After another three weeks his grandpa gave up on trying to stump him with advanced practices and told him to make a small fire in his hand. Once he did so he was handed a stick in his other hand and was told to light the stick on fire without touching it with the fire. His grandpa wandered off and left. He was there when he came back to get him for dinner twelve hours later. Before Saiben could turn around to see him, Kurota let a flicker of surprise show on his face because Saiben's fire had changed from an orange-red, to nearly invisible blue. The stick also had its bark peeling from the heat.

After Saiben had managed to light the stick by the end of the next day he was taken aside by Kurota before dinner and knew something was up because his grandpa was actually smiling!

"You must be one in a million! I was hailed as the fire bending prodigy of my age when I was able to do that and it took me ten times as long as you! I've been looking for a long time for someone to teach what I know. The only down side to this is I'll be giving into your parents." The last bit changed two things. Kurota's face became sad and Saiben put on the mask of surprise he was wearing so much lately.

"Um, what are you talking about?"

Kurota heaved a sigh and began, "Your parents aren't as high and mighty as you might like to think. I have a bit of a strange will. I wrote that I would split my wealth not among my own kids, but among their kids. I haven't really decided how I'm going to split it yet, so your parents are trying to get me to give you more than anybody else. When my business took off, the rest of my family was brought under the heel of money. That's what they lived for and I was able to resist it for some reason." His frown turned into an apologetic look as he continued, "Sorry you had to hear that, but I can't leave you in the dark about what's really going on here."

"That's why they came up here and kept trying to get me around you, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Sorry I always seemed like a grump, but I didn't want to start to like you. Your parents might even plan to use the money for selfless ends, but I still wanted an unbiased will. Please don't tell anyone about the grump front, I have a reputation to keep up now." Although Saiben nodded solemnly, he had a really hard time not laughing, his grandpa sounded like he was sixty years younger! On the other hand, he felt like a curtain had been lifted and he knew him way better now. He was also glad that Kurota had added the bit about his parents still having good intentions. It was because of that he managed to look them in the face at the table that night.

Eventually, Kurota trained him enough that he was allowed to help him in the shop. At first, he was only helping with regular jobs, but as his skill became more and more pronounced, Kurota let him help make some of the simple pieces. His skill was still nowhere close to Kurota, but with the proper guidance, he was able to start handling the simple orders that came in. Kurota still handled the more ornate pieces as how he managed to produce some of the shapes in them Saiben couldn't even hazard a guess.

A week or so before they left, an order came for a glass sculpture. True to his form though, Kurota just sighed because of the tremendous workload a sculpture entailed. He didn't bat an eyelid about the commission, which was staggering. He led Saiben down to the beach where he asked Saiben to get a bag that was hanging from a tree branch. Saiben went to get it and gave him a curious look but Kurota didn't answer. When he had the bag he reached inside and took out a long metal pole that had metal balls on either end that were the size of a soccer ball. He dug a small hole in the ground, shoved the pole into it and buried the end in the sand. He told Saiben to stand back and he started going through a string of forms that Saiben had never seen before and suddenly threw his right hand forward and a bolt of lightning shot out and sunk into the metal pole. Saiben jumped back because the sand he was standing on became incredibly hot and when he looked back at the pole, it was implanted in a massive patch of glass!

"What was that?!?" Saiben asked in awe.

"Lightning." Kurota answered non-chalantly.

"B-bu-but it was-!!"

"Lightning is the most pure form of energy which is also what fire is, unlike any other element, therefore lightning is a kind of fire." Once he was done saying this, he began cutting the massive chunk of glass into parts with small, intense beams of fire before he added, "I could use some help, you know." Saiben recovered from his shock immediately and began to help with the dissection of the behemoth piece of glass.

When it was about half way done, he could keep his silence no longer and asked, "Could you teach me how to do that?"

"At your current level, the only thing you'd do is make an explosion in front of you. At your current rate, the end of next summer would be the absolute earliest that I would even think about teaching you that. Besides this, it has no practical use either. The only other thing it's could for is killing, and I don't think you're going to need how to do that." Kurota ended the sentence with such finality in his voice that Saiben knew it was suicide to try and keep going.

A few days after that, it was time to go. Kurota handed Saiben his first sculpture (of Datt, he needed something simplistic) and a brown bag.

Saiben looked at him quizzically and he responded, "For helping at the store for the summer." Saiben peeked inside of it and was greeted with the twinkle of silver and copper pieces. They left shortly after that and Saiben began to wonder why Kurota had done something that contradicted his fake persona so much. He decided it didn't matter because he felt himself slipping into the mindset he had dubbed the Jouku mind frame. He contented himself with heading back to the capitol and surprising his friends with his tremendous growth.

AN: You'll notice I actually changed a paragraph. As soon as I read I knew I had to change it as I couldn't stand leaving something so clichéd. Anyway, things are moving along nicely and I'm not over my head in school work anymore, so expect more revision updates! Don't forget to R&R!