Chapter 4: The Crucible of Sound
The air in the abandoned dojo tasted of dust and decay, its wooden floors creaking underfoot like the bones of a forgotten giant. Sunlight filtered through cracked paper screens, painting golden stripes across the old man—Jin-Ho, as Leo had finally learned his name—as he sat cross-legged on the floor. A chipped teacup steamed in his hands, its contents smelling faintly of medicinal herbs.
"You fight like a child swinging a sledgehammer," Jin-Ho said, his milky eyes narrowed. "All power, no finesse."
Leo winced, adjusting the ice pack pressed to his swollen cheek. The beating from Kael's father had left him bruised but alive, thanks to Jin-Ho's intervention. Now, the old man's "training" felt like a second pummeling.
"I won, didn't I?" Leo muttered.
Jin-Ho's teacup cracked as the barrier around it compressed suddenly, shattering the porcelain but leaving the liquid perfectly contained in a shimmering cube. "Winning a street brawl means nothing. Your power is a scalpel, not a club. Start using it like one."
---
The Lesson Begins
The first exercise was maddeningly simple: balance a pebble on the tip of a soundwave.
Leo stood in the center of the dojo, sweat dripping down his neck as he focused on the tiny stone hovering above his palm. His soundwaves trembled, distorting the air like heat ripples. Every time the pebble wobbled, Jin-Ho smacked his shin with a bamboo rod.
"Control," the old man barked. "The vibration is an extension of your body. You wouldn't flail your arm wildly, would you? Then why your power?"
By sundown, Leo's palm was raw, but the pebble stayed aloft for ten full seconds. Jin-Ho grunted approval. "Tomorrow, you'll balance two."
---
The Whispering Dungeon
Jin-Ho's idea of "field training" involved a midnight trip to the Shattered Chasm Dungeon, a jagged fissure in the city's outskirts where the walls hummed with unstable energy.
"This place eats flashy Espers alive," Jin-Ho said, lighting a cigarette with a flick of his finger. The ember glowed unnaturally bright—Leo had learned the old man's barriers could manipulate light, heat, even oxygen. "Monsters here hunt by vibration. Make a wrong move, and you'll bring the whole hive down on us."
The first hour was torture. Leo's boots crunched too loudly on gravel. His breathing echoed. Twice, he nearly triggered a cave-in by sending out poorly calibrated soundwaves to map the tunnels.
Then, something shifted.
Pressed against a shuddering wall as a pack of *Echo Crawlers* scuttled past—blind, bat-like creatures with sonar-sensitive wings—Leo listened. Not with his ears, but with his power. The dungeon's vibrations painted a picture: the Crawlers' heartbeat-like pulses, the drip of subterranean water, the fragile fault lines in the rock.
He exhaled, matching his breathing to the dungeon's rhythm.
When they emerged at dawn, Jin-Ho tossed him a protein bar. "You stopped sounding like a brass band. Progress."
---
The Academy's Shadow
Returning to school was surreal. Whispers followed Leo everywhere—"That's the guy who took down Kael's crew"; "They say the Barrier King himself is training him"—but the bullies kept their distance. Kael's left arm hung in a sling, his glare venomous but wary. Mira no longer flickered out of sight when Leo passed. Only Jax nodded at him once, a grudging respect in his stone-chip eyes.
The real tension hung in the faculty wing. Teachers eyed Leo like a lit fuse, and Principal Choi summoned him weekly for "disciplinary reviews."
"Your benefactor's reputation shields you," Choi said during one meeting, polishing his glasses to avoid Leo's gaze. "But tread carefully. The Hunter's Council does not forget."
Leo didn't need the warning. He'd seen the black vans parked near his apartment, the men in trench coats watching his mother's window.
The Storm Approaches
It rained the night the A-Rank hunter returned.
Leo was practicing in the dojo, shaping soundwaves into a makeshift shield, when the door exploded inward. Kael's father stood framed by the wreckage, rain sliding off his charcoal-gray trench coat. His eyes glowed faintly, embers in the dark.
"No old man to hide behind tonight?" he growled.
Leo's pulse spiked, but his hands stayed steady. Jin-Ho had drilled one lesson into his skull: *Fear is a vibration. Control it.*
"I don't need him," Leo said, layering soundwaves beneath his words.
The hunter lunged, moving faster than humanly possible—a side effect of his combustion-based acceleration. Leo clapped, releasing a pre-loaded shockwave. The air *thumped*, disrupting the hunter's fiery trajectory and sending him veering into a wall.
"Clever," the hunter spat, flames curling from his fists. "But how many tricks do you have?"
The fight was brutal. Leo used the dojo's layout to his advantage, ricocheting soundwaves off walls to strike from blind angles. He shattered floorboards to create debris fields, then used high-frequency pulses to ignite the splinters—a poor man's flamethrower.
But the hunter adapted. Soon, the air reeked of ozone and burnt wood, Leo's uniform singed and smoldering.
"You're tiring," the hunter taunted, dodging a sonic blast. "When you collapse, I'll make sure your mother hears you scream."
Rage surged, and Leo's control slipped. He unleashed a raw, unfocused burst of sound—
The hunter smirked, ready to counter—
And froze as a tiny black cube materialized inside his mouth.
"I believe," Jin-Ho said, stepping from the shadows, "that's my move."
---
The Barrier King's Wrath
What followed was a masterclass in terror.
Jin-Ho didn't attack. He simply existed, barriers layering around the hunter like a fly trapped in amber. A cube compressed the air from his lungs. Another sealed his flames.
"You hunt children to feel strong," Jin-Ho said, his voice colder than Leo had ever heard it. "Pathetic."
The hunter choked out a laugh. "You're… a relic… The Council will… burn you…"
Jin-Ho leaned close. "Tell them to try."
With a gesture, he flung the hunter through the dojo wall, sending him skidding across the rain-soaked street.
---
The Truth Unveiled
After, as Leo bandaged his burns, Jin-Ho finally spoke about the past.
"The 'Great War' they teach you about?" He snorted. "A sanitized fairy tale. The first dungeons weren't natural—they were weapons, created by fools trying to harness Esper energy. I was one of those fools."
Leo froze. "You… helped make the dungeons?"
"No." Jin-Ho's gaze turned distant. "I tried to destroy them. My barriers could seal the gates, but the Council wanted the power for themselves. They called me a traitor. Branded me a rogue."
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a tattooed barcode—the mark of a former Council prisoner.
"Your soundwaves," Jin-Ho said quietly, "they don't just break things. They can *harmonize*. Stabilize unstable energies. That's why the Council fears you. Why they'll come."
Leo's throat tightened. "What do I do?"
Jin-Ho smiled for the first time in weeks. "You learn to sing."
---
The Calm Before the storm
Dawn found them atop the city's highest skyscraper, the wind whipping their clothes as Jin-Ho demonstrated resonance harmonization.
"Dungeon cores are like tuning forks," he shouted over the gale. "Find their frequency, and you can shatter them—or control them."
Leo's first attempt nearly blew out every window in the financial district.
"Less enthusiasm!" Jin-Ho yelled, ducking a shard of flying glass.
By the third try, Leo matched the tower's natural vibration. The structure hummed, glass panes chiming in unison, as if the building itself had become an instrument.
"Good," Jin-Ho murmured. "Now imagine doing that to a dungeon."