The next day I woke up earlier than I used to because today I'm going to meet my new teacher. I know nothing about him other than he used to be part of the Zen clan but left to work directly under the Empire, but owed my father a favor.
Quickly I reach out and start wearing my clothes on my own because, father and I aren't allowed to have maids attend us, or at least beautiful one's thanks to Mother. I could get Caroline to help me, but I'm not comfortable around her, even after she spent 6 years protecting me. The reason Mother is against having beautiful maids attend us is she gets jealous pretty easily, and in my case, it seems she wants me to only have her in my eyes, aka a 'mamas boy' and don't be led astray by some vixen trying to climb the ranks, or worse succumb to lust in an early age.
I asked her if I wasn't supposed to like wait about 10 years more to even think about that stuff, then she just laughed like never before. Apparently most nobles mary when they reach 12 years old though that's only minor Royal families that want more influence by marriage, and the major Royal families wait till about 15 years old depending if it's a girl or boy. If it's a boy, then they can wait till 18.
I proceed to the living room, and as I got near, the sound of bickering could be heard. I recognized one of the voices as Fathers, but the other sounded really hoarse like the person have problems with a cold. I didn't think too much about it, as I stepped in father called me over.
"Oh, son you are finally up, quick come over and greet your teacher," he said as if I have slept the whole day, but whatever.
I sat down on the sofa beside my father, as I sat down I looked at my supposed teacher, evaluating him, as did he with me. He would look like a typical knight in fairytales with golden long hair to the shoulders and a little subtle beard on the chin, but his green poisonous predator eyes looking at me destroys that image.
"My name's Gozuki," he said with that really hoarse voice again, coupled with those eyes, it would easily give a normal child a fright, but well I'm not normal.
"My name's Tatsuki" is all I said cooly, though it's because I'm not any good at socializing. After a good few seconds of silence, Father became the meditator between us.
*COUGH COUGH*"As I told you, son, Gozuki here used to be part of our clan but left to work directly under the Empire. He could not awake his Kagune, so he put all his effort into other Body Manipulation Arts. He can only train you for a year before he has other work to do, so work hard." I was told with a stern tone at the end.
"Yes father"
---About 1 year later---
I could be seen sitting on the windy balcony of the mansion meditating, but if you take a closer look you can see my long hair which now reached down to my torso and the outer layer's bangs struts outwards kinda like a hedgehog, is not flying around at all in the strong wind.
Then my muscles tensed a little and I shouted.
"HAAAAH", and my hair turned fully pointy like deadly needles and my subconscious told me I have finally unlocked the skill.
[Body Manipulation]
-[Hair Manipulation Lvl 1 (Strengthened hair to become deadly needles. Limited to users hair length)]
Then I opened my eyes and felt a planet changing color on my back, to symbolize my advancement. Gozuki sat at the rail a few meters away overlooking my training as he has done for the last year. When we began training he said as I'm still a child I have to build a foundation first before learning anything else, and I couldn't agree more, though he did think I would protest.
We used the first 3 months strengthening my body with various CrossFit exercises like Squats, Pull-ups, Presses, and run before he began teaching me Hand to Hand Combat, though I did play ignorant at first about how to fight, to not risk any questions about my experience from my previous life.
After some time I began using my "Lazy Art" where I only do necessary movements with no energy waste, and when the other Zen clan members first saw it they laughed their asses off, by how I'm trying to play cool, but not Gozuki.
On the surface, he saw me as a lazy kid with eyes half-closed and hands resting on my belt full of openings, but behind me was a phantom of an Asura ready for action.
When we finished Hand to Hand Combat, we proceeded to train swordsmanship while still training my body. At first, we used only light practice swords, then steadily increasing the weight of it. As I reached my limit lifting the sword because of its weight, I again used the "Lazy Art" to use the sword properly, and this time Gozuki called me a "Monster".
He could only see me as a kid resting a too heavy sword on the ground right to me, and still half-closed eyes as if bored, but no phantom or battle intent and full of openings. As we spared he figured out that I can swing the sword terrifyingly efficient, by always using momentum and discarding defense over offense.
As my time training was beginning to run out, he tried teaching me his Body Manipulation Arts which brings me to now.
"Tatsuki you really don't have the same frightening talent in Body Manipulation as you do in Hand to Hand Combat and Swordsmanship," Gozuki said after I just learned:
-[Hair Manipulation Lvl 1 (Strengthened hair to become deadly needles. Limited to users hair length)]
"Well, sorry?" I answered him, but what he doesn't know is that I can easily unluck his Body manipulations in the Skill Tree by fulfilling the requirements without actually training them like I have been doing with the [Hair Manipulation] skill.