All the villagers noticed that out of the children who just started training, 2 of them were progressing at a much faster rate than the others, they could see the potential that these children held and in order to make full use of their potential, they gave these two much tougher training than the rest. These 2 children were in fact Damai and Salju, these 2 although they didn’t realise it, were much stronger and faster than those of similar age, they were even catching up to those 2 years older than them. The villagers decided that they would double the effect of the gravity rings they gave them, so whereas other children at age 8 would be 25% heavier than usual, Damai and Salju were 50% heavier and by the time they reached 12 they could move normally while 400% heavier. They did notice that Damai progressed faster than Sal but driven by her pride she would eventually catch up to him. When the 2 of them were turning twelve instead of a gravity ring, Kuat gave each of them a control ring, these were usually used when one turned 16 but these two children proved to be exceptionally strong. The control rings were used to train someone in how to use their muscles properly with no wasted movement, whenever the wearer moved excessively the ring would cause a strong pain that originated where the energy was wasted and out of the two the one who got control first was surprisingly Salju, whereas it took Damai an extra week to stop the pain and so after 6 months of pain the two of them had extremely well trained bodies.
“Come with me Damai, it is time to start some more difficult training” Kuat said with a serious tone in his voice as he stared at his son, hearing this Damai got extremely excited thinking that his father was going to teach him the family fighting style, he happily bounced along with a bright smile as his father brought him to a large room at the back of the house. Kuat sat his son down, looked at him and took a deep breath, he then told his son some shocking news “Damai I know you are looking forward to learning the family fighting style, but I should tell you that there is no such thing, each member of the village finds their own style that they find comfortable and then through experience and knowledge they continually evolve their style to get rid of any weakness’ they find with it” Damai’s face could not show any more disappointment as he desperately wanted to inherit his father’s style so that he could make Kuat proud, however this new piece of information dashed that dream entirely. Soon after he could hear a lot of laughter, Damai looked up and saw his father holding his stomach on the floor while laughing uncontrollably, Kuat started to talk again while still laughing “ahahahahahah you should have seen your face, I’ve never seen so many facial expressions in such a short span of time ahahahahahaha …….. (10 minutes later)……. Ahah haha haaaah, whew, worry not son in order to develop your style you will need to spar A LOT and of course I will take the role of your sparring partner for now, so basically I will be helping you develop your style” Damai brightened up after hearing this, not because his father would have an input on his style but because he would have a chance to punch him in the face and get revenge for the ten minutes of laughter directed at him. Kuat then spoke again “listen son, there will also be special training and this will be to give you the ability to use KI the energy in your body, we will start it tomorrow so for now go out and enjoy yourself, today is a free day” and so Damai left the house with a new goal, to be able to punch his father in the face.
As Damai absentmindedly wandered around the village, He was tackled by several 5 year old children all of whom started talking at the same time “hey Damai let’s play tag” followed by “no we already played tag, it should be hide and seek” next “those are both boring, Damai let’s spar” all of them speaking loudly up close “come on Damai choose one” Damai was reeling from the sudden tackle and all of the loud noises, so he did not fully understand what was happening and when he finally gained his bearings he heard a familiar voice “alright children, get off Damai he should be tired from today’s training” Api remarked as he helped up Damai “aaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwww”(x3) Api just grinned and said “ if ya don’t hurry along then I’ll chuck ya into the lake” one child then ran away screaming “aaahhhhh nnnnooooooooo it’s so cold” and then the rest of them followed suit while giggling at their friends reaction. When Damai was up Api asked him what was wrong, to which Damai replied “Father told me about there being no family style then laughed at my reaction for a WHOLE ten minutes” Api just listened and then chuckled “Kuat did that eh, yeah he always did have a strange sense of humour, hehe I remember one time your old man saw someone slip on one of his banana peels, he was laughing for a full 20 minutes and the one who slipped started to laugh as well, just imagine it, two maniacs laughing uncontrollably in the middle of the village for 20 minutes, it was a ridiculous sight” picturing this Damai couldn’t help but giggle, it didn’t really take much to get a member of the village to laugh as everyone enjoyed joking and playing around. Damai then told Api his new goal of punching Kuat in the face and Api then Burst into laughter while saying “good luck kid, your gonna need it” the reaction that Api gave only strengthened Damai’s resolve and he ran off, leaving Api who was still grinning at the child.
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Later that night, after Damai had calmed down by playing with the children and falling into his own fit of laughter when they found Logam dangling from a trap he made, Damai walked into the room his father was in. Kuat was waiting for his son and then said when Damai had sat down “son, at the beginning this will be difficult, VERY difficult however as you practice it will get easier and easier until it becomes second nature to you, but right now it will be a completely new experience and if you do not concentrate to your fullest then you could cause some serious harm to your body” Damai then really started to take in his father’s words, as he had only seen him like this a few times and each time Damai found his father’s words to hold a great deal of truth in them. Damai steeled both his mind and body in preparation and looked back at his father with clear eyes, Kuat saw this and smiled warmly at his hardworking son and proceeded to tell Damai what he needed to do “Son, you need to go into a deep meditation, you need to focus on your body as a whole, keep focusing on your body until you feel a pull from within you and then concentrate on that pull, find out where it originates, follow it through your body and when you find it slowly come out of meditation, okay son” Damai listened to his father’s instructions and nodded, it took him an hour of deep meditation to find what he was looking for and following it proved more difficult then he thought, he couldn’t lose concentration for even a second and it took him another hour and a half to find the origin of the feeling. Damai slowly came out of meditation, his father noticed this and simply said “good son, now where did you find it” Damai who was now breathing heavily and sweating from the mental strain, pointed towards his stomach, just above his belly button. Kuat picked up his son and lay him down on a blanket and just told him to rest for now and that they would continue in a bit, and after another 40 minutes Damai was ready again. Kuat then explained what Damai had found “that Damai was your Ki chamber it is where the energy your body holds, is stored, and only a small amount of it is used in your everyday life, plus whenever you strengthen your body you expand the size of your KI chamber allowing your to use more energy overall” Damai listened and wondered how this could be used in combat.
Kuat gave Damai some more instructions on what to do with this new found energy “okay son find the origin point again, it should be easier now that you’ve found it once already, then what I want you to do, is to slowly…Very slowly move the energy from the KI chamber through your limbs one at a time, start with your legs and then move on to your arms, after doing this once it will become easier and smoother, as if your clearing a path for the energy to move down” Damai followed his father’s instructions once again, and as he moved the energy about his body, he noticed how his limbs felt lighter but also stronger when filled with the energy and realized the basic use of his new found power. Damai continued this process with each of his limbs, but when the energy reached his right hand something strange happened, as all of the energy he had been moving was sapped from him and a strange glowing symbol of an eye appeared on the back of his hand. Understandably exhausted from having all of his KI sapped dry, Damai just collapsed breathing heavily and just before he passed out he heard his father say “son we will be visiting the shrine tomorrow” Damai then blanked out.