- Monday, 23rd Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

Waking up, I feel kind of nervous. Next week, I'll be leaving home for the first time to take the entrance exam. If I pass the exam, I won't be able to leave the academy until the end of the school year.

"Haaa, I won't be able to see Mom and Dad for a while." Every time I think about that, I feel sad.

But it's a necessary step that I have to take to complete my goal, 'So I need to suck it up and deal with it.'

"Ryner!" Mom calls me from downstairs.

'Oh no- I must have stayed in bed too long!' I hop out of bed and put my training clothes on.

"Ryner! Time to get up!" Hearing her call me again, I rush out of my room.

●●●

'I barely made it down before the third shout,' I let out a sigh of relief as I sat down at the table with Mom and Dad to eat breakfast.

Mom gets up to prepare my plate, putting eggs and sausage on it. Once she's done making the plate, she returns to the table and sits it down in front of me.

"Thanks, Mom," She pats my head and goes back to her seat.

As we were eating, Dad picks up a piece of cloth and wipes his mouth. After putting it down, he turns to me.

I look back at him, waiting for him to speak, 'It must be important for him to stop in the middle of a meal.'

"There's only one week left before you have to leave," Dad reminds me with a smile on his face.

Seeing his smile, I have a bad feeling. Every time he smiled like that in the past it always led to one thing-

"To prepare you for whatever the exam throws at you, I'm going to kick the training up a notch!"

'As if it wasn't hard enough already,' Although I have complaints, I can't help but feel grateful to Dad, who gives it his all to train me.

Seeing that he was waiting for my response, I nod my head and smile right back at him, ready for the challenge.

"That's my boy!" He laughs joyfully before going back to his meal.

I follow after him and clear my plate quickly, so I can start training faster.

●●●

After breakfast, I walk out to the back with Mom to start Cultivation training. Like always, I sit on the ground and cross my legs. Taking a deep breath, I concentrate on the spot in the middle of my stomach, where my Qi is gathered. Slowly I inhale and exhale, drawing Qi into my body from the surrounding. I circulate the Qi entering my body through my Meridians a few times, refining and purifying it before guiding it to the spot in the middle of my stomach.

While drawing in Qi from the surroundings, I chant in my mind, 'The Earth is great, the Earth is holy, the Earth is the root of all life, the Earth gives me strength, and in return, I give myself to the Earth…'

After a couple of hours, I stop, feeling a slight soreness in my meridians. I open my eyes to Mom's smiling face, as always she was watching over me quietly as I cultivated.

"I didn't breakthrough, but I feel like I'm getting closer and closer every day," I tell her about my progress, and she pats my head, running her hand through my hair.

"That's great, I'm sure you'll breakthrough soon," I smile hearing her words, "Just keep up the hard work, and you'll keep getting stronger and stronger."

"Mm," I nod softly, enjoying the feeling of her hand running through my hair.

"You've grown a lot since you first started, you're already at the 3rd layer of the Qi Gathering Realm," My cheeks start heating up, hearing her praise, "But you should still be careful, it's good to get stronger, but it's not good to ignore your body like you did in the past."

I nod, thinking back to when I first started. Back then, I was new to cultivation, so I was more reckless and ended up pushing my body too hard, driven by my anger that pushed me to get stronger fast. Whenever I went too far, my meridians would ache a lot, and it was almost impossible for me to cultivate like that. One time, I felt like my meridians would burst when I pushed myself way past my limit. If it wasn't for Dad going to town and buying potions to treat them, I wouldn't have been able to keep cultivating.

Since that incident, I haven't done anything like that again, and I've been paying more attention to my body when I cultivate.

"Then again, you still push yourself too much from time to time, worrying me half to death," She sighs, thinking about those times.

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"It's okay, Mom," I don't really know what to say besides that. Although I'm not as bad now, I still push it a bit too much sometimes when I train with Dad and practice techniques.

"Such a reckless child!" She ruffs up my hair with an "angry" expression for a bit before "letting me go." She smiles at me and says, "Let's have a little snack before practicing that technique."

"Okay," I nod, feeling a little hungry.

●●●

After I finish practicing that technique with Mom for a little more than an hour, Dad comes out, meaning that it's time to switch. I catch the Iron Sword Dad tosses me and get in my stance with both hands on the hilt and my right foot in front of my left.

"Come at me the same as usual," Dad commands, gesturing for me to attack.

I start circulating my Qi and charge at him. I slash at him, but he reads my moves easily and steps to the side, dodging my attack. I pour some of my Qi into my sword, causing the sword to give off a light blue aura.

"Haha, Nice Enchant!" Dad laughs, praising my speedy enchantment.

I take a deep breath and slash at him again. But just like before, it doesn't connect.

'Let's try this!' I rush at him again, but this time I send the Qi out from my sword in a slashing motion forming a Qi Wave.

"Is that all you got!" Dad challenges me as he breaks my Qi Wave easily with a slight swing of his sword.

'Of course not!' I quickly Enchant my sword again and send out two Qi Waves back to back.

"Not bad!" Even though he says that just like before, he breaks both of them with a swing of his sword.

The Qi Waves break, and Qi spreads throughout the air for a moment, temporarily blocking his vision. Using that moment, I charge forward as fast as I can, and pour as much Qi into my sword as I can, sending out a bigger and stronger Qi Wave than before directly at his side.

"Good Move!" And of course, he turns around with a smile and breaks my Qi Wave again without any effort.

In less than a second, he flashes in front of me, holding his sword to my neck.

"I give." Left with no other options, I surrender, 'As usual, I can't beat Dad.'

"That wasn't such a bad move at the end," He praises me before continuing, "But next time you should send out more Qi Waves to distract me before charging towards me."

"I don't think using more Qi Waves is going to work against you, besides just sending out a couple of Qi Waves that fast was really hard," I complain, feeling like he's asking for a lot.

"I'm not invincible if you send out a hundred of them even I'll end up giving you an opening. It might sound hard right now, but you said the same thing the first time I taught you how to do a Qi Wave," He laughs, remembering that day, "and look at you now, you're able to send out two Qi Waves back to back."

"Haaa," I sigh, 'I don't want to admit it, but Dad's probably right. One hundred sounds impossible, but as long as I keep practicing, I feel like I might be able to do something similar.'

"Haha, Let's go again," Dad laughs and gets back into position a few feet away.

●●●

- Sunday, 29th Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

I finish packing up my things for the trip tomorrow with some excitement and sadness. I lay down on my bed thinking-

'I need to be brave. They taught me as much as they could these past three years preparing me for this-' I clench my fist, '-Tomorrow I need to put a smile on my face, so they don't worry about me.'

While I was lost in my thoughts, Mom calls me downstairs, so I hop out of bed and walk downstairs, wondering what she wants.

'Wha-' The scene in the dining room leaves me at a loss for words.

The table is full of all my favorite foods, and a cloth is hanging on the ceiling with the words "Goodbye for now! We'll see you again soon!" written on it in black ink.

"Why are you standing there with your mouth open? Come over here and sit down!" Dad waves me over with a big smile on his face.

I walk over to the table and sit down, waiting for an explanation.

"Why are you so shocked? My baby is leaving tomorrow, of course, I'll throw you a little going away party!" Mom tells me with a smile on her face.

"But neither of you said anything about it," I scratch my head feeling embarrassed.

"Well, your Dad wanted it to be a surprise, so I went along with it," Mom explains, looking at Dad.

Dad laughs, not hiding anything, "You've been so tense lately, I figured a good surprise was what you needed to calm down."

I can't deny it, I've been feeling tense lately because I was worried that something bad might happen after I leave.

"You don't have to worry about us, we're stronger than at least a hundred of you put together," Dad remarks before continuing, "and if you're worried about failing the entrance exam, don't be, both of us believe in you. Have some confidence in yourself and what we taught you."

"No matter what, we're always going to be with you in your heart, and tomorrow won't be the last goodbye," Mom says, reaching over and grabbing my hand.

"Yeah, so don't worry about it and just focus on passing your exam," Dad tells me, grabbing my other hand.

The tears I had been holding back fall down, feeling their warmth.

'They're right this won't be the last goodbye, so I need to cheer up,' Their warmth seemed to wash away all my negative thoughts and feelings.

"That's better," Mom says, looking at my expression.

"Alright, enough of this sappy stuff, let's eat!" Dad lets go of my hand, looking a little embarrassed and picks up a fork to start eating.

I let go of Mom's hand and join him, scared that he would eat everything before I got a bite. Mom laughs and joins us. For the first time in a while, we had a nice joyful family dinner.

●●●

- Monday, 30th Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

I pick up my bag and make sure that the letter Dad gave me was in there before equipping the sword that he gave me for my birthday a couple of months ago to my waist. Leaving my room, I walk downstairs greeting Mom and Dad, who's waiting for me at the door with smiles on their faces. Mom grabs my hand, and Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. Together, we walk out of the cabin. After walking a few feet away from the cabin, we stop ready to say our goodbyes.

"Remember, Son, this isn't the last goodbye," Dad tells me one more time.

"I know," I respond with a smile.

"Good." Dad nods and takes his hand off my shoulder.

Mom lets go of my hand and moves in front of me, she crouches down to meet me face to face, "I'll miss you, Honey."

"I'll miss you too, Mom," I tell her as she takes me into her arms and hugs me.

After a bit, she lets me go and takes a black eyepatch out of her pocket and places it over my right eye, "Make sure you keep it over your eye at all times, even while you're asleep!"

"Mm," I nod my head lightly, keeping her words in mind as I rub the eyepatch.

"Good boy," She pats my head before standing up and moving next to Dad.

'It's time to go.'

"Remember to write us whenever you can," Mom reminds me.

"I will."

"Alright, stop standing around and go," Dad tells me, pushing my back softly.

With his words, I start walking through the woods to Cara Village to find a carriage heading for Synthasia.