"I'm sorry for my daughter causing so much trouble", said Saori at the school nurse, sitting at the side of her daughter bed on the school infirmary.

"No, it's alright. I should have be more careful when I gave her the sweets, I didn't knew she would have an indigestion so badly, I'm ashamed to say that probably some of the sweets had gone bad", replied Shiho while bowing to the girl's mother, "fortunately her fever came down and she should be able to go home right in time as the school closes."

This time it was Saori who bowed. "I will make sure that my daughter learns to not stuff herself full of sweets and to make sure that what she is eating isn't spoiled."

Shiho nodded, "just follow the diet I recommended and she should be fine by tomorrow."

"Once again I thank you for your timely assistance, Shiho-san…"

Before she could continue a man opened the infirmary door with enough violence to almost break it apart. "Where's my daughter?"

Honoka put her head behind the blankets in embarrassment. "Daaaad."

Saori sighed at her husband antics, while being internally glad that he was so devoted to his family.

She wouldn't like it any other way.

~~O~~

The next day after school her sunsengnim asked her to show him her bareback, performing the same procedure he did when he stabilized her newly enhanced ki flow for the first time, but more easily than before.

After a few minutes passed he took a drag from his cigar, visibly tired from the experience.

"Sit down and get comfortable, because we're going to be here for a while until you learn the basics of my technique. First however, a little theoretical lesson: do you know what ki is?"

Turning around Honoka looked at her master, scrunching her face trying to figure out if she ever heard of that term before. "I think I read that in a manga once? Something about martial arts ability?"

"That's not entirely wrong", he admitted, "but it is inaccurate. Ki is both an energy innate to all living beings and an energy that exist in nature, like the trees and rocks and the air. Some people claim that a healthy body produces more ki, while others say that an unhealthy body is the product of lack of ki, but in the end it doesn't change the fact that the source of ki is the same."

He took another drag from his cigar, making sure to not blow the smoke on his student.

"There are some flowery explanations about the nature of ki, but they're just washing poetic from a time that we didn't properly understand the human body. The true nature of ki is simpler than that."

"It's the combination of three flows in the body: the blood flow, the breathing flow and the nervous system flow. By synchronizing them and making them behave in a specific way you can direct the flow of ki, pass it through your ki pathways in the body and gather it on your ki center that rests in your navel in order to use it later. The more ki you gather in your navel, the stronger your overall ki levels will become. Some people in ancient times called this 'ki cultivation'. With me so far?"

Honoka nodded. "Blood, Breathing and Nerves, got it."

Chun-Woo Han wasn't entirely sure but continued anyway. "It's relatively easy to change the blood flow, although the tricky part is in making it behave the specific way necessary for ki flows. For that we use the breathing techniques in order to both regulate the breath flow and the blood flow. The secret however lies in the last flow, the nerves flow. It's not enough that you can use the breathing techniques correctly, you need to synchronize your nerves flow, or as some say, you have to posses the right 'intent' when performing the exercises and for that meditation is necessary."

"Only when you combine breathing techniques and it's respective meditation method that ki can flow properly. It's why how the governments trying to learn the secrets of ki had failed until now, they are trying to reinvent the wheel using scientific process and expecting to see reliable results in such a short time when the act is closer to an art, not counting the fact that deducing ki techniques required hundreds of years of trial and error. Of course certain spirit medicines can bypass that restriction, but they are very rare exceptions to the rule."

"Sunsengnim, but doesn't the governments can ask for someone who can use ki to teach them?"

She's sharper than she looks, thought her master. "Some government does, but due to the nature of ki you can't simply train a large batch of soldiers in it. Each people development is different and only those with talent would be ready to use ki in the time frame expected for military forces, it's far easier to teach someone how to use a gun and become a threat to low level ki users than to teach a whole company to be ki users in the same allowed time. Perhaps they have some special forces that can use ki, but becoming an user alone isn't enough."

"You could say that the development of a Murinin takes two phases, the development phase and the growth phase. The development phase happens when you aren't a user and condition your body to use ki and learn the proper ki flow techniques, this phase can last as low as one year to a whole decade depending on the talent of the student, and while having ki coursing through your body will enhance your physical abilities it isn't to the point of making much of a difference for your body mass, and because of that the students are usually taught when they are very young in order to reach their full potential. The growth phase is when the user starts to enhance their inner ki reserves, which can take several decades depending on the technique and talent of the user, until they reach the level of a real master and are able to trivialize an armored platoon on their own without problems."

"You can fight against a whole army and win?" Asked Honoka surprised at her sunsengnim strength. She knew he was strong, able to perform feats that defied common sense, but to take on a whole army was simply surreal.

Chun-Woo Han for his part didn't bother to mask how smug he looked to his apprentice. "Not only a conventional army, but an army of ki users too." At this his face darkened for an instant before muttering his next words too low for Honoka to hear.

"Uh, sunsengnim?" Asked Honoka, a bit worried about her master, "is something wrong?"

Chun-Woo Han looked at the girl before taking a deep breath and calming himself. "It's nothing that concerns you. Anyway, normally we only teach breathing techniques to those apprentices with enough minimum necessary fitness in order to be able to feel the ki flow, otherwise it wouldn't help much. But since you have an unusually large amount of ki due to the spirit medicine we will start your breathing technique right away."

The teacher paused for a moment to regard his student. "Well, that's not entirely accurate. The Black Heaven and Earth school teaches that you need to learn proper breathing techniques as soon as possible, but nobody else needs to know that. Are you ready for your first lesson?"

Honoka nodded, eager to start. Finally she would start to train to become more like her sunsengnim!

"Alright, this is what you're going to do…"

~~O~~

A few hours later she was exhausted, and she didn't even perform any physical activity beforehand!

For his part Chun-Woo Han was impressed. While she wasn't a prodigy by any means, she certainly had talent, and perhaps in a year or so could completely master the basics.

"You done well", he praised her making her perk for a moment, "but that's not enough. You will need to train hard in the future in order not to blow up due to your ki production killing you. Also you will have to increase the pace of your physical training in order for your body not to break down with all that energy inside it. Because of that you will have to perform the basic training I told you faster than before. Don't worry about it, your new ki allows you to complete the exercise easier, and due to the spirit medicine you ate your previous One-Yin body type has been cured, which is good news since cured yin body types confer a great advantage over normal martial artists, turning a former curse into a blessing."

"Alright sunsengnim, I won't disappoint you!" Exclaimed Honoka while quickly standing up, before her head felt light and she dropped on the ground. "Eh he, I guess I'm a bit tired."

Chun-Woo Han sighed before sitting at her side. "Just rest a bit before your parents come back for", before he could finish however he saw that his apprentice was already taking nap on the ground.

For a moment he saw another youth sprawled on the ground, napping after an intense training session. He could almost feel the protective gaze on his back looking at the youth on the ground, and for a moment he didn't saw a school, but rather a forest with a small man made cavern near a hill.

"I just hope my decision won't endanger my disciple, sunsengnim…" He said to no one in particular while he protectively watched his apprentice.