Well, this was the most awkward sleepover Karni had in a while. The two actually slept at Siduo's house. This was something the academy didn't allow, but her dad guaranteed that he'll take care of it.
They still had to go to school early though. They couldn't oversleep, like when they were children. Because they were not in their dorms, and far away, they went so early that the school gates weren't even open yet. They had to wait outside… Or jump over.
"Wanna take a little nap in our rooms still? We still have about an hour left." Siduo looked towards Karni.
Karni stared at the wall for a second. "Eh." And jumped over. Why the hell not. Siduo followed soon after.
Both of them entered Karni's room. "Yep, your room still needs cleaning."
"Ew. Cleaning in the morning. Just let me nap for a bit."
"Nah, we clean." She took a particular posture.
"Why are you doing a superhero pose?" Karni looked at her weirdly. This was a classic superman pose, did she see it somewhere?
"What's that?" She returned a confused gaze.
"Forget about it." Karni went to the bathroom and brought out a basket to put clothes into, as well as some cleaner.
"Let's get started then." Karni put the basket in the middle of the room.
While the room was a mess, the two of them working together took care of cleaning fast. The room was dusty, clothes were everywhere, but it didn't smell bad and there wasn't any trash piled up.
"Hey Kiki, I was thinking, what if we make trackers for each other?" Siduo continued to clean the room. They've mostly been diligent and quiet the whole time, whether it be from focusing on cleaning or the awkwardness between them.
"Where did that come from? Also, it sounds creepy."
"Well, think about it, since we both worry about each other so much," she winked, "we might as well give ourselves some safety measures. And besides, they'd be useful in the Spirit Ascension Platform too."
Karni thought for a moment, her logic was sound. "Sure we can do that, but the distance probably won't be too great. We can't borrow the federation's network for this. I doubt Teacher Mo would let us use them in the Spirit Ascension Platform though."
"At least we'll know which direction one of us last went if we're separated."
"Seriously though, what brought this on?"
"I've just been thinking. I cherish you. I don't want to lose you, so I think something like this might be good." She avoided his eyes a bit. It did sound like an overprotective mother or a possessive girlfriend thing to do.
"You don't want to lose me? Girl, you're the one who almost died last time I checked."
Siduo scratched her head. "I get it, I get it. Are you in or nah."
"Sure. We can make it, but let's first discuss the functions instead eh?"
"Well, for starters, a tracking distance of at least a kilometre would be good."
"You realise we're already reaching rank 4 soul tools with just that right? Either that, or the soul tool will be too big." Karni reminded.
"Okay then, 500 metres should be more than doable for a smaller device."
"That's true. We might have to use thousand-refined metals though, it's gonna be costly."
"Well, we better give it as many functions as possible then. I think it's worth it for a device like this."
"Hmm. We can add a heart tracking monitor as well. Shouldn't be too hard. That way we can check what sort of state the other one is in."
Siduo nodded. "That's definitely useful. In the future, it would also be great to make them blood bound. That way, if we're ever captured, they can't take it off of us."
Yeesh, that ain't gonna happen for a long time you know?"
"I know, but I still think it's useful to make it with that in mind."
"Might as well just make it a wristwatch then. Something like a sports watch, though we probably can't fit everything in yet, we should eventually add some analytical data and what not later on."
Siduo looked at Karni, she wore a nostalgic look in her eyes. At the same time, there was also excitement.
Karni didn't notice this as his brain was currently in an overload of ideas. "I'm still concerned about privacy though. I'll add a feature to note when someone looks at each other's location. That way we'll know if one of us is acting weird. Might as well add a note section, to write why you looked where someone is, whether to quickly find them, or worry, or emergency… Speaking off, we might have to add a special emergency function as well."
"Ummm… Are you sure we can fit all of that into a 3rd rank soul tool?"
Karni thought for a bit. "I think it should be possible. The only real function of the thing will be to send a signal, the rest will be what sort of thing the signal shows and user interface. Most of it should be possible to create with hundred-refined metals."
Karni once did computer science. He already surpassed his previous knowledge of it. He was very much interested in these kinds of technology here as well. In his previous world, this would be simple code to make. The only hard part was going to be making the actual signal transmit all of the information.
"Anyway," Karni stopped thinking too much about it, "I'll try making some basic plans during the weekend, you can join me if you want to."
"I'll do that. Though I probably won't be of much help in regards to that, my research focuses more on the mechanical parts. I can help with the signal design the most."
"That's okay as well."
Siduo kept on cleaning, when she stopped, thinking of something. "Hey, can I ask for your help in the evening? It's about Hu Fuya."
… … …
Mo Qing kept on glancing at the letter on his desk, his eyes were filled with worry. Both of the kids have gone through a lot the past month, and now it seemed like they weren't even friends anymore. He considered if it were better to hold them in the school for some time. It felt like trouble just came looking for them wherever they went.
But he couldn't do that. He knew that Karni was visiting the older lady in the hospital. He could understand the child's guilt. He also knew that the two regularly practised with one of the students from the Green Tiger Academy, Siduo even with another one. Despite their recent troubles, they were steadily growing.
The thing that worried him the most was if they were growing steadily in mind as well. A steady mind was absolutely necessary for a soul master to grow in the future. It was the foundation of foundations.
They managed to pull themselves together at the last minute inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, but barely. He didn't give them punishment, because the two children were already disturbed.
Karni has been steadily growing and became more independent from Siduo in this month. He had to go into the Spirit Ascension Platform alone after all. His split second reaction to save Siduo was something he wasn't capable of doing before.
Siduo seemed to have grown as well, despite resting for the whole month. Her control over both of her martial souls seemed to have increased. That last explosion was a brief fusion of martial souls. While it wasn't complete, it was controlled.
Now if only the two would be able to set aside their differences. He has heard parts of the story from both of them, but while the retelling was the same, the way they talked about it was miles apart. It was something they couldn't really reach a consensus on, as the two views differed too much.
Mo Qing sighed and looked outside the window in thought. How to get the two to understand each other? Just forcing them to work together won't help, they're kids, hormonal beings. Maybe if they were adults it would work, but thinking of such things wouldn't help.
Keeping them apart wouldn't work either.
He felt helpless. This was something the two will have to resolve on their own. Yet what was he to do? He glanced at the letter again.
He's been debating about it for forever. He got it about two weeks ago, and has been putting it off. The letter contained an incredible offer. He could become a vice-president of the Mecha Association in Shrek City. He was still in his 40s, and his recent progress has almost put him on the level of a 9-star mecha mechanic. It was practically a guarantee for him to reach that level in the future. The Mecha Association was investing in him.
He had until Sunday to accept the offer. On monday he would have to pack immediately. He has been putting this off for too long. At this point there was no room for delays anymore.
If not for the incident, he would've taken the offer long ago and taught them from afar. The technology was more than accessible to them.
But he couldn't just leave those two children. He was having a battle within himself. His future development would improve greatly in Shrek City, but his two students might fall apart if he's away.
He was afraid to trust them to his niece. She was talented. But she herself was still rapidly developing. She couldn't take too much time to care for the children's well being. She taught a class of 30+ students as well right now.
Just as he thought of that he glanced out the window. He heard familiar voices. It was Karni and Siduo. The two were talking casually, though even from here, he could sense the awkwardness. There were small smiles on their faces.
Mo Qing let out a sigh of relief. "Perhaps I jumped to conclusions."
He took out his soul communicator and dialled the number on the letter. It might be time for him to take a step forward, and trust in his niece a bit more. Trust in his students more. Once he becomes a 9-star mechanic, he could further help them in the future.
… … …
"Today is friday. And you know what that means?" Siduo sternly looked at Tie Tiao.
"That we have a weekend ahead of us?"
"No! I mean, yes! But no!"
Tie Tiao just looked weirdly and glanced at Karni who was chuckling on the side.
"Today is your final day of examination for agility. A test by yours truly. If you don't succeed, you don't get the gift." Siduo gave him another serious look.
"I don't think I'll succeed anyway. Sure the training was tougher, I advanced more than before, but I don't think I'm near mastery yet." Tie Tiao examined his own situation.
"You're correct." Karni now spoke. "Which is why, today you ain't going to sleep until we say so." A 'kind' smile appeared.
When Tie Tiao heard his words, saw his smile, he wanted to run - but he knew there was no point. Siduo was faster than him. He'd get forced to do this eventually. They warned him at the beginning of his training that this is how it's gonna be.
"Now then." Karni took out his Bo Staff and Tie Tiao went into position. Then he stopped when he saw Karni not attacking or getting ready to attack at all. Instead, Karni stabbed his Bo into the ground and started walking around Tie Tiao.
He went all around him and back to where he began. A 'sort of circle' that looked a bit more like an egg was drawn on the ground. It looked like a small arena.
"The rules are simple." Siduo said. "We'll be playing a game of tag. Inside the circle. If you step outside the circle, you lose. If we touch you, you lose. We aren't allowed to actually attack you, and we can only use our first soul ring abilities, otherwise you'd stand no chance."
Tie Tiao scoffed a bit, before quickly turning silent. He realised what would happen if the two did use their second soul rings. Siduo could cover a large area with her Hell Hundred Claws, while Karni could easily confuse him for a second. A second that would make him lose immediately.
"What, you got something to say?" Siduo asked.
"No, no, please continue." Tie Tiao made an innocent looking face.
"Good. You'll have to survive in the circle, without being touched for 10 minutes. You can't fight back. Even if you hit us, you lost, since you touched us."
"That doesn't sound fair."
"We're also allowed to go outside the circle."
"That's even less fair!"
"Don't worry." Karni chimed in. "We don't get fair training either."
Tie Tiao was speechless. Now he didn't even have an excuse.
"All right then, we aren't going home until you can last ten minutes. Let's start!"
"Eh?!" Tie Tiao wasn't prepared.
"Boop. You lose." Karni had his Bo Staff extended fully as it quickly touched Tie Tiao's nose.
"Didn't you attack me just now?" Tie Tiao complained.
"I didn't. I booped you." Karni had a kind smile. "All right then. Again."
This time Tie Tiao didn't daddle around. He sped to the side at full speed while activating his first soul ring ability. Little Swallow Flies.
But there it was, Siduo intercepting him. He barely managed to dodge her swipe to tag him. When he dodged, a Bo Staff was greeting his eyes in the next moment. He ducked under it, thanks to his small body.
"You lose."
"Eh?!" Then he noticed. Half of his body was over the egg-circle.
The two weren't gonna go easy on him at all. Both were using the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track continuously and Karni was using his Purple Demon Eyes as well.
"Again." The both of them dashed. One from the left and one from the right. They didn't even let him reposition back to the middle.
He tried to dash in between them. A Bo Staff greeted him yet again, while a shadow was coming from the other side.
He didn't have a choice. He'll have to squeeze. He tried to utilise his soul ring to become even smaller in size but it barely worked. He got tagged.
"Again." Siduo said. This was going to be a long day.
… … …
Tie Tiao looked filthy. It was already evening. His brain was mostly working on autopilot by now. He has gotten much better since the beginning. Particularly at dodging Karni.
He wasn't sure why, but for Karni, he knew that if he even wanted to have a chance at dodging, he had to wait for Karni to make the first move. As for Siduo, his agility, with a smaller body, was better than her. As long as he kept moving in an irregular way and wasn't relying on speed, he was capable of dodging her most of the time.
On the side, another person joined. Hu Fuya was looking at them, waiting for them to finish. She had a meeting with Siduo as well.
The most Tie Tiao's been able to survive was somewhere around 8 minutes and something. He wasn't quite sure. He wasn't the one who followed the time. Siduo and Karni had the watch with them. All he was told was that he was close to 9 minutes.
This was quite a while ago. He had a consistent time of at least 6 minutes by now. But his muscles hurt. He had bruises from the falls and his mind wasn't quite there anymore.
Currently, he was already on 7 minutes of survival time. He sort of let his body do whatever felt right, and his mind basically shut off for a while. The problem was, that the longer he spent moving, the more it hurt. He was beginning to be acutely aware of his pain.
He dodged left, right and front, but the pain was making his head unclear. The two pushed him where they wanted to.
"Shit, the edge." He realised. "To the side."
He dashed at full speed, Siduo now caught up immediately. He suddenly stopped. Siduo couldn't, her body was much larger than his with his first soul ring ability activated. The force she carried was larger too.
From behind he could feel it. Even if he didn't actually sense it, he knew Karni by now. He ducked. And a jab of the Bo Staff went over him. Then the Bo Staff immediately swung downwards.
In such a situation, it wasn't only Tie Tiao that grew. They did too. They were limited in their options, so they had to find fast solutions, especially when they couldn't actually attack or hurt him.
Tie Tiao managed to roll to the side, but a vicious cat was already charging straight at him and he was by the edge again.
It reminded him of the start of today's training. One came from the left, while the other from the right. If he went to the side of one or the other, the two would catch him, he could only go through the middle.
But he knew. He remembered how it ended at the start. He didn't really gain much in terms of ability in a single day, he gained in terms of mindset. He was confident that, if they gave him another week, he'd be able to last 10 minutes in such a situation.
He saw the Bo Staff incoming from the right, and the shadow coming from the other side.
This was it. Another failure. He really wished that he could just be the size of a swallow. It was more like he was the size of a six year old right now, imagine what he could do if he were smaller.
This skill gave him speed, but it also gave him agility and a smaller body. An all round increase. Then he realised. In this split second. Did he get agility and speed increase?
It didn't feel like that to him. It was more like he got it as a consequence of shrinking. Right. Forget about the speed. Forget about movement. Just focus on size.
'I'm a Little Swallow.' He thought to himself and just let his body fly into the incoming attacks, as he closed his eyes.
Nothing hit him. He opened them and realised that he got past them. He looked behind and the two actually caught each other for a second in an embarrassing situation.
Then he turned his head in front, he wasn't stopping yet. "Shit." He braked immediately. It was surprisingly easy. He realised how small he was just now. He realised he was barely a half a metre in height right now.
He never truly understood what his soul ring offered him, hence he couldn't bring out its true power. But this wasn't a time to mingle, there was still time ticking.
The two took a few seconds to rebalance themselves and then dashed again. But this time it was them who had a hard time. Karni noticed that only about 10 seconds remain on the clock. He's been dodging the two of them easily.
He nodded to Siduo who nodded back. They decided to cheat. They released their second ring abilities.
Tie Tiao suddenly saw multiple golden shapes as he looked at Karni's eyes. Then he saw multitudes of Golden arms everywhere around him. He stopped and immediately charged back.
But Karni and Siduo were already upon him. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere but up.
His ability gave him a chance to glide as well, as he grew tiny feathers. But he couldn't actually fly as the name implied. He shot himself up. Back when he got this ability he tried to fly as he saw his feathers. But they couldn't hold his weight at all.
Now it was different. He was much smaller, and much lighter than before. The wings held strong. He was high in the air and slowly gliding down. No wonder he couldn't fly, this was how he was supposed to do it!
Siduo jumped on Karni's Bo Staff and he boosted her high into the sky at Tie Tiao. Her second soul ring shined.
Tie Tiao put away his wings and shot straight down, before her ability could reach him. At the bottom, Karni was waiting for him. He forcefully tried to spread his wings, but he was struggling. Every muscle in his body was telling him to just go and rest already, but he managed to pull them out somewhat.
It was enough. Karni barely missed as he couldn't react in time, even with his predictive powers, the downwards charge aided by gravity was just too fast.
"It's over." Karni said.
"You guys cheated!" Tie Tiao complained.
"Idiot, he's telling you, you won."
"Eh?!"
"See, you can do it even if we cheat." Karni gave him a smile.
Right. He did it!
"Now then, the reward!" Karni said cheerfully. Tie Tiao completely forgot about the fact that they cheated. He still won after all.
Karni pulled out two daggers, one was releasing incredibly cold energies, while the other felt inexplicably sharp. A small chain connected them.
"These are for you, we made them ourselves."
Tie Tiao took the two weapons absentmindedly and examined them. These were amazing! He noticed a button and pressed it. The daggers shot out an additional blade from its top, it looked like a shortsword now.
He was amazed. They made this themselves? These two. Just what kind of geniuses are they?
"If you put in some soul power, the cold and the sharp energies will fuse as well."
Tie Tiao tried it. They really did. He could feel his soul power travelling through the small chain.
"Play with them for a while, tell us what you think. We need to discuss something with Hu Fuya." Siduo waved him away. Tie Tiao went onto the field.
Hu Fuya's ears perked up. She seemed to have a teasing smile while looking at Siduo. She could see that the two made up.
Siduo coughed before Hu Fuya could say anything. "Hu Fuya. Show him your martial soul. It should be late enough already."
The girl nodded and released the martial soul. Her eyes clearly shined in a fluorescent green.
Her first soul ring activated, and the eyes seemed to have fluorescent vines around them now as well. Her blood glowed around them. "I can see the movement of your body right now. I can't do that usually. It's just better vision during the day."
Hearing the description, Karni went into thought. He looked at Siduo. "Fluorescent Cat?"
"So you think so too?" Siduo wondered while nodding. If both of them came to the same conclusion, it should be so. "I'll talk to Teacher Ye about it. See if we can get some special training for you in school."
Hu Fuya was a bit embarrassed. "Is it really that impressive?"
Before the two could answer, a yell came from the side.
"You guys! You're absolutely insane. Would you like to become business partners with my family?"