'What's written at the back?' Leon's thought buzzed as he turned to see what Mr. Lee really wanted him to read.
'Not for the soft-hearted; only for the relentless soul.' The words seared into Leon's thoughts, shifting the fire in him cold.
"Your relentlessness is your strength. Your power is like a flood that needs to be fixed. You have contained it for a moment. But it will break under sufficient pressure." Mr. Lee paused and gasped for air.
Then, slowly, his voice turned soft like the wind, but hard as the depth of the sea. "You must become the riverbank. You must learn to guide the current, not just to block it."
He gestured to the book. "This is not about fighting. It is about understanding flow, balance, and redirecting force."
Mr. Lee turned, walked toward the wall, and narrowed his eyes as if something or someone was looking back at him.
"Your enemy's strength is your own. You will learn to feel them and to turn them against themselves. If you don't manage to overpower it, you will drown in your dreams forever."
Leon's struggle roared inside him. The memory of the contained star-blast in his chest felt like fresh pain. The idea of guiding that instead of suppressing it seemed impossible.
"I don't know how to stop it." Leon admitted it in a whispering voice. "Whenever I try to hold it, it feels like it will tear me apart. When I let it out too… it becomes an explosion."
"Precisely," Mr. Lee said, his wide eyes glinting in the dark.
"That is what you must learn. The in-between is not a passive state. It is the most active state of all. It is the moment of choice between the spark and the inferno. Now, stand."
Mr. Lee positioned Leon in the center of his own room and stood in front of him with spread arms.
"The first lesson is not about attack. It is about reception. You will not strike. You will only defend. And you will not use your power to create a shield—even if you could. You will use it to feel the air I displace."
Mr. Lee held Leon's arms and let them fall. Then, he began to move in a slow and deliberate motion. He swung a hand toward Leon's face, not to strike, but to pass close by.
Leon felt heavy air pass by his face the moment he saw Mr. Lee's hand pass.
"Feel the flow of the air. Feel the intention of each movement. Not by looking, but by sensing."
Mr. Lee swung again. "Do not push your energy out. Let it spread. Make it a net that catches the whispers of every motion around you."
Leon closed his eyes, trying to sense the air. But the moment Mr. Lee's hand moved, his instinct screamed, causing him to falter.
His bones ached as if reshaping, his chest on the brink of blasting apart. The energy within him flared in a defensive state.
It didn't explode outside. But the heat it pulsed out of Leon's body knocked a cup off his desk and shattered it completely.
He flinched, frustration boiling over. "See? I can't! It just… happens."
"Again," Mr. Lee said, his voice utterly calm. "Your frustration is just another current in the flood. Acknowledge it. The power is yours."
Mr. Lee moved closer to Leon. "Feel its heat. Then let it pass. It is not a separate beast; it is the strength of your own spirit, wild and untrained. You must be the rider, not the thrown."
They continued for what felt like hours. Swing. Flare. Shatter. Failure. Each time, Leon's rage grew—at himself, at Tiger, at the impossible task.
Each time, Mr. Lee would simply say, "Again. Find the space between the trigger and the reaction."
Slowly and painfully, something began to change. The fifth time Mr. Lee's hand swung, Leon felt the surge of power but didn't let it push.
He imagined it flowing through his veins, spreading to the edges of his body, becoming a sensitive skin.
He didn't just feel the air; he felt the intent behind the movement a fraction of a second before it finished.
The energy didn't flare out. The heat didn't shatter anything. It hummed, contained, like a live wire under his skin waiting for his command.
Mr. Lee stopped, his hand hovering an inch from Leon's cheek. A genuine smile touched his lips.
"Good. You see? The bridge is not to contain the dam. The bridge is you, built over the flood, choosing where the water flows. That," he said, pointing to the humming, controlled energy thrumming within Leon, "is the beginning of precision. That is the scalpel."
"The tournament will try to make you explode. Tiger, and all other strong opponents, will feed on your rage. Practice. Feel the current. Do not let it feel you."
With that, Mr. Lee walked out of the room, rubbing his knuckles as if he had slammed something unbreakable, and once again leaving Leon in the quiet room.
Even as Mr. Lee was gone, his ghost movements still lingered in the air, and for the first time, a flicker of true understanding danced in Leon's heart.
The struggle ahead was far from over, but now, he had finally found the right path.
With nothing else to do, Leon lay on the bed, letting the cold wind wash over him.
He stared at his arms as he swung them slowly, trying to see if he could redo Mr. Lee's actions. After trying for a while, he gasped and covered himself with the blue-black bedsheet he always kicked to the floor.
Slowly, his eyelids grew heavy, then drifted in the night's arms until sleep claimed him whole.
His body twitched countless times as the air flew above his head, raising strands of his hair. No one spoke in the room, but it wasn't quiet.
Insectoid sounds loomed above his roof so hard he could hear them in his sleep. But among the noises, one thing, one question, echoed countless times in his mind.
Was last night's lesson enough?