by Aaron Oster
“What is your ideal?”
“My…what?” Roy asked, blinking in confusion at the still somehow bored-sounding man.
How could someone possibly be this bored while teaching?
The man, who Roy had started thinking of as Hermit since he refused to give his name, let out a long sigh.
“Your ideal? You know, the thing that drives you. The one thing all Martial Artists believe in, to the point they would die rather than betray it?”
Roy simply shrugged. He’d never heard of this Martial Artist’s ideal thing, so he had no idea what Hermit was talking about.
For the first time since he’d met the man, he saw something other than boredom. A spark of anger flashed in his eyes, but it was gone so quickly that Roy had to wonder if he’d imagined it.
“Where did you say you were from originally?” Hermit asked, changing the subject.
“Um. The Waterwood,” Roy responded, taken off guard.
“And after that, you journeyed to learn Martial Arts in The Crater?”
Roy nodded.
“Of course you’re going to have a hard time, then. Bunch of simple-minded idiots. All they see is the next advancement without truly stopping to understand the Soul of their Paths.”
When Roy simply gave him another confused look, Hermit sighed, slumping against the tree trunk across from him. He then looked up to the sky above, staring at the small patches of blue visible through the glowing purple leaves overhead.
“No Martial Artist can make it far without an ideal. Sure, they may reach Blue, Purple, even Red-Belt. But they’ll go no farther than that without an ideal. An ideal is something that gives a Martial Artist a drive, other than the will to simply grow stronger. An ideal can be as simple as wanting to protect one’s family or as complicated as believing in a god.
“If you’ve noticed, the Martial Artists you faced once you left The Crater were far stronger than the ones inside or further west from there. That is because they have ideals, reasons to fight and grow stronger. To remove the mental block, you need to find your reason for fighting. What drives you to go on when life throws hardships your way? Answer that question, and you will find your way forward.”
Roy gave the man a dubious look. That couldn’t be the reason he was unable to feel Essence. As far as he knew, no one in The Crater had this ideal thing Hermit was speaking of, and they managed to advance just fine. True, he didn’t know of anyone past Red-Belt in The Crater, but that could simply have been an educated guess on Hermit’s part.
There was also the fact that Roy had had to find what his Path meant to him before he was even allowed to take his Yellow-Belt test, so the man was obviously making things up. He said as much, but Hermit was not fazed in the slightest.
“Yes, you have to know what your Path means to you. But do you really know the essence of your Path? Why do you think the energy of the world is called Essence, or why some of those past Blue-Belt can’t use Qi? The answer is simple. They do not understand the essence of their Path. The Soul of their Path.
“Every aspect of Essence is, in fact, a living force of nature. What you had to answer to move from White to Yellow barely scratched the surface of what your Path should mean to you. As you advance, you will discover that you have to answer far deeper questions on the nature of your Path and of your own nature.
“While it is not entirely necessary to find an ideal as soon as you get your White-Belt, by the time you’ve reached Orange, you should know what you strive for. So, I will ask you once again. What do you believe in? Why do you fight? For what reason do you continue to struggle on, despite hardship or strife? Can you even answer those questions?”
Roy stared at Hermit dumbly and shook his head. He had no idea why he fought or what he believed in. He’d thought revenge, anger, or perhaps even freedom was what he fought for. But none of those had allowed him to access his Essence, so they were clearly wrong.
Hermit sighed, then rose smoothly to his feet.
“Sit. Meditate and think about what I’ve said. Maybe then you’ll figure out why you’re fighting and can get out of my forest.”
He then turned and, in a single step, vanished from sight. That shocked Roy nearly as much as his momentary show of emotion. Hermit never moved at a pace faster than a slow shuffle, but now he was suddenly moving so quickly that he appeared to vanish.
Roy sat back, letting out a long breath and trying to calm himself. If what Hermit said was true, then his inability to use Essence stemmed from the fact that he didn’t have something to believe in. An ideal that he stuck to no matter what. Something he would be willing to die for.
Closing his eyes and getting into the best meditative position he could with his crippled leg, Roy began breathing.
In. Out. In. Out…
What did he believe in? What was his reason for being?
In. Out. In. Out…
Did he even have any reason to fight other than revenge?
In. Out. In. Out…
He sat, breathing, calming the turmoil within and trying to understand himself on a fundamental level. All the while, he was trying to figure out what he believed in. Hours passed, the sun dipping below the horizon and the trees shining brighter with their luminescence. Roy did not notice, caught up in his trance as he was.
In all the time he’d spent here, never had he had more clarity than he did now. Never had he felt more relaxed, as one with his surroundings. Hunger, thirst, the need to stand and stretch; none of those bothered him.
As he sat, breathing and thinking, an idea – the barest hint of one – struck at the back of his mind. And, for the first time, he felt a sort of resonance. Knowing he was on to something, Roy dug deeper, searching for the meaning behind it, fighting to uncover the belief he held dear.
The first sign of finding his ideal was that of a voice. One he had not heard in weeks and one he feared he never would hear again.
“…can’t keep ignoring me forever. I know you can hear me. Stop being all high and mighty and just answer, you useless sack of…”
“Geon?!”
Roy’s exclamation cut the Dungeon Core off mid-rant. Apparently, it seemed he’d been talking non-stop ever since he’d lost contact with him. For a few moments, Roy heard nothing. The silence began to stretch to the point where he feared he might have been imagining things. Then, the Core’s voice sounded in his mind once again, sounding oddly hesitant.
“Roy? Can you really hear me? If you can, say ‘pumpernickel.’”
“Pumpernickel?” Roy asked, quite confused at the odd word. He’d never heard it before.
“You can hear me!” Geon crowed, actual joy bubbling forth from the normally sarcastic Core. “Ignore what I said earlier. I take back all the horrible things I said about you!”
“Wait…what? What horrible things?” Roy asked, growing suspicious.
“Oh, did I say that? Never mind, you must have misheard me. I’ve missed you so much! The only one I’ve been able to talk to for weeks has been Ferry. And while she has gotten smarter, she doesn’t much seem to enjoy conversation. All she kept saying was ‘get me out of this cage.’ I mean, can you imagine being so selfish? Why, if I wasn’t…”
Roy smiled to himself as Geon continued carrying on, complaining about everything that he’d been put through since they’d lost contact. Though the fact that Ferry was locked up wasn’t exactly good news, it did mean she was still alive, which meant she could be rescued, but Roy would have to think about that later.
A force slammed into him, rocking his entire body and knocking the breath from his lungs. Roy sat, frozen in place, his eyes open wide and glowing gold as Power Essence flooded through him, restoring his body to the way it had been before. The makeshift sandals exploded off his feet, the bandages on his hands tore free, and the splint tying his leg in place shattered, sending splinters of wood shredding through his right pant leg.
Roy paid it no heed, feeling the warmth of the Essence flooding through him once m
ore. It wasn’t just that. He could also feel a new strength he hadn’t previously, noting streaks of red that had been building up in his Core flood through his body, sinking into his muscles and bones.
That must have been all the accumulated power he’d stored up from eating the Beast meat, though he had no idea what type of Essence it was. The only red-colored Essence he’d seen was Fire Essence, but this was a much deeper crimson resembling, more than anything, the color of blood. He would have to ask Hermit about that when he came back.
After the initial rush of Essence and the restoration of his body, Roy’s senses exploded outward, finally feeling the ambient power in surroundings. There was so much Light Essence in this place that it astounded him, though seeing as everything here glowed, he shouldn’t have been surprised.
There was also plenty of Power Essence in the air and tucking his legs in for the first time in over a month, Roy used his cycling technique. The Essence obeyed, flooding into his body, looping through his channels and into his Core. Only once the refined Essence entered his Core, did Roy notice the biggest change.
Somehow, some way, his Core had expanded to nearly three times the size it had been since the last time he’d checked. It wasn’t physically larger, but the depth showed the immensity of the Essence stored within. He was practically bursting at the seams, with ever more Essence pouring in.
He allowed himself to revel in the feeling for a few moments but stopped cultivating soon after he’d begun. Now was not the time. Opening his eyes, Roy looked down to his waist, where he saw his Belt once again holding what little remained of his robe in place. The Yellow-Belt containing three slashes of Orange shimmered, emitting a soft glow in the darkened forest.
Only once he saw the Belt back in place, did Roy completely relax. He had done it. He’d found his reason for being, the ideal that would see him grow until the world itself could no longer contain him.
It had taken him a long time to find his way. Days and nights spent suffering out in the wilderness, reduced to the cripple he had once been. But no longer. This experience had taught him a valuable lesson and one that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. His ideal? Freeing the oppressed.
Roy was actually surprised when it had resounded so strongly within him. He’d known that he wanted to help those who were downtrodden, much as he had been. But he never realized the depth of his conviction to do so. His entire life, he’d been treated harshly for his weakness, so anger and resentment had clouded his judgment.
Freed from those negative emotions and unable to practice the means by which to get his revenge, Roy finally had time to reflect, to heal, to accept what had happened. He was by no means planning on giving up on his vengeance, but that was no longer his only goal. His real goal, the one he believed in more strongly than anything, was helping those like himself.
Roy rose to his feet, a wide grin plastered across his face at the easy motion. No longer did his leg pain him nor bother him. It was a thing of the past.
Breathing deeply, Roy stepped forward, stomping down with his left foot and pivoting on his right. The Essence cycled easily through his body, and Roy let out the breath he’d inhaled with a powerful exhalation. At the same time, he struck out, twisting his hips for maximum power.
A blast of golden Essence flashed from his fist, impacting the tree he’d been aiming for with a massive, concussive blast. There was a horrible splintering cracking sound, and the thick trunk collapsed in on itself, the tree falling to one side, no longer able to support itself, due to the massive chunk blasted out of one side.
“Oh, wow! What was that!? Is it a new technique? Have you been holding out on me this entire time?”
Geon’s voice snapped Roy from his trancelike state, and he found himself grinning once again. That single strike had been so effortless. So easy! The movements had been smooth and polished, and the explosion of Essence had been evenly distributed. Even now, he knew he’d be able to repeat the technique, a perfect Exploding Fist.
“No. It’s the same technique as always,” Roy replied, staring down at his fist.
“There’s no way! Have you secretly been able to use Essence the entire time and have just been ignoring me? You have, haven’t you?” Geon accused.
“No! I promise I haven’t!” Roy was quick to reassure his friend.
But how did he have so much more control? He hadn’t been practicing, and the last time he tried to use it, nothing had worked as it should. His control had been shaky at best and completely inconsistent most of the time. What had changed?
“You discovered your ideal.”
Roy turned, startled as Hermit was suddenly standing across him, but staring at the broken tree.
“Excuse me?” Roy asked, wondering if the man could read his mind.
“I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between you and that Dungeon Core in your chest,” Hermit replied with a sigh. “You had been having trouble with control beforehand, to the point where you subconsciously set a mental block in your path. Your soul was in conflict with itself, and thus your control suffered. Now that you have an ideal, there is no more conflict, thus, a better control.”
Roy stood there, his mouth agape. No one had ever been able to hear Geon, aside from himself and Ferry. And then this man just casually mentioned it as though it were nothing! He even went so far as to identify Geon as a Dungeon Core!
“Just who are you?” Roy asked, not really knowing what else to say.
Hermit sighed, finally turning to face him.
“No one of importance. Now, I’ve held up my side of the bargain. Leave, and don’t come back.”
Roy opened his mouth to tell him to wait, but then the man was gone, vanishing off into the forest once again.
“Um…Roy. Who was that? And how could he hear me?”
Roy simply shook his head, just as dumbfounded as his friend as he stared off into the glowing forest around him.
20
“So, where are we off to now?” Geon asked once Roy had packed all his things.
“To rescue Ferry and hopefully Aika as well,” he replied, heading off into the forest and making for the camp where they were being held.
“Really? And how do you plan on doing that? No offense, but you’re not exactly the strongest Martial Artists out there. In fact, I doubt you could take a single one of them alone.”
“Not yet, I can’t,” Roy replied. “But that’s going to change. We just need to make a small detour before going there.”
“Oh. Does this detour include finding stronger Martial Artists? Because I can’t see any other way you can win.”
“No,” Roy replied with a grin as an Orange Torii gate sprang into existence, not ten yards from them. “We’re going to retake the Orange-Belt test!”
“While that’s great and all, you do realize that it won’t make a difference, right? The lowest ranked Martial Artist there was 2nd Dan Green. Even if you manage to push all the way to 4th Dan, it still won’t do you any good.”
“I won’t be pushing that far,” he replied.
Despite having the Essence needed to push all the way to 4th Dan and perhaps even trigger the next test, Roy knew it would be far more beneficial to use it all to fuel the advancement. This would give him a much more solid foundation and one that could take him far. That was not to say that he had no way of pushing directly to the peak once he was an Orange-Belt. He’d collected two Power Beast Cores in his time following Hermit.
That he’d even managed to find that many was surprising, as the majority were Earth, Fire, and Wind. He hadn’t come across a single Water or Darkness Core, but had managed to find six Light Cores and a single Weakness Core. The silvery Essence within the perfectly spherical glassy surface felt oddly familiar when he’d held it earlier. But at the same time, it gave him a feeling of repulsion, as though the Essence were trying to push him away.
The Power Cores, on the other hand, felt like the raging storms they were, contained withi
n their gemlike exteriors. Now that he could finally feel Essence once more, he could feel the level of the Beast they’d once belonged to. This made his respect for Hermit climb even higher.
One was at the peak of Blue, a 6th Dan Blue, but the other was at Base Purple. He still remembered the ease with which Hermit had dispatched both of them, leaving him to wonder how powerful he really was. The way he’d talked about Red-Belts led him to believe that the man in question was above even that. But how far beyond that was the real mystery.
Dismissing those thoughts, Roy focused back on the multitude of Cores dangling from his Belt, slung over his shoulders, and strapped to his chest and back. The weakest of them all was a Fire Core at 5th Dan Green, and the strongest was a Light Core at 2nd Dan Purple. All of them were extremely valuable and would net him a veritable fortune if they were sold.
He now had a problem. He couldn’t take them with him into the test. Cores were fragile things, and if even one of them cracked, they would set off a chain reaction that would blow him, and likely everything within ten miles, to pieces. He couldn’t take them with him when he went to rescue his friends either, for the same reasons.
He needed to find a place to store them in the meantime. The good thing about Beast Cores was the inability to sense them if one was not in direct contact with them. A Martial Artist’s skin must be touching the Core in order to feel its power, so hiding them wouldn’t be an issue. All he had to do now was find a suitable hiding place.
“Any ideas where I can hide these Cores until we’re ready to retrieve them?” he asked Geon.
They were now standing right before the trial gate and Roy could feel the compulsion to enter growing stronger by the second.
“I feel like you missed my entire warning earlier about this not making a difference…”
“Geon,” Roy said in a half-threatening tone.
“Fine, fine. But if you get us killed, I’m going to kill you.”
Roy simply shook his head at the Dungeon Core’s twisted logic, but thankfully, he continued.
“As a Core, I would recommend burying them,” he said. “That will make them hard to find if someone happens to wander into this wilderness, and it will also keep them out of reach of Beasts that may stumble across them if left out in the open.”