Maisy walked Silas through how to meditate and cultivate shadow mana. The others took turns sparring while Silas sat and fought off sleep as he meditated about nothing. It lasted several hours until they were well out in the ocean.

"Cultivators!"

There was a yell from the bridge of the ship, causing Silas to open his eyes. William and Maisy were sparring, and Magnus looked at them before he ran off toward the front of the boat to see what was going on. It didn't take him long before he was back with a grin.

"It's the pirates. They're speeding toward us." Magnus looked at the rest of the group. "Time to test some of what you've learned, huh?" He looked at Silas when he asked the question.

Silas just grinned a little and stood, giving a firm nod. He wasn't as powerful as he used to be, but Silas was better than he had been. Silas had felt better now than he had in months, and he couldn't wait to flex a bit. A little of this new mana was sent into his ring, and his war hammer was withdrawn and in his hand. His hand gripped the leather wrap around the hilt.

Everyone else also readied their weapons, William and his large curved daggers, Kio and her rope dart, and then Magnus used a guandao. A guandao was a halberd with a long curved blade, one end up a thick spear tip on the other. They all gave each other a look of determination, a nod, and then rushed to the front of the ship with the rest of the crew. The Captain was standing at the helm, holding onto the rung, so the boat held steady in its current course.

"They're a little southwest and tracking us, moving quickly," the Captain pointed in the direction and frowned a little before looking back at the group. "This is why I allowed you on board. Judging from your weapons, you're ready for a fight?" She looked at the five of them and smiled.

Magnus looked at the Captain and nodded. "Yes, we are here for you." Then he'd give her a firm nod and tighten the grip on his weapon.

The group all looked in the distance, and with their enhanced eyesight, they saw it. It was a simple ship, lean, with three masts which looked like a lot on a boat that size, but it was so they could run down their targets. The crew on the ship was all standing at the ready, even having their swords in their hands as if they were going to be boarding the ship now.

Magnus then looked back to Maisy, who didn't bring out any weapons. "You think you can do anything to slow them down?" He grinned, and Silas cocked his brow, looking at Maisy, who gave a brief grin in response and then a firm nod of her head.

Only a moment later, she had a long wooden stick in her hands. It was hollow and had some holes in it. "I think me and my flute can do a little something."

She stuck the instrument to her mouth and blew into it. The music that came from it was beautiful. It was airy and light. Maisy was gazing intently towards the pirate ship, its black flag with the skull waving behind it. Silas could feel the power of her notes. The force behind her playing. Silas looked towards her and cocked an eyebrow curiously. William responded by inching up behind him and patting him on the shoulder.

"It's the mana," he told Silas and chuckled.

Silas looked back at the pirate ship. It seemed like the winds were picking up around it, heavily so. The sails were full, bursting from the wind pressure, pushing them in every direction. Silas could see the crew scrambling and one man with his hand on the ship's wheel yelling and directing his men to various places and to do different things. The rest of his little group sent their weapons back into their storage objects. It took Silas a moment, but soon he did as well, sending his hammer back into his ring.

Silas watched the two sails break free from their masts. Then the center mast, which was the most prominent and had the largest sail, cracked. Some of the pirate crew pointed and ran or jumped overboard, while others couldn't jump away in time and were flattened underneath the mammoth wood pole when it finally fell. Silas stood there with his mouth opened wide before looking at Maisy. This was when she stopped playing her flute and looked at Silas, and gave a wink.

William was still standing behind Silas, clapping his hands, hardly sending some non-sacred artists backing away from him. He was clapping so hard it was making small boom noises every time his palms smacked together.

"Well done, Maisy, bloody well done. Ya see, Silas, ya see the sort of power you have access to?" Then William started laughing a little like a madman.

The rest of the crew finally snapped out of whatever trance they were in while they were watching and shouted cheers. The Captain even came up behind Maisy and clapped her on her back.

"Well done, Sacred Artist, well done!" The Captain told her, laughing a little, "if you ever want a permanent spot on a crew, my ship is open to you."

Maisy blushed a little, and her flute disappeared. She waved her hands. "No, no, it was nothing. I'm glad I could help. If they were closer, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Then these other guys would have had to show off their skills, and some of your crew could have gotten hurt. This way, everyone is fine."

While the rest of them spoke, Silas kept watching the pirate ship. That was one pirate ship that would be stuck there for quite a while and may think twice before running down another vessel in the open ocean. The crew moved around the boat. The Captain yelled in their direction, screaming curses and obscenities. Silas couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. He was ready to flex his muscles a little and stretch out his abilities once more now that he could.

Kio stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You still have a lot to learn, Silas. You would have done well against these pirates. You probably aren't ready for fellow Sacred Artists."

Silas turned towards her and looked into her eyes, frowning. He stared at her for a moment and finally smiled, giving her a nod. "You're probably right."

"Mhm, you're like a lil bronze duckling still, Silas," she smirked, looking up at him.

Silas frowned slightly in response, but he nodded and conceded the point. Looking back at the disabled pirate ship, he smirked and shook his head.

"Don't worry," Kio told him. "Soon enough, I'm sure you'll be able to do much worse. We just have to work the cobwebs out." She then reached and kissed his cheek softly before leaving him and going to Maisy.

Silas blushed and furrowed his brow, thinking of the night before once more, and sighed, shaking his head. He turned now, looking away from the pirate ship and to his group, the few crew mates, and the Captain, still congratulating Maisy on the epic display. Maisy seemed embarrassed by the whole thing. She waved them away and walked to Silas, pointing back toward the back of the ship.

"Come on, you've meditated enough." She motioned for him to follow her.

They made their way back to the open area of the ship, with a few of the crew stopping the pair to thank them for their help and protection. Once they were at the back of the boat, Maisy stood in front of Silas and smiled. Maisy and Silas just nodded their heads.

"So, how are you feeling about everything? Do you feel you have a grip on the mana versus madra?" Maisy asked Silas, looking firm.

Silas nodded his head confidently. "I think so. There really isn't much difference? It's just elements that weren't originally on the planet, right?"

Maisy nodded her head. "Correct. You see, people think a pantheon of gods or some such created the world. It's not true. There was one, and he was more powerful than any god could ever be. He's called a Kami. He's the Father. Then he created the planet and mortals. Eventually, he created the other Kami and made himself a little family. These new Kami were given powers and added to the mortal planet. They each have their own realms of existence, and their entire purpose is to keep the mortal plane going for their father."

Silas stared off in her direction but was looking past her in thought. They sounded a bit like gods, but they were more. They didn’t just control something, they were the embodiment of what they controlled. Silas looked at Maisy once more and nodded his head. While they spoke, William walked up, taking a bite from an apple.

"You think Silas 'ere is caught up to speed, do ya?" William looked at Maisy, asking her.

Maisy nodded her head. "I think so," she reached and took William's apple from him, "why don't you find out for sure?"

William glared for a moment when she took his apple from him, but then smirked and nodded, hearing he could spar. He frowned once more when she took a bite of the apple. William shook his head and looked at Silas with a grin. With his fists in front of him, he took a simple ready stance, and his feet spread apart. He was sidelong to Silas to give himself the smallest target possible.

Silas readied as well, turning to the side, but instead of fists, he had open palms. One arm in front of him, the other behind, turned downwards. It had been a while since he fought without the hammer in his hands. Outside of wrestling, he did during the winter with Leo at the Inn.

“What are ya waitin' for? Come at me, big boy,” William chided Silas with a grin.

Silas smirked and laughed for a moment before charging towards William and giving in to his call. They were just doing some harmless sparring, after all. Helping to train Silas with his new powers. Silas launched a palm strike toward William with his backhand, which William met with a fist. From there, the spar was on. No more smirks or laughs, just two devoted sacred artists sparring with each other.

William moved much quicker than Silas. He had the furious attacks of a tiger behind him. William was originally a member of the Iron Claw Sect, so it only made sense he fought like a tiger. Silas, meanwhile, was slower to action, but his blows came with more power behind them.

It was two very different schools of thought and always made for a good match when the two collided. Either the slower, more powerful striker would get one or two perfect hits and clobber the quicker man, or the speedier man could wear down the larger and defeat him.

The two fought for a while, exchanging blows, not really putting any power behind either of their blows. Eventually, though, Silas felt some extra power behind William's punches. This growing fiery power meant Silas to enforce his body with some of his newfound mana so he could speed up a little. Silas was soon sweating while William looked fine, even grinning widely as he went in for another series of blows to Silas's rib cage.

"Come on, lad, you're gonna have to do something to keep up!" William called to him as his first blow hit.

Silas staggered back a moment, and then that was the only hit William landed for the rest of the match. Silas closed his eyes and concentrated on manipulating the surrounding mana. His very own shadow rose from the deck of the ship.

It became this lifelike thing that had a form to it. It was leaner than Silas was, and it intercepted William's attacks. If not a little faster, it moved as quickly as William did. Dodging and pushing William's arms out of the way before he could land a hit.

William and the shadow both moved quick and efficiently, leaving Silas to stare and take a moment to think. William's eyes grew wide, but didn't relent. He couldn't let this advantage go to waste. He jumped back into the battle, swinging an open palm toward William's core. It struck. William couldn't stop exchanging blows with the shadow, or he'd probably be knocked out.

His face turned dark when Silas struck him, though, and he grimaced. William could feel shadow mana flooding his core. The shadow mana disrupted his fiery madra, invading and temporarily taking away William's power. Soon it locked William up, and he could barely move, only allowing the shadow to pummel William's midsection, sending him to the ground with a gurgling noise. Silas stood up straight and lowered his arms. The shadow fighting for him fell back to the deck to become Silas's regular shadow again.

Maisy's eyes went wide. "Silas!" before she dropped to her knees and grabbed William softly, running her hands around his stomach area, where his core was.

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"I'm fine, I'm fine," William spoke up. He moved to lie on his back, spreading out his limbs. "That was, that was different, though. It flooded my whole body with your mana, strangling my power." William looked up at Silas with a grin, "and the hell was that shadow man you sent to fight me? I'd seen that before, hadn't I?"

Silas just gave William a nod, smiling a little. “Yes, I can control it a little better now.”

Maisy now looked up at Silas as well, questioningly. By now, Magnus and Kio had also arrived and were trying to pick up what had happened exactly. William was just lying there laughing, shaking his head. "You could really mess someone up with that, Silas, especially if you let it really fester inside of them."

Silas stared down at William and nodded, a grim expression on his face. "Yeah, I could imagine."

Everyone looked at Silas and went quiet. When William climbed to his feet, he clapped Silas on the shoulder and looked into his eyes. Now William had some minor experience with what Silas had been going through the past months.

"Well fought, mate." There was more that William wanted to say, but couldn’t.. Silas could see it in his eyes. Instead, William clapped his hands together and bowed to Silas, to which Silas promptly returned the gesture.

"I only won because I sensed you using madra, so I used mine as well," Silas responded to him when they came up from their bows.

Maisy looked at Silas with a kind of awe on her face. "You'll need to be careful with that, Silas. From what I can tell, any harder and you might have destroyed William's core." She gave him a look of concern, frowning.

"Nay, none of that, lass. I'm fine now. It jus' took me a minute to get my juices flowing again,'' William waved Maisy off, grinning.

"It's a wonderful technique, though," she gave him a firm nod and smiled.

The entire time, Kio and Magnus watched the exchange between the other three. They were wondering what exactly Silas did to William to send him to the ground like that, writhing in pain with no wounds. Maisy saw their expressions and smiled before she explained.

"Silas flooded William's core with shadow mana. I never thought such a thing was possible, but," she paused for a moment. "It flooded him and made him lose control of his power."

The other two looked at Silas a moment, and Magnus nodded, thumping his chest a little like a warrior getting ready for battle, and gave Silas a firm nod. Kio bit her lip, unsure, "so, what does that mean?"

"It means he can cripple a cultivator. He can't transfer the power like what happened to him. Still, he can strain and suffocate a sacred artist's power, so they don't have control over their madra anymore," Maisy explained.

"It's what has been happening to me all winter long. The power was inside of me. I learned that it would have been a smoother transition if I didn't fight it. Kenji told me that when I was out, or whatever happened to me.

It happened to Shu, my old phoenix. Shu didn't fight it. So much of what happened to the little bird makes sense now. The way he poofed around and didn't have to fly." Silas brought a thumb and forefinger to his chin in thought, thinking of the possibilities now.

"I think, I think so much has opened up to me now," Silas finally continued after long moments of him thinking.

Kio went to Silas and put a hand to his chest, looking him in the eye with a soft smile and an affirming nod. "Good, you need to get back up to par. We need Silas as I knew him back in Kyoto."

Silas grinned. "Oh, I think when I figure this all out, I'll be even better." Silas still felt a little guilty thinking of his wife and the villagers. Still, with this power under his control and him fully becoming a cultivator again, he could do something and bring them back.

Kio smiled at him and nodded. "Good, I don't want the old man to play catch up with the rest of us during all this. We still have a tournament to get to and win."

"We will defeat them all," Magnus spoke now. He really was just a man looking for a battle all the time.

The group laughed and looked at each other. Just then, one of the ship's crew came up to them. "We are getting ready to go into the bay on the island of Sunhae. We should be docked within the hour, according to our captain."

The group looked at the man now, who was older than some of the other crew Silas had seen. His skin was tanner than the rest, and his hair was gray. The man gave them all one of their own bows, with his hands clapped together. He bowed deeply, his back, staying straight.

The group gave the man a bow in return, but not as deeply, and thanked him for notifying them.

"Well, this didn't take long," Kio said idly.

"The Captain requests your presence on the bridge for the final approach, Sacred Artists, if you could be so kind. Sometimes the pirates can be lying in wait to take a vessel with their prize," the man continued, ignoring Kio's comment.

The group bobbed their heads and figured they'd be able to help anything that came along that may pose a threat. There were five reasonably strong cultivators in a world where there weren't that many people who practiced the Sacred Arts. They found the Captain standing at the helm when they approached the bridge, gripping the large wheel used to steer the rudders. She was standing at the side of it, one hand guiding the ship.

"We made good time after we passed that odd wind storm." The captain grinned and looked at them, centering on Maisy. "Thank you for that."

Maisy blushed, but then shrugged.

"We aren't fully out of danger yet, though. Sometimes groups of bandits will be on the shores," the Captain continued.

"Sure, a group of people can't be a threat to a ship this far out though?" Magnus asked the Captain, looking to see how far out the island was.

"Sometimes, they have cultivators. When they do, it never bodes well for the ship and its crew," the Captain explained with a soft sigh. "I'd feel better if I had you lot up here watching out for us while we made our approach to the monks."

"Of course, we weren't doing anything but sparing in the back trying to stay out of your way. We're happy to be up here to offer aid if you need it," Magnus spoke with the Captain taking the group's leadership role once more.

Silas walked along with Kio and Maisy and headed to the ship's railing facing the shore. William stayed behind with Magnus speaking with the Captain. Silas leaned up against the railing and watched. Using his senses and enhanced eyesight, he looked and reached out. Silas wasn't able to feel anything on the shore. Further, he could feel the monks in their monastery's training and whatever else they did.

The monks were Sacred Artists and cultivators, but they had unique thought processes than traditional artists. They believed in a determined path and that everything was already predetermined for them and their paths. They were just walking along it. It's why they took the stance of ‘what will be, will be.’

Most of the time and was why they wouldn't help the First Elder from Kyoto when he went to plead for their help. Of course, not every rule was set in stone, which is why Silas blamed himself for them not coming. Silas is a determined sacred artist, and he could change the direction of his path if he believed he needed to.

Still, Silas was making his way to the Monks island to see what was going on with The Heavenly Dragon Sect. The Dragon Cults, as they were known among most of the Sacred Artists. He looked over at his new companions and Kio. They all stood like hawks scanning the shorelines, ensuring there wouldn't be any trouble. He smiled softly and then looked back, watching.

It seemed like nothing was going to go wrong. All was well, and they were in the bay and almost to the docks when Silas felt something. He couldn't figure out what it was or place it. Maisy also seemed to catch it because she was standing next to him, peering off to the ship's side.

"Did you feel that?" Silas looked over at her, and she nodded in return.

"The others can't feel it. It isn't." Maisy stopped, her eyes scanning. "The cult is here. Or some of them, anyway. They aren't hiding very well anymore. It seems like they want us to know they're here."

William approached the two. "Nah, can't be. They didn't know we were coming. There's no chance they are here waiting to attack us. It'd mean someone from home sold us out, no? It couldn't happen. The Old Man would kill 'em."

Still, they were here. The ship's crew was currently navigating to an open dock and then securing the vessel to the pier with some rope. The Captain stepped behind the five cultivators who were now huddled together.

"Is everything alright?" She asked them curiously. "We made it to port unharmed. You did well."

"Aye, everything is probably alright for ye, captain, but we have dark roads ahead, it seems," William answered her.

"I'm sorry to hear that, cultivator William, but we have a tight schedule to keep. We need to catch what we’re after and move on so we can make our money." The Captain sounded hard now. Their business was done with each other. She wanted them off her ship so she could go about what she had to do to set them back off and get to work.

"Aye, aye, we got ya," William rolled his eyes. "Don't ya worry, we'll shove right off."

The Captain frowned but walked from William, figuring her point was made. Since he promised to leave, she figured they would once the ship was fully stopped, and the crew dropped the walkway. Just then, there was a loud clunk, and when she looked, she saw that the walkway was lowered and the five cultivators were heading off the ship.

Magnus led the group off the ship, with Silas close behind him. Maisy and William followed, and Kio took a few moments to smooth things with the Captain. She gave the Captain a soft bow with her hands pressed together and then looked at the old sea-worn woman with a smile.

"Sorry about cultivator William Captain. He can get a little antsy before we set off on a mission. He means no disrespect by his tone," Kio spoke softly to the Captain. She figured it would be better to not burn bridges and make ill will among people if they could help it. After all, they would need to find a way off this island once they were done with this mission when it came time.

The Captain stared at Kio and eventually returned the bow. She was short with Kio but friendly enough. "I apologize as well. It's just the stress of work, and now with no cultivators on board, we'll have to defend ourselves the old-fashioned way."

The Captain grinned while grabbing her sword and showing a bit of the blade. "Not that it isn't fun sometimes as well."

Kio laughed along with the woman and gave the Captain another bow, thanking her before moving to the walkway that connected the ship to the dock. The other four staggered around, waiting for Kio to look off into the village and then off into the distance. The island was primarily a jungle, besides clearings here and there either for monk monasteries or villages and towns.

Maisy and Silas were both looking to the forest, where they had felt the disturbance from before. Even with them scanning and watching for any sign of danger, they couldn't catch it in time. A dull purple beam of pure energy shot from the tree line. Kio was walking along, laughing and joking at William's expense about how he didn't need to worry. She would just smooth over everything he went and fouled up with his attitude.

She didn't even see the beam coming, striking her. Shooting a small hole right clean through her chest. She barely even felt anything, just looked at the spot where her heart would be before looking up at her friends. Kio then looked at Silas, her mouth opened wide. The black and gray robes flooded with the crimson of her blood. She looked into Silas's eyes, and her mouth moved, but no words came out, just a gurgling noise before she fell into the water.