Winter Break 23

Ren took a deep breath and said, "Don't just sit back and relax, Jaune. If you can't focus on your Semblance Training, you won't make any progress."

"Hahh! How you do find this fun? I've never been good at meditation. I was always a more active person, you know? Learn by experience and all?" Jaune said as he saw Ren snap back into his meditative state.

Ren smiled and said, "For me, it starts with focusing on your Aura. Close your eyes then you simply breathe. You know, Jaune, my clan believed that everything has a soul and that everything breaths. The land, trees, the rocks have pores which air flows through, the clouds in the sky, animals and Grimm alike. If you can focus on the air circulating through your body, meditating can actually be really refreshing."

Jaune lifted a brow and smiled, just as he was about to shake his head, Ren's words struck a chord, "What about circulating you Aura inside your body? Kind of like running laps through the Aura network within us."

Ren opened his eyes in surprise and tilted his head while placing his hand against his chin, "Hmm, that sounds...very interesting."

Jaune relaxed and sat back in the lotus position, he sent his Aura throughout his body and let nature take its course.

Bit by bit, he filled his blood vessels and bones with Aura. Once he filled up his entire body, he realized that he couldn't make it move.

Jaune thought about Ren's words and took a deep breath. As the air flowed through his lungs, the blond knight felt that there was a natural pull to his Aura, almost as if it were all rushing in a counter-clockwise rotation. 

When he breathed in, it sank all the Aura into the deepest recess of his body, and when he breathed out, it expelled trace amounts on the surface.

Jaune slowly began to push his Aura along the natural path until it made a full rotation inside his body. When his Aura reached its original position, Jaune didn't feel anything change.

He shook his head and tried again, once more his Aura rushed through his body like a tidal wave. As he made his second rotation, Jaune felt an odd sensation spreading inside his Aura pathways.

He began experimenting with his breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the mouth, out through the nose.

Jaune then tried many different sets of breathing exercises. When he breathed in his through mouth, he held his breath for one second. Slowly releasing half of the air in his lungs through his nose, Jaune breathed in even more air than he had before.

 Jaune did this tens of times before his lungs flexed to their limits and he felt his body starting to warm up. Next, he let out all the air he collected and sensed the Aura moving even quicker and with a raging intent.

"Once more," Jaune said as that feeling grew stronger.

"Again!" Jaune completed another rotation.

"Again!" After ten rotations, Jaune started to feel something unique and amazing occurring in his body, it was as if he was pulling on the forces around him and converting it into Aura.

His Aura Network started to expand and fluctuate with his breathing. When it reached the space that contained the densest form of Aura, the influx of energy caused the core of his soul to grow slightly.

Jaune's eyes opened up as he smiled happily, his total Aura had increased a single point in the time span of 5 minutes.

The chime of his system announcement caused the blond knight to jump up in joy.

[Congratulations on pioneering a viable Aura Capacity training method.] 

[Please name skill…]

After explaining what he discovered to Ren, Ren smiled and said, "Incredible, Jaune, this is amazing! To actually find a way to steadily increase one's Aura is a phenomenal breakthrough in Aura studies."

Eager to try out Jaune's new method, Ren sat down and followed his instructions, after ten minutes, Ren found his Aura Levels had increased slightly.

"Since we made it together…I think you should get a say in what we name it. So, what should we name this?" Jaune said as he placed his hand to his chin. 

"Well, let's see what you come up with first and I'll offer my opinion," Ren smiled.

The blond knight then pointed up a finger and suggested, "How about…Everything Breaths?"

Ren shook his head, "You've never been good with names. Well other than when it comes to weapons, I admit Pridwin, Grimm's Bane, and the Pale Rider are all pretty good names. I wonder why you can't do the same thing for team attacks and nicknames. I mean, come on, Flower Power?"

Jaune frowned, "Hey, Flower Power is a great team attack name. Your guns being the flower, Nora's the power, and now that Ruby's part of the attack, it's even more fitting. It makes perfect sense, ya hear?!"

"Yeah! What's your problem with flowers? You named your weapons after them!" Nora shouted as she appeared behind Ren suddenly.

Ren just shook his head with a soft chuckle and said, "You're not wrong, Nora."

"Okay fine, how about Aura Breathing?" Jaune's followed up made the green ninja smile.

"Better," Ren closed his eyes and went back to mediation.

[Aura Breathing Technique created! Current Mastery: Level 1.]

[Godfather of Aura Growth Title Earned! Effects: Increase Aura Training Effects by 10%, Evolution Condition: Reach Mastery Level 3 for Aura Breathing.]

[Training Maniac has evolved!]

[New Title; Training Enthusiast!]

[Effects: Increase all training benefits by 25%] 

"PANCAKES REN!" Nora shook her pink-eyed crush.

Ren chuckled and stood up, "I guess, that's it for my meditation today."

Jaune laughed as he pulled something out from his inventory and passed it to Ren it over to Ren, "Ruby and I worked on this all night for you."

"Ohh! A present! What is it Renny!?" Nora shouted.

Ren looked at the cloth covering a long D-shaped object with a smile on his face. He removed the wrapping while Nora shook his shoulders with an excited expression.

Seeing the green-tinted paint on steel made him and Nora gasp as Ren revealed a powerful looking Gearshift Longbow that could snap together to make an Anima-Styled longsword.

[A/N: Just so people don't get confused, Anima is the place where Lie Ren was born, so the sword looks (Chinese) in nature.]

A pink tassel hung from the bottom nock of the Bow and a thin gleaming metal wire acted as the bowstring. Next to the bow was an auto-ejecting quiver full of full metal arrows.

Ren felt flabbergasted, speechless, and happy all at the same time. As he held the bow in his hands, he inspected the arrows and saw many Dust Symbols along the length of the shaft. 

The arrowheads and nock were made of pure Diamondnite and had a single different Dust Symbol on them.

Altogether, there were ten arrows. Only two had harden-metal Dust Symbols etched onto their surface. The next seven arrows were comprised of the most common of the eight elements, earth, water, fire, wind, ice, lightning, and gravity, and lastly was a single experimental explosive arrowhead.

"I want you to learn my mom's Aura string method so that you can reuse the arrows the hardened Diamondnite Arrows. Ruby suggested putting tracking chips in them so you don't lose them after a lengthy battle or a random scuffle…but…we don't have that kind of tech to play with yet."

"Smart…" Ren nodded as he ran 

"Ooh! Shiny!" Nora commented while she inspected the weapon. The orange-haired Valkyrie then looked to Jaune with anticipation in her eyes as she held out her hands and asked, "Where's mine?"

Jaune laughed and said, "Well, this is kind of an early birthday present. It's getting pretty close to new year's day, and since we'll be fighting a Nuckleave pretty soon, Ruby and I thought that we should go ahead and make this now."

Nora pouted, her birthday was in the middle of Summer, her lips trembled and faux tears formed in her eyes, "B...bu...but, I want an early B-Day present too."

Jaune shook his head, "Ruby and I are working on something for everyone, including you Nora."

Nora's mood started to improve when Jaune immediately shattered it by saying, "So you have to wait a bit. We don't have the material to build yours yet. What we do have is a blueprint."

Nora whined, "Come on, it can't be that hard to find parts for me."

Jaune laughed, "Nora, the tech and material can only be ordered from Atlas through Beacon or we could put in a request at an official Hunter's Nest."

[A/N: More AU stuff. Hunter's Nests are shops solely dedicated to serving Hunters.]

Nora pouted again as her shoulders slumped over, "I promise to work on it when we get back to Vale, I'll even put in a request form later so we won't have to wait as long."

"I hate that month-long inspection period! Stupid Atlas and their military rules! Why do you need to do background checks on people who make things go boom? It doesn't even make sense!" Nora shouted.

Both Ren and Jaune raised their fingers as if to say, 'It's for that exact reason.'

However, they just stood there with open mouths before looked at each other and laughed in a dejected tone.

"What's the point right?" Jaune said with a grin.

"Nora will be Nora." Ren nodded his head.

Ren placed the bow front and center before channeling his Aura through his arms, the string was made from the same composite alloy Ruby and Jaune created the other night, Marigold. It was twined together into a proper bowstring that could only be pulled back by a trained Hunter and took roughly seven-hundred pounds of pressure to pull back. 

Thanks to Ren's improved physique and Aura, it proved to be no problem for him to handle.

Letting his hand go, a loud twang echoed out as the bowstring snapped back into place. 

"It's a good string…" Ren commented before pressing a switch on the side of the grip. 

The bowstring began to retract with a 'whirling' noise as the form of a thin sword took shape.

Ren swung the sword a couple of times and nodded his head, "I don't have any training in swordsmanship."

"My family can teach you. Ash knows a thing or two about Anima's traditional sword style and Granny is from Anima so she is pretty much a master of the style....and learning other forms with me couldn't hurt," Jaune said scratching his head, "Oh, the quiver can also act as the sheath, the arrows have Dust Symbols engraved into their surface, you need to coat the arrowheads in the Dust-type you want to use, you know what, here's a pamphlet," Jaune held out an instruction manual for the unnamed weapon.

Ren placed the sword into the sheath and watched it as the sword collapsed into the quiver and a cover snap over it, he hugged Jaune and said, "Thank you, brother."

Jaune grinned as Nora awed and jumped in on the hug lifting the two up and threatening to break their spins.

After letting them go, the two boys gasped for air and laughed before grinning at each other. 

"Okay Nora, go get your pancakes with Ren, I'll stay here and meditate for a while longer.

The two waved as they headed towards the house, Jaune smiled, Nora and Ren were the closet things to siblings he had in the future, and Jaune still loved them as such.

Sitting back down, Jaune once again began to focus on his training. He had just taken the first step, and his Aura training method still had room for improvement.

After a few hours, Jaune had increased his Aura Pool by a total of thirty points.

He stood up and excitedly gripped his fists, "I did it! Go Jaune! It's your birthday!" 

The knight cheered as he started to do a little dance.

"I thought I still had a whole season until your next birthday." Ben's voice called out making Jaune pause his dance in embarrassment.

"Hey, grandpa!" Jaune embarrassed and red-faced said as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Hey don't stop, you have some good moves. I ever tell you about that time I stole your grandma's heart?"

Jaune giggled, "Only about a hundred times. Why do you think I spent so much time learning to dance?"

Ben laughed and said, "That's my grandson!"

Jaune laughed with him as his grandpa suddenly pulled out a particular set of metals.

Jaune's eyes widened as he saw a large chunk of Diamondnite.

"Well, happy birthday!" Ben teased as he tossed the 35-pound Ingot towards Jaune.

Jaune caught it and was still short of breath, "How did you?"

"I heard you needed good metals, so I had this rush delivered from the castle. I have some more, but this was all I could get on short notice," Ben replied before handing over a few other materials.

Jaune smiled warmly as he looked over the large ingots in his hands, "Thanks, grandpa. Tamahagane from Menagerie's Iron Sand Desert, this stuff is great for building a flexible core in my metals, Minstralian Bronze is good for impact absorption, Atlassian Carbon Titanium is good for more intricate parts and gear-shifting tech, and is this pure Diamondnite?"

"Your teammate told me you raided a battlefield recently, so you must not be hurting terribly for Diamondnite, but some extra material should help," Ben placed on his hands on his hips and laughed loudly.

Jaune felt a surge of warmth as he stored the materials and hugged his grandpa again. He knew that each of these materials a too expensive, even the SDC would have trouble pulling out such materials in a moment's notice.

"I can't thank you enough, grandpa. With this, I can make some good stuff for my friends!" Jaune declared with joy in his heart. 

His grandfather always supported his dream, even when his parents did not. Although it was for good reasons as he discovered recently, but it still meant the world to him that his grandfather could see his potential.

Ben patted Jaune's back and said, "No problem, anything for my grandkids. Nice change to the chest plate. It looks a lot stronger too."

The Grandpa smiled as he saw how much Jaune reminded him of his younger self, especially after seeing him don the family armor.

He then let out a sigh and said, "Jaune, I need to talk to you."

Jaune lifted a brow, "About the trial?"

Ben nodded his head, "Yes, I want you to know just how dangerous it really is."

The blond knight sat down and said, "I don't think it can be any worse than watching the world fall apart in front of your eyes."

Ben sighed as he took a seat next to Jaune, "Jaune, it's not that simple, the Knights of the Arc are far more fearsome than you understand, there are two parts to the trial, one to test your strength, and the other to test your heart."

"My heart?" Jaune tilted his head because he hadn't heard about this part from his father."

"If you complete the first half, you will be gifted an incredible blessing from our ancestors. However, no one has passed the second test, ever," Ben gave Jaune a serious stare as he continued, "Whatever you do, don't accept the second trail."

Jaune could hear the fear in his grandfather's voice, "Is it that bad?"

Ben patted Jaune on the head, "Just trust me on this, even if you survive, you'll be crippled in the process, my brother tried to take it on, but after failing, he became mute and slowly passed away because he neglected his health, he didn't eat, speak, or move from his bed, it was if his very soul had been drained from him."

Jaune's eyes widened, "Grand Uncle died like that?"

"You understand why I don't want you to take the test, I don't want you to end up like my brother," Ben said as he hugged Jaune again.

Jaune took his warning seriously. However, he knew if the extra trial could grant him more strength, then he wouldn't shy away.

Jaune gripped his fist and thought, "I have to succeed. I can't let that future come to pass."

Ben scruffed up Jaune's hair as he said, "Come on. Let's train. These old bones need some exercise!"

Once again, Jaune began to train for the rest of the day. He continued to improve his swordsmanship and took fierce beatings that threatened to break him several times.

When he finished up he would return to the forge and practice his Aura control.

The days started to pass by pretty quick. Ruby and the gang were all enjoying their stay immensely. Jaune even caught Weiss smiling like a happy child as she grew closer to his family.

Not that he blamed her. At least everyone else on the team had parents that loved them more than life. 

Weiss had always wondered what a proper family acted like, and now that she knew, she couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Ruby, especially after learning she was Jaune's first crush.

She wanted to smack her other self in the head for passing up such a chance. Of course, she would never tell this to anyone nor admit it out loud.

The girls trained their butts off under Joan and the Arc-Sisters. Sparring with expert hunters proved to be a great benefit for them to advance their own skills.

Pyrrha continued to experiment with her Semblance until she managed to magnetize a large piece of stone and shatter it into a wave of black Iron Sand.

Ruby managed to push her Semblance to new lengths and managed to invoke a level of speed that left Joan stunned. With the Aura Burst technique, Ruby could make sharp turns without losing speed. So, not only was she faster than before, with the aid of her Crescent Rose's ability to instantly alter her trajectory, she could move in completely unpredictable ways.

Other than learning speed based moves from Grandma Arc, she learned how to wield a dagger since Joan thought it would be better for her to be able to hide a weapon or two when she needs it.

Ren often trained with Ash, the girl used a Twin Long Sword/Bow/Chainsaw combo weapon and had a lot of knowledge about Anima's swordplay.

Nora and Amy went toe to toe in dozens of fierce fights. Amy's Storm Caller Semblance allowed Nora to find out she had limits on her lightning absorption ability.

When she reached maximum storage capacity, Nora risked exploding, so Amy told her not to hold it in and release all the lightning in one violent burst of high voltage destruction.

The destructive explosion left lightning shaped scaring on her body, but luckily, Jaune was there to heal her wounds. She was happy about everyone scolding her, since it showed how much they cared. However, she wasn't going to stop any time soon. 

The orange-haired Valkyrie discovered that every time almost overloaded, she could increase the amount of lightning she was capable of storing inside her body. Not to mention the fact she was constantly getting stronger too.

Yang was constantly being beaten down by Gwen and Rouge, the two working together to help Yang work on her new martial art. They spent a lot of time going over the basics and building the blond brawler the solid foundation needed to fight differently than she was used to. 

Alongside improving her combat capabilities, Weiss learned about Dust Combination, Symbology, and different ways to use her Semblance with the teachings of Joan and Noire.

Joan used to know Weiss's grandfather before he passed away. She could only tell her how he used his Semblance in battle and how he meditated. The Schnee Heiress was thankful for her words of advice. Other than Winter, she didn't have anyone to depend on when it came to understanding her Semblance.

Noire was a healer type. Her Semblance was called Saintess. It allowed her to heal any wound at the cost of her Aura, but unlike Jaune's Amplification Semblance which improved the target's Aura to the point where they could heal just about any wound themselves, Noire's Saintess Semblance focused on turning her own Aura into pure positive energy that healed at the cost of her own Aura. It even healed better than Jaune's ability.

Saphron's Semblance wasn't battle based, nor team-based, which is why she never became a Hunter. She used to joke about it, and even blamed getting this Semblance on her Pokemonsters craze and animal obsession.

Her Semblance gave her the unique ability to unlock just about any animal's Aura and train them. However, she didn't want to tame animals just to send them into battle. Instead of raising up animals to fight Grimm, she chose to make her mark in sciences and technology. 

Never the less, since the Grimmpocalyps was imminent, she decided she should get her head in the game.

With Jaune's aid of using her Level Tokens, her Semblance now allowed her to increase the status points of her tamed animals and gave her access to her 'Pets' status screens.

Needless to say, she was testing this ability on the local animals such as a few deer or boars, and she was even planning on getting a dog.

When she heard Ruby and Jaune found a Dire Wolf and that Ruby had an adorable Corgi, she wanted to use her Semblance on them.

Ruby was excited, to say the least. However, they had left Flora with Prof...ahem…Doctor Oobleck, and Zwei was with Taiyang.

"When we get back to Beacon, we should bring Saphron with us!" Ruby declared, throwing her finger into the air.