The second year of Zed's path began without ceremony. No elder announced it, no stone measured it. Only the rhythm of his footsteps on the training ground and the scars that now webbed his palms.
The weapons no longer felt foreign. Daggers, once clumsy toys in his hands, spun now with precision. He could weave feints in fluid arcs — a slash that pulled the eye, a thrust that followed through the blind spot, a pivot that shifted his stance before the enemy could read it. Each night he practiced until the blades became whispers in his grasp, the steel tracing lines where thought met instinct.
The staff taught him balance. He learned to let his weight settle into the earth, feet gripping cobblestone as though roots. With each rotation, he chained movements into seamless tides: strike, sweep, thrust, guard. The staff blurred in his hands until the wind itself seemed to bend around it. Yet still he stumbled when fatigue crept in, and every bruise reminded him he was not yet master.
The nunchaku had been his cruelest teacher. Countless nights he limped home with ribs aching and shoulders swollen from his own wild swings. But patience bled into control. The twin rods no longer lashed blindly; they curved in obedient arcs, striking where he willed. The chain sang in his hands — harsh, metallic, but precise. When he spun them now, they did not own him. He owned them.
And the whip — ah, the whip demanded more than strength. It demanded rhythm. His first attempts cracked weakly, snapping back to tear at his arm. Yet persistence carved out skill. He learned the pulse of motion, the breath of release, until the lash cracked with such force it split practice poles. Later, when he replaced leather with chain, his arms trembled under the added weight, but slowly, he made even that bow to his command.
Yet Zed knew technique alone was not enough. He needed a body that would not betray him when steel clashed. His days became tests of endurance. He ran the perimeter walls until his legs screamed, carried boulders up the hillside until his spine felt close to breaking, hung from tree branches until his arms gave out. He punished himself with push-ups until his sweat turned the earth beneath him into mud.
The clan youths sometimes passed by, smirking as he gasped for breath under a yoke of stones. "Still playing at warrior?" they muttered. Zed never answered. He only tightened the ropes across his shoulders and kept walking.
But the true crucible came at night.
When the grounds grew silent and his body was wrecked from the day's labor, he would sit alone in the courtyard, spine straight, legs folded, eyes half-shut. His breath came ragged, too shallow at first, but he forced it deeper, wider, until it pressed against his ribs. His skin crawled as exhaustion made his mind blur, yet that blur sharpened something inside. The channels of his body — faint lines of fire — lit with each breath.
It was only then, on the edge of collapse, that the strange clarity descended. His veins ached, his chest thundered, but the air poured through him like molten iron through a mold. His battered body was the price, but the reward was undeniable: his meridians thickened, hardened, layer upon layer, until he felt as though he was reforging himself from within.
Others had failed because they sought the technique in comfort. But Asura's Breath did not live in comfort. It was born in battle, meant for those who danced with death. And Zed, broken nightly by his own hand, had become its willing vessel.
Seasons shifted. Snow dusted the clan roofs, melted into spring rains, burned away under summer's blaze. Zed trained through them all. His tunics grew threadbare, his sandals wore thin, but his body grew lean and unyielding.
He did not boast. He did not flaunt. Most of the clan still muttered "failure" when he passed. But when he gripped the daggers now, his stance rooted, his movements sharp, his father saw.
Varun Latian often watched in silence, hidden by shadow or distance. Once, on a late autumn evening, he lingered at the training grounds as Zed practiced staff drills against three practice poles. The staff blurred in constant motion, striking, deflecting, countering, never letting the poles "breathe." Sweat poured down his son's back, his breaths ragged but steady. Varun's lips curved in the faintest of smiles. He turned away before Zed could see.
That night, Zed returned home to find the hearth lit and a pot of stew kept warm on the table. His father had said nothing, but the gesture said everything.
By the close of that year, Zed's body bore the shape of his vow. Lean muscle corded his frame, his movements supple as water yet edged with steel. The baby fat of his old softness was gone, replaced by the marks of a warrior in the making.
Still, when he walked through the clan halls, whispers trailed after him: trash heir, disappointment, runt of the Latian bloodline.
But when he tightened his fists, he no longer felt shame. He only felt resolve.