?
And he even managed to put both of the more experienced Synchroners at the table in a bad mood as at the moment advancement of stage is a sensitive subject for us. For me, because I've been stuck in my current stage for a long time and I don't see myself advancing that fast, as for the brat, she's barely holding back not to advance before firming the foundations of the second stage.
And he starts talking about advancing stages as if it's something trivial, thank goodness Mingten gave him a warning, if a Synchroner who's having trouble advancing overhears us he might try to take out his frustration on us.
Not that it's dangerous, just annoying, except for someone who's in the ninth stage.
Well it doesn't help to think about it, let's go to the next stop.