The next step was not power.
It was understanding.
I tested my martial soul every day under different conditions.
Standing still.
Breathing deeply.
Using sword stance.
Using movement.
After running.
After meditation.
After a Full day of study.
The result was always similar.
The firagment responded best when my mind was calm and my breathing steady. If I forced it, it became unstable. But if I kept the rhythm correct, it remained clear.
That told me something important.
My martial soul did not want brute control.
It wanted precision.
So I built the training around that.
Control testing.
Summoning stability.
Wind sensitivity.
Spirit power circulation.
Observation of the firagment's response to movement and breath.
Little by little, I began to understand of my martial soul.
: Sunday With Mother
The academy had its routines.
So did my home.
On Sunday, I spent more time with my mother.
She noticed the changes befiore I said anything.
"You're getting thinner," she said, though her eyes were warm.
"I'm training," I answered.
She sighed, but her mouth curved slightly upward.
"Always training."
I sat with her in the small house while she arranged cloth and checked old shop notes. We talked about simple things. Food prices. Academy supplies.
Cloth quality. Ordinary topics, but peaceful ones.
That peace mattered.
It reminded me that I was not only a student or a cultivator.
I was her son.
Later, I met Zhao Kai near the academy courtyard.
"You've been disappearing again," he said.
"Training."
He looked me over and smirked. "You really are becoming harder to read."
"That is intentional."
That made him laugh.
It was not deep friendship yet. Not quite. But it was no longer simple curiosity either. He had become part ofi the rhythm of academy life, someone I
could speak to without wasting words.
And that was enough fior now