Trials of Destiny: Way of The Sword

Over the next month, many things happened. Stella had completed her training to enter Circle, Jin stayed to his regular training and added an extra hour to each set. After the month was over though, Jin and Stella had a conversation about training and after a few days worth of talking and training, they both accepted increasing the time for training for a year instead of a month. 

After accepting the year, they both continued on their training for the year. During the course of the year, Stella had learned 2 techniques. "Swiftless Feather", the movement skill Jin had talked about and used. She had also learned "Nature's Flow: Gentle Stream Cut". This technique uses a dual affinity of water and nature. 

Jin, across the year worth of training, had also learned a new technique. A continuation of his "Forbidden Azure style", he had learned "Forbidden Azure: Spirit of the Phantom Blade".

"Jin, what do you think master, and Gray think of my improvements?" 

"Hmm, I think they're going to lose their mind when they see how much you've progressed within such a short amount of time."

"Then what do you say about a sparring match? Just to test everything we've learned?" Stella said with a smile on her face and a somewhat overly excited look on her face. Jin, looking at her face, sighed thinking of what type of weird strategy she has come up with this time. "Sure, let's have a sparring match, but no unfair tricks like the last time. You only won because of you using the dirt to blind me for a few seconds." 

"But you're the one who taught me to use whatever I can to win a fight." Stella looked at him in confusion. 

Jin was not able to argure back with that logic, he just silently sighed and grabbed his tanto and went outside. Stella soon followed with her chosen weapon, which was a katana she found when they visited a small village nearby.

Jin got into position and unsheathed his tanto. Stella had done the same with her katana. Jin counted down from 5 once hitting 0 and they would go for it. "5" he said, they both got ready, "4" he said with a confident look on his face before finishing the countdown. "1", He said before moving his left foot behind him, "0". Jin said and dashed at Stella, going for a slash on her arm. Stella instantly countered using the "Swiftless Feather" technique and jumped backwards before using it again to dash at Jin.

"Nature's Flow: Gentle Stream Cut." Suddenly, her katana was engulfed with an aura of dark blue and a slight glow of green. She performs a quick, slicing motion after reaching Jin, sending a concentrated blade of water forward that flows like a gentle stream.

This wave was aimed at Jin and he goes for a block but decides to uses "Swiftless Feather" last second sensing the power behind it and uses "Forbidden Azure: Condensed Redemption" to counterattack, sending an attack towards the water flowing at him, cutting it in half and increasing his ki into the attack after it had already sliced the water to keep the attack going for a little bit. After doing this, Jin used "Swiftless Feather" again to quickly get behind Stella.

Stella seeing him jumps backwards and gets hit by Jin's Condensed Redemption from not being able to see it. Stella, not letting that be the end of her, quickly got up and quickly dashed forward at Jin going for a slash. Jin countered by clashing blades. Stella pushes her weight from above down onto Jin's tanto before landing on the ground and uses "Nature's Flow: Gentle Stream Cut" and fused it into her katana instead of a wave of water like earlier, while clashing to gain an upper hand. Jin sweating a bit, and not seeing any other choice, uses "Forbidden Azure: Spirit of the Phantom Blade" Jin channels his ki into the tanto, igniting the blade with Azure Flames. The flames burn brightly as he clashes with Stella and the flame from the blade slowly started to melt her katana's blade away. Stella, having no choice, jumps back slightly to gain more distance.

"Damn, I wasn't expecting you to use that shit." Stella said, looking up at her blade being slowly melted. "Well, it wasn't exactly something I wanted to use..." Jin replied looking over at her. 

Stella sighed and admitted defeat. "There's no chance I would've won considering the shape my weapon is in and considering how low on ki I was getting... so this is my defeat. Where am I supposed to get another katana though...?" Jin closed his eyes, releasing the flame on his blade. "Uh, we could go back to that village or we can just go back to your clan and they probably have weapons, right?" 

"When we were there last, all they kept was wooden swords only. It might have changed since then though, I doubt it honestly, but it might be worth visiting the village before going back." Jin stood there for a moment and was thinking to himself, "Forbidden Azure: Spirit of the Phantom Blade... that technique uses so much of my ki. I was basically drained to nothing after I used it only once, and I thought my ki had increased over the year. I guess I still don't have enough to properly use it." He sighed after sheathing his tanto and opened his eyes, he went inside the cabin, which had 2 couches made from bamboo and a few chairs from bamboo, Stella, and Jin had made together over the year. Jin picked up the bags that were all empty now. "We used up everything, huh?" He said to Stella. "We did... All of the wooden weapons were destroyed during spars and training. The pills we used to increase our ki."

"Then I guess we won't need to carry anything on the way to the clan this time." Jin laughed slightly remembering how heavy those bags were when he was carrying them for a bit. "I carried 2 of them for over half the way here... don't complain just because you had to for a few minutes." They both laughed and left the cabin and headed towards the village to pick up a new katana for Stella.

They both walked off towards the village and arrived within only a 20-minute walk. Stella walked over to the blacksmith while Jin is looking around the clan requests they have here in the middle of the village on a wooden board.

"Hm…there's a few that looks interesting to take and complete honestly. I'm not liking the amount of money though on some of these…" He said to himself under his breath but continues looking.

Stella had walked into the blacksmith workshop and smiled at the blacksmith behind the desk waiting for customers. "Oh? You're back already, what happened to the last sword you bought?"

"… It kind of melted." She said looking around the shop at the katanas on the left side of the store. "Melted?" The blacksmith looked confused for a moment but just went along with it. "I did have a few I just made within the last week or so if you'd like to see those."

Stella walked up to the counter and nodded wanting to see them. The blacksmith bent down and grabbed three katanas without sheathes for them. "Here you go." He put them onto the counter and lets her view them.

Stella looked at all three of them and decided on the second one she picked up. "It's kind of light, flexible is as good as the last one which isn't a lot which is good for me, and it fits in my hand better than the other two did. How much is it?" The blacksmith smiled, "You certainly do have a good eye for things. That one is made from a wolf bone, steel, and wood from an oak tree. The reason for its lightness is due to a martial artist who uses enhance as his art. He fused a feather technique into the blade, essentially making the blade itself a technique instead of just a weapon. It'll hit as hard as normally, but it's also lighter to wield. It'll cost you around 70 silvers."

Stella, who was listening to the story then, heard the price and almost had a stroke. "7-70 silver?" She asked and looked at where she kept her money and only counted 30 silvers. "Mmm, I'll be back another day for it, I guess." Stella walked out of the blacksmith workshop and found Jin staring at the board so she walked over to him. "What are you looking at?" She asked curiously.

"These are some jobs from clans this village has put up for people to do to earn some extra money, or I guess fame as well if you do enough?" He said still looking at them all and debating which is better for price/mission difficulty. Stella began looking as well hoping there was something for 40 silver.

They both ended up sighing in defeat as it was all a max of 20 silvers for a clear of monsters that were above their skill level. "I guess… even after a year worth of training we still aren't ready for most things, huh?" Stella said looking over at Jin.

"I mean you're right, but we could still accept it and try to do it? If it looks like we're in a tough situation we just back out." Jin said looking over at Stella. She sighed and gave in to accept it so they took the piece of paper from the board and saw the actual price. "2…2…200 SILVER?" Jin said after they had walked out of the village. Stella looked over at the paper and saw it and her eyes began to glow with money signs in them, and she saw her future with that katana she saw earlier. "What do we need to do?" She asked instantly. "All we need to do is kill a den worth of wolves. It shouldn't be that hard." Jin said putting the paper into his sleeves.

After walking for an hour heading west they arrive in the forest. "Oh yeah, by the way… where's your weapon?" Jin said looking over at Stella. "… I couldn't afford a new one, so I'm going to fight using my hands!" She said looking at Jin.

"What am I supposed to do with you and your brain?"

"Hey! What does that mean?"

"Nothing, It's just you need some sort of weapon to use any of your techniques, right?" Stella thought for a moment and her eyes widen as she realized that not thinking at first about it. She awkwardly laughed and brushed it off as nothing. Jin, without words to say to her just kept walking into the forest.