Chapter 97: Master and Disciple
Within a dimly lit cave, was a little girl at the age of twelve. As the flames and shadows danced in temporal opposition, she performed a set of spinning spiral kicks that disturbed the still air.
Every move was graceful, and although she had only practiced the set of martial kicks for a week, she was already quite close to perfection.
It brought the timid little girl great joy, to which she strived further to replicate exactly what her teacher had shown her.
When Balon first demonstrated the movements to her, each kick began with the audible whipping of his leg, and ended in either an explosion of the surrounding air, or the creation of a crescent wave of pressurized wind.
The little girl glanced at him. He sat there talking to his sisters, on a throne of stone that he made himself. The throne was rough and uneven with no craftsmanship at all, but considering he simply punched at the gray walls until it was made, it was quite a successful project.
Yela thought back to a particular memory. Around two weeks ago he stopped her from continuing the divine and demonic dragon god’s dance.
Balon repeated his attempts at deciphering the weird phenomena in her eyes that occurred between her seventy-sixth and seventy-seventh step, but in the end he had no results. Perhaps this phenomena was recorded in some secret text, but either way he did not have it, and he had no idea what was going on with his disciple.
Similarly, Yela had made no progress for days apart from the conditioning of her body and senses. This was not a bad result, but there was more to combat than the strength of the body.
Yela was told to climb down from the wooden poles, and this made her incomparably nervous. Thoughts raced in her mind as she endured the pain that was assaulting her body. Ironically her fear of him made her sweat more than the dance that she was performing.
Was he disappointed? Did he finally grow tired of her incompetence? Was she going to get scoldings or even worse, a beating?
She looked up with her timid eyes to see a towering figure, before she looked downwards to escape that gaze. Behind her back she was fidgeting with her hands in nervousness, and her feet were close together as they moved nervously too. The little girl tried her best to make herself seem as small and unassuming as was humanly possible.
In the next moment a deep voice boomed from above her, and a large hand extended itself with a small white pill in the middle.
“Take this, and await my next orders.”
Yela knew what this was. It was a “healing pill” that Balon gave to her at the end of every training session.
The first time she took it was similarly at the end of her first practice of the dragon god’s dance. She was left bruised and bleeding all over her body from the jagged rocks, but the girl did not think of herself. She only thought of how her mother would react if she were to see her in such a way.
Yela’s anxiety and overthinking swallowed her up immediately. The little girl was in no way a good liar, and her mother would no doubt come looking for trouble at the source of her injuries.
Her mind led her to the possibility that Vivian would come swearing profanities at her teacher, and the callous man would slap her so hard that her head would turn a hundred-eighty degrees like an owl.
At that thought her eyes began to water.
But her negative thoughts did not stop.
She then thought up another ridiculous possibility. In this one, her mother would talk sense into Balon once again, but this time he accepted the idea of no longer training her.
In that same scenario, he would express his disappointment at her, telling her things such as, ‘I thought you were better than this,’ and ‘Hmph. I knew you didn’t have it in you. I don't know why I expected anything but failure.’
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Again and again she started overthinking and making up ridiculous scenarios, hurting herself over imagined things over and over. Eventually the girl’s already sluggish stride became slower and slower before in the end she totally stopped.
In the process of leaving the cave at the end of her very first practice session, tears fell down from her eyes as she froze in place to cry.
Balon saw this and simply harrumphed. He assumed she was crying from the pain and intensity of the training session.
‘Pain is how you grow. If you can not even endure this then you do not deserve to live.’
The girl continued to cry, stifling her whimpers and tiny yelps so that she would not inconvenience her teacher. Balon obviously had good ears, but he turned his head to ignore her sobbing. By the sound of it, it seems like she was purposely trying not to let him hear her, so Balon pretended to do exactly that.
Yela sobbed and sobbed for some time. The intensity of her prolonged cries only seemed to intensify instead of calm. She kept her head buried in her now wet hands before a deep voice boomed from above.
“Disciple.”
A towering figure once again met her eyes, as those glowing golden beacons stared down at her from above.
“O–Oh nno! I–I’m sorry!” She cried out.
“Why do you apologize, child?”
“I— I was too loud! I’m shorry!”
“...”
Balon’s huge hand extended towards her, as he opened the vast surface of his palm to reveal a small white pill. “This will heal your injuries.”
“It heals…in a special way.”
‘I had planned to give it to her tomorrow anyway! What good would it be if she was too injured to practice tomorrow! Yes. That’s it.’ The tough man made excuses to himself.
Yela hiccuped, looking at the ordinary white pill.
“It…heals?” The girl had never heard of such a magical thing before.
“It can recuperate surface level wounds such as bruises and shallow cuts, but do not ever think it can bring back the dead or regenerate an appendage.” The rough deep voice spoke.
The girl roughly understood, but she asked a question that was the main source of her worries. “Bu— But I won’t have any marks after, right?”
‘Is she worried about her skin? Hmph. Women really are all the same.’ He scoffed, thinking about his sisters.
“Done properly, it will leave no unwanted blemishes.”
Yela’s eyes went wide and her frown slowly started turning into a trembling smile that once again found hope. The tears in her eyes did not stop but instead flew out overwhelmingly like rivers. Overflowing with joy and gratefulness, she suddenly sprung into motion from her pitiful posture, and hugged her thoughtful teacher.
Balon felt the contact, feeling it to be extremely uncomfortable and strange. Intimacy of any sort whether familial or friendship— was foreign to him.
“Th— Thank youuuu!! How did you kn– know?”
“Hmph. It was obvious, child.” Even if the person tried to hide it, for Balon it was easy to see when an individual was feeling physical pain. Of course he had the wrong idea, but oh well.
At her gratefulness, Balon thought to himself that perhaps apprenticeship was not so bad. Though that was until he felt a weird sensation seep through his clothing.
“Your snot! It’s all over my luxury garments!”
“WAAAAH!” The girl cried even harder, letting all her emotions out. Balon, was simply helpless to do anything else but let her cry.
After a few moments later, the girl wiped her tears as she fully calmed herself down. She sat on the ground in a criss-cross applesauce position, as her teacher sat in front of her.
“Remember what I told you, it will heal you but in a special way.” he said.
“...In fact it will hurt more in a shorter duration, and your torn skin and flesh will feel very irritated. But in the end it will heal all your surface level injuries.”
“A burst of energy will enter your body, and because you do not have the metabolism of a bloodline, you must carefully distribute the energy using your mind and will.”
“I will help you in manipulating and distributing your energy using my own, for the careful intrinsic control needed is out of your capability.”
“En– Energy?” The girl tried to follow his teachings as best as she could. This was after all, the first time she had ever heard of so many terms.
What is metabolism? She had never heard that word before. Energy? Like how food enters your stomach or sleep gives you more energy?
“You will feel a warm sensation enter your stomach, which will then burst out with energy like the sun shining its rays of light.”
“But the rays of light will be in gaseous form, and it must spread to your surface level injuries.”
Balon then crushed the pill with his fingers, and it magically cracked into four separate portions.
“You will take only a fourth of the dosage.”
“This is a big step. We are forcefully awakening your energy manipulation.”
“I— I– I’m ready!”
She was not.
“Good.”
“Visualization is key. Once you feel the energy begin to unleash, imagine it within your mind while feeling it in your body. Then move it according to your body, mind and will.”
“I will guide your energy towards your wounds, you will be in charge of only roughly moving it.”
‘Worse case scenario, I will move all the energy by myself. It will be fine.’
“When you are resolved and ready, consume the pill, and let me know as soon as you feel the energy activate.”
“Ready?”
“Ye— Yes!”
Yela looked at the pill with determination, before immediately downing it. A few moments passed by as she stared at the ground, trying to feel the energy within.
“Apprentice?”
Yela was unresponsive.
“Disciple!?”
Suddenly the girl fell over from her criss-cross position and onto the stone ground.
Her irises went over towards the back of her head as the whites of her eyes were the only things remaining. Her body convulsed like someone going through a seizure, and frothing started to begin within her mouth.
“DISCIPLE!!!” His urgent booming shouts echoed through the caves.