Waking up refreshed ate a quick breakfast before returning to the his room for practice. With last night's partial success Zig was able to repeat the process and reinforced his arm without difficulty but found it more difficult when trying both arms at once. One positive thing about the repeated attempts is he found holding the concept of the earth aspect because easier the more he worked with it.
Something strange Zig started noticing that he was able to practice longer and longer with running out of energy. Checking his core showed the it didn't contain most energy and the regeneration didn't seem to be noticeably different. Stumped Zig went back to converting energy into earth aspect and was shocked to notice that the more proficient he became at converting the more of the aspect got produced. With a smile Zig begun putting all of his focus into improving his control until he got hungry enough to break his focus.
For the next few days Zig did nothing but train until he passed out. The only exception was meals and checking out the tasks bored because his tokens where running low and he would need to pay rent on his dorm for the next month in a few weeks. He noticed some very interesting assignments like hunting beasts or contracts for something called artifice that paid enough to cover his rent and food for over half a year. When Zig asked the attendant about the jobs the attendant impatiently explained that hunting beasts wasn't something the pavilion allowed without passing a basic aspect control test from the elders. Zig also found out that artifice had to do with imbuing pathways into objects or devices like the sect badge or the mysterious lanterns around the pavilion. Slightly disappointed but amazed that something like artifice was even possible Zig got back to training.
After all of his hard work by the end of the first week Zig was able to reinforce his entire body achieving something the scroll called initial foundation mastery in his basic body technique. All of the practice actually made Zigs body feel slightly tougher with noticeable improvement in strength and energy level even when not cycling his technique. At this point he can't maintain his technique while moving but his scroll said that once he was more familiar with it he would be able to maintain it while sleeping or in battle. Now that Zig was able to use his first foundation technique he was finally confident in attempting his second scroll.
Knowing what he knew now Zig was facing a serious problem when reading through the scroll again. The energy requirement for soul techniques where much more taxing on his small core. A second major obstacle is the fact that he would have to decide if he wanted to fuse the technique and use all three aspects at once or have an earth body technique and a separate soul technique with darkness and cold water aspects. Zig wasn't really sure what the different options would produce or what he truly wanted to do with his aspects. Deciding that he needed some advice Zig went to the assignment office to ask for the elder that brought him to the pavilion.
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Appon asking to see his elder the assistant sneard and said "by the look of you I bet you don't have enough tokens to get instructions from a high ranking appreciate let alone journeyman". Rolling his eyes the hawkish and snobby man said "private lessons from an elder cost fifteen thousand tokens a day and that's if they agree to take you on". With a dejected face Zig just walked out of the building embarrassed and frustrated. No matter how much he wanted to slap the annoying man he wasn't wrong that Zig was almost broke. The fact that the badge he wore was a journeyman badge also meant that he was likely much more important to the sect then Zig was.
Walking back to his dorm Zig was stopped by a dark-skinned youth. "I see you are new around here and by the way you stormed out of the assignment hall you must be short on tokens am I right ?" he said with a hint of mockery. "And what's it to you? "Zig said with a frown looking the youth up and down nothing he had a shimer of dust barley visible around him. Seemingly ignoring his question the shady youth asked "have you completed in any pavilion matches yet?". Zig was a bit confused by the question and replied "no I haven't even watched one yet". "Well I'm looking for a partner for the co-op tournament and since you are new then you obviously don't have one right?" With a wide grin the shadey youth put an arm around Zig and headed towards the mess hall dragging Zig with him.
"So here's how it is" the youth who had recently introduced himself as jacoby gestured with his fork. "The tournament is in three months at the fall festival where the stone pavilion holds it to determine the fights it wants to represent them in the sect wide competition". "There are three main brackets for apprentices" taking a bite of his food he continues with his mouth full " solo dueling, two on two and the five on five". "And why shouldn't I enter on my own " Zig asked exasperated by the antics of his fellow pavilion member. Giving Zig a sarcastic look jacoby asked "do you even know any of the competitors that specialize in dueling? ". With a shake of Zig head jacoby continued "most of the them are mind path users specialized in throwing as much aspects at an enemy as possible in the shortest amount of time possible".
"The two most dangerous combatants this year are a mind path user who to my knowledge uses lava techniques and a soul path user that I don't know much about". " I get how lava techniques can be dangerous but if you don't know anything about the soul user why is he so dangerous" Zig asked skeptical. "All I know is he seems to be able to absorb a lot of attacks from the duels I've seen with him" jacoby answered.
"Okay but wouldn't it be just as bad in the two on two matches?" "Naw you see because the five on five is so much more popular the two on two is less competitive" jacoby's grin split his face. "Then why do you need a beginner like me" Zig razed an eyebrow. "Because the betting odds take into account dueling records as well as all the path information the journeyman who runs the assignment office knows about the contestants" jacoby said with a knowing smile. After hearing that jacoby was planning to pull an upset on the same journeyman that he recently belittle and mocked him Zig grind evilly. "When do we start training" Zig chuckled "right now" jacoby said walking with Zig out of the mess hall.