A year and three months had passed.
Winter had come.
Snow had begun to fall from the sky days ago, covering the land in silence and frost. Yet the young man did not care in the slightest. The cold meant nothing to him. Even as snow blanketed the earth and the air bit into bare skin, he remained unchanged. He trained too much, too long, to feel such things. Beneath the black and golden hanfu he wore, his body was still drenched in sweat.
Winter, the cold, the snow, they were nothing to him. But for the old man, it was different.
Aurelius, seventy-eight years old, was deeply affected by the season. As someone at the Completion Realm, he should not have felt the chill at all. And yet, age weighed heavily upon him. Each time he swung his sword, he felt it, that wind, cold as death, slicing through skin, piercing deep into bone.
But he did not stop. Death was near, he could feel it, watching from just beyond the trees. And if it waited for him, he would make it wait a little longer. It was pointless to stop now. So he swung again, again, and again, determined to reach the next realm before death claimed him.
For Sirius, nothing changed. He was untouched by the winter, and still unable to grasp that feeling. He was close, painfully close. A single step remained between him and the enlightenment of the next realm. But something, something unseen, still held him back.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, third movements - Line Break.
With all his strength, Sirius swung his saber horizontally at the mannequin's neck, aiming to decapitate it in one blow.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, seventh movements - Chain Thrust.
He then stabbed five times into the dummy's abdomen, fast, precise, relentless.
And yet, the mannequin stood. Unharmed. Mocking him with its silence.
And so, time flowed on.
A year and four months had passed.
In a secluded grove surrounded by trees, the young man swung his saber with everything he had. Sometimes he cried, frustration pouring from his eyes as he failed to reach the truth he chased.
Nearby, the old man did the same. Aurelius danced among the bamboo, cutting the air, piercing it, leaping between trunks. Energy surged through him, flowing in and out of his body, sometimes forming an aura around his blade.
A year and six months.
Winter had passed.
Surprisingly, the old man still lived. He had thought he might die during the cold months. But how could he die, he reasoned, without first reaching the next realm?
A year and seven months.
Spring returned to the land.
But the young man didn't even notice. He was too focused, too desperate, his every thought consumed by a single goal, the Self Vision Realm.
A year and eight months.
Closer. I need to get closer. Just one more step… I have to reach it.
A year and nine months.
"A little more… I'm so close. Please, Heavens, let me reach it."
Then he paused.
No… why am I begging the Heavens? This is mine to take, with my own hands.
The young man, Sirius Altharys, continued, undisturbed, unshaken. He was in a trance, each swing of his saber precise, devoted, absolute. Nothing could stop him now.
A year and ten months.
And finally…
He knew.
The moment had come.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, first movements - Falling Edge.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, second movements - Cross Fang.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, third movements - Line Break.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, fourth movements - Spiral Lunge.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, fifth movements - Step Burst.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, sixth movements - Cleave Up.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, seventh movements - Chain Thrust.
Cycle-Ending Bloom, eighth movements - Split Flow.
Sirius, who had trained endlessly, who had swung his saber millions of times who had used Cycle-Ending Bloom the same amount of time, finally touched the feeling. The wall blocking the Self Vision Realm shattered.
And he saw it.
The beginning of the path to become a Lord, a King, a being of divinity.
Then, for the first time, Sirius Altharys raised his saber not in fury, nor desperation, but in calm. He swung it slowly. No technique. No strength. Just a single, gentle motion.
And the mannequin's head fell. As if it were a leaf. No resistance. No sound.
Sirius had opened his upper daitan, a river of energy rested calmly in its upper daitan, as waiting for something to move it. And he felt it, not just energy, but understanding.
He finally reached it, he finally reached the feeling.
He was no longer a novice. He had stepped into the Early stage of the Self Vision Realm.
The power difference was subtle. But the shift, the change in how energy flowed through his body, changed everything. Now he understood what was within him. As he finally knew how to move.
The Self Vision Realm was named for this. It was not about strength. It was about clarity, about seeing was is within your own body.
And so, at the age of fourteen, Sirius Altharys began his true journey. The path to become a king.
A few Li away, the old man had not moved forward. Aurelius Altharys had not reached his feeling. He hadn't even noticed his grandson cross the threshold. At some point, he had stopped watching him, too lost in his own struggle, in his own blade, in his own war.
From time to time, a tree fell, cut clean by his aura. The bamboo around him lay in pieces. Whether in frustration or relentless pursuit of the next realm, the Echo of Resolve, he didn't stop cutting. He pierced the air again and again.
But nothing came.
No enlightenment. No vision. No sign.
It was as if the Heavens and the Fate themselves had denied him.
Unlike Sirius, Aurelius believed in fate. He believed in the Heavens. And he believed that they had not allowed him to advance.
Then… he heard a sound behind him. He turned. Sirius was there, standing tall, watching him.
Aurelius' eyes widened the instant he saw him. He knew. Sirius had reached the Self Vision Realm.
Fourteen years old.
It was young, extremely young. Not unheard of in the Imperial City, where monstrous talents emerged early, he have even heard that some child emerged at twelve years old. But for someone who had begun less than three years ago? It was… astonishing.
"How are you, grandfather?" Sirius asked with a warm smile.
"Did you reach the feeling you hoped for?"
"You knew I was training?" Aurelius replied, surprised. "How?"
"Your hands," Sirius said. " After nearly three years of practice, I can see the hands of a martial artist. And I saw, about a year ago, that you had started again."
He smiled. A soft, genuine smile. He was truly happy, not just for his own achievement, but to be here, with his grandfather.
Aurelius, on his side, was not smiling. How could he? Now that Sirius had reached what he had been striving for, how could he, the example, the one who had shown him the path, be the one to fail?
There was no jealousy in his heart, only a heavy silence. With less than six months of life remaining, Aurelius trained even harder, beneath the quiet and watchful gaze of his grandson, Sirius.
Aurelius could not allow himself to fail.
And so, time passed once more.