After Liam sent me home, I chose to take the time to get some rest. I was eager to see how the staff would turn out, and I didn’t exactly have much else to do.

I followed the usual routine. Opening the double doors of the Inn, smiling and waving at Wang, climbing the steps, and throwing myself onto the bed. The only difference this time around was that I was fully clothed as I fell asleep.

Even though I wasn't tired when I entered the room, I somehow fell asleep before my face even hit the bed. It wasn’t a comfortable sleep either, it felt as if someone forcibly knocked me unconscious.

Within my sleep, I head a rather bizarre dream. No, this wasn’t a dream, it was a vision, but not like the ones I had experienced before. This one was much more abstract. It felt like someone was standing in front of me, flipping through black and white drawings.

The first of the visions was a warm blue flower that I viewed from a low angle. It was leaning to one side. It seemed to glow, illuminating the darkness surrounding it. It was silent, but it felt like it was playing a magical melody directly into my soul.

Suddenly, a large boot made up of dark scales stepped in and crushed the little flower. The light and melody vanished just as quickly before the boot lifted again, revealing the dark forest that lurked behind as it came into focus.

The little flower remained in place, flattened in the dirt, but a small sprout emerged from the deceased flower. As if I was traveling through time, I watched the new sprout grow into adulthood, only for the new blossoming flower to be a dark black rose. More sprouts spread beside the first, and more appeared as the others grew. The rate at which they spread grew exponentially until they completely blocked my vision, and the scene changed.

Second, I watched overhead as a game of chess took place below. From my angle, the pieces felt life-sized, or perhaps I was just small. Either way, the game was already nearly finished with the white king in the center, but only surrounded my pawns. Breaking the rules of chess, the pawns closed in on the king, which had no power to stop them.

Third, I saw the Central Cathedral where I was meant to have my execution, but the noose was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the front doors were left wide open, with many people walking in and out of the building. I only caught a fraction of a second, but this is the vision I wanted to remember the most.

This was the last of the visions for the night. I awoke to feel surprisingly well-rested. I tried to think about what I saw that night, but I couldn’t make sense of what they could have meant for me. I thought that the answers would come with time, so I continued the rest of my day as I normally would.

Just I was about to walk out the door I turned to see my spellbook sitting on the desk collecting dust. I remembered how everything in my life changed when it was given to me. Instead of leaving as I had intended, I turned to grab the book. I picked it up with both hands and blew the dust off its cover. I wondered what my life would have been if I had never seen this book, or if I’d just never opened it. I thought about this for a moment and decided that what could have been didn’t matter.

“This is my life now,” I said to myself.

Carefully, I set the book back down in the same spot it was before to cover up the rectangle of dust left behind, and headed towards the door without looking back.

The path to Liam’s factory was getting increasingly familiar each time I walked it. By that point, I’ve traveled up and down enough to recognize individual bits of trash. I knew when a piece had been picked up, and I knew when someone left something new. This new skill had absolutely no practical applications, but I felt it was a neat thing to be able to do.

After yet another uneventful walk, I opened the door to Liam’s factory to see him sitting to the right sanding down a bright orange staff.

“Well, hello. I was just putting in the final touches.”

He threw the staff into the air in my direction, so I guessed he was already finished.

“Wow,” I said in awe, “I can’t believe it.”

“Ha!” he laughed, “You better believe. It’s right there in your hands.”

He was right. The newly-born weapon that would be by my side for the rest of my life rested peacefully in my hands. It had a bright shine to it with an orange color that faded to a dark brown in some areas. After I rotated the staff a bit I saw an odd symbol just on one of the edges.

At first, I thought it was a pentagon, but I quickly realized it was, in fact, a diamond with five sides. With the sharpest point facing down and a flat surface on top, I started to notice the fine engravings inside the diamond shape. A line connecting two of the corners on either side of the point. The two corners above that drew two separate lines that intersected the center of the first line and from there the two lines formed one and ended at the bottom point of the shape.

“What does this symbol mean?” I asked while still twisting the staff in my palms.

He simply responded with, “It holds some meaning from my younger days. I put it on all the items I craft.”

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With this knowledge, I glanced towards the wall of staffs, and sure enough, every single one of them wore the same symbol. Even the pickaxe that rested on the floor had the symbol on its handle. I had no idea how I never noticed this before.

“Now,” he said, interrupting my amazement, “We can start the real training?”

My eyes shot up and I asked, “What will we be doing?”

“Let’s go outside and we can begin,” He said while actively ignoring my question.

The two of us stepped outside the building and walked to the area I dug out. The light from the torches didn’t reach very well, and the ground still had hard has stone. Liam told me to stand still while he walked ahead, and stopped just twenty feet away.

Liam turned to face me and said, “Block one hit, and you pass for the day.”

He dropped to a fighting stance and I thought it would be a relatively easy day, and blocking would be easy. I thought that getting a hit would be the hard part. I watched Liam and copied the stance he was holding, waiting for him to make a move.

With just the push of his heels, he dashed to the right. I could only see a very brief after image before he disappeared. I could hear the sound of air being dispursed, and occasionally a streak of color as he raced past my eyes.

However, moving was all he was doing. I couldn’t pinpoint his location, but he had to be circling me to keep his speed, but that couldn’t be the case. The blurs of the man were hazy and nearly invisible, but I could see some of the images traveling from right to left, while others went from left to right. He couldn’t possibly be changing directions this quickly.

While I was trying to comprehend what was going on, I felt a weak shove from my back, but the movement never stopped. The shove was weak but unexpected enough to knock me off balance. Before I could catch myself another one came from the right, and then the left. He was hitting me again and again, but I could never catch a clear sight.

My head seemed to rotate on a swivel just trying to predict where he would be next, but Liam must have seen this and taken advantage of this. I followed his previous attacks in hopes that he would follow some form of pattern. I turned right, then left, but I saw nothing. Not even the blurs, but I could still hear the movement.

A single drop of sweat rolled down my face as I looked straight ahead to see a crystal clear image of Liam’s face heading straight for me, pushing the speed of sound itself. I had just enough time to prepare for the oncoming attack, and I was ready to block, but he saw this too. Instead of hitting me directly like before, Liam jumped completely over me and smacked me square on my forehead with his staff as he did. My eyes crossed and I fell flat on the hard rock, likely causing a mild concussion.

Liam finally stopped moving with his staff resting against the ground. “I can do all this week,” he said.

I didn’t like the fact that he implied that this would go on for multiple days. My vision was shifting as I tried to stand. It seemed like the more I moved the harder it became to see. After a lot of hard work, I was finally standing. My back arched forward slightly as I made eye contact with Liam, but he didn’t say anything else. He simply vanished, and the sound of the air and blurry streaks continued again.

I was lost. I had no way to spot him, and even if I somehow knew the direction he would come from, I still lacked the speed necessary to block his attacks. I tried to come up with a plan while Liam simultaneously bombarded me with unavoidable hits. With each hit, the force Liam used grew stronger until every hit knocked me to the ground.

Since my sight did me no good, I gave up on my eyes and shut them entirely. I chose to listen for the sound of any footsteps, and feel for the disturbances instead. This is what turned out to be the winning strategy.

When I closed my eyes, it felt as if I could slow down time. I heard things that were muffled before, and the tiniest of vibrations felt like earthquakes. Using this, I heard small taps along the ground, but they weren’t normal footsteps. These taps were in the same spots every time. I discovered Liam wasn’t actually continuously running in a constant circle. Instead, he had four predetermined points, and he dashed from wherever he was standing to one on either side.

I opened my eyes for a moment and saw small impressions on the rock at these four points. I closed my eyes again and started to feel instead of listening, trying to predict the direction of his movements before he landed at his next point. It took longer to figure out than when I was just listening, and Liam got several hits in before I did.

Every time Liam dashed there was a slight disturbance in the air. If I focused enough I could feel the vibrations travel up my arms, but this alone wasn’t enough to react. I chose to use a wind spell to create a roaring wind current powerful enough to put the worst hurricanes to shame, similar to what I used to launch myself into the air, but this time I intentionally weakened it to only a mild breeze. Completely undetectable to anyone unaware of the spell.

Now, the air was on my side. Any disturbances in the current would be amplified by nearly a hundred times, and transmitted directly to me. With these new skills, I felt more confident in facing Liam.

Liam managed to get one last hit in, but I was ready for the next one. I could feel his movements, and hear the taps of his feet on the ground. He went left twice, right once, then dashed straight for the hit. This time around, I swung my staff at the perfect moment to intersect his. The clank of the wood echoed through the cavern.

Liam stopped all movement and stood upright just behind me. When I faced him I saw something in his eyes. An emotion. I saw something in him that he had never shown before, but I didn’t know what it was.

“Well done,” he congratulated, “You passed.”

“Thank you,” I responded.

“But don’t think I didn’t catch that spell you used!” he scolded.

I thought that meant I had done something wrong. Liam never said spells were forbidden, but I never had a chance to think about that possibility. I studdered for words as I tried to apologize.

“Don’t worry about it Kid,” he said, “I already said that your weapon is just an extension of yourself, and your magic works the same way. It’s a part of you, so exploit it to its full potential.”

That’s yet another quote from Liam I’d never forget.