Many days later, at the Keito Institute, it was during the day. Renji had had breakfast and was on his way to the back mountains, ready to train. He walked on the road out of the institute; the little Umbramouse was standing on his shoulders, scanning about in all directions. There were many people who had magical beast companions in Keito Institute, so no one would care at all about Renji having the small Umbramouse as his companion.
But at this time.
"That guy is Renji, the top rated magus amongst us first graders.
A clear sound appeared, but not from a very far away place. Renji could not help but look in the direction of the sound. He found two cute girls chatting and exchanging words with one another while looking in his direction. They began to giggle in a very quiet voice when Renji looked at them.
"I've become famous," Renji derided himself. Over the last few days, he would often bump into people talking about him. Since he had defeated Rand, the victor of the first grade tournament, everybody had silently agreed that he was the number one expert of first graders.
"Oh, up ahead is?" Renji suddenly saw a slender, small frame ahead. Short golden hair, with a body as slender as that of Ryūji. A cold aura emitted from him as he calmly walked along the road.
"Hikari?" Renji's pupils contracted. Hikari was nine years old as well, but indeed, younger by a month. But the nine-year-old child was already a third-rank magus. Although the improvement in the higher ranks was really getting harder and harder, a nine-year-old magus of the third rank was still epic.
"It's Hikari. I heard that yesterday at the annual magus assessment test, Hikari showed that he had already reached the requirements for the fourth rank," a number of seventeen and eighteen-year-old girls said from the side.
Most of the students in the third grade were more than sixteen years old, with only that genius Hikari as a clear exception!
"A Fourth Rank Magus!" Violently shook the heart of Renji. They both were nine, of which Hikari was even a month younger than him. But at this tender age of nine years, he had already achieved a Magus of the Fourth Rank while Renji was only of the second rank, the cold-as-ice demeanored Hikari walked past Renji. The absolute genius, Hikari. No one of his age could come close to matching him.
A white line lightened out from the Celestial Dragon Ring, and Kaiya Tanaka appeared beside Renji with a smile. "Renji, the gap between you two really isn't that great. When Hikari was admitted, his spiritual essence was 68 times greater than that of people his age. That means his spiritual essence, without receiving any training, had already reached that of a third ranked magus. That's why in his first year, all he needed to do was accumulate enough Magic force to become a Magus of the third rank. It's around two more years he's at the Keito Institute, after all, so it's very normal for him to become a Magus of the fourth rank.
Renji took hold of this in his heart. This guy just had too fine a talent. His inborn spiritual essence was enormous, so was his elemental affinity. He must have accumulated Magic force really fast as well.
"Although his present rate of training is high, I feel that he would need another three or four years to further progress from the fourth rank to the fifth rank and a further four or five years to progress from the fifth rank to the sixth rank."
"Right now, you are a second magus, and he is the fourth. But in ten years, I'm positive you'll have overtaken him," Kaiya Tanaka spoke with confidence.
But Renji didn't accept it. "Grandpa Kaiya, the more natural talent one has, the faster one will progress. He has much more talent than me and holds two more ranks higher than me. How could I possibly catch up to him in ten short years?
Renji wasn't stupid. His studies at the Keito had actually let him recognize just how superior the difficulty was that a magus faced to advance a rank. Since the time Kaiya Tanaka had told Renji that, in ten years, he would become a magus of the sixth rank, Renji had, up to now, always had his reservations about that. After all, so far, his rate of improvement was very clearly inadequate.
Saying this, Renji had already left the gates of the Keito Institute and passed through to the back mountains. While he passed through the mountain forests, Kaiya Tanaka suddenly said, "Renji, go to a place next to the mountainside."
"Next to a mountainside?" Renji was confused.
"Don't ask too many questions. When you arrive, I'll explain," laughed Kaiya Tanaka.
Most of the back mountain was overgrown with wild grass and many different large trees. But after a while, Renji finally found a place that satisfied Kaiya Tanaka's requirements. The place was the mountain peak that rose a few hundred meters into the air. At the base of the peak, Renji stood.
"Grandpa Kaiya, what do you want me to do here?" Renji said questioningly.
"Renji, do you think it is unlikely that I can bring you to his level within ten years? Ha ha. Renji, I am a Saint-level Grand Magus with great might. I actually have a means to upgrade one's spiritual essence."
"A method to improve one's spiritual essence? Isn't meditative trance enough to do so?" Renji stared at Kaiya Tanaka questioningly.
Kaiya Tanaka smiled gently. "Renji, I must say that a meditative trance can have excellent results. But after meditation, one just feels so awfully tired."
"Well, I should feel tired. I do not leave myself in the meditative trance. I do my very best to use up the supply of spiritual essence. Then, and only then, do I allow it to return. Otherwise, it would be a bit strange." Renji frowned.
Kaiya Tanaka patted her chest and proudly enunciated, "But my method is different. It doesn't cost spiritual essence at all. In fact, it is a form of entertainment."
"Entertainment?!" Renji was clearly in a state of daze.
"Yes! That form of entertainment is called stonesculpting!" A prideful look appeared on Kaiya Tanaka's face.
"Stonesculpting?" Renji said, astonished. "Does it refer to sculptures like the ones
Kaiya Tanaka smiled and replied, "Alright. When others stone sculpt for example, they will use up strength and be fatigued. But my stonesculpting method is different. Although when you first start to train in it, it will also be exhausting, towards the end, it will have extremely good results."
"Really?" Renji was really slightly disbelieving.
Kaiya Tanaka looked at him. "Renji, don't you believe it? As a grand magus of Saint Rank in the Plutia Empire, before, there were several sculptures of mine that the nobles were willing to offer me a million gold coins to buy. How could I, a grand magus of Saint Rank, sell the sculptures which I was so proud of the most to someone?"
"So you were that good? Why haven't I heard your name amongst the other grandmaster sculptors then, Grandpa Kaiya?" Renji said suspiciously.
"I dug a vault in the floor where I hid all my pieces. No one knew where it was or what I did," Kaiya Tanaka said awkwardly. "Now, after five thousand years, I'm also here not certain where it is." Who, after five thousand years since the whole of the Plutia Empire was annihilated, the sea had been already sufficient for the land to cultivate? Who should know where it was now?
"Oh ho, so no one's ever heard of you?" Renji began to chortle.
"Don't you dare believe me?" Kaiya Tanaka looked at him. "Long ago, when Yamazaki was a kid, he came to me and pleaded very seriously to let him see my sculptures. Having seen my sculptures, that kid Yamazaki's brain burst with enlightenment which later helped him to turn into a grandmaster sculptor. He is, by all means, my apprentice."
Renji was shocked. "Yamazaki?" Renji was honestly terrified now. Yamazaki, the man hailed across the centuries as the greatest sculptor in human history, was a student under Kaiya Tanaka.
"Of course, if one can call what Yamazaki produced a quest for perfection, my works are a quest toward an opposite extreme. I christened my sculpting style the 'Direct Chisel School'. The Direct Chisel School stands entirely apart from all other methods of sculpturing, and aims absolutely at the attainment of an absolutely different extreme. This is a method which, in the first place, is excessively fatiguing, but when a person has really mastered it, one will see the true fruits of the same." An expression of complete self-assurance was on Kaiya Tanaka's face. Looking complacently at Renji, a smile dawned on Kaiya Tanaka's lips. "But, of course, up until today, I was the sole practitioner of the Direct Chisel School, so now you will be the second."
Renji believed in his heart of hearts there was nothing else so easily decided, and of course, he decided to come and study sculpting. If Grandpa Kaiya's words were true, and he could grow stronger while also becoming a master sculptor, just based on his sculpting skills alone, he would be able to support his little brother's tuition.
"Recorded history goes back only a few tens of thousands of years at most. In the long ages before then, before the writing system had even been invented, stonesculpting had already existed," Kaiya Tanaka said, explicating more than narrating. "Our ancestors would record their memories and their visions in sculptures hundreds of thousands of years, or even millions of years ago. This is the most ancient method of recording culture and history."
Renji nodded ahead too. There wasn't any form of culture at all which was older than the stonesculpting.
"Throughout the ages, sculpting has always been very hard to do. And creating a sculpture with a unique aura is even harder. The harder something is to do, the more valuable a success would be." Kaiya Tanaka sighed in an emotional way.
Renji could agree with the statement, at least in his heart. If you wanted to paint a single stroke you could easily do so. However, if you ever tried to carve out a paint-stroke it would be almost impossible because stone is just too unyielding.
"A stone face, quality, grains, its colouration—no one knows what it affects. Its whole potential and real form come to the fore in its appearance. We remove extra parts, and let it be revealed. This is stonesculpting."
"Certainly, stonesculpting is one way of controlling space and visual appearance. Stonesulpting is carving from the outside in—one step at a time—slowly drawing a form from within. Then, a partial removal of parts makes the form clearer and clearer. This enables the sculptor, in many small ways, to feel his work of art 'evolving' in beauty."
After he had begun, Kaiya Tanaka could not stop talking about carving, but Renji easily could sense the reverence he had for that art.
"Most stonesculpting methods use many tools, such as the butterfly chisel, a Direct Chisel, a skew chisel, a triangular chisel, a jade bowl knife, hammers, saws, and more. The reason for so many tools is because stone is very firm and hard. Thus they would use a butterfly chisel for drawing the form, the Direct Chisel for the initial cuts, the triangular chisel…"
Listening to him speak, Renji began to understand more about the basics of stonesculpting.
Suddenly, Kaiya Tanaka laughed. "But – but my method on stonesculpting is different from the others. This is because my method in stonesculpting uses only one tool – the Direct Chisel! That is why I have named my method in sculpting, the 'Direct Chisel School'!"
"How is that possible? You carve just using a Direct Chisel?" Renji immediately argued. "You just said yourself that more tools are needed. For example the scales of a fish. How would you use a Direct Chisel to carve that? Isn't that totally impossible?"
"Wrong. Although others cannot, we earth-style magi can!" Kaiya Tanaka said confidently. "Earth-style magi can totally sense the entirety of a rock's form. With sufficient wrist strength, we could scrape and dent stone with nothing but a Direct Chisel. But of course, the 'Direct Chisel School' isn't some easy door to push open. Today, I want you to go buy a Direct Chisel that is sharp enough.
Starting from today, for three hours daily, I going to teach you how to carve stones.