- Monday, 23rd Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

I wake up feeling kind of nervous. Next week, I’ll be leaving home for the first time to take the entrance exam. If I pass the exam, I won’t be able to leave the academy until Summer Vacation.

“Sigh, I won’t be able to see Mom and Dad for a while.” Every time I think about that I feel sad. 

But it’s a necessary step that I have to take to complete my goal, ‘So I need to suck it up and deal with it.’

“Ryner!” My mom calls me from downstairs.

‘Oh no- I must have stayed in bed too long!’ I hop out of bed and put my training clothes on.

“Ryner! Time to get up!” Hearing her call me again I rush out of my room.

• ●●

‘Somehow I made it down before the third shout,’ I let out a sigh of relief as I sit down at the table with Mom and Dad to eat breakfast.

Mom gets up to prepare my plate, putting eggs and sausage on it. Once she’s done making the plate, she walks back to the table and sits it down in front of me. 

“Thank you.” She pats my head and goes back to her seat.

As we were eating, Dad picks up a piece of cloth and wipes his mouth. He puts it down and turns to me.

I look back at him, waiting for him to speak, ‘It must be important for him to stop in the middle of a meal.’

“There’s only one week left before you have to leave,” Dad tells me with a smile on his face.

Seeing his smile, I have a bad feeling. Every time he smiled like that in the past it always led to one thing- 

“So for the rest of the week before you leave, I’m going to kick the training up a notch.”

‘As if it wasn’t hard enough already,’ Although I have complaints, I can’t help but feel grateful to Dad who gives it his all to train me.

Seeing that he was waiting for my response, I nod my head smiling right back at him ready for the challenge.

“That’s my boy!” He laughs joyfully before going back to his meal.

I follow after him and clear my plate quickly, so I can start training faster. 

• ●●

After breakfast, I walk out to the back with Mom ready to start Cultivation training. Like always I sit on the ground and cross my legs. I take a deep breath concentrating on the spot in the middle of my stomach where my Qi is gathered. Slowly I inhale and exhale, drawing Qi into my body from the surrounding. I circulate my Qi through my Meridians, and back to the middle of my stomach over and over again refining and purifying my Qi.

While drawing in Qi from the surroundings, I chant in my mind, ‘The Earth is holy, the Earth is the root of all life, the Earth gives me strength and in return, I give myself to the Earth…’ 

After a couple of hours, I stopped, feeling like I reached my limit. I open my eyes to my Mother’s smiling face, as always she was watching over me quietly as I cultivated.

“I didn’t breakthrough, but I feel like I’m getting closer and closer every day,” I tell her about my progress and she pats my head, running her hand through my hair.

“That’s great, I’m sure you’ll breakthrough soon,” I smile hearing her words, “Just keep up the hard work, and you’ll keep getting stronger and stronger.” 

“Mm,” I nod softly, enjoying the feeling of her hand running through my hair.

“You’ve grown a lot since you first started, you’re already at the 3rd layer of the Qi Gathering Realm,” My cheeks start heating up, hearing her praise, “But you should still be careful, it’s good to get stronger, but it’s not good to ignore your body like you did in the past.”

I nod, thinking back to when I first started. Back then, I was new to cultivation, so I was more reckless and ended up pushing my body too hard, driven by my hatred. A lot of times I ended up abusing my meridians, it hurt a lot when I tried to cultivate like that. One time I felt like my meridians would burst, and if it wasn’t for my Dad going to town and buying potions to heal my meridians, I wouldn’t have been able to keep cultivating. 

I haven’t done anything like that again after that incident, and have been paying more attention to my body when I cultivate. 

“Then again you still push yourself too much from time to time, worrying me half to death,” She sighs thinking about those times.

“It’s okay Mom,” I didn’t really know what to say besides that. Although I’m not as bad now, I still push it a bit too much sometimes when I train with Dad and practice techniques.

“Such a reckless child!” She ruffs up my hair with an “angry” expression for a bit before “letting me go.” She smiles at me and suggests, “Let’s have a little snack before practicing that technique.”

“Okay,” I nod feeling a little hungry.

• ●●

After I finish practicing that technique with Mom for a little less than an hour, Dad comes out, meaning that it’s time to switch. I catch the wooden sword Dad tosses me and get in my stance with both hands on the handle and my right foot in front of my left.

“Come at me the same as usual,” Dad commands, gesturing for me to attack.

I start circulating my Qi and charge at him. I slash at him, but he reads my moves easily and steps to the side dodging my slash. I pour some of my Qi into my sword, causing the sword to give off a light blue aura. 

“Haha, Nice enchant!” Dad laughs praising my speedy enchantment.

I take a deep breath and slash at him again. But just like before it didn’t connect.

‘Let’s try this!’ I rush at him again, but this time I send the Qi out from my sword with a slashing motion forming a Qi wave.

“Is that all you got!” Dad mocks easily breaking my Qi wave with his wooden sword.

‘Of course not’ I quickly Enchant my sword again and send out two Qi waves back to back.

“Not bad!” Even though he says that, just like before he breaks both of them with a swing of his sword. 

The Qi waves break and Qi spreads throughout the air temporarily blocking his vision. Using that moment I charge forward as fast as I can, and pour as much Qi into my sword as I can, sending out a bigger and stronger Qi Wave than before directly at his side. 

“Good Move!” and of course with ease, he turns around and breaks my Qi wave without any effort.

In less than a second, he flashes in front of me holding his sword to my neck.

“I give.” Left with no other options I surrender, as usual, I can’t beat Dad.

“That wasn’t such a bad move at the end,” He praises me before continuing, “But next time you should send out more Qi waves to cover my vision before charging towards me.”

“That’s a way to do it, but just sending out those couple Qi waves was really hard,” I complain feeling like he’s asking for a lot. 

“It might sound hard now but you said the same thing the first time I taught you how to do a Qi wave,” He laughs remembering that day, “and look at you now you’re able to send out Qi waves back to back.”

“Haaa,” I sigh, ‘I don’t want to admit it but Dad’s probably right, as long as I keep practicing I feel like I’ll be able to do it.’

“Haha, Let’s go again,” Dad laughs and gets back into position a few feet away. 

• ●●

- Sunday, 29th Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

I finish packing up my things for the trip tomorrow with some excitement and sadness. I lay down on my bed thinking-

‘I need to be brave, they taught me as much as they could these past two years preparing me for this-’ I clench my fist, ‘-Tomorrow I need to put a smile on my face so they don’t worry about me.’ 

While I was lost in my thoughts Mom calls me downstairs, so I hop out of bed and walk downstairs wondering what she wanted.

‘Wha-’ The scene in the dining room left me at a loss for words. 

The table is full of all my favorite foods, and a cloth is hanging on the ceiling with the words ‘Goodbye for now! We’ll see you soon!’ written on it in black ink. 

“Why are you standing there with your mouth open? Come over here and sit down!” Dad waves me over with a big smile on his face.

I walk over to the table and sit down waiting for an explanation. 

“Why are you so shocked? My baby is leaving tomorrow, of course, I wanted to throw you a little going away party!” Mom tells me with a pouty look on her face.

“But neither of you said anything about it,” I scratch my head feeling embarrassed.

“Well, your Dad wanted it to be a surprise so I went along with it,” Mom explains looking at Dad.

Dad laughs not hiding anything, “You’ve been so tense lately, I figured a good surprise was what you needed to calm down.”

I can’t deny it, I’ve been feeling tense lately because I was worried that something bad might happen after I leave. 

“You don’t have to worry about us, we’re stronger than at least a hundred of you put together,” Dad remarks before continuing, “and if you're worried about failing the entrance exam don’t worry you have the ability to pass, have some confidence in yourself and what we taught you.”

“No matter what we’re always going to be with you in your heart and tomorrow won’t be the last goodbye,” Mom says reaching over and grabbing my hand.

“Yeah, so don’t worry about it and just focus on passing your exam,” Dad tells me, grabbing my other hand.

The tears I had been holding back escape my eyes feeling their warmth. 

‘They’re right this won’t be the last goodbye, so I need to cheer up,’ Their warmth seemed to wash away all my negative thoughts and feelings.

“That’s better,” Mom says looking at my expression.

“Alright, enough of this sappy stuff, let’s eat!” Dad lets go of my hand looking a little embarrassed and picks up a fork and starts eating.

I let go of Mom’s hand and join him, scared that he would eat everything before I got a bite. Mom laughs before joining us, for the first time in a while we were a nice joyful family.

• ●●

- Monday, 30th Of the 12th Month, Year 909-

I picked up my bag and made sure that the letter Dad gave me was in there before equipping the sword he gave me to my waist. Leaving my room, I walk down the stairs greeting Mom and Dad who’s waiting for me at the door with smiles on their faces. Mom grabs my hand and Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. Together, we walk out of the cabin. After walking away from the cabin a bit, we stop ready to say our goodbyes.

“Remember son, this isn’t the last goodbye,” Dad tells me one more time.

“I know,” I reply back with a smile.

“Good.” Dad nods and takes his hand off my shoulder.

Mom lets go of my hand and moves in front of me, she crouches down to meet me face to face, “I’ll miss you, honey.” 

“I’ll miss you too Mom,” I respond back as she takes me into her arms and hugs me.

After a bit she lets me go and takes a black eyepatch out of her pocket and places it over my left eye, “Make sure you keep it over your eye at all times, even while you're asleep!”

“Mhm,” I nod my head lightly, keeping her words in mind as I rub the eyepatch.

“Good boy,” She pats my head before standing up and moving next to Dad.

‘It’s time to go.’ 

“Remember to write us whenever you can,” Mom reminds me.

“I will.”

“Alright now stop standing around and go,” Dad tells me, pushing my back softly.

With his words, I start walking through the woods to Cara Village to find a carriage heading for Synthasia.

---

Author's Note: Pyris

So first off thanks for reading the chapter and I hoped you enjoyed it! Second, thank you to the people who liked my story and added it to their reading list! I'll be posting a chapter every thursday @6pm Eastern Standard Time for the time being so look forward to that! 

Here's the link to our site if your interested in reading more chapters: https://deceitfixation.wixsite.com/mysite