The backyard of the inn had enough space.

Not much, but enough for three people to train without knocking over anything that belonged to someone else.

Kai arrived first.

Serah arrived second.

Lira arrived third with Aldric’s coffee that someone had left at her room door that morning.

The three looked at each other.

"Rules," Kai said.

The two looked at him.

"Lira teaches Qi. Serah does sparring. Neither tells the other how to do her thing."

Lira took the coffee.

Serah looked at Kai.

Neither said yes.

In the distance, Aldric sighed sadly.

"My coffee."

Neither said no.

Kai interpreted that as enough.

"We start."

---

Lira left the coffee on the edge of the yard.

She stood in front of Kai — one meter away, arms slightly out.

"The Qi you use in combat and the one that emanates from you at rest are the same energy," she said. "But they work differently."

Kai listened.

"The active one you direct. You concentrate it on a point, you transmit it, you use it to amplify a strike." She extended her hand.

"The passive one you don’t direct. It comes out on its own. And that’s the one Serah felt before she met you."

Kai looked at his own hand.

"Can I control it?"

"Not turn it off. Reduce it, yes." Lira pointed to a spot on his wrist. "Here is where the flow is most accessible. Close your eyes."

Kai closed his eyes.

"The active one feels like something you decide to move. The passive one feels like something that’s already moving." A pause. "Can you find it?"

Three seconds.

"Yes."

"Don’t touch it. Just observe it."

---

Serah watched from the edge of the yard with her arms crossed.

Her markings in their steady glow.

Lira was a meter from Kai with her eyes on his wrist.

Lira’s hands moved closer to Kai’s wrist — not to correct his posture, to detect.

Serah’s markings rose half a degree.

Lira didn’t move.

The markings rose another half degree.

Neither did Lira.

"What you feel now," Lira said to Kai, without taking her eyes off the wrist, "is the resonance Qi in its base state. Compare it to what you feel when the active Qi is working."

Kai did it.

"They’re different."

"How?"

"The active one has direction. The passive one is like... static."

"Like a radio signal transmitting constantly." Lira released his wrist. "The goal is to lower the volume of that signal without turning it off."

---

[GarcíaFTW: the radio analogy. Lira explaining well.]

[NocheEterna99: Serah watching Lira’s wrist on Kai’s wrist]

[StreamerHunter: viewers: 1,100,000. the usual ones. the ones who stay for the training.]

[xSorinx: Serah’s markings rose a degree. Lira knows it. didn’t move anyway.]

[Pedro_Sierra: 📻 radio analogy. clean and clear.]

[Deral_Bleattler: Kai learning. Serah calibrating jealousy vs. recognizing the training is useful. Lira teaching with one eye on Serah.]

---

They worked on the resonance Qi for forty minutes.

Lira guiding — with contact when necessary and without it when not.

Kai progressing — not in leaps, in increments.

At the end of the forty minutes, Kai’s resonance Qi was at eighty-five percent of its base intensity.

[System — update]

[Passive resonance Qi — first conscious reduction registered]

[Base intensity: 100% → 85%]

[The system notes that Kai can feel the resonance Qi as a separate entity from the active Qi]

[The system considers that to be the hardest step and it’s already done]

Lira read the system update over Kai’s shoulder — her eyes were quick enough to capture the text before it disappeared.

"Good," she said.

She moved a meter away.

She picked up the coffee from the edge of the yard.

"Sparring," she said, toward Serah.

Serah peeled herself off the edge.

---

The rules of sparring were different from those of real combat.

Kai set them before starting — speed reduced to sixty percent, no active Qi in the strikes, pause if anyone says pause.

Serah looked at him when he said sixty percent.

"Eighty," she said.

"Seventy."

"Seventy-five."

"Fine."

Serah set her stance.

Kai set his stance in front of her.

And they began.

---

It was different.

Kai noticed it in the first exchange — Serah at seventy-five percent had the same speed as anything he had faced in the first Chapters of Aethon.

Manageable.

Fast enough to require full attention but not so fast that analysis was impossible.

Serah’s first strike reached Kai’s right shoulder.

Kai blocked it.

Serah stopped.

"Forearm higher," she said. "If you have it there, the angle exposes your side."

Kai adjusted.

Serah repeated the strike.

Kai blocked it differently.

"Better."

They continued.

---

It was completely different from fighting Serah in real combat.

In real combat, Serah didn’t stop. Didn’t correct. Didn’t wait for Kai to process what he’d just done before the next movement.

Here she did.

The sixth exchange — Kai launched his elbow and Serah dodged it with the lateral step Kai had seen her do dozens of times.

"The elbow has more range if you rotate your hip before the arm movement," Serah said. "Not during. Before."

Kai tried it.

The elbow reached two more centimeters of range.

"That."

---

[GarcíaFTW: SERAH TEACHING is different from Serah fighting]

[NocheEterna99: more patient. more detailed. like she’s fighting with her head instead of instinct.]

[StreamerHunter: "the elbow has more range if you rotate the hip before" — real technique. Serah knows this.]

[xSorinx: Lira watching with her arms crossed. face like she’s calculating something.]

[Pedro_Sierra: 🥋🥋🥋 Serah-sensei 🥋🥋🥋]

---

From the edge, Lira watched.

The coffee finished. Arms crossed. Eyes on the two.

The tenth exchange — Kai launched the side kick that Lira had corrected on the road to Grimvast.

"The supporting foot," Lira said, from the edge.

Serah looked at her.

"The supporting foot is wrong," Lira repeated. "The angle distributes the weight forward. If the opponent enters instead of retreating, Kai loses his axis."

The temperature dropped one degree.

Serah looked at Kai.

Looked at the supporting foot.

"Correct," she said, with the tone of someone who agrees with something and would rather not.

The temperature rose again.

Lira didn’t smile.

But she slightly adjusted the position of her crossed arms.

---

The fifteenth exchange was the longest — eight movements in sequence, Kai finding rhythm, Serah responding to each with the corresponding correction, the session reaching the point where analysis and movement began to coexist rather than compete.

At the end, Kai stopped.

He looked at Serah.

"You fight differently than you teach."

Serah looked at him.

"When you fight seriously there’s no pause. No correction. It’s all instinct." Kai lowered his guard. "When you teach, you wait. You let the mistake arrive until it can be seen fully and then you correct it."

Serah didn’t answer.

The markings pulsed.

"Where did you learn to teach like this?"

The markings pulsed again — warmer this time, the kind that has nothing to do with combat.

"I didn’t learn it," she said finally. "With you it’s the first time."

---

[GarcíaFTW: (╥_╥) "with you it’s the first time"]

[NocheEterna99: Serah had never taught anyone before. Kai is the first.]

[StreamerHunter: the markings pulsed warm. we saw them.]

[xSorinx: Lira saw it too. her arms changed position.]

[Pedro_Sierra: ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ωﾟ)ﾟ｡ "with you it’s the first time" ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ωﾟ)ﾟ｡]

[Deral_Bleattler: Lira processing this from the edge. neutral face. arms that are no longer so crossed.]

---

Lira waited for the moment to end.

Not long — just long enough for Kai and Serah to come out of the exchange and return to the shared space of the yard.

"Tomorrow we continue," she said. "The resonance Qi needs daily practice for the reduction to become automatic."

Kai nodded.

Serah looked at Lira.

"Tomorrow as well," Serah said. "The supporting foot and three more things I saw today."

Both looked at Kai.

Kai looked at both.

"Fine."

He picked up the water bottle from the edge of the yard.

"I’m going to get food."

He left the yard.

The two stayed in the yard.

Not looking directly at each other.

Not saying anything.

The temperature of the area was at a neutral point — neither cold nor warm.

Lira picked up the empty coffee from the edge.

Serah turned toward the inn door.

They entered two seconds apart.

---

[GarcíaFTW: Kai said "fine" and went to get food HAHAHA]

[NocheEterna99: "tomorrow we continue" / "tomorrow as well" / both looking at Kai / "fine. I’m going to get food"]

[StreamerHunter: Kai processing that he has double training every day now and his response was to get food.]

[xSorinx: both entered two seconds apart. neither gave way to the other. neither fought over it.]

[Pedro_Sierra: 😂 delicate balance 😂]

[Deral_Bleattler: the temperature of the yard stayed neutral. that’s the closest thing to an agreement Serah and Lira are going to have.]

[System — notification]

[Training session registered]

[Passive resonance Qi: first conscious reduction — 85% base intensity]

[Sparring with Serah: 15 exchanges — 3 technical corrections applied correctly]

[Current viewers: 1,100,000]

+++

Hi everyone! I apologize for the late update, but I’ve been busy with work and today’s Chapter is a bit rushed.

Thank you for reading