Walking through the streets of Baska, Shichiro was aware of what date his next match would start in this little Baska Tournament he had participated in. He had a couple of weeks or so before it began and decided regardless of who his opponent was, he would have trained himself a little bit before he got into his match. Remembering about the strange forest of mages he trained with the other day, he figured he'd stop there and take up their offer on some light training with them in preparation for his match. Whatever they had in store for him, he hoped it wouldn't be too harsh and leave him sore for what was to come in the future. Taking a detour, Shichiro decided it was in his best interest to go back to the facility in the forest. It took him a few minutes or so to get there from his current location and while he did enjoy the walk, he would have rather got there as quickly as possible in order to see those strange mages once again. Entering the facility, he spotted a group of familiar faces he had either befriended or antagonized a little while ago before his previous match. There he overheard a conversation of one of them boosting being able to take the spiciest of foods. It was a bit childish but all in good fun and Shichiro decided he would join them first for a little bit instead of just ruining their good mood. When he approached, they had recognized who he was and felt a bit uneasy but welcomed him anyway to join in on the festivities. Some of them had bets riding on him winning so it was in their best interest to butter him up and let him join in and also banter.

Eventually, it came to the point where Shichiro had challenged somebody to eat the spiciest food that was in the canteen of the small training facility. The other mage had agreed and went to go and fetch the spiciest pepper that could be found currently. After a few moments, Shichiro sneered, chuckling to himself as the mage yelled about how spicy it was and his friends were talking smack to him, and so he challenged the other person to eat some. He had a bit of fun with them, and then exited the break room for a brief moment. He had a lot of thinking to do, and he wanted to talk with somebody else about his experience due to the fact that he had no idea what exactly had happened, and it was nice to have someone that had more experience to talk to than simply trying to figure things out by himself. Shichiro was actually feeling really well after all of that happened and he was walking back towards his next challenge. The Sakura trees were lining the particular route he wanted to take from the previous arena and he enjoyed how they flowed and drifted through the air as he walked past them. The gentle breeze that was hitting his face was nice, and it seemed like he was in that static and sort of stale air of the forest forever, far more than simply two days, and soon he would be at his next challenge, where he would partake in another arena challenge to further himself. At the last moment, Shichiro decided he would postpone this challenge and take a break. He was probably in this place for at least four days and wanted to be around people with familiar faces or at least get some serious training down.

He'd been on a training binge ever since leaving the arena, and he felt that he should take a little break, but after that break, he was right back into the swing of things, and started training again immediately. As he walked through the streets of Baska,  he noticed a woman sitting on a bench, and she looked fairly sad, and was waiting for a person to come back with her info that she filled out. This seemed strange to him, and against his better judgement, he went up to her to ask about what was troubling her. As he talked with her, at first she seemed very reserved, until Shichiro told her a little bit about himself, being a part of the Rune Knights but not disclosing his rank, and he was to get a promotion soon. She simply said that she was having horrible night terrors, and that she thinks that someone is breaking into her house every night and stalking her, and so Shichiro was a bit worried, despite how apathetic he was about other people’s problems without receiving compensation. That was going to be a B-ranked mission due to the fact that there was a high possibility of it being another mage sneaking into the house without anyone else noticing with an unknown spell, and that if confronted, there would be a fight, so Shichiro already knew he couldn't do much to help this woman without permission. However, he could possibly help her sleep, and told her about how warmed honey in milk would ease the night terrors if she drank it right before sleeping. She seemed to be a bit consoled by that information, and that made her smile a little. He then started to turn his head and look elsewhere to resist the urge to smile himself. Shortly after, Shichiro had parted ways with the female in search of a place to train without being disturbed. He decided a good place to start was the hills located at the outskirts of Baska.

Shichiro then trained by himself for the next few days, learning everything he could about the limitations of his body. Since he didn't really know any techniques, he was simply learning the basic concepts, and his mind worked in such a way as to put the concepts into coherent structure, and he was absorbing the knowledge like a sponge. Everyday, he quizzed him about random facts about the structure of mana that he had learned a few days ago after eating that fruit, or even the day right before, to see if Shichiro was actually retaining the information, and he definitely was. He was like an encyclopedia of knowledge when it came to all things book wise, and could recall all the information. He loved to read, and showed up with multiple reference books with him to training everyday, and a man told him what information in the books was actually important. Shichiro was going to begin making a name for himself, and it seemed like the man was knowledgeable about certain things dealing with mana. From that point on, Shichiro would need to be learning from experience, practice, and actually learning techniques to better perform in a battle. Shichiro thanked the man profusely, and the man said that he was going to Dahlia to get some rest and be with his family. Shichiro had also needed to pack for a three day trip out in these forests on the mountain sides. This was going to be fun, just like camping with rigorous amounts of training, and Shichiro was excited because he had never gone camping before, and loved new experiences. He showed up right before the sun came up, and didn't see anything. Soon after, Shichiro was enveloped in an illusion that made him nice and lost in the forest, and soon he passed out.

He woke up without any of his supplies, and the man he had asked for references was sitting next to him, ready to teach him things although Shichiro hadn’t known at the time. Shichiro wondered where his stuff was because he even lost his trusted katana which infuriated him and asked the man where they were before threatening and violently shaking him, and the man simply said that he had to figure that out, and got immediately into teaching detection techniques. First, to understand detection, one had to understand the instincts that we still have as animals, and that they were going to go out and catch their own food. Shichiro had never hunted before, and he didn't really feel the need too, just because he always ordered out or had somebody else cook for him and all the “messy” work. It was a good thing that his stomach could handle almost anything, and he could even eat raw meat without much of a hindrance if I came down to it. So, the first day was simply hiking around, looking for animals, and getting a feel for where they were in the wilderness, not to find their way back to the village, but simply to hone their senses. Eventually, Shichiro stopped thinking about his belongings, and instead started listening to the wilderness, the birds, the trees, there was a small stream somewhere to the west of them, and it seemed like his senses were opened up. This was fantastic, and he didn't really seem to notice until he was tracking a small fox through the wilderness. He remembered every step he took so that he could get back to the small camp they had set up, but when he finally cornered the fox, he simply couldn't kill it, and let it go. Shichiro sighed at how nice he was, or perhaps he was simply weak in that he couldn't kill to survive.

He found other sustenance in the form of insects that he found inside of fallen over trees and other under crops because he was essentially able to eat anything, he ate centipedes, grasshoppers, larvae of unknown insects, among other things. He didn't really feel full, but he wasn't hungry anymore, which was good, and then he walked back and met up with the man again after collecting quite a few insects using his shirt as a bag to hold them in. The man had a bunch of fish attached to the end of a spear that was fashioned from a fallen branch, or a branch that he just ripped up out of the floor. Shichiro wondered if the man was also good at using weapons, and he probably was in fact. Still, the man had fish, and all Shichiro had was a bunch of bugs, but the man happily ate them. It was nice to sit out there in the wilderness and start a fire using nothing but your hands and the environment, and tuning your senses to notice things that you wouldn't normally. After they had eaten and Shichiro was nice and full, the man started to show him how to use his mana to enhance his senses, and even use his mana as a large net that he could blanket over an area to find peoples' signatures.

Over the three days, he taught Shichiro how to sense people, tell signatures apart, and even enhance his natural senses with detection, although that could be seen as a handicap in certain situations, like having a powerful sense of smell and then someone puts down a stink bomb, or having a very keen eyesight, and suddenly having a flash bomb in front of your face. Shichiro would take these lessons back with him, and read all he could on the subject, but the hands-on experience with the man was far more valuable. He enjoyed the outdoors a lot, so it was nice to sit on the roof of an estate, above his current living quarters, and simply stared at the stars. He actually fell asleep up there on the roof, staring at the boundless expanse of the universe, and eventually he wanted to learn about that as well. The next day, it was time for his match in the Baska arena and Shichiro fastened his gear before heading there to take part in his match. After making it to his destination, his name was called and entered feeling strong and determined he would win. After what felt like a few minutes, Shichiro eventually prevailed once more leaving the arena in order to go back and hang out with the mages in the forest once more.

[Exit.]

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