Elias punched. Peter blocked. He kicked, but it was pushed aside. Back and forth, they flowed through a rhythmic cycle of advance and retreat.
These movements had been repeated so many times over the years that keeping up with the slow rhythm Peter set no longer felt like a challenge. The limiting factor now was Elias’ stamina. His low Vitality meant he grew tired quickly—and once exhaustion set it, mistakes inevitably followed.
Over time, sparring like this had truly become like dancing in his eyes. The moves and counters were so deeply ingrained in his body and mind that they no longer required the same level of decision-making they used to. He flowed through the motions mostly by instinct and muscle memory.
As the bout dragged on, Elias surrendered the last traces of control, clearing his mind of all thought. He slipped into a trance, his instincts taking over completely. His movements became effortless and his strikes more decisive. All there was now was himself and his opponent.
Achieving this state was the result of years of dedicated effort—the culmination of all his combat training thus far.
Sensing the shift, his dad allowed his own movements to flow more freely, matching him blow for blow. But just as Elias was getting comfortable with their new pace, something changed.
Peter was suddenly dancing to a completely different tune.
Startled, Elia punched forward, intending to arrest his father’s advance by forcing him to block or dodge. Instead, the punch missed—failing to connect by a hair’s breadth—and left him exposed.
Elias stared uncomprehendingly as a punch slipped through his now-open guard. It stopped just before connecting with his face, but he barely registered the unexpected act of mercy. He was still trying to process what had just happened.
“Congratulations, Eli! You’re finally good enough that we can move on to the next steps of your training,” Peter said with a grin.
Elias immediately snapped out of it. “Really? Yes!”
Elias beamed, his heart racing as fatigue gave way to excitement. After years of begging and pestering his dad, he would finally find out what the next stage of his training entailed.
“Now, you noticed that I did something differently towards the end of our sparring session, right?” Peter asked in an instructional tone.
Elias nodded.
“Well, before I tell you what I did, I need to explain a few things about how my fighting style works. You have felt how we always move in a certain rhythm when we fight, right? It’s a back-and-forth rhythm—an endless cycle. All these years, I have been mirroring the natural rhythm of wave mana, a tier 2 mana type.”
As he spoke, Peter pulled a small blue and white stone from his pocket. It glowed a bright blue color that reminded Elias of the waves on a beach.
He’d only been to the beach once, when they took a family trip to the ocean a while back. The waves were a very big reason why he had loved swimming in the ocean so much—they were really fun.
Peter offered the magic stone to Elias so he could take a better look.
The surface of the stone was etched with small runes that glowed a bright blue color, but Elias was fascinated by what he could see past those. Up close, it looked like a wave had been captured within the small stone, its ocean blue and foamy white colors moving in a never-ending cycle. He could almost hear the wave crashing and smell the salty water, so he put the stone against his ears like he did with conch shells at the beach.
At the edge of his perception, Elias could just barely hear the slow back and forth of waves in the ocean. But it wasn’t something he heard with his ears—it was something that could only be felt. And that feeling had a very particular certain flavour, like a melody whose rhythm he immediately recognized. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
How could he not? He’d been dancing to that rhythm for years.
Now, for the first time, Elias truly understood why his dad always said that their fighting style was more akin to dancing than fighting. He’d just never been able to listen to the melody they had been dancing to before.
“So, we were fighting to the, uh, rhythm, of wave mana, right? Does that mean that you changed the mana rhythm you were dancing to in that last fight?” Elias asked, puzzling it out.
Peter smirked in response and began to fish out another stone from his other pocket, this one glowing a yellowish white.
“That’s right, Eli. These are both energy stones obtained from different Journeyman rank monsters and enchanted to emit mana corresponding to the energy they contain. The stone you’re holding emits wave mana, while this one,” Peter said, shaking the new stone in his hands, “emits wind mana, which is also a tier 2 mana type. Still, you got one important detail wrong—we weren’t dancing to the rhythm of wave mana. I was. All you were doing was following my lead.”
“What? But if we were both fighting to the same rhythm, isn’t that the same thing?” protested Elias, furrowing his brows and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Yes, we were dancing to the same rhythm,” Peter conceded. “But it’s not the same thing. Not exactly. I was attuning my Spirit to the mana directly and using that connection to emulate it in my movements. In other words, I was letting the mana guide my movements like a dancer lets a song guide theirs.”
“Oh,” Elias replied, his confusion evident.
“Don’t worry, Eli, you’ll get there soon enough. You’ll understand the difference then. For now, although you’re not quite ready to learn how to attune your own Spirit to the mana directly, we can finally begin to switch things up a bit. I’ll show you a few different rhythms—other than wave mana—and we’ll fight to those. Just follow my lead like before. When you can switch between different rhythms seamlessly, I’ll show you how to dance to the mana itself.”
Peter walked up to a small cabinet and grabbed a small ornate wooden box, placing it on the floor in front of Elias and gesturing for him to sit. He opened the small box to reveal several engraved energy stones glistening inside, their runes glowing with the color of the mana they emitted.
Elias spotted the four stones representing the four tier 1 mana types: water, air, earth, and fire, with twice as many stones representing tier 2 mana types, such as steam and sand mana. He placed the wave stone he held on a slot near the water stone and Peter placed the wind stone he held in a similar slot near the air stone.
Without further ado, Peter grabbed the water stone and stood up, putting it in his pocket and setting his stance. Elias quickly copied his father’s actions, standing face to face with him as they always did before sparring, and Peter began to move.
Elias immediately recognized the sequence of movements as the first one he’d ever learned. It only consisted of punching forwards and blocking backwards, two moves ending in the same spot—a sequence they’d cycled through countless times.
The pair exchanged blows, neither gaining the upper hand, until Peter’s movements suddenly shifted. They became more fluid, allowing a punch to slip through Elias' guard.
Despite his surprise, Elias did not stop, relying on years of practice to carry him through the sequence. He relaxed then, trying to emulate his father’s fluidity, but he couldn’t quite capture the same water-like quality. Still, he persisted, making small adjustments and slowly improving.
Eventually, they were once again trading blows evenly.
They cycled through those same two moves for a long while, until Elias finally began to grasp the essence behind his father’s movements. The secret lay in mimicking the feeling behind each motion, rather than the movements themselves.
As soon as he started channeling the impressions he picked up from the way his father moved into his own body, everything shifted. He began to flow more seamlessly between each punch and block, every move bending into the next.
Just as Elias was starting to feel comfortable, Peter broke out of their repetitive sequence. Freed to move as he pleased, his movements grew even more fluid and unpredictable. Then, they began to spar in earnest.
Elias was immediately on the back foot, scrambling to keep up. His father’s movements were suffocating, like a relentless tide of blows that left him gasping for space. Still, despite being so thoroughly outmatched, he pressed on with a smile, doing his best to absorb the sensations behind every hit.
All things considered, Elias found that the rhythm of water mana was much easier to dance to than that of wave mana. It made sense—water mana was a lower-tier type, after all. Even so, it took the rest of the training session for him to adapt to the rhythm well enough to trade blows with his father without getting trounced.
Over the following days, Peter taught Elias how to dance to the rhythm of all four tier-one mana types. He was even allowed to skip physical training with his mom during that time.
Elias made significant progress in both capturing the feeling behind his father’s movements and infusing it into his own. He still struggled to switch between rhythms quickly, but he was slowly improving there as well.
It would likely take years to master the technique—especially with all the tier-two mana rhythms still ahead of him. Still, Elias couldn’t help but feel a spark of excitement at the thought of learning how to attune his Spirit to mana.