The sea mist smothered Jay as he entered its domain. Swirling eddies shadowed his every move, salty spirals billowing in his wake. Jay looked behind him and saw no sign of Akira anymore. He saw no sign of anything beyond the nearest few metres. Even the sounds dampened, and all Jay could hear was the swishing waves further inside the mist.

On the journey over, Akira had described Tranquillity tower as an abandoned lighthouse that had fallen out of use once Arenara Fortunis had grown big and bright enough to be spotted from miles away. From the description he’d been given, Jay thought it would be a crumbling ruin. A dilapidated tower with a kooky old hermit living inside. As the mists began to clear, he realised he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Tranquillity tower was almost perfectly cylindrical, and remarkably well kept. It reminded Jay of a ship’s mast. The entire structure looked like someone had broken it off from a gigantic boat and planted it into the ground.

When he got closer, Jay looped around the tower, running his fingers along the lacquered mahogany façade. He stopped and looked up. The sea mist surrounding the tower completely obscured the top, and Jay could only make out at a couple of storeys before a grey blur wrapped around it.

Within these walls, the storm sage speaks. Ascend the heights if it's wisdom you seek. Climb until you touch the sky, come down only once the winds sigh.

This text box wasn’t golden like most of the others, or red like the ones Q had used. This one shimmered a deep blue, the letters seemed to sway and ripple whenever Jay looked away from them.

Jay hoped the storm sage wasn’t a poet. He could deal with a strange sailor training him, but a teacher only speaking in rhyme would get old real quick.

Jay analysed Tranquillity tower. It looked unclimbable. The unblemished veneer didn’t offer much in the way of handholds, but he had to start somewhere. Jay did a few more laps around the tower, scouting the bottom for anywhere he could start climbing. He tried to find any grooves he could wedge his fingers into. Nothing.

Any worn-down wood that could give him some grip.

Nothing.

He even looked for a hidden button. Maybe there was a lever that would make a magical storm elevator that would take him right to the top. From Akira's description, there seemed to be an essence for everything. What if the storm sage and elevator sage were friends?

“How am I supposed to climb this thing?” Jay said, half to himself in frustration, half hoping someone would hear him and tell him.

Not the tower, Idiot! I mean, dismiss the tower's allure, young traveller. Instead, meander towards the sea's edge, and there, as assuredly as the tide, your goal shall reveal itself.

A poet might have been too much for Jay. But a shit poet would do just fine. Bad poems were objectively better than good ones in Jay's opinion. And a shit poet couldn’t possibly have the pretentiousness of a proper one, right?

I hope whoever’s writing these screens can’t also read minds.

…

…

…

Great.

Pleased that his thoughts remained private, Jay listened for the waves. He continued southwards, leaving the tower and meandering towards the sea’s edge.

When he reached the coast, his goal, assuredly, revealed itself. Maybe a hundred metres out to sea, a series of stone towers shot out of the ocean. Hopefully they’d be easier to climb than the main tower, but Jay had to worry about getting there first, there was an ocean in the way.

An idyllic cove spanned the shoreline in front of Jay. Small waves lapped the white sands at his feet as he took his first steps onto the beach, spreading a beautiful white foam across the bay. Rolling waves hummed gently, soothing Jay with a sense of comfort, protection, and belonging. The hypnotic ebb and flow of the seas tempted him, daring Jay to jump in headfirst, never to set foot on land again. Golden sunlight shimmered off the sea’s surface, etching the scene permanently into his memory.

The enticing ocean called out to Jay. Part of him wanted to run straight in and frolic about the waves forever, leaving his old life behind.

Looking at the stone pillars in the distance snapped him out of it. He was here for a reason. He needed to get stronger. If the storm sage could help him win, help him survive, he’d go into the ocean. But Jay needed to remember why he was here in the first place.

Jay removed his black robes and boxing boots. He placed them into his backpack and hid them under a rock. It felt weird leaving everything he owned out in the open, even if everything he owned was just a backpack with clothes in it.

Jay stretched and ran a few lengths across the beach. His muscles needed as much warming up as possible before taking the dive into the water. Eventually, Jay began his march into the ocean. First, he just dipped his toes in. Then he took a few more steps. Soon the water was up to his thighs.

He spent at least a minute at just-below-ballsack depth of course. He was only human.

One icy plunge later, Jay started swimming. He was never the strongest swimmer, but he effortlessly carved through the waves. After just a few strokes, he’d already closed almost a quarter of the distance towards the pillars.

Then the sea showed its true nature.

The gentle waves that once pushed him on evolved into a sweeping tide. Within seconds, Jay knew he couldn’t swim back if he tried. So he kept pushing forward. But with each kick of his legs, the conditions worsened.

The biting wind, once a gentle breeze, now sliced Jay's face every time he dared lift it above the water. The waves that had lured him out now pushed him back to shore. Refusing him entry into their domain. Hail peppered Jay's back. Assaulting every inch of him not covered by the sea. Jay sensed something in the depths beneath him but didn’t dare look.

All he needed to do was swim.

Left, right, left, right, breathe. Left, right, left, right, wherethefuckarethetowers. He should have been getting closer, but every time Jay braved a glance, they looked infinitely far away.

A slimy tendril snaked around Jay's calf. It yanked him beneath the surface. Jay’s leg spasmed. He desperately tried to kick it off, but nothing changed. It dragged him further down. Jay flailed and clawed himself up to the surface for a split second, managing one last gasp of air before fully submerging under the water.

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Salt stung Jay's eyes, microscopic daggers piercing his corneas. A sourceless black tentacle coiled around his leg, its frigid grasp somehow even colder than the storm-swept ocean. Jay’s eyes trailed into the murky depths beneath him, unable to even fathom the entity’s size.

Jay dug his nails into the slimy tendril, desperately trying to wrestle it from his leg. The tentacle wrestled back. For every inch he pulled from his skin, it would claim another two elsewhere. Every second he spent fighting, Jay only got dragged deeper beneath the surface.

Black clouds of panic filled Jay's vision. He didn’t know whether it was stress or oxygen deprivation. It was no use thinking about that though. Getting free mattered more that whatever was going on in his head.

Jay was running out of time. Spears of carbon dioxide stabbed through his lungs from within. Begging him to take a breath. Just one. Begging him to let go. Begging him to let his body to return to the seas where it belonged.

No. No he wouldn’t let it take him.

He couldn’t let it take him. Not yet.

Jay wrestled his body from the clutches of panic. Purging the last drops of doubt from his body. He knew what he had to do. He’d solve this problem the only way he knew how.

Punching it.

Repeatedly.

His left hand clawed at the tendril, trying to pry it off, while is right fist kept hammering at it. With each hit he freed another millimetre. Jay kept hitting and hitting. Eventually, he stopped thinking. Trapped in the relentless cycle of compression and expansion. He’d wind up a punch. He’d release it. Then he’d wind up another.

He had no time to think about anything else.

Jay pulled his fist back. Something clicked. His entire body tensed. Fist held back, each and every muscle fibre begged to be released. Not yet. He could go further. Jay kept winding up. His whole body a series of coiled springs, one spark away from release. No. Further. Jay's body screamed at him. Begging, pleading, for the tension to be unleashed. His every cell held hostage to its own strength, forcefully compressed. Building pent up energy until Jay allowed it to be released.

Now.

Jay unleashed his final punch onto the tentacle. He didn’t even need to throw it; the stored energy propelled his arm forward. His fist now a solid wall of pure, expansive force. Jay marvelled at the destructive power contained within his punch. Surely this would break the tendril’s grip.

But the cycle worked both ways.

When Jay's fist hit the slimy tentacle, he expected the creature to go flying away. Returning to the depths from which it came. That was what usually happened when he punched things, force transferred from fist to face. Instead, it compressed. The amorphous tendril folded in on itself, shrinking underneath Jay's fist. Withdrawing its clasp from Jay's leg.

Tension pulled against Jay's knuckles. The compression began to slow. His fist stopped moving. All the energy from his punch was now stationary, stored inside a single point just beyond his fist.

Jay knew what was coming next.

What goes around comes around, after all.

A thunderclap slammed against Jay's eardrums as a shockwave sent him flying upwards. Jay caught a glimpse of the tendril sinking into the ocean’s depths before he broke the water’s surface and flew into the sky.

Jay never knew fresh air could feel this good.

Oxygen rushed into his lungs, his body now free from the sea’s tyranny. Still soaring upwards, Jay looked down upon the choppy ocean surface. A crater of expulsion, five metres in diameter, lay beneath him. Lasting only milliseconds before the ocean’s relentless pressure filled it in.

Clarity washed over Jay as he flew skyward. Time slowed to a crawl and Jay felt completely detached from his body. He saw every individual raindrop, each tiny globule of water trickling through the air. Jay saw how they deformed under gravity, how they splashed whenever they collided with his body. He was serenity personified. An external observer taking in the world’s sights.

Jay tried to twist his head. It didn’t budge. He tried to move his arm. Nothing. He stared at his arm, searching for any indication of motion. Still nothing.

Jay's neck twitched. His worldview shook, dizziness took over. His once perfectly clear vision now blurred and twisted. The waves, his arm, the towers in the distance. They all merged and hid amongst each other, a knotted labyrinth of vision obscuring the world from Jay's eyes. But Jay fought back, he pushed the wandering outlines together, reforming the world into one image again.

His arm began to move. The signal from before only now reaching his limb. The pieces clicked together as Jay began to realise what was happening.

My mind is running at a different speed to my body. He realised, but he didn’t know what he could do about it. The tiniest movement sent his world into disarray. If he couldn’t move, how was he supposed to make his way to the towers? All Jay had was his brain.

Speed of body. Speed of mind.

Jay took advantage of his borrowed time. He located the nearest tower to him. A grey, hexagonal obelisk of stone jutting out of the water. It was approximately 40 metres away. There were no landmarks to reference the tower’s direction, so Jay braved another turn of his head. After an agonising delay, that at least gave Jay time to brace himself, he faced the shoreline.

Once he had turned, Jay noticed he’d already dropped 2cm closer to the water.

His body wasn’t acting quickly, only his mind. When he moved, time moved too. He didn’t have forever.

With Jay as the corner, the beach and the tower made an angle of about 145°. He wasn’t too far off the direct line, and he could reach the tower soon if he remembered it’s location and didn’t get swept away by the sea.

Those factors were a big if, but Jay just needed to account for them.

Boxing, and every other sport for that matter, deteriorates from a contest of skill or strength at the very highest level. Once every competitor is near the peak of the human body’s ability, it becomes exceedingly difficult to beat anyone purely based on merit. Instead, it mostly devolves down into just two important factors.

Positioning and timing.

Timing is somewhat obvious, knowing the exact right time to execute each individual part of a plan is necessary to complete the whole plan. But positioning is trickier, it isn’t just 1, 2, or even 3 dimensional. Different positions provide different advantages based on the time and overall state of the fight.

In boxing, a master of positioning is called a ring general.

To be a ring general, a fighter must know every inch of the boxing ring. The surface, the positions of the coaches, any noisy spectators. They also needed to know their opponent, their preferences, skills, tells, and weaknesses.

All these factors need to be understood to know the optimal next move.

Jay wasn’t in the boxing ring. He didn’t have 24 feet by 24 feet of rope enclosing him from the world. But the skills he’d learnt from a lifetime as a ring general remained. There was no ring, just an ocean. There was no opponent, just a tower he needed to reach. There was no crowd screaming in his ears, just a buffeting storm.

Jay needed to account for everything, form a model in his head, and execute. When he knew his battlefield, he wouldn’t need to check where he was, wouldn’t need to fight against the storm. He’d know exactly what was needed. He just needed to calculate it.

If Jay was a computer, he probably would’ve taken several hours and who knows how much electricity to understand his situation, taking into account every single variable imaginable.

But he wasn’t a computer. He was a fighter. A fucking good one.

He ran on instinct.

Numbers and calculations that Jay didn’t understand, but he knew, ran through his head. Mapping every variable and plotting a course.

He kept falling, dropping closer to the ocean with each second spent calculating.

Even at his dizzying speed of thought, it was a struggle to capture his whole environment. There was just so much going on.

But by the time his toes dipped into the water, he’d finally completed it.

It was time to stop thinking and start doing.

Jay splashed into the water and immediately got to work. He didn’t even need to tell his muscles to swim. They did it anyway.

Jay almost blacked out, entering a flow state. His sole purpose to execute his plan. Precisely on time, he felt the cool pockmarked stone collide with his hand.

Jay didn’t know what the tower looked like up close, so it wasn’t in his model. He was forced to think again, surfacing from the water, and looking at the tower for anything of use. Waves crashed into Jay, launching him up and down. He flailed his arms, desperately trying to grab a hold of the pillar.

His fingers latched onto something. They clenched shut. A final squall tried to push him away. Useless. He was never letting go. It took every muscle fibre in his arm to hold on, but he managed it. When the wave passed, Jay reached out with his other arm and held the stone tightly. Anchoring himself to the pillar.

Jay's hands clung onto a carved rung inset into the stone tower. He climbed up the next few rungs. Getting at least five metres above sea level before finally allowing himself a few seconds to breathe.