After the events with the first recruit, who made it to the third stance, the dormitory for the rest of the day could be heard talking about Kane and predicting who would join him next.
There were also noises of discontent among the conversations, claiming that the 10 rebounds in the duels with Landis should be unaccounted for.
Despite all these events and fuss among the recruits, Kane did not feel pride or excitement, the ever-present emptiness in his heart still felt to the boy, as if he wanted to achieve more and more. While eating or before sleeping, he stared ahead without flinching like a curse, having one sentence in his mind that he pondered over
"To what heights can I not rise?"
Hearing rumors and conversations about him at every turn, Kane tried to ignore them and not get carried away by his emotions. All day, he thought only about what the third stance was, and how long it would take him to learn it and catch up to other recruits.
On the training ground, when the time came for the expected swordsmanship training, Kane lined up, and next to him, an unknown boy, who gave the impression as if he didn't care about anything, stared at the sky with lively eyes, interested in the world but ignoring everyone and everything.
They stood side by side, like white and black, like light and darkness.
"Someone else also got into the third stance? I expected Jin to be the first."
Kane thought as he looked at the boy, and at his lively eyes, which were foreign to himself. He watched the boy as he gazed up at the sky, himself also looking up at the sky in the same place as him, thinking he had noticed something interesting, but the sky was empty, without even a single cloud.
After a moment's thought, he asked.
"What do you see?"
"?"
"What do your eyes see?"
He asked the unknown boy.
Hearing Kane's question, the boy smiled in his direction.
The sun reflected off his sparkling, vibrant eyes, and the wind blew through his blond hair.
"..."
"Are you going to answer me?"
He was slightly annoyed, not hearing an answer, even though the boy glared at him.
"What I see cannot be described by words."
Kane did not understand the boy's statement and continued to ask.
"Try it."
"I see life, I see everything and nothing at the same time, I am conscious of everything and nothing."
Kane stared at the storytelling boy with increasing incomprehension.
"Think of your own body, of life, from an ant to animals, people, bushes, trees, sand, earth, water, clouds, sun, wind and rain. That blood flows in your veins, that you breathe even though you don't think about it, the very fact that you are able to walk or move your arms, from just like that without any interference in your mind or body, a mind that operates your entire body from the movement of the smallest muscle to keep you balanced to the swing of your arm even though you are not aware of it.
That plants grow, that your wounds heal on their own, that you blink without even knowing it, the wind moving through the sky, the rustling of leaves and grass, hundreds of thousands of species of plants and creatures coexisting with each other. How big the world is, beyond the comprehension of the human mind, forests, grasslands, deserts, seas, oceans, mountains, countries, continents.
What is at the bottom of the oceans? What lives and flies in the skies? It's beautiful and amazing, human beings can't comprehend it all with their limited minds. The longer you think about it, the more you realize that you know nothing and are not aware of anything.
Do you understand? Are you able to comprehend the vastness of this world?"
"...is he high?"
Kane thought, looking at the boy again with incomprehension, thinking he was talking out of his mind.
The boy smiled again in Kane's direction.
"When you master and open your mind to the world, you will understand."
Kane waited for the tutor, not talking further to the boy.
Recruits from other groups looked at the two boys, still whispering to each other and talking over them.
After a moment of waiting, the tutor approached them.
"Hello to you both. I expected there to be more of you now that you've started to get to the third stance, but no matter.
I am Escot Dirgo of the rank of Local Attack Chief, and I will be teaching you the third stance."
Escot's tutor began to demonstrate the third stance on the wooden dummy next to him.
"The third stance is only used for attacking, it can also be called a stab. To perform the third stance, we need to position ourselves sideways to the opponent, although this is not required. By doing so, you will increase your range and make the attack faster. When we are in the stance, we simultaneously take a step towards the opponent, bending the knee and straightening the hand with the sword to increase the range of our sword in the shortest possible time."
When he finished explaining, in a split second he attacked with the third stance the dummy, increasing the range of his sword by about 1.5 meters thanks to the extension of his arm and the movement of his body. The sword thrust was so strong that the dummy toppled to the ground after the strike.
"As you can see, this is intended to get the sword as far as possible and as quickly as possible, literally within a second or faster, without coming up or changing position, so that you can attack. You don't make a swing with the sword, you just make one quick stab and withdraw your leg backwards.
Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
Both boys saluted.
"What do we need to do to finish learning the third stance and move on?"
Kane asked.
"You have to knock over the training dummy five times in a row using the third stance if you want to move on."
Both boys, who had so far been getting farther by skill rather than strength, shuddered, remembering that they were barely able to pull heavy dummies when setting up their equipment.
Although Kane was surprised and displeased at first, he then remembered that he planned to increase his physical strength while learning the third stance anyway, so it made no difference to him.
"Okay, start doing repetitions of the first stance already to warm up, after a hundred repetitions, you can start the third stance. Remember that what matters is speed combined with strength. If you're too slow, your opponent will have time to react, if you attack too weak, at most you'll make a dent in his armor, unless you get lucky and hit someone who is without armor."
The two recruits began performing repetitions, though instead of the swordsmanship itself, Kane was more focused on the boy's words, trying to understand what he meant.
In silence and concentration, forgetting the world, Kane performed repetitions of the third stance. In his mind, there was only him, the sword, and the words of the stranger boy.
Time passed by
The boy performed the sword swing one after another, up to hundreds, thousands. Hearing only the swishing and slicing of air from the sword strikes.
Day after day, week after week. Months passed, in sunshine or rain. In solitude, complete concentration, and silence, he trained, mastering his own body and mind, reflecting on life and the world.
He locked himself in, developing his soul and himself as a person.
Despite being an intelligent boy, never thought about such things, and his training gave him time to think.
As time passed, Kane's body grew, he expanded his muscles and skills from all three stances, and he grew up mentally, reflecting on people, history, the world, and himself, learning and mastering his mind and body.
During these months, Kane realized that in order to become who he wanted to be, he had to sacrifice who he was.
He cast off the remnants of the emotions that existed within him to achieve his goal.
With no sadness, no grief, no happiness, no anger, no greed, no love, he lived by abandoning what was human, diving deeper and deeper into the dark and cold void, achieving a state of complete focus and calm.
It all continued in this way until the last yellow and dark red leaves heralding winter fell to the ground, when Kane fought in the last fall sparring match summarizing his several months of efforts, dominating his opponent by a score of 15 to 0.
Throughout his training, he never once attempted to get into the fourth stance, failing to see if he would be able to achieve it in his current state. Trying to forget about the fourth stance, he continued his training so as not to clutter his thoughts with unnecessary things.
Since getting into the third stance, Kane has fought 211 sparring matches in 227 days of training, resulting in.
183 wins, 27 draws and 1 loss.
The last loss - 223 days ago.