บท 14: Kanbu's Ability
"Is that him?"
"Yes..."
"Can a blind man really fight like that?"
"I wish I knew how this was possible..."
"Heard he has some talent with cultivation as well!"
"Yes, it only took him a week to be able to sense the energy around him. That said I know he still needs good talent in his physical body to make great use of his spiritual sense. From my understanding spiritual sense only matters if one can get a good technique that enables it to shine, but here? His talent won't allow him to go far if his body isn't at least half decent."
"Now that would be a great thing. Haha!"
"I think he should be able to at least reach the qi condensation stage. In this small town it is pretty good right?"
"That is if he makes it to that stage within the next ten years."
"Isn't the hardest part about cultivating starting out?"
"Well yes, but if he can't progress, then those ten years it takes most to start will be spent on just reaching the average level cultivators achieve with barely any time."
Everyone nodded in agreement as they were mostly talking about things that wouldn't affect them much. They were simple servants of the family and have all been given a chance to cultivate from the family, but in the end, nothing came of it even after they struggled for several years.
Lyon Everette, the master of the house, gave everyone who worked for him the chance to study a cultivation technique that he owned. This one fact attracted many to try their luck hoping to become something. Unfortunately most became simple workers without the power they had craved. Still, he was praised as a great person for the simple act of allowing others to gain some type of power. Those who actually obtained power claimed him an even greater person.
As these servants were gossiping and talking about random matters, the person in question that started the original conversation was walking with his eyes closed. He was currently walking to his teacher's place to learn more about cultivation as unlike others who could simply read the technique, he could not see or even understand anything on the technique thus needing a teacher who would talk about the drawings and words on the paper.
Kanbu could clearly hear as everyone talked about him, but by now he didn't care about it anymore. After a while, he reached his teacher's place. His teacher was a woman by the name of Sonya. Apparently, she was also the mother of most of his siblings. She had always known of his existence, but it was only after hearing he came to work for them did she want to oversee his training personally.
After knocking and waiting a moment, a woman with long golden hair answered the door. She was especially beautiful and had obviously meticulously took care of her appearance. Unfortunately, Kanbu could only more or less make out her features and couldn't even tell if her skin was green or red much less see how great her golden hair made her stand out.
"Kanbu, welcome..." As the woman allowed him to enter she spoke in a soft tone, "Are you here to learn about the manual?"
"Yes, teacher." Bowing to the woman Kanbu showed the best manners he knew. "I hope to hear you explain it. I also have thought of a way to show the pictures."
"Oh~? Please explain."
"I can see movement, so if you could, please draw the pictures or trace them. If you can do that I believe I should be able to more or less see what the drawing is like... In the worst-case scenario, you could have someone carve a statue of the drawing and use that as the demonstration."
"Hmmm... Not bad ideas, let me call over some paper and ink. Although I must say, my drawing skill might not be anywhere as good as the one used to create the original manual."
"Thank you... I care not how good the drawing may be, I simply wish to have an idea of what is on the paper. Again, thank you for allowing me this selfishness."
Soon the paper and ink arrived allowing Sonya to draw the picture while Kanbu used sounds to get an idea of how the brush moved and how that allowed a picture to be created on the paper. This process lasted an entire twelve hours as Sonya redrew the pictures several times and also needed to draw several other drawings for the rest of the manual. That said this manual was very simple having less than a thousand words and only ten pages with a drawing on each page. Sonya was also explaining everything on the pages in great detail as she did her best to make sure Kanbu understood.
"I think I understand teacher, thank you, I shall leave and cultivate." As Kanbu bowed and prepared to leave, Sonya stopped him.
"Kanbu, can you tell me a bit more about being blind? You see, after seeing how you fought during sword practice I couldn't help but wonder how you 'see the world' figuratively speaking."
"Teacher... For me, my eyes are no different from my forehead with the added caveat that I need to be more careful with them since they are more fragile. For me... my ears are what allows me to truly see the world. I hear the sounds and... the sounds travel in waves that react with different objects in ways that allows me to see their shapes... Do you understand?"
"Waves? How so?"
"It would be simpler if we had some water to demonstrate so you can understand better, but for now just think that I see all things through the interactions with sounds. Everything is just like your eyes without color and I need to picture it myself to see what is happening."
"Follow me. I need to see this demonstration."
Kanbu didn't deny and simply followed Sonya to a small pond that was near her place of stay. Kanbu smiled and began to explain as he grabbed a pebble and threw it out before waiting for a moment and grabbing another pebble. "Teacher... To me, a still lake or pond is just like dry ground. I cannot tell the difference, but my nose is what helps me then. Water has a smell that especially permeates with living creatures in it like your pond with these fish.
Still, that can wait. Let us first see what sound reacts like." Kanbu paused before he grabbed a decorative log and put it into the water and waited until the water stilled. "Watch as the ripples interact with the log." As he spoke he dropped the rock into the pond making some small ripples.
Pointing to where he threw the rock Kanbu spoke calmly, "Watch here. These ripples spread out from the place where I threw the rock, that is what happens when I make a sound." From there as the ripples slowly stopped he grabbed another bigger rock and threw it in before pointing at the log he left atop the pond, "Here you can see the ripples hit the log and bounce back with less force as they slowly dissipate. Farther away you can see the ripples that don't hit the log dissipate eventually."
As the water stilled he spoke while throwing another rock into the pond, "Then when you see corners you can tell the wall ends, but don't know what is behind right? Here you can see the ripples go and spread out after reaching the edge of the log. Of course, this is only my own sounds that I make to see." As he spoke he grabbed two more rocks as he spoke.
"You see I am not the only one who makes sounds and based on the sounds others make, I can figure out what the place around the corner can look like even if I don't personally see it." As he spoke he showed the rocks making ripples on both sides of the log. "And just like you can see better with a better angle, the angle on how the sounds reach me can affect how well I can see."
Sonya finally spoke with sparkling eyes, "I get it! So sound works like these waves! That makes me wonder how our vision works."
"Vision is the same."
"What! How do you know?" Sonya had a look of absolute curiosity.
"The book that taught me to see with my ears explained how vision works and how to translate it to other senses."
"I don't really understand. I can understand the waves of sound that work similar to the wind, but what can light be considered."
Kanbu stopped and sighed before continuing, "It looks like you truly didn't understand how sound works because you don't understand the basics... Sound and light are just energy; think heat for energy. How that energy reacts to the environment dictates how we experience it. All energy works in waves... at least that was what the book said. I don't truly understand it, but you can think of it as speed.
Heat hits objects and bounces off very slowly unless guided with the help of a catalyst like the wind moving the heat quickly. Sound is very fast and hits objects and bounces off them quickly not allowing us to feel anything besides the air it had affected. Light, which is how you see, is unbelievably fast and bounces off objects faster than our minds can understand making light almost instant."
Sonya looked extremely confused as she looked at Kanbu strangely, "That doesn't make sense."
*sigh* "If could read the book you would understand."
"Can you give me the book?"
"I already gave it to Lord Everatte. He said it was only a bunch of squiggles with no real meaning."
"I will have to look into it..." As she pondered, Sonya kept thinking about how the 'waves' were described and how all energy supposedly worked in these waves.
"Teacher, I shall head to my assigned dorm to practice the technique you taught me."
"Wait... Since you claim all energy works in these waves, do you also believe that the energy we cultivate works similarly?"
Kanbu paused and thought for a moment before shaking his head, "I remember that the purer the energy the more wavelike it is... Not sure what that means, but in my eyes, the qi we can cultivate is very unpure... I suppose that if we are able to find a way to make the qi act more like a wave it could become more pure... Still, I know that it most definitely doesn't act like a wave while in the air, well some of it does, but most of it stays stagnant. I think this means something is wrong with it... I am really not sure after all I only began to feel it a few days ago."
*sigh* "Well alright. Get going. I hope this book gave you the real answers. If you can, can you see which places have more 'wavelike' qi?"
"I will do my best." Bowing Kanbu thought about how he had his first official job at his father's house.
As she watched Kanbu leave Sonya thought deeply of his words. She was extremely smart and from the first time she saw how Kanbu could move, she decided that she needed to figure out how to use this power for herself and those she cared for, namely her children. Like many in this world she desprately craved power and luckily had enough talent to obtain some of it. That said, she was average compared to the people who could obtain power.
From what she could tell everyone can obtain the power of qi, but most take 10-20 years to be able to even start. Of course there are also those who can't start even after that making them exceptionally untalented. Of course there are two parts to the talent of qi. Spiritual and physical. Mind and body. She was talented in mind allowing her a quick start only taking 5 years to start, but her body was average making her stuck.
She had always had a desprate want for more power and a hope for the future, so now hearing Kanbu claiming he knew so much about 'energy' she hoped that he could find a place with great qi density that would help everyone she cared for to grow extremely fast.
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