Years passed quickly.

  Somewhere south of the eastern continent. A cavern on the western side of the coast. The waves that crashed muted the screams and shouts of the old man and the boy who were sparring hard.

  “Smack!!!”

  The boy received a good attack, he had to use the strength of his feet to stop it, the old man’s sword carried an unusual weight. The old man retracted his attack, moving away from the boy.

  “Was I really fed by a wolf’s milk?” the boy asked. He saw the chance to extend the brief pause of their spar, and he did it by asking a question.

  “Yeah, you sure were. I was surprised at first, too. This might be why you are abnormally strong,” the old man answered, half-teasing and half-serious.

  A normal kid his age should have fallen down from the old man’s attack, but Simon was just built differently.

  “I don’t think so, you are still much stronger than me, old man. I can’t beat you,” the boy remarked.

  The old man smiled. The boy was only ten, yet he was already proving to be quite a handful.

  “Experience teaches something you don’t understand right now… remember-,” the old man chuckled a little as he spoke.

  “Think first from the beginning of your movement and into its end, then move without hesitation… I know…” the boy recited the teachings he now learned and understood.

  The old man could have taught him in a different way, but the boy had an uncontrolble strength and naivety… all he could do was instill those words so that the boy would always believe in himself and his instincts.

  The old man returned to his stance. As he looked at the boy’s face, he began reminiscing: the boy when he first saw him, the boy when he first nded an attack on him, and the boy in front of him now. He was not ready for a child, but the past years… were probably the best time of his life… that now was almost over… he could tell.

  “By the way, where is that she-wolf now?” The boy asked.

  “I don’t know. She suddenly disappeared when you had already started eating solid foods… she might have gone back into the mountains or back to her pack… I don’t know. One thing is for sure, you were a glutton even back then,” the old man did his best to answer.

  Simon and the Old Man left the hut in the mountains after Simon was trained in the basics of survival. They have been through a bunch of troublesome situations, and the old man knew that the boy had grown into someone he could trust by words and actions.

  “I see… I’ll attack now,” Simon started to focus, so did the old man.

  They began swinging at each other again.

  “That’s right! There is no right form or right moves for any moves, all you can do is intercept and interpret!!! Let’s go faster!!!” The old man started doing low swings that were aimed at the kid’s overall openings, which were usually his knees or stomach. The old man would occasionally throw some jabs and kicks, too.

  “Ouch!!! Hey! No cheating and stop kicking me in the stomach!!” the boy protested while rubbing his stomach.

  The old man smiled. “Your enemies would do everything and anything when it's a life or death situation!!! Come on, boy, move it!”

  But the boy slumped down as he rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry,” Simon said.

  “We will eat afterward. You have to finish training first… You sleep like a log after eating anyway,” the old man said as he unched an attack without any mercy.

  The boy dodged the attack by rolling, even throwing some sand to temporary stop the attack of the old man. Then Simon started the counterattack to create spaces between them.

  “Ha! If you only learn magic at this rate, my mind can rest easy.”He didn’t wait a second longer—he overpowered the boy and smmed a kick into Simon’s stomach.“Ow!” Simon rolled away in pain.

  The cave was cold and dark, but the shouts of the two livened up the cave.

  Years had passed once again.

  The sea breeze carried a familiar saltiness—welcomed by Simon, now fourteen. He stood before the rocks that marked the old man’s grave, simply staring. After a moment, he sat down on the ground, his gaze never leaving the stone.

  Time slipped by in silence. He wasn’t reminiscing—he’d already spent years training in magic, carrying the old man’s lessons with him. Now, he was ready. He just didn’t know how to begin saying goodbye.The wind rose again, urging him onward.

  “I’m going back, old man,” he finally said, breaking the stillness. “I need to find out where I came from. Just rest now… And your sword’s too light! I can’t even swing it properly!”

  The sword was the only thing he had left of him.

  “I don’t even know your name…” he said it with regret.

  He stood up and walked down the cliff, where his backpack y packed with the old man’s sword and a few clothes.

  As he grabbed the bag, he looked back. The grave cast a long shadow in the sunlight.

  The vilge where the old man had found him had been mentioned only a few times, and Simon’s memories of it were too vague to grasp. Still, he remembered the name.

  ‘To Ahas Vilge, then.’

  After a final gnce at the grave, he turned and walked away. Near the house where they had stayed, he found a rack of dried food and, without hesitation, took all of it with him.

  ‘Time to go!’ he thought, looking at the beach’s horizon.

  He was on one of the group of small isnds called the Whirlpool Isnds, south of the eastern continent. They had traveled for a long time, moving to different vilges and towns… The old man said that their destination was the center of the continent, but after he lost his feet, he wanted to go to this isnd. He said that this was where he was born.

  But, no one lived on the isnd, though there were ruins of a destroyed vilge there.

  For the st years of the old man, they lived in one of the abandoned houses, which Simon transformed into a respectable home.

  As the old man’s blindness progressed and became bedridden, they spent their nights engaged in deep conversation. Sometimes it was about magic; sometimes it was about how to make friends. The old man worried that Simon might have a hard time mingling, so he taught him how to make funny faces—which the boy fully embodied.

  This continued until his passing.

  Simon chose to remain on the isnd afterward, feeling the need to gather his thoughts. He was only eleven years old when the old man officially died. His days passed alone, filled with more training—swordsmanship and magic.

  As he pushed the same boat they had used years ago, he heard a ctter and discovered the tumbler the old man had been searching for.

  It seemed the old man had left it on the boat years ago. Smiling, Simon recalled the days spent searching for it at the old man's insistence. Memories flooded back, bringing a rare teardrop to his eyes.

  Simon then stopped pushing the boat, hurried back to the old man's tomb, and buried the tumbler a little deeper into the ground. He breathed in and out for a few times. Now, he felt ready to move forward.

  HAVE PICTURE! CODE:006