Douluo Dalu: 1st Cycle: Dancing Panda

Tie Tiao was dashing full speed towards Karni, who had his first soul ring activated. Karni suddenly vanished like an illusion as he appeared a bit wobbly not too far away from where Tie Tiao landed.

"Don't just stop! Follow him! Don't let him catch his breath!" Siduo shouted from next to them. She was sitting in a shade and observing from the side.

Tie Tiao tried to quickly dash towards Karni again following Siduo's shout, but Karni was already far away. He was just waiting for Tie Tiao to run to him.

Tie Tiao closed in as Karni's body bent 90 degrees back and then vanished from the spot even faster than before.

Tie Tiao didn't forget to follow after Karni, but Siduo still shouted. "Go! Go! Change directions faster!"

Tie Tiao almost touched Karni, before the latter managed to turn into an illusion that escaped him yet again.

He tried to follow while keeping his speed, when he suddenly fell sideways because of the momentum that carried on from before.

Karni then appeared next to him suddenly as he tried to kick Tie Tiao, but Tie Tiao managed to use his soul ring last minute as he shrunk and swooshed away from Karni's kick.

The pace increased, Tie Tiao became much more agile than before, being able to make much sharper turns, yet Karni didn't seem bothered. He was dancing around Tie Tiao bending and moving his feet in impossible ways.

This was Karni's fusion of his Drunken Dancing Movement and Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track. The fusion was still imperfect, as he often ended up in a situation where he had to rebalance himself at the end. If nothing else, he has managed to save those situations with the core balance he developed thanks to the Drunken Movement.

Tie Tiao on the other hand has reached incredible speeds now. Siduo thought that should he reach 2 rings, he shouldn't be too far off in terms of speed compared to her. That didn't change the fact that Tie Tiao lacked any sort of offensive moves however.

Currently, the boy was using everything he had, yet he still couldn't force Karni to use his staff as a way to block his charge. The main problem for that was his lack of agility and surprise.

This was also what he was currently being trained on by Siduo through Karni.

"Alright that's enough for today." Shouted Siduo as she rose from the ground and went towards Tie Tiao to talk to him. Meanwhile Karni just nodded at Tie Tiao and then went away without saying any goodbye to Siduo.

Seeing this for the n-th time already Tie Tiao could only sigh. He tried to meddle at the start to mediate, but the two weren't having it. The practice for the last month has been the same. Siduo and Karni would arrive from different parts of the school at agreed time, Karni would train with him while Siduo noted the mistakes and then they would abruptly split.

It was only Karni who could train with Tie Tiao. Due to Siduo's wound, she got a month of rest and an order not to use soul ring abilities or do hard chores. An additional month after that will have to be done with careful usage of her soul power.

She was shot all the way through her body after all. And close to the heart as well. If she wasn't mindful enough to use her soul power to block her blood from leaving, she would have quickly bled out back then.

She couldn't physically train with Tie Tiao for this month, though this should soon change as the one month period should be up this week.

Karni has also been going to the Spirit Ascension Platform alone, though not with much success. Of the four times he went, he had "extra lessons" three times.

Karni looked back as he was going away. He saw Siduo seriously discussing with Tie Tiao about his problems. Another girl appeared in their group afterwards as well. It was Hu Fuya, who, in Karni's absence, has been hanging out with Siduo these days.

This has been the most miserable month since he came here. It wasn't the harsh training he faced, it was the relationship he had with Siduo that was giving him headaches. From hanging out all the time, this changed to only seeing each other in classes and when training Tie Tiao.

He was originally going to stop training Tie Tiao when they had their fallout, but the two promised Tie Tiao to help him defeat Ma Fai no matter what. Hence this awkward arrangement.

He wanted to hang out with her. She was the only true friend he had here. Well, Tie Tiao was becoming one as well, but they've only known each other for a few weeks after all. It just wasn't the same.

The classmates obviously noticed their recent distance too. It was the reason Hu Fuya originally joined. She tried to mediate between the two just like Tie Tiao.

Karni entered his room which has now become quite a mess. His clothes were laying all over the floor, his desk had one too many blueprints of his design. Even the drums weren't saved from his clothes.

Karni ignored all of the mess as he sat down on his desk and started searching through his designs. Looking for something specific.

After a solid minute of searching, he finally found it. The designs featured two daggers that appeared similar in design and their only difference was the soul circuit formations they had.

Karni looked over the two. One of the soul circuits gathered energy from surroundings and was connected to another one which then transformed it and a further one which compressed it. The metals he wrote down for it was one of the more ordinary ones that was known to be durable.

The metal was Grey Copper which was known to be sturdy even when it was quite thin. The designs specified the metal should be hundred-refined, something which wasn't too hard to get as most blacksmiths could achieve this.

Most of the Soul Tools that they have created were, in fact, hundred-refined. Karni has designed a few thousand-refined ones as well. Blacksmiths who were third rank could thousand-refine. And for the duo's main training as Mecha Engineers, those were the ones that they needed to design and create around.

Then he looked at the second weapon. It had a similar energy gathering array yet it was focusing on a particular element to condense the energy around. It was Ice.

It was also made of the Cold Iron. Another simple metal which was hundred-refined for this soul tool. Thousand-refined metal costs too much right now for Karni. Especially so with his additional money output this last month. There were simply not enough blacksmiths at thousand-refinements level for the metal to be accessible with ease.

The two daggers each had a role. One was of the ice element while the other focused purely on sharpness. It was the best Karni could design with the limitations of metal. This was going to be a gift for Tie Tiao, so that he could gain some offensive power against Ma Fai who had the fire element.

It was generally accepted that one could use any sort of Soul Tools during a fight in today's Soul Master world, though it wasn't so a few thousand years ago.

Karni focused on the blueprint as he was designing a soul circuit for energy conversion and another soul circuit for connection. This past week he's been trying to fuse the two effects so he can put them on the daggers for a better final result. Sharpness could then have ice and ice could have sharpness.

This would be achieved through putting the daggers together for a time, letting the energies mix. After parting the two, they could have two energies at the same time for about 3 minutes.

When he was done with this, he only needed to check in with Siduo and then they could go on to create the two daggers for Tie Tiao.

… … …

Hu Fuya was walking alongside Siduo. They were out in the city, just leaving a restaurant. Dinnertime was over. It was late and time to return to the academy.

"I can tell you feel guilty about whatever's going on between you two you know?"

Siduo kept looking ahead. "Can we please not?"

"No. Honestly, it's unbearable watching the two of you like this. Everyone's on edge when they have to fight one of you during the class."

Siduo stopped for a moment. "Are we really that obvious?"

The girl burst out laughing. "Of course you are. If anything, Val Karni hides it better than you do."

Siduo scratched her head. "I do feel guilty. Not about what happened to him, but what happened afterwards between us. The way he looked at me." She closed her eyes and remembered the words in front of the hospital. 'Sisi, I'd do it.'

"I'm… honestly not ready to face him when it comes to that."

Hu Fuya's eyes lit up in a bit of surprise. "I didn't expect to see this side of you."

"What side?"

"The soft side. You're always so headstrong and reckless when you teach and fight, that I forget you're just a single year older than me."

Looking at this girl, Siduo wondered where that mildness she had at the beginning went.

"The two of you should talk it out calmly. Invite him to dinner or something, that way he can't escape. Then tell him what's on your mind."

"He already knows what's on my mind. The problem is how to make him realise that he's… Ugh. It doesn't matter. It won't matter unless I find some way to convince him."

The girl was a bit confused. "Why would you need to convince him? Can't you just tell him what you think?"

"It's not that simple. Just telling him won't make everything better."

"Did you really talk everything out though? It's not like you need to agree, just talking would do."

Siduo's eyes avoided the little girl's eyes. This was the problem with children. Everything was so weirdly straightforward to them.

"Let's go have some practice before we return. I need to clear my head."

The girl looked at the sky. "Now? I… I don't really enjoy being out when it's dark."

Siduo just dragged Hu Fuya with her to the academy. "What? Do you have a fear of the dark?"

The girl just nodded silently. "It always feels like the dark is too welcoming to me."

Siduo just laughed her off. They got onto the training field and both of them summoned their martial souls. Siduo immediately raised her eyebrows. The girl's eyes were glimmering in the night, in a fluorescent green colour.

They activated their soul rings and as soon as Siduo dashed, the girl's eyes widened as she surrendered.

Siduo looked at her weirdly. "What's up with you? I'm supposed to be one with the problems right now." She tried to comfort her.

"I can't. You're too scary. Everything is too scary. Everything is too clear." The girl looked at her, her soul ring still active. The girl's cat-like slits were also shining at the moment.

Siduo sighed and pulled out a mirror.

"Eh? … Is that me?"

Siduo nodded. "I don't think your martial soul is just a cat. I think this is the reason you can see better. Your first ability is connected to the eyes right?"

The girl nodded, examining herself in the mirror. "I always thought it was… so this isn't bad?"

Siduo chuckled. "Tell you what. I'll look into it at the library to see what exactly your martial soul is, or at least, if it's a mutation, from where it came from."

She looked at the time. "Besides. I want to be in the dorm before eight, so we should stop anyway."

The girl just nodded absentmindedly, staying on the field alone. She experimented with her martial soul in darkness, but instead of fear, there was some excitement in her eyes now.

Siduo looked back and chuckled to herself. "I need a distraction anyway."

… … …

Karni stretched as he looked outside. It was already dark, but he was finally done with the designs. These blueprints which he created, bordered on 3-star. This was impressive, considering the metals the two soul tools were designed with.

It wasn't hard for him to create 3-star designs, it was just that most of them required the use of thousand refinements somewhere; usually at a core component. A design that didn't have that, would automatically be less complex, as the metal couldn't support nearly as many soul arrays. It might break apart.

He felt quite accomplished. Looking at the time, it just hit eight in the evening. Siduo was definitely still awake. He had to show her the designs.

This was a greater challenge for him than the process of finishing the designs. He didn't really know how to approach this. Should he just go? Should he make some small talk? Say some joke that probably wouldn't land?

"Fuck it." He said to himself as he grabbed the blueprints for the daggers and went outside his room. He stopped in front of her door.

He thought it over one more time on what he was going to say and then sighed. He lightly knocked.

There was no answer.

He knocked harder, but there was still no answer.

"Is she away?"

Karni went back into his room and opened the window. He looked outside to see if Siduo was in or not. He saw light, this meant she was in.

He went back to the door and knocked again. But she still didn't answer.

He became a bit frustrated and knocked on the door one last time. "Siduo, I'm coming in!" Is she deliberately ignoring him right now? He gave her five more seconds after he shouted. She might be busy with something as well. Wouldn't want to see something he shouldn't.

He opened the door and saw her sitting on the bed meditating, but it didn't look like normal meditation. Her left part of the body clearly had darker colouring while her right side was lighter, though it felt less thick than the dark side.

He could tell that this was soul power and the black part was that of her Hell Cat martial soul. That would mean that the lighter, white part should be the White Tiger, though it didn't have as much presence as her Hell Cat.

"Is she trying to fuse her martial souls when she's barely recovered?" Karni felt a bit of anger rise up inside of him. How can she be so reckless?

Siduo felt a presence in the room as she retracted her soul power and the two opposing colours disappeared. She looked absentmindedly as she saw a furious face looking at her.

"Why would you be so reckless when you haven't even fully recovered yet?"

"It's not dangerous. I'm keeping the energies separated so they can't come into contact with each other."

"What would happen if they did? Remember what happened in the Spirit Ascension Platform when you tried to fuse them?"

Siduo was about to retort when she saw the designs in Karni's hands. "You finished Tie Tiao's daggers?"

She jumped up as she quickly took Karni's designs.

"Hey, don't change the topic. You still haven't fully recovered, don't go experimenting with your own body."

"Oh god, are you my dad? You think you know my body better than me?"

"What? No! I just-"

"I'll take a look at the blueprints tomorrow. If they're good, we can create the daggers on the weekend."

"Are you in a good enough state to create them?"

"You think I can't create some 2-star daggers?"

"No. I'm just worried."

"Of course you are." She looked at him, but couldn't keep eye contact when she saw the worried look in his eyes. "Leave. I gotta go shower and then meditate some more."

"Don't push yourself with meditation, please."

"Just leave… please…" She sounded exasperated.

Karni silently left, feeling frustrated and a bit sad. He knew he couldn't convince her when it came to meditation, but did she have to be so reckless? He scratched his head. It didn't matter. Who was he who could tell a reincarnated person what she can and cannot do.

He entered the room and took a quick shower. He had to refresh both himself and his mind right now. He went to bed as soon as he dried off.

… … …

Karni left Star Luo City Academy and went towards the outskirts with the public transport. The class went on as usual and the atmosphere wasn't any better.

He tried to talk to her once more about what she was doing with the two opposite energies meditation and he got ignored.

He reached a bus stop and got off the soul bus. All the vehicles in this world were powered through soul power, something he's long since gotten used to.

He looked up at the building and saw the writing "Holy Tiger Hospital".

Stepped inside, the receptionist looked like she recognised him.

"Karni! Here to visit Grandma Ying?"

"Yep, still in the same room right?"

"Of course. If you just sign here as a visitor."

"Okay." He said as he continued down the hallway.

Karni quickly found the room he was now familiar with already and entered.

"Karni, you came again." The elderly woman's voice sounded.

Karni smiled a bit. "I'm here again Grandma Ying."

Grandma Ying laughed. "Thanks to you, this past month hasn't been lonely at all. Thank you for always visiting me."

Karni has been looking out for Grandma Ying ever since he met her. Instead of telling her the truth, he's grown close with this grandma. She was kind and sweet and always enjoyed listening to his stories or even telling one of her own. He wasn't sure if he was doing it for her sake or for his anymore. He just knew that he enjoyed her company.

He would visit three times a week. Twice during the weekends and once during the week, this was one of those visits. The hospital staff has also gotten familiar with him.

"Tell me boy, how is school?"

"It's… fine, I guess." Karni sighed out loud.

"The subjects, classes and teacher are great, but I'm having a little fight with a friend of mine."

"Oh? Do tell." Grandma Ying listened earnestly.

"Well. She was injured last month. And she should still be resting this month, but she's being a bit reckless and doesn't want to listen to my worries. I'm just wondering if I'm being a bother."

"Oh sweetie. Your worries come from a good place, even if she finds them bothersome. Maybe listen to her reasoning?" She wondered out loud.

"Yeah. Maybe." Karni thought, but he could tell that the conversation wouldn't go well.

"You know, if both people don't listen when there's an argument, nothing can be solved. My son would frequently fight with me because of such things." She laughed a bit to herself as she seemed to be remembering some good memories.

Karni's heart tightened up a bit. Her son was still alive. She was sad with the situation her son was in, but at least he was alive.

Karni didn't really consider it living though. Karni destroyed part of Shi Qiang's brain in his outburst. The son never opened his eyes. It was a coma. His consciousness wasn't even there.

Couldn't move, couldn't think. There was no hope of recovery for the man. They even gave Grandma Ying an option to "release" him. To make him sleep forever.

Grandma Ying refused. She was hoping that her son's situation would improve someday.

But there wasn't truly any hope. Regenerating a part of a brain was impossible even for the best Healing Soul Masters. Body parts could usually be regenerated, but a single part of the brain was more complicated than any body part. Not to mention all the memory which was lost and the spiritual sea of a person.

Karni stayed with the grandma for a good two hours, before it was time for him to leave.

The conversation with the grandma was mostly lively, talking about Karni's daily life. Everytime he visited, he'd tell himself to go and tell the truth. The sooner the better, but he couldn't. His own empathy and sympathy were holding him back. He couldn't help but compare this situation to his own. He lost his mother, she lost her son. Perhaps his mother lost him as well.

The visits themselves were a form of guilt relief for him. As if he was telling himself: 'See, at least I'm visiting her.' He hated it. Hated that he thought of it that way. He really wanted to talk to someone about it, but who? Siduo? It would just turn out for the worse. Instead, he just kept it all bottled up. Something that even he knew was unhealthy to do.

For those reasons, he didn't even tell her that he was a soul master. The only thing Grandma Ying knew was that he was quite wealthy. She didn't know how or why.

Soul Masters had a stipend from the government until they hit the level of a Soul Ancestor. After that their means of making money were their own. Besides that, Karni was also already a 3-star Mecha Designer. A very lucrative profession. He could even earn money just by inspecting other work at times. He was a Mecha Mechanic on the side as well after all.

The profession itself also didn't cost too much money. Something that blacksmiths struggled with. They had to pay the cost of all the metal they refined, and if they didn't succeed at refining, they would lose money.

This was something that Mecha Designers didn't need to worry about, while Mecha Manufacturers had a high chance of success so they were also well off. It was hard for them to actually ruin a product.

Karni didn't have problems paying for Grandma Ying's and Shi Qiang's hospital bills. This was another thing that he did both out of guilt, and to lessen it.

He reached his dormitory. The sun was now beginning to set already.

He entered his room and just laid down on the bed. He was quite tired, though more mentally than physically.

The peaceful rest was stopped short when he heard a knock on the door.

He quickly got up from the bed and opened the door.

"Wow, your room is a mess." Siduo commented before even saying hello.

"I'll clean it up one of these days." Karni brushed it off.

"I finished looking at the designs. We can make them during the weekend."