Chapter 3

Today I was finally starting my training, and I can't help but feel nervous, knowing that shinsoo is the equivalent of what chakra was in my old world, means that should I failed, my road to power would only grow harder in the future. I wasn't concerned about lacking talent, I was confident that with enough time and effort I could surpass even the most talented, maybe not in speed of learning but speed isn't everything in the end and it was even less important here in the tower, where the average ranker could live for a thousand years. What I was worried about was the possibility that I wouldn't be able to sense shinsoo at all, because even if I didn't needed talent, I definitely needed at least the right conditions to be able to manipulate shinsoo at least to be able to stablish a base for me to start my growth, I haven't tried feeling for it nor experimenting yesterday, knowing that it would be better and smarter to wait having someone with me who has knowledge on the subject and one more day of waiting won't change much, luckily for me, both my mother and my father are really strong, so I should be fine on the gene department, though that did nothing to dispel my nerves.

As my agreement with Mira stated that we will meet in the garden at eight in the morning, I went down the stairs to the dining room, grabbed a fruit to eat while I waited for her outside, and quickly left the house, but surprisingly she was already there to meet me.

"Good morning little cousin" Mila said cheerfully.

waving in her direction while eating my fruit I greet her back. 'I believed she may be more excited about this than me'

"cough, lets begin then, first things first, for the duration of this lesson you should call me shishou, understand?"

'why am I not surprised about this' while feigning surprise I was quick to tell her "though I don't have a problem with calling you that, aren't you a little young to be my shishou cousin?"

"humph, you are going to be my first apprentice, so calling me shishou is only proper, but maybe you don't want to learn about shinsoo after all"

"I apologize for the disrespect shishou" 'this girl is clearly having fun, but I don't really care as long as I learned what I came to learn.'

Nodding her head as if forgiving me for my transgression Mira quickly started to explain todays lesson plan "today we will begin with theoretical knowledge, and before you complain about wanting to start practicing right away you should know that I won't change my mind, so the sooner we finished with all the theoretical knowledge needed the sooner you will start manipulating shinsoo, understood?"

Seeing my agreement she quickly continued "so for starters let's talk about ….."

what came after was a 3 hour long lecture, and tough I admit it was relevant to know, I don't think I needed all of that to start practicing with shinsoo, in the end the most important information was that first, everyone needs to establish a contract with the administrator or guardian of the floor to be allowed to manipulate shinsoo in it, though If I understand correctly rankers have a little more freedom in this than regulars and other common people, apart from that, it seems that we as members of one of the ten families, already are born with a minor contract with the whole tower, granting us the ability to control shinsoo even before making a contract with the guardians of each floor, though it will be limited and harder to control. And second, that the basic unit of shinsoo manipulation is called Baang, its size is called Myun and the density of the shinsoo that goes inside is called Soo, apparently the strongest rankers which I learned are called 'high rankers' can normally control between 30 and 50 baangs, and a talented regular in the twenties floor could control around 2 Baangs, 3 if he is extremely talented.

Right now, I was waiting to receive permission from Mira to start my journey as a shinsoo manipulator or a Wave controller as my cousin called the ones who are specialized in this subject.

"now that the boring part is over, lets begin with the good stuff, go and try what I told you to do little Sylas, first is the contract and then you can try your hand at feeling shinsoo"

Doing as she told me, first I grabbed the Pocket she gifted me, which is a small floating black ball that can turn into invisible mode, apparently this little device not only will allow me to send a message to other people, but it will also translate different dialects into something I can understand. But its more important function is that it permits me to make a contract with the administrator.

"come on Sylas, say it"

'….' "contract with the administrator"

And just like that I was in front of a giant eye 'it doesn't look that strong, though I know better than to underestimate …it? Him? Her? I'm not sure what to call... it'

"are you here to make a contract" the eye said

'how should I answer that?' in the end I went for simple and to the point, a short "I am" was enough, and as soon as I finished answering, a cold feeling began to spread throughout my body, though as quickly as it came it disappear, a second later there was blinding light and I was back in my garden with Mira looking at my right with relief.

Curious to know what she was looking at, I turn to my side and find my floating pocket with the words '94F contract complete' in it 'a little anticlimactic, though I should feel satisfied it was that simple'

"well done! now that you have the contract, do what I instructed you to do, and remember to clear your mind first!"

Doing as she said, I sat in the floor while emptying my mind of wondering thoughts, after that I start trying to feel as if the world was in my hand which was what Mira said I should do, minutes passed till I finally felt a cold but pleasant feeling coming from it, opening my eyes I could see a floating blue ball of light at the top of my right palm. 'so this is shinsoo, finally, I can definitely work with this, its feeling is close to water manipulation, something which I excelled at'

"so, how did I do cousin, am I a good disciple? And what do I do next?"

"yes yes, a true baby demon, don't worry, you didn't disappoint your beautiful cousin's expectation, as for what you should do next… I don't know"

Seeing the way I was looking at her, she hurried to explain " wait wait, it's not that I don't know what to teach you, believe me! it's just that you learned to control shinsoo faster than I thought you would, and once you learned the first step to control it, is better to let you learn on your own and see what it works best for you, though I would recommend you to ask your parents about their techniches and the ones they have seen, so you could have references, okay?"

'this girl… how thick is her skin to make me called her shishou… I'm lucky to have seen hundreds of techniques already in my previous life, so I won't lack possibilities, though the priority of course should be the ones I'm more used to'

"Ok, let's go inside for now, mother should be preparing lunch already" saying that, I headed for the door to take a shower before lunch.

"Hoho, good idea my faithful disciple. Who knew teaching you would be this tiring, I will need food and rest in order to recover"

"…." 'the only thing you need to recover is your dignity, you shameless girl' after thinking that, I tried to ignore her ramblings and headed straight for the bathroom.

During my shower, mom told me to hurry for lunch, so I couldn't have the long relaxing shower that I wanted in the beginning, but it was enough to stop thinking about my shameless cousin and continue the day with more energy.

Entering the dining room, I saw all three of them waiting for me, I quickly greeted them and sat so we could begin eating, but before I could put the first piece of meat in my mouth mom asked me something.

"how did your training with Mila go dear?"

Thinking that this could be a good moment to put the shameless girl in her place I answer

"It went fine, I managed both the contract and manipulating shinsoo, though shishou said It will be up to me to develop further"

"shishou? and what do you mean on your own?" mother asked confused

Seeing my cousin relaxed face, I couldn't help but become a little doubtful 'isn't she at least a bit nervous? She got a good poker face I will give her that' "cousin Mira asked me to call her shishou for I have become her first disciple, she also said that after learning to feel and manipulate shinsoo It would be better to develop my own skills alone, though I should ask you about your techniques so I could have good examples"

"I see, you have a good shishou in your cousin little Sylas" with an understanding face mom look in Mira's direction, "I'm proud of you Mira, that was really good advice, you have really become a good shishou to my son"

'#$ #%, are the women in my family plotting against me?, do they really think leaving a 2 year old alone is the right way of training him?' looking in my cousins direction I could see a crack in her poker mask, 'I knew it, this crazy girl didn't know what else too teach so she just told me some half-baked excuse to save face'

Seeing the expression on my face, father took pity on me and explain. "though not a common way of teaching, its true that your cousin was right in a way son, the way shinsoo interacts with a body is different for every person, though in most cases families have certain characteristics in common that makes them share abilities and even fighting styles, you still have a long way before that. What you should focus right now its just refining your control and trying to surpass it every day, you could do this by trying to create a baang and changing the amount of shinsoo inside of it, or making it as dense as possible, and once you have managed this you could start with two bangs and so on, though it could take you years before you are ready for multiple bangs at the same time"

After hearing dad's explanation, I couldn't help but agree with him, though I was curious about what he said too 'does our family have a special bloodline I should know of?' thinking this, I decided to ask him about it.

"Then, does the Koon family specialize in anything regarding shinsoo? And what about you, mom, what is your specialty?"

"it's a little early for you to think of techniques son, though it won't be bad for you to know either, so I will explain a little. As you know while climbing the tower you would have to form a team, which will aid you in passing the different challenges you will face, and every member on said team will have a different 'position' which will affect the direction he should train himself in the future. Our head of family, Koon Eduan, is known for his spear throwing skills and changing the properties of his shinsoo to lightning and ice, so most of the members of our family are spear bearers, and some share a little of his talent regarding lightning or ice, in my case is lightning, though my talent with it is not even close to the level direct descendants have."

'it's seems somewhat similar to bloodlines, though it looks like the further down you go in the family tree the less chance of inheriting a trait you have, and even if you do inherit one, it will be weaker than the original or the ones direct descendants inherit' having heard my father's explanation, I look now at my mother, waiting to hear about her skills as well, but seeing her face I cant help but feel that something is wrong. 'why does she look so dejected?'.

"w.. , my side of the family don't have anything as useful a lightning or ice, but we do have a certain skill that is passed to our children, but I wont be mad if you don't want to learn it, your brother didn't, preferring to focus on his lightning skills, you only have so much time after all and you should use it wisely, I will understand if you prefer your fathers skills over mine"

seeing the way my mother was behaving, like her confident had been shattered I couldn't help but feel angry at the one responsible, 'if this is my brother's fault then I will definitely master my mothers skills and show him up when I see him, though I should wait to hear more before making assumptions' while thinking about vengeance to the one who hurt my mother's confidence I decided to press her on so she would explain further.

"I'm sure it will be a useful skill to learn mother, you have climbed to a really high floor after all" I tried giving her a little of her confidence back, but maybe because I mentioned that she didn't managed to climb to the top, she just look more depressed. Looking at my father for help he just signal me that he will talk to me later while speaking to my mother.

"Tyra, you know I would have never survived the tower without you and your runes to help me along, what happened at the 106th floor was not your fault, I have already said it many times before and I will say it again now, your runes are amazing" after saying that father went besides mother and while hugging her he started to whisper something on her ear that I couldn't hear.

'It seems that something happened in the 106th floor that shook my mother's confidence and made her give up on becoming a ranker, I hope father will tell me a little of what happened later, but what is this I heard about runes? If it is what I think it is, it could be a huge help to me, a type of fuinjutsu applied to shinsoo maybe?' A big part of my strength in the past was because of fuinjutsu, if there is a way to bring back that strength in here I should definitely take it, but to start celebrating early is not wise, I will have to wait after I know more on the subject' while I was making an effort in calming my over excited heart, I suddenly hear a half choking half sobbing sound coming from my left, knowing the only person that was there was my cousin, I quickly look to the left and find her trying to suppress her escaping tears, seeing farther down I could also see blood coming from one of her clenched fists. Rapidly Copying my father's actions, I move closer while hugging her from the side. 'I hope this works, I wouldn't know what else to do if it fails' luckily it seems it did, while using me as support she soon calm down and her breathing came back to normal though remembering her reaction, I can't help but think that what happened in the 106th floor involved Mira as well, 'but isn't that impossible? she wasn't even born at the time'. Seeing her in that state I was sure though 'there is a connection I'm missing'.

After everything at the table was back to normal or as normal as was possible after that kind of emotional breakdown, and after succumbing to mine and father's pleading, mother decided to continue explaining about her runes.

"Sylas, I want you to try and forget what you just saw ok? And I don't want you to think that by declining to learn about runes I would feel sad because that isn't true at all, what happened before has nothing to do with your decision or the one your brother made before you. So before I begin, remember that I wont feel bad if you decided that my families runes are not for you okay?, it's not an easy skill to master and it is true that practicing others skills could be more time-efficient, so don't be afraid to decide against learning it" mother wait for me to nod before continuing with the explanation

"Right then, first of all, you should know that I came from a small clan of nomads that lived in the outer tower of the 33th floor, and as we have told you before, in the outer tower most people don't know that they live inside a tower nor about regulars, rankers or Zahard, so while my tribe could use runes to affect the shinsoo in the environment we didn't know how to manipulated it directly. That is why runes were a sign of status and power in the tribe, but because of the difficulty in its learning not all the people in the clan could use it. The better way to think about Runes is imagining a complex language with infinite possibilities, though its potential it's up to the user, my clan used three hundred and twenty different symbols, and believe me when I said the combinations are endless, so most people just memorize patterns for later use" seeing that I was following with interest she seems to gain a little confidence back

"It was soon noticed by the elders that I was a prodigy in it, and because I didn't used patterns as most users, I had a lot of more freedom in its applications, though my specialty have always been shinsoo barriers, because of this ability or at least I think it was because of it, soon after I turned nineteen Headon showed up and asked me to become a regular, after agreeing I started to climb the tower, and the rest is a different tale".

'I knew it, my mother is really strong as well, and by the way she spoke of runes it looks like there is a high chance fuinjutsu and runes are related somehow, what are the odds that in this world there is another clan of redheads runemasters?' after seriously thinking what my next move should be and looking at my mother's anxious face, I decided.

"Mother, would you take me as your disciple?"

please review. i'm actually doing this as practice, so reviews are crucial, even if they are all negative ones.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy this story.