In the darkness of the late night, a man and a boy rest beside a large, raging fire. The flames flicker with the breeze, casting dancing shadows of their figures on the ground behind them. Above them, the night sky is veiled by a blanket of hazy clouds. Although a myriad of stars shines brightly, they remain unseen as their glow cannot penetrate through the thick blanket.

The boy stares into the depths of the fire, the flickering flames reflecting in his eyes. The man observes the boy in his daze, occasionally raising an eyebrow at his random and fleeting strained expressions.

"Boy, what's with the face?" The man leans closer to the fire, staring at the boy through the flames. "Contemplation doesn't suit you, little rascal."

"It's nothing, Master..." The voice snaps him out of his daze. He takes a deep breath before falling backward onto the ground. "It's just... I feel like I'm forgetting something."

"Is that so?" The boy's master raises a brow at his disciple's unusual behavior. "Your manhood, perhaps? Bahahahaha!"

Unamused by his master's joke, the boy continues to stare at the hazy sky in silence, trying to recall what he had forgotten. Seeing that the joke had no effect on his disciple, the man takes a large swig of liquor from his gourd before rising to his feet.

"You can mope all you want, boy." The man drops the gourd and cracks his knuckles. "Or we can spar to our hearts' content."

Hearing his master standing and ready to fight, the boy sighs before reluctantly pushing himself off the ground, keeping his gaze fixed on the night sky. Seeing the boy on his feet, the man kicks off with a resounding explosion, leaving a small crater beneath where he stood.

The boy slides his foot back, shifting his chest to the side. After completing the movement, a palm strike streaks through the empty space where he was just standing, barely grazing the collar of his top. Undeterred by the failed attempt, the man follows up with a barrage of strikes from all directions. Just like the first time, the boy shifts his feet and body around, making minimal movements as he effortlessly dodges every single attack.

After a full minute of striking empty air, the man decides to go all out. He extends his aura outwards in an attempt to impede the boy's movements with pressure. Seeing no reaction, the man curls up his fingers, leaving his index finger extended. He coats his hand in an invisible layer of dense aura. Following the direction of his index finger, the aura protrudes into a point, creating a formless blade. The man focuses the rest of his aura onto his legs before bending his knees and kicking off with a reverberating clap that nearly snuffs out the raging fire.

Sensing the air pressure growing increasingly tumultuous in response to his master's aura, the boy finally breaks his gaze from the sky. He takes a deep breath and watches as his master disappears with a deafening explosion.

Behind. Horizontal.

Feeling the air behind him grow denser, the boy lifts one knee and leans forward, just in time to dodge the formless blade. In the same instant that the aura blade passes over the boy, the surrounding air collapses towards the arc of the swing. A split moment later, the arc erupts violently, ripping through empty air and into the woods. A series of resounding cracks and thuds fill the air as the arc tears through the trunks of hundreds of trees.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Just before hitting the ground, the boy drops his foot onto the ground to slow his descent. Using the foot as a pivot, he sweeps his other leg in a crescent, repositioning himself to face his master. The boy flattens his hand into a palm as he spins, coating it in a dense layer of protruding aura. Upon completing the spin, he transfers the combined momentum of the fall and spin up his body and into an upwards stab.

The blade rips through the empty air, passing by the space between the man's neck and shoulders, before coming to a complete stop a few centimeters behind his head. The man smiles upon hearing the air around him rumble violently as it collapses towards the tip of the boy's aura blade. Without a split moment to spare, the man sends all his aura towards his ears to block out the ensuing explosion. Seeing the boy release his stance, the man turns around towards the sky behind him. At first, his eyes squint at the glow hiding behind the clouds. Upon seeing the haze slowly clear up to reveal a bright star, the man's eyes grow wide with disbelief.

“To accomplish such a feat before…” The man resets his facial expression before turning back towards the boy. “Boy, how old are you again?"

The boy rolls his eyes at the man before falling backward onto the ravaged earth. With heavy breaths, he arches his neck and lifts his eyes to look at the destruction behind him.

“Do you have a grudge against trees or something, Master?” The boy asks, wiping the blood from beneath his nose. “Did they beat you when you were a ch-”

"Again!"

“I’m spent.” The boy rolls his eyes once again. “Check your eyes, old man, I might’ve accidentally blinded you.”

“Boy…” The man sighs as he sits down beside the boy. Using his arms as a pillow, he lays down and gazes up at the faint glow. “You’re hearing things again. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

A moment passes with nothing but the sound of crackling fire and rustling leaves. The master-disciple duo stare silently at the glow as it fades away behind the recovering haze.

“The voice in my head…” The boy’s voice suddenly breaks the rhythmic crackling and rustling. “It’s trying to remind me of something… But I don’t know what.”

“‘Something’?” The man asks as he pulls an arm from under his head, reaching it towards the sky as if to try and grab onto the fading glow. “Or ‘someone’?”

“‘Someone’? But Master… who?”

“Check your eyes, boy.” The man chuckles lightly as he extends his finger towards the star. “A once-in-a-millennium talent… Capable of grazing the Heavens, yet incapable of seeing the answer before him.”

The boy blinks rapidly to refresh his vision, worrying that he might be missing something. After a moment of seeing nothing except the fading lone glow in the unchanging night sky, he begins to tremble with frustration.

“Nobody, at least not in the past thousand years, has managed to do what you just did,” he drops his hand from the sky and pushes the boy’s hair back behind his head. “Look again. Look at what you’ve just accomplished.”

“You’re doing that thing again.” The man’s mysterious manner of speaking causes the boy to roll his eyes. “It’s just a star.”

“Bahahaha!” The man, flabbergasted by his disciple’s denseness, releases the boy’s hair and bursts into hearty laughter. “I suppose you’re not wrong. Anyway, thanks for showing me the stars, boy.”

Hearing the conclusiveness in his master’s tone, the boy sighs. As his master drifts off into slumber, the boy continues to stare at the night sky, wondering what it was he had forgotten- what it is that he can’t see.

To show you the stars… Master, you’ve gone blind. It’s only one star...