After breakfast, Xinuo and I left the outer ring of the Lunar Forest and stepped into a broad clearing, bright as a lake under morning sun.

My sister and Serenemoon slipped deeper into the Lunar Forest to play, like swallows into shade, bored by training and careful not to ruffle my focus.

“The view here is lovely,” Xinuo said, eyes on the blossoms, “far better than the Mizumi Clan’s grounds—petals like moons, air clear as spring water.”

“I feel the same,” I said, heart light as drifting pollen. “But in a few days the blossoms will fall like pale snow.”

Moon-rosa only opens at late spring, a brief tide on the branch. When summer steps in, it enters the falling, a shower even more breathtaking.

“Enough chit-chat.” Xinuo turned, her gaze clean as cold dew. “Servant, did you reinforce what you learned yesterday?”

“Of course!” I answered at once, like a bell struck in the quiet air.

“Good. Next, I’ll teach you how to cultivate Sword Aura. But first, what do you think Sword Aura is?”

“Uh... no idea,” I said, mind fogged like a river at dawn.

I’d never touched or seen Sword Aura, only read it in novels like stars seen through mist.

“Is it like in books—triggered by one’s inner force, or by a divine-grade sword?” I asked, thoughts fluttering like leaves.

Thinking back, those lines had felt solid, like stones underfoot in a stream.

“That might work, but it’s not true Sword Aura,” Xinuo said, shaking her head like a willow in wind. “Like magic, it’s condensed from the world’s elemental energy.”

“So Sword Aura has to be trained like magic?” My doubt rose like a thin fog.

“Not exactly,” she said, voice steady as a mountain shadow. “Both absorb elemental energy, then use mind and gear to cast. But Sword Aura demands tighter control. Magic can drink; swordsmanship must shape.”

“Control energy? What does that mean?” Confusion pooled in me like unmelted frost.

“Simple words,” she said, gentle as rain. “Let your spirit and awareness open. Feel the world’s elements, catch their paths, and drink in that moment. That part matches magic. But swordsmanship adds one more step—condensing. You keep pressing the energy, again and again, until it sheds its husk and becomes Sword Aura.”

“In other words, to condense Sword Aura, your control must turn mist into stone,” I muttered, pressure settling like a heavy sky.

So complicated. That was all I felt, like waves beating a cliff.

“It’s normal if you don’t get the theory,” Xinuo said, seeing through me like moonlight through water. “Doing matters more than knowing. I’ll show you Sword Aura first.”

She lifted a long, pale finger toward the sky, casual as flicking a raindrop.

BOOM!

In an instant, the high clouds shattered like glass under a hammer of light, torn open by a blade that moved like lightning.

“Servant, did you feel anything?” she asked, voice calm as cool shade.

“Uh, it was too fast—I didn’t catch it,” I said, cheeks hot as embers.

“Is that so? Then we slow it down.” She pinched my cheek like a playful breeze, then took Shattered Light from my hands.

“This time I’ll condense at the slowest pace,” she said, eyes like twin stars. “If you still feel nothing, Servant, I’ll have words.”

“Got it!” I answered, breath held like a string drawn tight.

Golden radiance poured into Shattered Light Sword, a tide of sunlit sand flowing into a single edge. Power hummed like a storm behind the hills.

It wasn’t crystal clear, but I felt it—those golden lights were shedding skins, rising into a higher state, turning solid like frost at dawn. That was Sword Aura.

Xinuo gave the blade the lightest flick, like a crane’s wing over water. A line of Sword Aura tore forward.

A thunderous boom rolled out, and a distant peak dissolved to ash, like a sandcastle under a black wave.

This Sword Aura was countless times stronger than before. Heat surged in my chest like a rising sun, and hunger for training burned brighter.

“How is it this time, Servant? Did you feel it?” She handed back Shattered Light, eyes smiling like a crescent moon.

“I did!” I said, words tumbling like pebbles down a slope.

I told her everything I’d sensed. She nodded, satisfied like a gardener seeing first sprouts. “Good. Now it’s your turn.”

“How do I actually do it?” I asked, hands a little stiff, like branches in a late frost.

“Simple. Empty your mind like a still pond. Picture yourself as one mote in the sea of elements. Track their paths, slow and steady.”

“That sounds so abstract,” I muttered, the thought slipping like a fish.

I shut my eyes and followed her steps, breath soft as falling petals.

…

A few minutes passed. Nothing. The quiet felt like flat water.

Half an hour passed. Still nothing, the sky in me dull as slate.

What am I doing wrong? The question knocked like a woodpecker in my skull.

I opened my eyes to ask Xinuo, but she was gone, her presence vanishing like mist. I had to find my own way.

“Maybe I’m trying too hard,” I thought, the words landing like a feather.

For thirty minutes, I’d clung to her instructions like a clenched fist, not truly empty at all.

Sensing the elements isn’t a race; anxiety is sand in the gears. The tighter you grip, the more it slips.

I remembered Serenemoon when she first practiced magic. She went in with a “whatever” heart, light as wind, and felt the elements in less than a day.

Maybe flowing with it is the way. Some things lean on luck and sudden insight, not force. You can’t squeeze rain from the sky.

I ran to the nearby lake. I scooped a handful of cool, clear water and splashed my face, letting my head chill like a stone under spring melt.

“One more try,” I said, voice steady as a drawn line.

But the world went against me. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t feel the elements. It was like seeing a shape behind paper, always near, never clear.

Don’t rush. I shook my head hard, like a tree tossing off snow. I sat with Shattered Light Sword in my arms and stared at the blue vault of the sky.

After a while, my thoughts thinned like mist in sunlight. Stillness pooled, wide and quiet.

“Open spirit and awareness,” I murmured, the phrase rippling like a mantra on water.

Slowly, I slipped into an airy state, as if a door in my chest had swung to the wind.

The feeling was uncanny, impossible to name. My body and mind floated in a sea of elements, with motes of different natures drifting like schools of fish around me.

Master them. Make them my blade. The thought rose sudden as a spark from flint.

Shattered Light Sword flared in my arms, bursting with golden light like sunrise over snow. In a blink, it had swallowed the nearby elements, a whirlpool in a bright sea.

“Condense,” I breathed.

My body moved on its own, swift as a hawk stooping. It gathered the gathered energy on the blade, pressing, refining, melting ore into steel. A strange certainty hit me—my body wasn’t obeying me. It was listening to something else.

“Shattered Light Sword... is it you?” I thought, the idea clear as a bell.

The loss of control began right when the blade bloomed with gold. The answer pointed there like a compass needle.

Meanwhile, the condensation neared its end. The energy clinging to the blade turned almost entirely into golden Sword Aura, bright as a sun-threaded waterfall—so beautiful it ached.

When it peaked, I rose without pause, cut toward the sky, and let the Sword Aura fly. The motion flowed like one breath from start to finish.

I thought that was the sword moving me. But when I came back to myself, I already had my body back.

The feeling of sensing elements and condensing Sword Aura had carved itself deep, like grain in wood. It felt inborn now, etched in mind and marrow.

I tried again right away. I drank in the nearby elements and pressed to condense.

The result... failed. No, not truly. I squeezed one out, but barely. Its power was a dim lamp next to that last blazing sun.

“What’s going on? Did I lose strength when control came back?” Frustration prickled like nettles.

No matter how many times I condensed, the result was the same—weak, far from that one Sword Aura fired under Shattered Light’s lead.

“It’s because you aren’t skilled yet, Servant.” Xinuo’s voice slipped in beside me, smooth as a shadow at noon.

I didn’t jump. After last night, I’d grown used to her quiet steps, like snow falling.

“I didn’t expect you to resonate with Shattered Light,” she said, eyes warm as lantern light. “That’s very good.”

“Resonate? What does that mean?” I asked, the thought pointing back to the sword’s control like an arrow.

“It means your consciousness and Shattered Light’s will overlapped by chance, entering resonance,” Xinuo said, calm as a slow stream. “In simple terms, it’s like the ‘human and sword as one’ in your novels. It’ll help your growth a lot.”

“Really? Then about Sword Aura—how do I recreate the Sword Aura I made in resonance?” My focus narrowed like a blade’s line.

“Two words: more practice,” she said, firm as a drumbeat.

“More practice?” I echoed, breath a small cloud.

“Yes. Early on, the only fast road is repetition,” she said, cadence steady as a metronome. “Condense, release. Then condense, then release. A thousand times, ten thousand. Keep going until your Sword Aura finishes the turn from quantity to quality.”

“Got it!” The answer knocked scales from my eyes like rain washing dust.

You don’t climb the sky from one lucky storm. It’s the quiet grind that builds the peak.

Quality comes from weight, and weight comes from counting stones. I understood.

I settled my heart like a lake after wind. I set my next goal like a flag on a ridge—pour everything into Sword Aura. Chase the change from many to one, from drift to steel.