Brick Jones handed Nate his new meditation art as soon as they entered the classroom. “Here you go. I spent the weekend looking it over, and there are a few areas I want to go over with you. Same rules as before, you can take photographs of the meditation art for your own use, but that is it. This is the school’s copy, even if it was provided because of you, so it must remain here.”

Nate nodded. It was no more, or less, than what he had been expecting.

He opened the new to him void meditation art and proceeded to take careful photos of each page. It wouldn’t do if he got home later, only to realize that some of them were out of focus. So, he doubled up on the shots, staying careful the entire time. It hadn’t been a problem with the last meditation art, but he had gotten lucky.

After he was done taking the photos, he began reading through it. Overall, it was around the same length as his shadow meditation art. There were even similarities in the basic structures on how they were constructed. Which was unsurprising, as he imagined that would be the case for nearly all meditation arts that weren’t completely customized.

That was really all he could say for it though. The differences between the void and shadow meditation arts were much more stark now that he could see it for himself. He had expected there to be differences, of course, there had to be with how the different elemental qi was gathered.

Those changes turned out to be the least noteworthy things inside the new meditation art.

He read it through once and then glanced at the clock. There was still some time left before it would ring.

Nate waved at Brick, who scurried over and took a seat beside him. “You read through it and saw the differences from your old shadow meditation art, yes?”

He nodded.

“Good, I want you to keep those in mind while you look over the art with basic ties later. I want you to use this one as a basis for improving the shadow meditation art. I can’t say for certain, so don’t hold this against me if I am wrong. However, I believe this particular void art may have been part of a more complex meditation art. I have come across a few meditation arts such as this one during my time here, and they always outperform the rest. I would almost call them special meditation arts. If it wasn’t for the fact that we still have to integrate them into our meditation models, they would be highly sought after, I’m sure.”

Nate made a face at that, catching the unsaid meaning. “In other words, these ‘Special Meditation Arts’ are incredibly hard to work with.”

Brick gave him a wry grin and turned his attention to the book. “Let me go over the sections that I believe will give you the most trouble. Again, I think basic ties is going to be your answer to working with this particular art. Where others find it hard, I doubt that will be the case for you.”

***

“How does the new meditation art look?” Angie asked as they headed to her house for some practice after school.

“Interesting, it’s a lot more complex than my last one, but Brick seems to think that’s a good thing.” Nate ran a hand through his hair and glanced out the car window. “I don’t know. I keep reminding myself to take things slow, but at the same time I just want to rush everything and go fast.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Quit acting like a boring old person. Who cares about the future? We’re only teenagers.” She was only half-joking.

No one these days that could also cultivate was only anything.

“Hey, that wasn’t something an old man would say. I was merely commenting on how long meditation art stuff takes.”

She agreed reluctantly. “I can get behind that statement, and I’m not even starting over like you. Working to understand the meditation art, then make it our own, and then to finally integrate it into our meditation models. All of those things take so much time. At least we can do each of them at the same time. If we had to do each piece on its own before moving onto the next step, this would really take forever.”

“Has Brick modified either of your meditation arts yet?” He asked as they neared Angie’s home.

“He mentioned that he was going to, but that it would take a few days. Apparently, he was busy all weekend looking at a certain someone’s new meditation art. Did you see the bags under his eyes? I doubt he even got much sleep.”

Nate hadn’t noticed the bags under his eyes, but it didn’t surprise him. “I told you he was obsessive about the subject.”

Inside the training facility, they were limbering up and going through their stretches when Anna and another trainer made their appearances.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Lindsay straightened and ran at him. “Landon! When did you get back? Do mom and dad know you’re in the city?” She squealed happily.

“That’s her older brother,” Angie supplied helpfully.

“I figured, though I didn’t realize, the gap between their ages was quite so large.”

Lindsay was the youngest in her family at seventeen. The man standing beside Anna appeared to be a similar age as her, though now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure how old she even was.

“Are you thinking rude thoughts?” Angie asked, while elbowing him gently in the ribs. “And the difference in the ages isn’t as extreme as you’re thinking.”

“No, I wasn’t, not really anyway. I was just thinking that I didn’t know Anna’s age. So, I can’t actually say as to whether or not the gap between them is large or not.”

“Oh,” She said simply, taking in Anna’s appearance. “Yeah, my family got really lucky that we were able to hire her. She’s actually the daughter of my father’s childhood best friend.”

Nate took that information in and looked even harder at Anna. “She can’t be that much older than us then. Your parents don’t seem that old.”

“Cultivators never do, but no, they aren’t, and that is what I meant when I said we got lucky. Anna is a prodigy. She is extremely talented with weapons and at cultivation. Her current realm is barely a little lower than my parents, and she is only twenty-nine.”

His brows rose in amazement. Nate had always known she was good, but the thought that she was awesome to this degree hadn’t crossed through his mind before then.

“How old is Landon?”

Angie bit her lower lip as she took a moment to think. “He’s twenty-five, I think?”

“That’s not too bad, depending on where the rest of her siblings are in the lineup, I guess.” He said after a moment. “So, him and Anna, huh? Based strictly on looks, they’re a good-looking couple.”

“What, no, they’re not…” She protested, her head snapping to watch how close the two were standing next to each other even while Lindsay hung from his neck like a koala. “Maybe they are?” She blinked and then shrugged, deciding it wasn’t any of her business.

Eventually, the three made their way over to them.

“Okay, you three, we are going to run this practice a little bit differently from our past sessions. We’ll spend a few minutes doing warmup exercises, and then you will attack Landon and me as a group. In other words, we are practicing group tactics today.” Anna told them with a clap of her hands.

Landon smiled evilly at his sister as he swung a pair of khopeshs menacingly.

“You are such a goofball,” Lindsay twirled her heavy halberd. She was far less mobile, but the reach of the weapon made up for it.

“I can’t believe you decided to stick with that thing,” Her brother commented with a shake of his head.

“It’s a family tradition.”

He snorted, “And yet only you, Logan, and dad have decided to stick with it after being given a choice. I do admit, training with such a heavy weapon did come with some perks though.” He flexed his biceps, showing off his muscles.

“This is a very weird argument,” Nate muttered.

“Welcome to the Travers family,” Angie returned equally softly. “Lindsay may not enjoy being around my parents, but I love being around her family. They are an absolute blast most of the time. They’re all a little weird, but almost always nice and polite. To me, at least they feel normal.”

By the time they finished talking, the siblings were done showing off to each other and were ready to begin.

Nate had his kukris at ready and was standing beside Angie, Lindsay was a few steps behind them. They had never fought other humans while in their formation, and he didn’t think it was going to go well. However, that was the purpose of these training matches, to teach them what they needed to improve upon.

Unlike the other two, he was the only one without a secondary weapon present as well. However, that was mainly due to his own lack of foresight rather than there being a dearth of options. There were plenty of training crossbows on the wall. He just hadn’t thought to grab one until it was too late.

Angie held her single-handed sword at the ready. Her stance was slightly forward so she could spring into motion, or dodge to the side as the need arose. Compared to her, Nate felt absolutely sloppy, but nearly all of his training had been against beasts inside the dungeon. He had done a few sessions against Anna, and there had been some ingrained knowledge from the past Nate’s previous training with the kukris, but that was it.

Anna was wielding a one-handed sword and a long dagger. It was a classic combo, and he wondered why Angie hadn’t gone for the same thing.

Abruptly, they burst into action, both of them surging into motion at the same time. Anna jumped into the air and then lightly pushed off Landon’s shoulder, soaring over their heads. In a single move, she had gotten behind them and into a position where Lindsay would be forced to deal with her alone.

Meanwhile, Landon was working the curved scythe-like blades of his khopesh swords furiously as he worked to keep the two teens at bay.

Despite the fact that it was only a practice session, they were all careful to keep the edges of their weapons away from the other weapons. Nate had quickly learned that despite what popular media would have him believe on Old Earth, you did not want to always strike the edge of your weapons against each other. That was the fastest way to ruin a perfectly good weapon and was something only brutes and idiots did.

Different weapons had different striking and parrying zones. Some, like Angie’s sword, were made to take the strikes on the edge. The khopesh, on the other hand, was made more for parrying, and Landon was very good at it.

Right from the get-go, it was abundantly clear that Landon was ambidextrous as he wielded both swords with equal grace. That said, he was still human, and both hands were still being controlled by one mind and one pair of eyes.

After a few seconds, he began to get pushed back as Angie and Nate started to work together to overwhelm him. The khopesh could keep two of their blades occupied. However, Nate was also dual-wielding kukris. He might not have been doing it with as much grace as Landon, but his proficiency with them was still rather decent.

It was more than enough to take advantage of the opportunities the older man began to present as they settled into a rhythm.

Landon chuckled and gave them a small nod before increasing the pace. His second hand gradually began to operate out of sync with his first and then was entirely on its own. He was using his higher cultivation to help independently control his second hand.