October 23rd, 2023

4:24 PM EST

Alastar

Alastar didn’t know exactly what he’d expected when he took on this training. It was being done in a dreamscape by an old man and had airs of mysticism all throughout. So he supposed he expected a Mr. Miyagi or Yoda style mentor, all mystery and tricks. None of that was the case, at least not for the lessons on that first day.

“Wow, what a fucking genius. You have finally learned, after five hours, how to hold a knife so that you won’t cut yourself when you block. That’s some great thinking there, right?” That had been the first praise that the old man had been willing to give Alastar throughout the entire training. Genuinely, the old man seemed to be extremely focused on the basics.

“Don’t you think I should learn… like… the Dao of the knife or something?” Alastar made the mistake of asking after having been shown how easy it is to knock a knife into your own palm when striking a hard surface.

“What the hell do you think this is?” The old man said. “Do you think Dao is just a magic word that means you understand everything through meditation or something? Well it’s not. This is the Dao. Working hard, one on one, until you and the blade become so tied together that you can’t imagine yourself without it. Then you can get in on all that mystic crap.”

The next exercise had been especially hard on Alastar, who had only eaten meat a few times in his life much less butchered his own food.

The deer carcass hung from the tree, and Alastar watched it as it swung back and forth. It was only fastened from one place in its hind legs, and it was hanging with its head towards the ground. There were some fairly severe wounds in the side, ones that looked more like the claws of a beast than the marks of a knife. “What am I meant to learn from this?” Alastar asked, doing his best to steady his words because he knew that this was going to be valuable, it was just…strange to him.

“Control. I studied under some fellows following the Dao of fishing about a thousand years before I made this book. They taught me some things about knives. One needs perfect control to cut a fish hanging from its fin, but if you can, it can allow you to perfectly cut all kinds of fish that can’t be held still for various reasons.” The old man took his own knife out, holding it with his finger on the blade for more control than power.

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“Okay, watch what I do and follow my motions.” The old man was moving at a normal speed, but making exaggeratedly smooth motions that made it obvious he was slowing things down to show Alastar all the same. The first cut was across the deer’s throat, a small line of red appeared on the fur but nothing else. Soon his blade went up to follow the rib cage, and again another line of red appeared. Soon the body was covered in thin red lines.

“So I should… score it?” Alastar asked, looking slightly confused.

“No, cut it deep and thoroughly, just follow my motions.” The master looked mildly annoyed. “Just do it, okay student?”

Alastar nodded and followed the old man’s directions. He took his blade and followed the path in the air that he remembered the old man doing, trying his best to be smooth even though he met the resistance of his own nerves, then the resistance of flesh and bone.

Cutting the head off as he followed the line was surprisingly easy. It seemed it had perfectly shown him how to cut between the vertebrae, though Alastar felt that it was likely something to do with his knife. It seemed impossibly sharp, and that had to do something fierce to any flesh it came into contact with. As the head fell to the ground, the old man caught it by an antler and nodded as blood began to drain more to the ground. Alastar continued to do what he was told.

Each cut was deep, multiple times he was forced to cut along the edge of bone and he felt his knife catch between the joints and easily cut them apart in ways he hadn’t expected whatsoever. It was fascinating in a way, that he had been structured so well to be able to make such cuts with just a few hours' instructions by the old master.

“Wow.” Alastar said, looking at the old man. AS he did his knife strayed a few inches to the side and he felt a sting on his wrist. It felt like he’d been hit, but when he looked down he saw it was a thin cut line scored right over one of his major veins.

“Pay attention to your task, student. If you don’t always keep track of your blade, you will always have to follow it. You must be the master of your blade, else you fall into demonic cultivation.”

“Yes master.” Alastar said, getting back to work. Each piece of meat was cut off with precision. The skin was placed in one pile, and he could hardly believe it as the old man actually cut the head open easily with his knife and began to prepare a paste made from the deer’s brains.

Cutting exactly where he had been shown, Alastar starred as the guts of the deer were detached easily and removed without any mess. They were the thing he had been most worried about, knowing that bowels and death often were strange bedfellows. The meat and bones were all made into proper cuts. Some were muscle meat, some fat meat, and the bones were either used to hold them or cut apart with a clean aplomb that Alastar was almost worried by. Finally, making the 57th cut, he had done everything the old man asked him and he was done.

“Good lad.” The old man said. “On to the next exercise.” All of the meat cuts disappeared into some storage device, leaving Alastar standing there with a bit of blood on his arms and not much else to show for his hour of work.