Third Pov:
Once Itami decided to train his ether control, he got out of the shower and started to prepare dinner. Since his uncle hadn't been there in a while Itami had to learn how to cook for himself.
At first, he sucked at it, but over the month he learned how to make food without burning the house down.
For today's menu, he'd made roasted boar meat.
Thankfully, there were normal animals in the mountains because magic beast flesh, although nutritious, needed to be decontaminated before eating them.
This was because of the tainted aether that surrounded them from the Argonauts' curse. The original curse that created the magic beasts and titans.
After finishing dinner, Itami went to sleep early instead of training because he'd already exhausted himself earlier in the day, and knew tomorrow might be more exhausting.
When Itami woke up he started the day like any other day and did his morning run on his uncle's mountain trail.
Although it was still difficult for him, he's now able to complete it in 4 hours instead of his old best 8.
Yes, Itami used to spend a quarter of his day just running because he knew that without endurance he wouldn't last long if his fights went more than five minutes.
Once Itami got home, he cooked some eggs for breakfast and proceeded with his speed training.
Itami decided that the best way to learn how to cloak the body parts he needed seamlessly was to start on a macro-level, so he got in a lotus position and focused on not letting a single drop of his ether fall out of his body.
Quickly, Itami became astonished by the amount of ether he'd been wasting all this time.
Previously, Itami had a basic understanding of ether from what he observed from his mom and dad and the stories they'd tell him.
However, It wasn't until recently that he started studying astral art creation, and as such it never occurred to him why he was letting his ether seep out of his body.
It wasn't like ether was invisible to the general populace. If one focused enough ether into their eyes they could see anyone's ether, and although Itami hadn't been able to do it until recently, he could do it without much trouble.
The technique was the same as an aura fist but to one's eye, and it was much more sustainable because it covered less area.
After Itami got out of his stupor, he immediately tried to catch all the ether he'd let out by encasing it in a bubble using it.
Nevertheless, it was to no avail.
The bubble he created was full of holes.
After trying again by remaking another bubble the same problems occurred, so Itami retried it many times.
Thus began Itami's futile relationship with ether control.
1 month later
Itami was currently at a loss, he didn't know what to do.
Since that day a month ago Itami tried for two straight weeks to figure out how to control his ether. After the fifth day, he figured out how to create an ether bubble although not without difficulty.
His first bubbles were either too perfect or too imperfect.
Some were imperfect because they were riddled with holes, and the others were too perfect because they didn't have any.
Although this seems like a good thing it isn't because without holes how was he going to breathe?
For many days he was at a loss, but eventually, he used his astral art medusa's barrier for insight.
Although it wasn't perfect, after a day of using it on and off, he was able to sense air and let it pass through the barrier.
One might ask how he's able to do this despite his little control; however, it was simple. All he did was feel what he was breathing in, and let it pass through.
Because the particles were so small it was much easier to track them.
However, the hard part was changing the quality of his barrier from impermeable to semi-permeable.
It took him two days of nonstop tampering until he finally completed it.
However, it was far from smooth sailing from there.
The second Itami tried to move the bubble encasing his body would pop because it required too much concentration.
Eventually, after two weeks Kage came back, and Itami asked him about it and he'd simply told him to give up because the way he was doing it would never succeed.
Then he continued to tell him "Before you ask, no I can't teach you the family-style despite your achievements, but I will allow any other request from you"
Itami and Kage understood that Itami had already gone down a different path than him, so he settled for being sparring partners.
For the next two weeks, Itami gained experience by sparring with Kage and experimenting with different ways of getting faster, and although the spars had been very beneficial to him, the experiments only left him injured and exhausted.
Now Itami was sitting in his room going back to the drawing board after his 34th failure.
Itami's pov:
' What am I going to do now? I think I've tried everything, but nothing works.
**ahhhhhhh**
It's so frustrating. I want to hit something, but I probably shouldn't or my uncle would be mad. I don't want to imagine what he'd do to me if I broke something.
I don't think he'd torture me with his crows, but I can never be too sure.
I've got to calm down before I do something I will regret.
Honestly, I don't know how Everton failed 200 times and had the patience to keep going.
If it were me I don't know if the Titans could stop my rage.
All jokes aside, it's time to get serious.
I've got to go back to the drawing board, but from where?
I've tried increasing the flow of ether through my veins, but all it did was clog them up. I've tried making a bubble with no air to decrease the amount of concentration, but I couldn't maintain it because I quickly ran out of air.
I've even tried changing the bubble's shape, but all it did was make me look cool.
I must be missing something, but what is it?
Why don't I go back to the beginning?
When I first started it was a mess.
I was such a novice.
Thinking back on how I couldn't make bubbles that weren't whole-ridden or airless was embarrassing. Imagine if I died because I couldn't ....
Wait what if I expand my bubble?