By the front gate, Chan waves goodbye to his father as his father rides off into the distance with his men.
Wanting to impress his father whenever he returned, Chan went to train and study more motivated than ever.
5 months go by.
Training and Studying hard, Chan made leaps in both fields.
Being really young, he was able to quickly grasp a lot of information.
Learning from great teachers, Chan was able to read and write. He also was now able to wield a sword with a shield.
Learning the way of using the sword and shield was a big disappointment for Chan, as he thought he would learn special moves. There were no special techniques or moves, just basic attack and defense uses of a sword and shield.
During the 5 months that passed, his teacher Co Cho left around the fourth month. He taught all that he can to Chan and gave him some extra assignments.
Reading books about the new world he was reborn into he came to the conclusion that he was born into a war-torn land. The continent was split into 8 different kingdoms.
The kingdoms were: Jo, Kan, Wugo, Fen, Sotu, Mi, Vin, and Biyou.
Almost all kingdoms were hostile towards each other, but during the present time, Kan and Mi bordering each other had a temporal alliance. The alliance had lasted about 10 years, it was agreed upon as the two kingdoms wanted to expand and didn't want to be attacked by one another during their expansion.
All of the kingdoms based on recent maps were about the same size except for Vin being a little bit bigger.
In the past, Vin was closest to uniting all of the Ba continents but their king died of a heart attack.
After Co Cho left, Chan would spend his time in the library after he finished his training with Ren.
Sitting alone in the library with a book in his hands, Chan was distracted when he heard a knock on the door.
( Knock! Knock! )
"Young Master, would you like to see your brother off as he's about to make his way to the capital to participate in the Tournament Of Youth?" Lili asked.
"Oh yea, I almost forgot about that," said Chan as he was walking towards the door.
Making his way to the front gate Chan could see his mother hugging Po.
Po listening to his mother's words and noticing Chan waved for Chan to come over.
After Mrs. Ibu wished Po good luck and for him to be safe, Po hugged Chan and told him, "I'll go there and bring back good news, little brother. I'll try to make it hard for you to top my performance later in the future.".
Riding off with his entourage Po looked back and heard Chan yell out, "You better not lose!". Po smiled as he got further away from his home.
The upcoming week went by quickly and quietly as the training hall in the Ibu estate was not in use by the students learning from Oga as he had gone off with Po.
Although there were none of Oga's students in the training hall, there were two people in there.
Ren and Chan having more time to use the training hall tried to progress Chan's ki utilization as much as possible before the others return.
"Draw out your ki and start with the warm-up," Ren instructed Chan.
Chan was now able to store ki in his lower abdomen and draw out the ki whenever he wanted.
Drawing out his ki he started the 100 slashes and stabs right away.
Seeing Chan finish his last thrust Ren instructed Chan, "Good, now get ready to block and parry my strikes.".
Ren charged toward Chan and swung his sword downwards, aiming for Chan's left shoulder.
( Thunk! — Skid! )
Chan blocks the swing and pivots off his left foot towards his left, causing Ren's sword to slide off his shield.
Immediately after blocking and shedding the blow, Chan jumps backward to create separation.
Not giving Chan any time to catch his breath, Ren closed the distance with a lunging thrust.
( Thunk! )
Seeing the tip of the sword come for his chest Chan quickly deflected the stab.
Knees bent and feet planted, Ren was able to spin off the deflection and horizontally slash while spinning. Aiming for Chan's right arm.
In the motion of spinning, Chan saw the back of Ren, with his left foot in front he jumped forward with his right foot before pivoting off his left foot again doing a C-like maneuver.
Ren slashed at nothing and had lost sight of Chan. It was as though Chan had vanished.
Confused Ren looked up and down trying to find Chan.
"I'm right here."
Ren heard a voice say behind him.
Turning around and seeing Chan he again went after him.
Bringing his sword back towards his left side he swung his sword again aiming for Chan's right arm.
Prepared, Chan also swings his sword trying to clash with Ren.
While the motion of his swing Ren changed the trajectory of his blade by rotating through his elbow making his blade's motion whip-like.
( Whoosh! )
Ren stopped the blade right in front of Chan's forehead.
Staring at the edge of the wooden sword, Chan jumped back.
Continuously defending Ren, Chan lasted about another 10 minutes before he depleted all of his ki.
Noticing that Chan had no more ki, Ren told Chan to regather some ki as they are moving on to the next lesson.
Opening his eyes after gathering the ki, Ren told Chan, "Now it's time to infuse your ki into your weapons.". Chan for a while has struggled trying to infuse his ki into his weapon. They had to replace about 21 wooden swords and shields as they would either explode or break from Chan trying to infuse his ki.
Unlike the body where ki can naturally pass through, his weapons weren't the same.
He had to infuse the ki to strengthen the structure of the weapon before the ki is able to escape and surround the weapon. If he just forces his ki to surround the weapon it would easily break if it hits something. If he forces his ki through the weapon it would explode from the rush of ki.
Chan had to carefully infuse the ki at the flow and pace. He has to maintain the flow and pace at all times when using weapons infused with ki. So using infused ki and fighting was like playing chess while running a marathon.
Struggling still Chan was only able to strengthen the structure of his weapons before the lesson ended.
"We'll start again tomorrow, that'll be it for today," said Ren.
Stopped by his mother when making his way toward the library he was told Po made it to the capital 2 days ago and that the tournament was today.
"That's great news mother, we should wish him good luck," Po told his mother.
"Yea," replied Mrs. Ibu as the two sent out a prayer wishing Po good luck.
The world that Chan was reborn into believed in two gods, the mother of life and the father of death.
The mother of life helped make the world and the father of death take the souls of the dead.
Before going to war people pray that the father of death let them live through the battle. While their loved ones wish the mother of life give them strength to come back home.
"Please mother of life give my son strength and fortune to come back home safely," prayed Mrs. Ibu.
"Amen," Chan thought to himself.
Finishing his day by reading books and then eating with his mom, Chan went to sleep.