The Spar

In a courtyard in their house, Jacob and Saiya stand off. Jacob is actually a little nervous. Past Jacob always lost to Saiya, not only because of her cultivation, but also because of his comprehension of martial techniques. Jacob spent four years learning the 'Basic Boxing' to intermediate level, While Saiya has long mastered it.

Jacob took a stance and threw a punch, which was easily blocked and deflected by Saiya, using her other hand she threw a palm towards Jacob's stomach, which was quickly dodged. Using the momentum from the dodge, Jacob kicked out. Saiya responds by catching his leg and performing a take-down then turned it into a leg lock, forcing Jacob to tap out.

They both stood back up, Jacob then said, "Let's just go through the forms a bit first." Jacob and Saiya then started practicing the forms against each other in a slow manner. Basic boxing is as simple as it gets, There is Jab, Cross, Hook, and Uppercut. The main reason Past Jacob never went past the intermediate stage of the technique, is that he was always focused on just using his arms.

Basic boxing also includes a lot of leg techniques, movements, and take-downs. Past Jacob was always a bit disdainful of it. The root of the matter lies in a certain phrase said by one of the twelve sages of humanity, the Iron Fist Sage. He once said "With one fist, no one blocks my path." and this led to many young kids idolizing him, Past Jacob included.

New Jacob is different, although he thinks the Iron Fist Sage is pretty cool, he has his whole body refined, and it would be a waste to not use it. He earnestly performs each movement, falling into a sort of rhythm. As time goes on, he becomes more and more proficient. Saiya watching the process starts to go into a state of disbelief.

She has long known about her brother's iron clad belief in the Iron Fist Sage. Yet, as she watches him quickly get better and better at the 'basic boxing' quickly going from intermediate to advanced, and just a step away from mastering it, she finally said, "Are you ready for a full spar?" Jacob just nods, throwing a palm at her, then when she blocks he performs a quick take-down sweep, pinning her to the ground.

He has the strength advantage against her, because while he refined his whole body, she created an energy cycle based on her skeleton. Before he could get her into a hold though, she quickly slipped out and put him into an arm bar. Jacob tried to breakout and grasped. Time seemed to stop.

There was a scream, followed by another scream.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that day, Saiya was applying medical cream to Jacob's arm. They both had a red face because of the earlier spar. Saiya then started talking, "It will probably be healed by tomorrow. I didn't mean to apply so much force…" Jacob then waved her away, "No, it was mostly my fault, anyways, I plan to go shopping today anyways, I have to get a few things. Want to come with?"

Saiya then shook her head, "I still have some homework I need to do, we have to go to school the day after tomorrow and I need it to be done." Jacob nodded, then went to change into more casual clothes. He then grabbed a backpack and left the house, waving to Saiya.

He made his way towards the market place. Even though today most things can be bought online, there are many things that require to be bought in person, mainly, spirit herbs and exo beasts. The quality of spirit herbs can vary widely, and there are too many types of exo beast, mutations in exo beasts happen often as well.

There are also many types of domesticated animals, such as cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. Jacob's purpose today is to see if he can put plants and animals in his dimension. He makes his way towards the herbs first. He directly ignores the dead ones, and looked at the living ones. Most of them are in their early stages and nowhere near being fully grown.

He came to a yellowish plant with a purple flower, He knows this one. It is called the Purple Shade. They are one of the main ingredients in recovery medicine, they can't be eaten directly because they are poisonous, but are usually kept as house plants, because they are easy to grow and look pretty.

He bought one, then continued to look at the plants in the simulated environments. These are the types that are really difficult to grow, and cost a lot to maintain. He is going to get one to test the special energy of his dimension, which seems to be much higher in quality than the universe energy outside.

He finally sets his eyes on one called the 'Black Fire Flower' It requires complete darkness and a very hot environment. He paid for that as well, he had to pay extra for a stasis box to keep it from withering. He then left deciding to buy seeds if it worked. He then made his way to the place that sold exo beast.

He bought a rooster then looked around a bit without finding anything particularly valuable. He then looked around in the general goods area, wondering if he has protagonist luck that lets him find the treasure in the trash. Either his luck is bad, or his eyesight is poor, but he finds no such item.

Eventually he makes his way home, slipping in through to the back courtyard. First, he puts in both spirit herbs without resistance, then the rooster in the cage goes in as well. He then walks to his room, startling his parents as he came in through the back door. He waved to them, then entered his room and closed and locked the door.

He immediately entered his dimension. What he saw when he went in made him happy, the rooster was still kicking and he seemed pretty happy. Jacob went up and unlocked the cage, setting the bird free. It immediately nipped at the grass and ran around. Too lazy to bother with it, he turned to the herbs. Most spirit herbs require little care except for their environments.

The Purple Shade grows in most environments, so he took it out of the put and planted it in the ground about a hundred meters from the pond, the rooster seems to know that the purple shade can't be eaten, so it doesn't bother the plant. He then held his breath as he took the Black Fire Flower out of the stasis box.

After quickly transplanting it to the ground, he backed off and watched it for a few minutes, normally, if it couldn't survive in the environment, it would die rather quickly, it is in an environment very different from its normal grows conditions, bright light, even though he sees no sun, and air at room temperature.

After a while of it still being alive, he cried out excitedly. After calming down he opens his backpack and gets something he bought in the general goods area as an afterthought. It is a bottle, meant for containing special liquids, so that their energy doesn't leak out. He walked to the pond and tried to fill the bottle.

He then drank the energy water directly. His energy quickly increased, as if he was cultivating at a rapid speed, many times faster than even his max speed. He had to suppress it at the last second to not break through and hurt his foundation. He quickly filled the bottle then capped it. He then left the dimension with the bottle.