Chapter 12: Flow State

  The morning sun had barely risen when Leo returned to the training ground, determination etched on his face. He'd spent a restless night pondering Second Sister and Aline's cryptic advice about weapon mastery. Their words circled in his mind like persistent moths around a flame.

  Extension of self, not a tool to be controlled.

  He withdrew the extending spear from his storage ring, feeling its familiar weight in his palm. The weapon gleamed in the early light, its surface catching the golden rays of dawn.

  "Today will be different," Leo declared to the empty training ground. "Somehow."

  He began with basic movements, focusing on his breathing as he had during purification sessions. The spear responded to his mental commands as before, extending and retracting with predictable precision. But the fluid grace Aline had demonstrated remained frustratingly elusive.

  "Maybe I'm overthinking this," Leo muttered after an hour of increasingly frustrating practice.

  He paused, recalling Second Sister's comparison to qi circulation. During purification, the energy flowed most effectively when he set an intention without micromanaging the process. Perhaps weapon mastery followed similar principles.

  Leo closed his eyes, feeling for the subtle current of qi in his body. Unlike his usual meditation, he remained standing, spear in hand. He allowed the energy to circulate naturally, then tentatively extended his awareness to include the weapon.

  It's not separate from me. It's part of my energy system.

  Opening his eyes, Leo moved forward with a simple thrust. The spear extended slightly, not because he explicitly commanded it, but because his intention included reaching a target that was just beyond normal range.

  Or at least, that's what he thought would happen. Instead, the spear remained stubbornly inert, refusing to extend at all. Leo frowned, trying again with more focused intention.

  The spear suddenly extended to its full ten-meter length, completely overshooting his target and embedding its tip deep into a tree trunk. Leo yelped in surprise, stumbling forward as the weapon pulled him along.

  "Not exactly what I was going for," he grunted, trying to free the spear from the tree. After several tugs, it finally came loose, sending him sprawling backward onto the ground.

  Leo picked himself up, brushing dirt from his robes. "Let's try a different approach."

  For the next two hours, he experimented with various methods, attempting to find the balance between conscious control and intuitive connection. Each attempt ended in failure. When he tried to relax and let the spear respond naturally, it either didn't move at all or moved in unpredictable ways. When he reverted to direct mental commands, the movements remained stiff and mechanical.

  By midday, sweat soaked his robes, and frustration had built to a breaking point. The spear seemed to respond worse as his irritation grew, as if deliberately defying him.

  "This is ridiculous," Leo growled after a particularly clumsy sequence left him sprawled on the ground for the dozenth time. "How can an inanimate object be so stubborn?"

  He sat on the ground, glaring at the spear lying beside him. Second Sister had mentioned that the weapon responded to emotional state, and right now, his emotions were decidedly negative.

  Maybe that's the problem.

  Leo took several deep breaths, consciously releasing his frustration. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sensation of air filling his lungs, then flowing outward. The practice calmed him, bringing his mind back to a state of quiet receptivity.

  After several minutes, he opened his eyes and regarded the spear with fresh perspective. Instead of seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, he tried viewing it as a partner in his cultivation journey.

  "Let's try this again," Leo said, his voice softer now. "Together."

  He stood up and retrieved the spear, holding it loosely in his hands. This time, he didn't immediately launch into practice forms. Instead, he simply stood, feeling the weight of the weapon, the texture of its surface, the balance point along its length.

  I've been trying to force understanding, when I should have been listening.

  Leo began to move, not following any particular pattern or technique, but simply allowing his body to flow naturally. For a moment, it seemed promising. The spear moved with him, its motions harmonizing with his own.

  Then his foot caught on an uneven patch of ground. As he stumbled, the spear responded to his spike of alarm by rapidly extending, then retracting, then extending again in confused response to his jumbled thoughts. Leo ended up tangled with his own weapon, falling unceremoniously to the ground yet again.

  "So much for that approach," he muttered, untangling himself. His initial optimism was fading fast, replaced by a creeping sense that he simply wasn't understanding a fundamental concept.

  The afternoon brought more failed attempts. Leo tried incorporating purification techniques, circulating qi while practicing with the spear. Sometimes this seemed to help momentarily, creating a slightly stronger connection, but the effect was inconsistent and fleeting.

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  By late afternoon, his arms ached from exertion, his legs were covered in scrapes and bruises from repeated falls, and his patience had worn dangerously thin. The training ground bore numerous marks from his practice—gouges in the earth, scratches on trees, even a rather large rock that had somehow been shattered during a particularly chaotic attempt at a spinning maneuver.

  "I'm done," Leo finally declared, throwing the spear down in disgust. "I've been at this all day, and I'm no closer to understanding what Aline and Second Sister were talking about."

  He dropped to the ground, lying flat on his back and staring up at the sky. The physical exhaustion was nothing compared to his mental fatigue. He'd analyzed and overthought and second-guessed until his brain felt like mush.

  As he lay there, a new frustration occurred to him. This was a weapon crafted by Fourth Brother, a master blacksmith with mysterious abilities. The spear could change length by responding to thought alone, a feature Leo had initially found miraculous.

  Wait a second, he thought, frowning up at the clouds. If this advanced weapon that literally responds to thoughts is already considered basic, how do regular cultivators use normal weapons? Second Sister and Aline are talking about some deeper connection, but most weapons don't even have the ability to obey mental commands in the first place.

  It made the task seem even more impossible. He wasn't just learning to use a weapon, he was trying to grasp a fundamental cultivation concept that apparently transcended the already miraculous properties of Fourth Brother's creation.

  Maybe I'm just not cut out for this cultivation stuff. Maybe being "untethered from fate" means I can't connect properly with these weapons either.

  Leo closed his eyes, giving in to the exhaustion. He didn't even have the energy to walk back to his quarters. For several minutes, he simply lay there, mind blissfully empty, muscles releasing their tension, breath gradually slowing and deepening.

  The sun was beginning to set when he finally stirred, his thoughts drifting lazily back to consciousness. With no particular goal in mind, he sat up and reached for the discarded spear. His movements were loose, almost sloppy from fatigue. He held the weapon lightly, too tired to grip it properly.

  I don't even care anymore. Just one more try, then I'm done for today.

  Leo rose to his feet and moved forward with the spear, not thinking about technique or control or extension. His exhausted mind could barely form coherent thoughts, much less direct commands to the weapon. He simply moved, allowing his body to find its own rhythm.

  And then something changed.

  For a few precious seconds, no more than five or six heartbeats, the spear seemed to respond not to his thoughts but to his intentions. When he wanted to reach farther, it extended without conscious command. When he needed to maneuver in close quarters, it retracted smoothly. There was no separation between desire and action, between wielder and weapon.

  The experience reminded him of a pickup basketball game back on Earth. He'd been playing with friends in a weekend rec league, nothing serious, just for fun. During one game, exhausted after hours of play, he'd suddenly sunk three consecutive shots without consciously aiming. His body had simply known what to do. His friend Mark had slapped him on the back afterward, saying he'd been "in the zone."

  This was similar, yet profoundly different, as if the spear itself had become part of that zone.

  Then, almost as quickly as it had come, his conscious mind reasserted itself. Leo became aware of what was happening, and in that moment of self-reflection, the integration dissolved completely. The spear clattered to the ground as he lost his grip entirely.

  "Whoa," Leo whispered, picking up the weapon with shaking hands. "That was... something else."

  He tried immediately to recapture the sensation, but the moment had passed. His next movements were back to the familiar pattern, mental commands followed by mechanical responses. The brief flow state remained tantalizingly out of reach.

  He understood now what Second Sister and Aline had been trying to explain, even if he couldn't maintain it. For those few seconds, the weapon had responded not to explicit commands but to pure intention. Yet the experience felt alien, almost uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity. His natural instinct was still to control the spear with direct mental commands. That approach made logical sense to his mind.

  Maybe that's the point. Cultivation isn't supposed to feel natural to me yet.

  As darkness settled over the Academy grounds, Leo stored the spear in his ring and sat down on the cool grass. His muscles ached from the day's exertion, his body bruised and scraped from countless falls. He stared at his hands in the fading light, turning them over as if they might reveal the secret of what had just happened.

  Those few seconds of perfect harmony with the spear lingered in his mind like a vivid dream. The realization hit him with sudden clarity.

  "I was too tired to think," he whispered to himself. "That was the key."

  It made perfect sense now. All day he'd been trying to force a connection through conscious effort, analyzing and overthinking every movement. Only when exhaustion had stripped away his ability to control had his body responded naturally, operating on pure instinct rather than directed thought.

  He rose to his feet, wincing as his battered body protested. His thoughts drifted to the concept of muscle memory from Earth, but this was something deeper. This wasn't just teaching his muscles to remember movements, it was about making the spear itself behave like another limb, an extension that responded as naturally as his arm or leg would. The weapon needed to become so integrated with his instincts that the distinction between wielder and weapon disappeared entirely.

  Leo began walking back toward his quarters, his mind racing despite his physical exhaustion. He needed repetition, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of repetitions until the spear's movements became as natural as breathing. Not cleverness or theory, just pure, relentless practice until his conscious mind could step aside and let instinct take over.

  That’s what Aline was alluding to. I wonder how repetition sets she has with her bow.

  By the time he reached his room, Leo had already formulated tomorrow's training regimen. He would start with the simplest movements, repeating each one hundred times before moving to the next. No variations, no complexity, just the same basic forms over and over until his body could perform them without thought.

  A thrill ran through him despite his exhaustion. The sensation during those few seconds had been intoxicating, a glimpse of what he could become if he mastered this connection. He imagined himself at the Emperor's Cup, the spear moving as an extension of his will, his opponents unable to predict or counter movements that flowed from pure instinct rather than calculated thought. The image sent a surge of excitement through his tired body.

  Instinct through repetition, he thought as sleep began to claim him. Not thinking my way to mastery but practicing until my body simply knows.

  His last conscious thought before drifting off was of that brief, perfect moment when the spear had felt like part of him. Not a tool he was using, but an extension of his will. He would find that state again, not through cleverness or shortcuts, but through sweat and persistence and thousands of identical movements.