Kenta woke up, feeling the smell of the roasted meat.

He saw a weird dream where 7 beautiful busty women were dancing around in a ring. Each of them had a different hair color: red, orange, yellow,  green, blue, indigo, violet. The environment was brightly white, to the point of blinding.

Every woman drew closer to Kenta, said something and returned to others. Kenta did not understand what were they telling him.

In the end he lost conscious. The last thing he heard was a female scream…

-       What was that...

Asked Kenta. He did not expect to hear the answer. But the smell of meat became stronger. “Mm...How tasty..”, thought Kenta and opened his eyes. He thought he was dead so when Kenta was opening his eyes he expected either some valley with flowers or the flames of gehenna. But not that he still would be in the kingdom.

What appeared before Kenta’s  eyes was a lot of black and white lines, representing object contours. In that lines he was able to recognize a small house and the river beside it. In the river Kenta was able to sense some moving objects. “A fish?”, Kenta was able to sense the swimming fish. Also he saw a lot of lines representing the forest in the distance. Kenta himself was lying on the ground in front of some moving lines, similar to a triangle. “A fire?”, thought Kenta. He was bandaged with a some cloth.

-       I am not dead...

Kenta saw Shun’s countour, who was quietly sleeping in the chair. “Bastard! Cut me with a sword without even warning! I will have my revenge!”, said Kenta and started getting up.

Shun opened his eyes. He looked at Kenta and made a surprised look.

-       Oh my god! You are alive!

“Moron!”, Kenta felt a little pain on the left. Shun made a serious face.

-       You should rest for a while...By the way. Welcome to the world of living!

Shun smirked. Kenta gritted his teeth. Shun approached Kenta and sat in front of him.

-       Do you feel any changes inside of you?

Asked he with comforting voice. “Now that you mentioned…What the hell???”

-       Erm erm...I can see some black and white lines instead of objects...

Shun nodded.

-       Well, now you are able to [sense]. Or to be more precise [see]. Moreover you sensing abilities are incredibly high, because for a moment, you were a truly part of the nature.

-       So I was dead…

-       Well, yes. Sorry for that, but that was the only way.

Told Shun with a serious face. “If you did not make this whole clownage with the tournament, everything would be fine without that. Why the hell Shun did that?”, though Kenta was angry he also felt joy too as now he could see his future path as martial artist at least.

The cut, left by the sword was aching. Kenta decided to ask.

-       I was dead...Wait! If I was dead, why I was revived???

Shun took his katana, that was lying on the ground beside him.

-       Thanks to that! Average sword would simply killed you, but that katana is special. It’s made from a special material by a smith many years ago. If I cut a heart with it, the person will die and then revive. Moreover he will acquire abilities in martial arts after that.

Kenta was shocked. “Insane! If the information about it spread, thousands of people will want to acquire that katana!”, said Kenta. “But why did he tell about it to me? Does he really trust me?”

-       But as some kind of protection mechanism, it alters people’s memory and if anybody asked them how to they acquire powers, they’ll answer that they either trained or have a talent, or had a great teacher and etc.

“Bullshit! I clearly know how did I acquire that powers! I was cut by that sword!”.

-       Ok, Shun. I don’t believe that I won’t be able to tell it.

-       Then let’s test it!

Said Shun enthusiastically.

-       Wow! You are have such high abilities despite your age!, - shouted Shun, making amazed facial expression. - How did you get them?

“Damn clown!”, thought Kenta. “I acquired it with your sword!”, thought Kenta and told

-       I am just a talent..What????

Shun started laughing. Kenta gulped and tried to repeat.

-       I am the talent!

“What the hell!!!??? I clearly know how I get it but I can’t tell it”. Seeing Shun dying laughing, Kenta was surprised and shocked at the same time. Shun finally stood up and said.

-       In the end only the owner has the knowledge about that katana’s ability and it’s up to him how to use it. The right to wield that katana is granted by the previous owner himself. So only I can give that katana to another person. Even stealing it won’t work.

“Well...Looking now, I doubt anybody can steal it from Shun honestly. He may look like a carefree person but at the same time he gives a feeling of true reliability. Not to mention he’s strong as hell”.

-       Mystical...You katana is definitely some kind of rare artefact. I cannot even imagine what other powers it may have.

Kenta groaned. And at the same time he was afraid.“It was able to alter my actions! It is almost as it can control my mind. It’s frightening…”, said Kenta with a worry. “His powers, his items...No. He’s something special. Moreover I cannot sense anything from him. I can see only his outline. He looks just like that tree over there. Anyway I want to return my usual sight.”Kenta decided to ask.

-       Erm...Shun, how to disable that seeing or sensing or whatever it’s called...

Shun looked confused for a moment and then said.

-       You mean, [All seeing eye]?

-       [All seeing eye]?

-       Yup. It’s a special skill! In order to become a martial artist, you have to acquire an ability to sense the environment. To be more precise you need to sense the object structure. That skill is called [All sensing eye]. On the basic level you should be able to sense object as some formless smoke with a color, depending on the object. For example the tree will look like a green smoke, the human will look like a red smoke and so on.

-       But I see the tree as contour and not as the smoke at all.

-       Right! This is [All seeing eye]. It’s the highest level of the [All sensing eye]. More exactly it’s a final level of [All sensing eye] as you can see the objects just like the nature see it.

-       So the nature recognize objects only by its contour?

-       Yes. The smell and object’s look are defined by the living beings...Humans, demons themselves. For the nature such characteristics do not exist. There objects are either dead or alive.

Shun exhaled and scratched his head.

-       But for the tournament you need the basics and some battle skills. With your current level of understanding you are at the level of the top martial artists. Moreover now [All seeing eye] is your default way to see the environment and you’ll have to learn how to see the world like you used to be. You are in the realm of nature now. The level, achieved only by the couple of martial artists in the past. You only lack techniques. As I’ll teach you required skills, during the tournament you’ll be the one to shine. Hahaha!

Shun started to laugh. Kenta was excited too. “I am a martial artist now!”.

Meanwhile in Seprentia....

The royal family lived in the old castle, built at the time of the Forgotten Empire. It’s said that their ancestors occupied it when the empire was in breakdown. Despite its old age, the castle looked almost as just built due to special magic spell, used during its building, which prevented aging of the materials. It was some ancient spell and no one knew it today.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The king MakKonell Silvier, was standing in front of the big, wall-size picture in his room. On the picture the woman was portrayed. She looked similar to Elizabeth Silvier, but she had white hair and green eyes. The woman’s name was Silicia Silvier. She was a mother of Elizabeth and the wife of MakKonell. She died several years ago. On the picture Silicia was wearing queen’s white dress.

-       One day...Our daughter will fulfill her role.

Said MakKonel with some sadness in his voicel. Somebody knocked on the door to the room.

-       Enter!

Said the king and moved towards his table. It was the beautifully decorated table with a chair, similar to a throne.

The one who entered, was the old man in some luxury armor. The armor was similar to the armor of the Sword Saints, except it was white and not golden like the one, the Sword Saints weared. The man came with a folder in his hands, which contained some papers.

-       MakKonell, I came to report that Xo Ming was defeated.

-       I see...So Leyten did his work. But there was not any need for you to report me that, Reiren. You could always send some soldier.

Reiren Castello was the leader of the elite kingdom’s forces and also the old friend of the king. They fought together many battles in the past and the king even wanted to make Reiren, his advisor. However Reiren decided to stay as a leader of elite kingdom’s forces.

In the youth he wanted to become the Sword Saint. But during the tournament, despite being the winner of it, he was not able to even touch the 11th Sword Saint, who happened to be his opponent. But he gave a decent fight, even made the Sword Saint sweat so in the end it was decided to make him a leader of elite forces.

-       Well..No, MakKonell. Something unexpected occurred.

Said Reiren with a serious tone. The king looked frightened for a moment.

-       Something happened with my daughter?

After the death of his wife, he sweared to protect his daughter. He even arranged a marriage with Leyten, just to make sure she would be protected by the Sword Saint day and night.

Reiren looked surprised and then laughted.

-       Ah! No no! Everything is fine with Elizabeth. - he opened a folder and gave the document to the king. It was a white paper with the kingdom's emblem. - According to the report, Xo Ming was defeated by the unknown person, who introduced himself as Shun. Nothing detailed is known about him and his name can be a fake. He’s about 20 years old. Also he had a companion Kenta. Who is 15. More details in the report.

King read the report. The report contained information about Shun, his companion, his clothes, items and some additional details. Basically only the things you may know about the person whom you had just met. After reading the report King stood up.

In order to deliver the report, nobles in the kingdom usually hired some lighting magician as messenger, because they could move much more faster than any carriage. And the king gave two messengers to Leyten and Elizabeth for their journey. So the one of them just arrived.

Originally he sent his daughter and her fiance to the shrine in order to make Leyten fight with Xo Ming. The  king, with the help of the grand magician, who used some old magic, tracked the steps of Xo Ming and MakKonell was planning to send Leyten to deal with him, when the time was right. The king wanted to test if Leyten were strong to become the next leader of the Sword Saints. It would make him the youngest 1st Sword Saint in the history.

Current leader, Jin Yakoi, was already over 250 years old and wanted to retire. All the Sword Saints except Leyten were rather old people. Despite having the tournament every year, during the last 60 years there hadn’t appeared a person worthy the Sword Saint title. Since MakKonell became a king, he could not remember any formidable fighter in the tournament.

But once Leyten appeared, he and other Sword Saints realized, the he could become the next Sword Saint.

The Sword Saints for many years wanted to make a leader someone young, because they believed that he could bring the changes to the current Sword Saint system as it relied on the rules, created several hundreds years ago. So when Leyten became the Sword saint the saw that as perfect opportunity. Moreover he was a descendant of the hero, who saved the kingdom and even got the respect from the Western Empire so he was a perfect candidate.

But in order to make that somehow official, they wanted some kind of evil who would become a threat only the Sword Saint could deal with. As the kingdom was rather peaceful, it was very difficult to find such person. Only the Western Empire had such people.

But a direct confrontation with the Western empire was out of question. They were strong enough to conquer the kingdom using only 1/6 or 1/7 of their resources, but they did not do that in the respect to Rubio De’Leroe, who stopped their army alone and the current grand magician, Obadiah, who wielded the power and knowledge rivalling empire’s court magicians.

So when Xo Ming appeared in the Mirani town, the Sword Saints and the king saw that as a great opportunity and sent Leyten to the place, where Xo Ming was, under the pretext of visiting the shrine of that unknown god, who could create miracles.

“But it seems that plan failed. That Shun person defeated him. And he is the same age as Leyten”.

There were a lot of magicians and warriors who did not display their power and who were strong enough to become the widely-known figures in the kingdom. There were those famous monks on the Sage Mountain, who were trying to reach out the Warrior’s God powers, using the teachings he left. Also some people said about a hermit, living somewhere in the Mountain Range of the Forgotten Empire.

-       From that report I can say that Shun is quite a skillfull warrior as he was able to capture Xo Ming. Also I am curious about one pharagraph.

MakKonell pointed to the lines, which were telling that Shun did not have even a scratch on him.

-       How could it possible? Xo Ming was on the Sword Saint level presumaby but that Shun was not even wounded.

-       I was surprised too, MakKonell. I asked the messenger, who brought the report - Reiren sat in the chair.  He stopped dreaming about becoming the Sword Saint many years ago but he was still interested in those people, who had great powers. - And he told me that even Shun’s clothes were perfectly fine too.

“This is incredible”, MakKonell wanted to meet that person. If everything said there was true, that meant that the kingdom had a candidate into the Sword Saints ranks. “We were lucky tp meet Shun. We should somehow recruit that person into our army” thought MakKonell. Despite living for many years peacefully, recently, the kingdom started to recieve a lot of reports  about the villages, attacked by the demon forces and the kingdom could run into a situation where they would not be able to protect themselves.

-       Anything else that was not mentioned in the report?

-       Well, it seems that Leyten had a chat with Shun. He may know something.

-       I see. When he’ll arrive, ask him to visit me.

-       I was planning to do that.

-       Thanks, Reiren.

“Also I should ask Elizabeth about him”, murmured the king.