Training

After a week of wandering, eating, listening, and reflecting, Leo returned to the climbers' district feeling… sharper. Clearer. His body hadn't weakened—if anything, the rest had honed something deeper. His will, usually a coiled spring of tension and urgency, now felt tempered. Less brittle. More deliberate.

He hadn't expected it. But now he understood.

Rest wasn't retreat. It was fuel.

Still, clarity didn't mean comfort. The climb ahead was real. So he returned to training—not just the solitary forms and meditations he was used to, but something more active: sparring.

He began with Kaelen, the wind cultivator. Their match took place on one of the rooftop courts, the breeze swirling unnaturally as Kaelen manipulated the air to shift his momentum mid-strike. His movements were unpredictable, graceful, and sharp.

But Leo flowed through the chaos.

He didn't overpower Kaelen. He simply read him—finding the moment between bursts of motion, slipping through, letting his spear dance between gusts like a leaf. The match ended with Leo's blade resting gently at Kaelen's neck. Kaelen grinned despite the loss. "That spear of yours, make sure to remind me to not get on the wrong side of it."

Next was Sel. The earth user met Leo in the stone courtyard, the ground shifting under her every step. Her fighting style was patient, solid—every movement a countermeasure, her defense an evolving wall. Leo had to dig deep to keep pace. He couldn't brute force his way through her guard.

So he didn't.

Instead, he flowed. His half-step into mastery allowed him to strike around her defenses, slipping through openings a fraction of a second before she closed them. The match ended with a single clean touch to her shoulder. She nodded in approval, her expression unreadable but her respect evident.

Then came the brothers, Ral and Niko. They fought as one unit, blades moving in tandem like extensions of the same will. It was unlike anything Leo had faced—two opponents, zero hesitation.

It pushed him harder.

For the first time in the spars, he had to retreat, duck, slide under dual strikes that almost clipped him. But that familiar whisper returned—the subtle hum of possibility, the faint glow of motion falling into place. He flowed between them, not fighting them both at once, but dividing them with precise positioning. When the fight ended, he stood between them, spear at Niko's chest while Ral was a step too far to stop it.

They both let out synchronized whistles. "Damn," Niko muttered. "How many qi points do you have now?"

"Enough," Leo said with a smirk, though he knew the truth—his advantage hadn't come from strength. It had come from that growing, maddening edge of intent.

When he sparred Thorn, the quiet man wielded something strange—an aura that dulled senses, made movements heavier. Thorn's strikes were simple but relentless. Every blow carried meaning.

Leo's usual flowing approach nearly failed.

But that pressure, that presence, only made Leo dive deeper. He stopped thinking. Stopped reacting. He simply moved. And the flow—his half-mastery—rose to meet the moment. He didn't land a clean strike, but he disarmed Thorn with a flurry of precision that stunned even the stoic fighter.

"You're close," Thorn said after a pause. "I've never heard of someone become a half-master on just the fifth floor you'll be a monster if you make it out of here. Which is good the earth is going to need monsters."

Leo nodded silently.

He sparred a few more of the remaining climbers—each fight revealing something useful, but ultimately confirming what he had begun to fear: he was already ahead. His growing connection with the spear was inching toward true mastery. And no one else in the climbers' district could push him further.

Not in the way he needed.

And so, he returned to training alone. Hours at a time in the highest courtyard, the sun carving slow paths above him. He moved through his forms not as drills, but as questions—each thrust, each block asking: What's missing? Where is the path I can't yet see?

The difference between half-mastery and true mastery was thin—but vast. Like a whisper you could almost hear, a door just barely cracked open.

The days bled into weeks, and the weeks into months.

Leo trained relentlessly. Morning to night, he honed the spear—not with wild strikes or brute repetition, but with the slow, agonizing pursuit of perfect movement. Every motion was a prayer to the path. Every sequence a question asked of the spear, the air, and the Tower itself.

And still… the final step refused him.

Half-mastery had become second nature. His movements flowed with intuition and clarity, always dancing along the right path. But he could feel the difference. Just beyond reach, true mastery hovered like a mirage. A realm where thought no longer needed to guide motion, where intent bled into force.

He could taste it.

But he could not touch it.

No matter how many hours he drilled, how many duels he fought against shadows and illusions, the chasm before full mastery remained. Not wide, but deep. And frustratingly immovable.

So, he shifted his focus.

If his spear had stalled, perhaps his foundation could still grow.

Leo threw himself into cultivation with the same ferocity. He immersed himself in the elemental wells, cycling fire essence until his bones ached with heat and breath turned to steam. He meditated until the qi swirled tight and bright around him like a second skin.

And at last—he made progress.

His sixth qi point unlocked during a dawn meditation, the fire essence pulsing like a heartbeat just behind his sternum. The seventh came two months later, this time during a deep mediation, the energy flaring to life as he felt the blazed of fie.

Each point brought not just more strength, but clarity. And with that clarity, he began to feel something new—something buried deep within the fire essence he had been cultivating.

A law.

Not yet formed. Not yet known. But it tugged at him—like a scent half-remembered, or a flame glimpsed just at the edge of vision. Fleeting. Tempting. Dangerous.

The fundamental nature of fire. Not just heat, not just destruction—but something purer. Movement. Passion. Change.

There where so many aspects of fire but one stood out it's dance he spent some nights just staring at the flame of a candle watching it flicker as he imagined his spear following it's forms

He hadn't unlocked anything yet but he had time the tenth qi point was still far away

And then, without realizing it, nearly a year had passed.

Twelve months since he stood on the Fifth Floor, bloodied but breathing. Twelve months since he made the choice to climb.

He stood once again in the high courtyard, sweat slick on his arms, seven qi points burning quietly within. He was faster now. Sharper. Stronger than he'd ever imagined.

But the climb wasn't over.

And the Tower… was waiting.