The old man serves me a cup of herbal tea. It tastes quite good. I rarely join them on their little tea parties but this old man is pretty skilled. Ayaka's expression seems to have calmed down a bit. I can't let her do that.
"Hey, Ayaka. Why were you so flustered just now?" I tease her.
The old man is still sipping his tea.
"What? What you talking about?" she says nervously.
"I'm sure you know what I'm talking about" I smile mischievously.
"No, I do not"
"Yes, you do"
"No, I do not"
"Yes, I insist that you do"
"No, I said, I do not!" she snaps at me.
"Oh, shut up will you?" the old man speaks up.
That's rare.
"Apologies, master"
"Chill, master"
"Yes, I may be easygoing but please respect our humble little tea time"
"Yeah, okay" I reply.
Well, that was boring. If I knew it was going to turn out like that I would've left sooner. Well, whatever. I reach the mess hall and sit down with Jeremy. He also looks like he just got here, considering he hasn't touched his food yet. I start eating while he just stares blankly.
"Yo, the food's going to get cold at this rate"
"It already is"
"How long have you just been staring here?"
"About half an hour"
"What's up with you? Your girlfriend leave you or something?".
I don't really know what's going on to be honest. These past few months I've just been focusing on training. I haven't really talked that much with anyone. Other than the old man and Ayaka that is.
"So, what's got you like this?" I ask after he ignores my previous question.
"You know, we have our final test in a month"
"Do we?"
"Yes, Miss Sinclair did remind us quite a lot these past few days".
Man, am I really that absent minded during class? Well, whatever.
"So, why are you so worried? It's just a test"
"Well, easy for you to say. I'm just worried that if we fail, then say goodbye to our lives. That's all"
"Oh shit. Well that does sound scary. Damn. Well, just eat. There's no use in worrying too much. At this rate, you won't even have any energy left for the test"
"Yeah, you're right. It's just that I can't help but get nervous, you know? Especially after all our efforts to get here"
"Yeah, you're right but just be thankful and work even harder. I thought you weren't really the type to worry like this anyway"
"Yeah... Thanks"
"No problem".
We start eating. Jeremy seemed a bit out of it but he still managed to finish. After, we head back to our room.
"Hey" Jeremy asks.
"What's up?"
"You know, it's kinda hard to believe that we've almost spent a year here"
"Really? It feels like forever for me though"
"Well that's just you"
"Hm"
"You know, we've really changed a lot. I can barely recognize the you now"
"Really? You still look like the dumb old Jeremy"
"What?" he asks slightly irritated.
"Well, you know, you are still as hopeless as ever"
"Says the one who would always beg for my help"
"Really? Don't remember"
"Yes, really"
"Nope. Not a clue"
"Fine. Whatever" Jeremy rolls his eyes.
He then tucks himself into bed. I think I heard a little laugh. At least I managed to cheer him up.
We wake up early and both do our runs. I think it was about two months ago when I started waking up at the same time as Jeremy. He always looked so annoyed back then. Well, at least right now he looks good and refreshed. Not a hint of yesterday's jitters.
We finish up our exercises and head on for some breakfast. There, we find Marie and her old cheery self. She hasn't really changed much at all. Well, not like should care about some else's girlfriend.
"So, what do you think the final test will be like?" Marie asks naively, with pure curiosity.
Jeremy flinches.
"Um, I don't know. Let's just do our best. Oh, by the way, what do you guys do nowadays during evening classes? Same old sparring practice?" I try to change the topic.
"Oh, we stopped doing sparring practice for quite a while now" Marie answers.
"Oh, really? So, what do you guys usually do?"
"Something about assassinations techniques and what not".
I flinch. Seriously? While I have to break my back with the old man?!
"Too bad for you eh?" Jeremy scoffs.
Well, at least the mood's lighter now.
"Well, it is sort of weird though" Jeremy speaks up.
"What is?" I reply.
"Well, one day they just insisted that we should learn assassination techniques but no one really gave it a thought. Then, we learned all sorts of things, like how to kill quick and painlessly or give them a slow death. Then, the instructor told us that it's really important for us to master it since it might be important for the very near future"
"So, what's up with that?"
"Well, I just can't shake the feeling that it has something to do with our final test" "So, we're going to kill someone. What's wrong with that?"
"Well, nothing, really. I just can't help but feel like there's something ominous..."
"I'm sure it's just you"
"Well, maybe. Who knows".
We all finish up and head to class.
"Good morning everyone" Miss Sinclair says as she walks in.
"I'll remind you, again, that you will be having your final tests very soon. I hope everyone will be prepared. And, as always, I won't be disclosing any information regarding it. That is all. Shall we begin?".
Classes went on like it always does. Except something quite interesting happened...
"So, assassination techniques. Excited?"
"Hell yeah!" I shout.
Miss Sinclair smiles eerily at me for some weird reason.
"Okay, so lets get a move on, shall we? Today we will be learning about acute poisoning"
"What's that?" I ask.
Everyone looks at me. What's that supposed to mean?
"I believe we have learnt some basics about this" Miss Sinclair says as she looks at me with mischievous eyes.
"Too bad for Erik Moonstone, since he tragically couldn't learn about all this. Well, he always seemed uninterested anyway, so failing is inevitable I guess".
I sit there dumbfounded. Umm.. yeah.
Class ends after four hours of things I hardly ever understood. Like, how the hell does even water poison you? And what are agents that act on your neural systems? I thought shrinking people was a technology yet to be discovered? So how do you shrink agents then? Man, I'm getting a headache just from thinking about it. I look at Jeremy sheepishly.
"There, there" he comforts me.
"Don't worry, I'll explain it a bit tonight. Don't worry" he says reliably.
Well, at least he's willing to share. Good for me I have such a great but dumb friend.
We both head to lunch together. This is the first time in a few months. We both enjoy it while having some laughs here and there. Marie seemed a bit awkward but was probably happy that the two of us were having a good time. I head back to my room after lunch. Jeremy said he had something to do. I thought we were going to hang out a bit more but it's all good. I take a quick nap.
_
I wake up at around 3:50 pm. Jeremy was just sitting on his bed, fiddling with his eyePhone.
"Hey, I'll be going first"
"Yeah, sure" Jeremy answers, still fiddling with his eyePhone. I wonder what he's doing. Maybe some nerdy stuff. I head on over to the dojo. I enter, seeing Ayaka and master train near the pond.
"Ah, perfect timing" master says as he sees me enter.
"What's up?"
"Haha, something you will like" he says excitedly.
"Follow me" he says as he guides me in the dojo.
"So, what are we doing?"
"Haha, first, you must focus your energy into your abs".
I take a deep breath and brace my ab muscles.
"Now look carefully" he says as he curls all but his pointy and middle fingers on his right hand.
Then, strikes rapidly around my abdomen. I gush out tons of air and almost felt like throwing up. I clench my stomach, gasping for air. What the hell was that attack? Not to mention even after hardening my body through all those exercises!
"Haha, painful is it? For your info, that was only forty percent of my power. How about that, young man?"
"What the heck did you do?"
"Haha, that, was my precious martial arts! The art of acupressure"
"What's that?"
"I just told you. My martial arts!"
"Yeah, I know, but what did you do?"
"Haha, that is what I'll be teaching you!".
Now I'm finally going to be doing something cool.
"Now, acupressure is an ancient medical art of the Chinese. What I'm doing here is something very similar. In acupressure, you would put pressure on acupoints to release stress and muscle tension. This is more like an extreme version of that. For example, just now I inserted a huge amount of force to an acupoint near your liver. That sudden shock caused your liver to compress in a violent motion. If I were to put a much stronger force, considering your body it would most likely cause internal bleeding"
"Woah, that's some cool shit! So when am I going to learn to do it?"
"Right now of course"
"Cool!"
"But first, you must know the acupoints of a human body"
"And how do I do that?".
The old man just smiles at me.
"Open you eyePhone" he says.
"Okay..?".
I turn it on. I see a new notification and pressed it. There was apparently a new book added to my library. It was an unlisted book named '361 Acupoints of Humans'.
"So, what is this?"
"For you to study of course! Haha, if you don't even know where to target, how are you supposed to even learn it in the first place!" the old man bursts into laughter.
"Now, now. At least I won't tell you to do anymore manual labor. Though you do have to just sit here and learn all that" he says cheekily as he leaves.
Ughh.
I take a seat and start skimming through the book. Well, this looks boring. I start back at page one and actually started reading through all this. I guessed that I had to at least start somewhere. I keep whining about not getting to learn martial arts, but now that I finally have a quite decent master, I'm too lazy to learn. I let out a deep sigh. Mom was right. Knowledge is power. I always thought it was cliché but she was right. Well, no use complaining now. I'll just have to study hard.
I actually got pretty invested into this thing. It's not really as boring as I thought. Without realizing it, two hours flew by. Master came in.
"Haha, looking good, are we?"
"Yeah, it's not as bad as I initially thought"
"Well, good for you! How far have you gotten now?"
"I think I got most of the back"
"Good, good!"
"Why?"
"Well, let's practice on me"
"You sure, old man?"
"Yes, definitely"
"Okay. It's your funeral".
The old man lies down, face-front. I try hitting an acupoint.
"Oooh, man, that's good"
"What was that? I couldn't hear you"
"Ouch! You really got a spot!"
"What did you expect, master? I'm really good at these sorts of things" I say proudly.
I hit another spot.
"Man that feels really goo- I mean, man, that hurts!"
"Muahaha" I let out an evil laugh.
I try another spot.
"Oh man, that's so fucking amazi- painful!!"
"Of course! I'm a natural!".
After a few more, the old man tells me to stop. He looks super satisfied for some reason. "
What's with that look?" I ask.
"Ahh, all my pain is gone..."
"What was that?"
"Ah, I mean, all that was really good! You are a natural!"
"Hehe, of course I am!"
"Good, good. We will do more tomorrow"