Colors

He walked with dragged feet to the cave, when he got there, the young girl was still sleeping.

"Wow, she could still sleep during all this ruckus?" He exhaled. "I should probably get some too."

Vanta lay on his makeshift bed, not caring about surveillance; he soon drifted off to sleep. Vanta had achieved the Xue Sense, a whole new world of possibilities had been opened for him.

After having a good long sleep, he felt his bodyhe body energized and made a full recovery. The smell of roasted fish filled the tiny cave, clinging to Vanta's nose.

He sat up to see Ash roasting some fish she had caught.

"Those smell good," he complimented, and then greeted, "Good morning."

She looked at him with a puzzled look and then continues her task, saying in a low tone.

"It's past noon, and you've been sleeping for some days now. Thought you were dead."

She whispered and then added, not looking at him.

"Oh, and your book has been shining since your nap started; you should take a look at it."

A sense of shock crept over him. Had he been more mentally drained than he had initially thought?? He didn't think that Ash would lie about him sleeping for so long.

Quickly he brought out his student ID, which promptly turned into a book; it read...

"Name: Vanta black.

Age: 14.

Main objective: Acquired the xue sense.

Sub-objective: Processing.

Abilities: Shadow Forge.

Storage: 2 items.

Health: Normal.

Day 9 out of 365.

Returning: Null.

Xue Sense achieved by students: 5/967."

'Returning is null?? Health is normal. I guess achieving the Xue Sense means I can die for real now. Returning must have been for those specific abominations that kept spawning, and five others have achieved the Xue Sense.Impressive.'

Everything about him had improved, being boosted by the Xue Sense. This included his intelligence and perception of and to things.

"I've achieved the Xue Sense by the way. All that's left is for you to achieve yours," he pointed out.

Without showing any emotions, she tossed a piece of fish to him, which he caught.

"There's no need for that. I've had it for as long as I can remember; I was probably born with it."

"WHAT!? No way, that's impossible." Vanta yelled in surprise.

He had never heard about anyone being born with the Xue Sense, even history had no record of such an anomaly.

The Xue Sense could only be achieved through near-death experiences and rigorous training, and yet it was still never a guaranteed means of achieving it.

"You've got to be joking, right?"

Come to think about it, when Vanta had first opened his book, three people had already achieved the Xue Sense, and Ash was one of them.

Had the other three been born with it like her? Or had they simply achieved it with ease??

Well, he was going to have to find out, and this girl, Ash, had answers to questions he wanted to ask. He planned on keeping her close.

"I'm actually serious, probably why I could use my abilities earlier and you couldn't," she replied.

"Wait, if the purpose of this exam was to achieve the Xue Sense, which we have, shouldn't it be over us??"

Ash drinks some water from the cup she'd carved out of wood before replying. Her expression softened; her eyes were unreadable.

"Perhaps there's something else we need to do. The sub-objective in my guidebook is written "processing.". After achieving that too, we might fully be done with the exams, I think."

"You're probably right."

The rest of their meal was eaten in silence. After the meal, they cleared up the ashes from the firewood. Ash called Vanta outside. They stood facing each other with some distance between them.

"What ability did you get?"

"Shadow darkness" He answered, not sure why she was asking.

"Obviously, it's shadow darkness. That's the core ability of the black clan. What sub ability did you get?? Your own ability??"

"Oh, um...I knew what you meant. My sub ability is shadow forge. According to the ruins, it allows me to create anything from Shadows or darkness."

"My own ability is shadow erosion." She said.

She created a small dark mist on her palm. Her gaze moved from her palm to Vanta; her eyes were as sharp as a sword. She continued.

"Since we're from the same clan, I figured it'd be beneficial to both of us if I tell you the little I know about our clan's fighting style. The most important arsenal we possess is our color. Its amount and density greatly dictate the outcome of a battle."

She dismissed the mist on her palm and continued.

"It shouldn't be too hard with the help of the Xue Sense. First, learn your abilities well and then how to control your color, getting the most output with the most minimal input."

She walked up to Vanta and showed him how to relax. Although Vanta was used to all these steps before, they were much different now.

One is born with colors; they have traces of their clan's core ability. Take Vanta, for example; he could see perfectly in the night, which was related to his clan core ability, shadow darkness, but...

Now, he had more color, and it was denser, stronger, and more potent, and he had to learn to control it, to paint with it without wasting his color. The amount of color poured into a painting determined how potent the amount that painting would turn out to deliver.

"When you've mastered this, will advance to combat training"

Ash wasn't really a good tutor, she wasn't even an instructor to begin with and so, her explanations were kind of crude.

Of course, Vanta wasn't a noob when it came to combat. When he was little, he used to be one of the best studentsstudent in combat training.

With that she left Vanta alone who sat on the floor working on his color flow. Soon he began to sweat, it was a lot tougher than he had anticipated.

'Just get it once and for all. Incorporate it into your being. Be one with the flow'

As the sun beat down on the forest, Vanta's sweat-drenched shirt clung to his back. The trees seemed to grow taller, their leaves rustling in the breeze. The air was thick with the scent of blooming flowers. Hours blurred together in a haze of exhaustion and determination as Vanta trained his colour flow.