The day before his life ended as he knew it, Hyun Soon was having the most fun he’d ever had.

He chuckled as the rocks again increased in pace. Teacher Lee himself was growing a little frustrated, but that didn’t really matter to Hyun. There was no test to be passed here, though perhaps a record to be broken. Despite the increased pace of the launched stones, Hyun was feeling no pressure from the man’s technique.

“That’s enough.”

It took him more than a few moments to fall out of a battle stance, but Hyun Soon accepted. Looking around himself, and on his clothes, all he could see was the dust of shattered stone. The trial had only stopped because they hadn’t prepared any more materials. “Thank you, Teacher Lee.” Hyun Soon bowed, his arms feeling light and weak without the gauntlets of mana surrounding them.

“I must say,” the man had a fine beard, thin, well kept and long despite his youth, it bobbed and swayed with each word, “that’s an impressive technique. You can’t go wrong with something simple.” Teacher Lee had agreed to a contest of sorts. Ever since Hyun Soon arrived at the Jiaoduo when he was only ten years old, Lee Chung-Ho had been something of a personal mentor. So, he was also quick to notice a large change.

“It’s much stronger than even two months ago, Hyun. Do you have some secret you’re not sharing with your big brother?” As another outsider to the Guan family, Lee Chung-ho had taken Hyun under his wing. He was just glad that Chung-ho was excited for him, clearly evidenced in his smile and wide-eyed surprise.

“Did you hear about the whole thing in the forest?” He deflected slightly. The experience within had been integral to this current growth, but it wasn’t only his story to tell. He was currently pushing towards the boundary of the square stage, and he couldn’t hide that. It certainly wouldn’t have been the case if he hadn’t met Dan, and that had been part of the Sasin forest expedition, so Hyun didn’t feel too bad about misleading his friend.

“There’s word going around, but everyone wants to seem mysterious.” The younger boy loved this about his adopted brother. The two had moved to sit on a bench. Their practice had been set in an open clearing, the seat was on the far side from the dust that was slowly escaping on the wind. “You were involved?”

This was the first time Hyun had seen Lee Chung-ho since before that strange mission, and the only reason he wasn’t currently training with Dan was because their luck had been pushed enough. Dan had been getting progressively more and more paranoid and jumpy over the past few days, and it had been decided that the sneaking around had been part of the cause. Xiaomei had decided for them, but both boys had agreed that it seemed sensible. Dan would surely be released soon.

“I was there.” Hyun answered simply. “My friend was the one who fought Guan Po Daiyu.”

Lee Chung-ho whistled in response. “I heard it was a fierce combat, and that he fought intelligently. That would make sense, I doubt I would come off well in a fight against that viper.” Hyun looked over his shoulders but saw no sign of a spy running to tell tales.

“You shouldn’t speak like that.” Hyun had never felt comfortable with the way that Chung-ho spoke about the Guan family in general. He had always been a little… revolutionary. “Dan is… interesting.” Skirting close to the truth again, but still not really touching on it. Interesting was a supreme understatement in this case. If Chung-ho was impressed with his growth, he could only imagine the shock he would see if he could see Dan right now.

Hyun himself was almost jealous, though he was being carried around by the slipstream of Dan’s ascension in power. Again, he felt the collision inside his core of a solid, diamond-pressed piece of mana smashing into the side of his soul. It was enough to make him flinch, and if his teacher and friend noticed, he didn’t say. It had been happening for days, and Hyun was ready for it to be over.

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Each time the mana crystal hit into the boundary of Hyun’s core, it mapped a little more of it for him. Even now, he felt his mana flowing into positions within himself that it had never known it could go. Almost like waking up after falling asleep on an arm, the pain existed there but after came feeling and control.

“I’m glad you’ve made a new friend, especially one so impressive. Make a rival of him and you’ll grow stronger yourself.”

Hyun was sheepish, but he managed to say “I thought you were my rival.” That brought a fierce look to Lee Chung-ho’s eye and before Hyun could react, a small pebble whipped up from the ground and caught him in the stomach. Hyun groaned, winded from the force and impeccable aim of the man’s technique.

“You’re still a few dozen years away from being my rival, simple one. Enjoy the day, I must be off.”

“Oh?” Hyun stood up from his kneeling next to the bench, rubbing his sternum. “Someone more interesting than me to beat up?”

“You asked me for training, remember?” Chung-ho pressed a thumb against Hyun Soon’s forehead, a frustrating holdover from their slightly younger days as simple friends than student and teacher. “Go on, I’m sure there’s a wise old fart in there desperate to be ignored by one such as yourself.”

“I’ll do that, brother,” Hyun lied. His plan was to sleep. He was so excited to get to his bed properly. Training with Dan was a strange experience, he pondered while beginning his long walk through the many halls of the Jiaoduo to his dormitory. You were left feeling more invigorated than when you started, but there was a mental fatigue which couldn’t be dissolved like the bruises.

The effects of Dan’s ability, along with the general excitement and desperate hunger that Hyun could see in Dan, made it easy to keep returning each night and leaving each morning. Now that Xiaomei had given him a reason not to go, he realised how much he needed it. The call of his duck down pillow and slightly-too-soft mattress was piercing and desperate, Hyun was more than happy to answer it.

The walk to his room from the makeshift training field was long, and Hyun was frustrated with himself as each step felt heavier than the last. He’d gotten a little carried away during the practice, maybe. Maybe he was just hungry. The sudden drowsiness could be explained in many ways, but the solution was a simple one. Sleep.

Something that, as an explosive thunderclap echoed through the Jiaoduo, seemed a little unlikely to occur.

Without putting any thought into it, Hyun found his pace quickening. Heavy footfalls carried him quickly, only his mind feeling sluggish. A scream sounded out, pain and terror. Hyun’s blood ran cold, hoping that he hadn’t recognised the voice in the scream. Every fibre of his being told him that he did, but he ignored it, despite the growing intensity of worry with each stride. The wail continued, and as Hyun closed in on the source of it, he began to panic.

Flames were beginning to lick the inside of the Jiaoduo. The crash of lightning must have struck right into the building. Debris lay scattered and Hyun stopped dead in his tracks as he rounded the final corner that separated him from the screaming. Someone sprinted past Hyun with blinding speed, literally. They were gone so quickly all he saw was a flash of green and red robe before the figure vanished.

Only momentarily stunned, Hyun moved as the screaming stopped. It began right as he saw the wreckage of Xiaomei’s room. She had needed to get a breath, so that she could continue howling in agony. Hyun Soon’s heart broke a dozen times over as he saw her crumpled form, unmoving except for the filling and emptying of her lungs. She must have been in terrible shock, because Hyun had to shake himself out of it. Even as others began to arrive, slower to action than Hyun, but forgivably so. It would take bravery to approach anything making the sound Xiaomei currently was.

The room was absolutely shattered. The roof was gone, exposing the open, clear sky. The bed was flattened, stuffing of the feathers from within the mattress had exploded around the room. Most rooms had no more than these two things, simple places of rest. However this bedroom had been dripping in gorgeous ribbons, a hanging web of intricate and beautiful patterns that Xiaomei had spent hours upon hours making. The ribbons were torn apart, scattered on the floor and walls like someone froze a firework mid-explosion.

The feathers covering the room, the body lying on the floor screaming and the destruction all combined to make it look as though an angel had crashed into the Jiaoduo.

Xiaomei’s hips had been completely rotated, and Hyun was horrified to see it. He hovered over her body, her eyes unfocused and unable to see him. He realised that he was also screaming. A quiet, drawn out yell of terror, grief and heartache all rolled into a moan that sounded nearly as pained as the broken Xiaomei’s. He had been told once that you aren’t supposed to move someone with a back or neck injury but it felt a little late for that.

Gently scooping the girl up, he began to move, carefully. There were a few confused noises of protest, but no one actually tried to stop Hyun Soon from moving. Before he knew it, his vision was completely covered with thick tears. The girl in his arms stopped screaming and instead became quiet. Deathly quiet. The tears increased alongside the hysteria within and by the time.

Hyun Soon hadn’t reached Dan’s room when the boy appeared. The top of his face was covered with his dark hood, but his mouth was frowning and worried. Hyun was momentarily confused before he realised that Dan would have literally seen him coming. He didn’t question why he was out of his room so casually, a few hundred yards from the prison. Instead he just blubbered, “can you fix her?”

The boy looked Hyun Soon in the eyes and a wave of calm flowed from Hyun’s core to the rest of his body. “Yes,” Dan said with confidence, “I can fix this.”