As the prince opened the doors to the Flyers Guild hall he was happy to see Silva GrayAllen behind the registration desk.
"Hey, Silva GreyAllen. Nice to see you. How have things been these past couple months?" said the Prince.
"Ah, Reon DeValt, its been interesting what with the Trial of Ten staring soon, the guild is packed." she said.
And she was not lying. Looking around Reon could see dozens of warriors in light and heavy armors, carrying different assortments of weapons on their bodies. They were mostly in groups together telling stories while eating and drinking booze. Although they laughed heartily, Reon noticed a fight soon broke out do to someone calling bullshit on a fellow members story. This was about how things had gone for the past week according to Silva.
"Anyways. I have your sword ready. It's been waiting for you to return here for a month." said Silva pulling out a item wrapped in leather from under the desk, leaving it on top.
Reon was excited for the grand reveal. Silva unwrapped the item carefully, unfolding the leather wrap to reveal her handiwork.
Reon was was pleased upon his first view. The blade was 2 and half feet long, a perfect size for a one handed weapon for Reon. It was made of some kind of deep blue steel, that shone under the light of the guildhall. The hilt was also metal but covered partially by an ingrained black leather grip.
"This is perfect. You are very talented at smithing weapons Silva." said Reon.
"It's nothing." Silva blushed.
Now it was time for a deeper view, as Reon focused on Kinshi once again.
He deduced that the weapon was solidly built, would conduit his internal energy well, and that it even had a subtle spirit about it.
A spirit meant to challenge. A spirit yearning for battle.
"This is a good sword that wants honor and battle. I can tell you put your soul into this blade." Reon told Silva.
"Your right. I did put my all into this one. I don't know why but I wan't this blade to go far. So, what will you name this blade." said Silva.
"Hmm." Reon thought.
"Exlo."
"It means 'challenger' in my peoples native language." said Reon.
"Exlo, huh. That's a great name." said Silva.
"Thank you for this." Reon took the blade. "And thanks for watching the cubs for me for so long."
"That was no trouble at all. At this point I love those little guys . . . so cute." said Silva daydreaming.
"I don't even know if those guys will recognize me at his point, haha." said Reon.
After that Reon and Silva kept talking. She explained to him the gist of how the Trial of Ten would work this year.
Everyone would get 3 "Trial Tokens" to start with. On the first day. Anyone could challenge anyone to a trial duel, and no one could deny the first 3 challenges they got. The winner would be whoever won the duel of course, and they would take one Trial token from the loser, unless the loser died, in which they would take all of their tokens.
This was meant discourage unfair match ups. If someone strong challenged a weaker opponent, it was best for the weaker one to give up first and lose a token before they lost their life.
Who ever lost all of their tokens was out of the tournament.
At the end of the first day, everyone's tokens would be counted up, and the top ten in numbers would be given medallions numbered 1 to ten, from highest to lowest.
On the second day the tournament continued, but with a new rule. Medallion holders did not have to accept challenges from anyone more than two ranks below them. So whoever had the 1st medallion only had to accept challenges from the 2nd and 3rd medallion holders. And so on.
With his new weapon and an understanding of the upcoming tournament Reon was ready to go home. He honestly didn't care too much about explaining himself to the guildmaster for killing Sujin.
What was more important to Reon was that it was finally time to use Kinshi for it's true purpose.
The core principals of the Kinshi Philosiphy as Reon learned them, included mastery of self in the 4 external realms. Physical. Energetic. Mental. Spiritual.
Now Reon would meditate, using heart-mind meditation, to experience and control all of his emotions before forming a bond with Exlo.
When he got home, the first thing to do was sit on the floor and meditate. He layed Exlo on his lap and used Kinshi awareness to monitor the fluctuations in his energy, mind, body, feelings, and emotion just as Ken taught him.
He'd done this before many times, but only recently had he been able to sense and harness energy.
10 Major emotions. 3 levels of extremity. Infinite Spectrum between each level of extremity.
If Reon felt to low, he raised himself. If he felt to high, he brought himself back down to the desired controlled emotion.
Compressing his emotion, for self control.
If he thought to much he quieted his thoughts.
The mind was like pond or an ocean. Whether there were waves or ripple. Reon slowed the movements of his mind until they were miniscule, and purposeful.
To reach full self control one would move and think, only with purpose. Control their mind, not be controlled by it.
The feeling of hunger appeared in his ocean, which made sense, it had been two days since he had anything to eat. He quited that mental noise by filling himself with his own energy and breath.
Restlessness and Bordom appeared aswell. That noise was quieted by the appearance of thrill, and the desire to win this difficult battle.
The mind was a battlefield far more cruel than the physical.
Eventually he felt the emotion of Exlo too. Her restlessness. Her desire for victory. He could almost hear her crying for battle, and for war.
Seeing this, Reon decided it was time to connect with Exlo using Kinshi.
This was Kinshi's true power.
Reon controlled his energy, imputing it into Exlo.
Exlo did not resist. But Reon wanted to tame her, so he made it a point to calm down her battle lust, and then she began to resist.
Reon expected this though. He did not expect to easily calm down the blade's lust for battle when it had been waiting for long since it's birth to be used.
But similar to his own hunger he calmed down by feeling full, he filled himself with the sense and feeling of victory. Thinking back to defeating Sujin, surviving the woodrow battle, and even to finally unlocking his energy after all these years of training.
The satisfaction of coming so far in just 3 months eased his spirit, and this effect rubbed off on Exlo. The blade started to calm down it's battle hunger, and stopped resisting Reon's Will.
"I assure you, we will see many battles, and victories together." Reon spoke internally.
The beginning of Kinshi Resonance was when both weapon and weilder accepted each other. Reon's energy poured into Exlo, and Exlo's energy began to reach Reon in return.
Overtime, resonance would naturally increase, and so would his mastery of Exlo. There was no need to rush it. Reon was satisfied because he Resonated with Exlo on his first try.
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Silva was standing right now in the leaders room in the Flyer's guildhall.
She recalled everything that had happened 3 months ago which led up to Reon joining Flyers Guild and becoming the 10th ranked member.
It was known in the guild that the mysterious new 10th member was a young child and the only one he seemed friendly with was Silva, who was involved in the original situation.
She explained how he came, not knowing much, but wanted to join the guild to get some work. How when she tried to gauge his level by asking him about it, he didn't know about the star rating system, so he told her he was stronger than most people in the room at the moment. From that point, Sujin became offended, and took it upon himself to defend the guilds honor by challenging Reon to a duel.
Listening to her recount, was Isha, aswell as all of the other Flyers elite members, including Hyo and Raya.
As she spoke, the other members that were present at the time like Briand, and Hyo corroborated her story, even helping to elaborate on certain details.
Hyo explained his role that he played in that event. Then he wen't on to explain how Sujin fought Reon in the field of bones.
Isha had a beautiful face, with fair skin and long brown hair. She wore steele armor for protection, and carried a dominating presence. She listened to everyones words intently with a blank expression.
Raya also had some good words for Reon, but he wouldn't speak unless he was asked to in this situation.
After she finished listening to Silva, and Hyo's words. The room went quiet for a minute or two as she thought things over. Then . . . she finally spoke.
"I finally understand what happened. Aside from the sadness of unfortunately losing a long time member. Was losing Sujin in exchange for this Reon character worth it?" she asked the room.
This was an unexpected response to say the least.
A few of the elite members frowned at the thought of comparing, while some looked like they wondered the same thing.
The sixth Rank member, Rigor Stratos, was the first to speak.
"I don't know Guildmaster, they said Reon is still just a teenager, I don't know how Sujin could have lost in a fair fight. I heard that Reon cheated and-"
"If you don't know then don't comment on it Rigor. I don't wan't unbassed opinions." Isha cut him off.
Rigor looked semi embarrassed especially when a few of the others started chuckling behind their hands like like children.
"To be honest Isha, anyone of us can give you our opinions on Reon. Personally, I like him. But I think it's best if you gaugue him yourself." said Raya.
"That is a fair point." said Giovanni, the current 3rd ranked member. A tall tan skinned bald man. "Plus it would give all of us a chance to gaugue him, right now."
"Ok, Raya and Gio, both of you go to find him and bring him here." said Isha.
"Roger." said Raya.
Since Silva knew where Reon's temporary home was, she directed them. 20 minutes later, Raya, Reon, and Giovanni walked back into the leaders Room.