'What's written at the back?' Leon's thoughts 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 as he squinted at the black cover.
"Your relentlessness is your strength. Your power is like a flood that needs fixing. 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 looked toward the wall and grinned. "Your enemy's strength can be your own. Learn to feel it and turn it against them. Fail, and you will drown in your dreams forever."
Leon's struggle roared inside him when he thought of the contained golden energy in his chest.
"I have felt and used the power dwelling within me, but I still don't know how to stop or control it," Leon said in a soft voice. "Whenever I try to hold it or make it stable, it gives me the feeling of tearing me apart. And when I let it out too… it becomes something dangerous."
"Precisely," Mr. Lee said in a calm, firm voice while nodding silently. "That is what you must master. 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."
He positioned Leon in the center of the room and stood in front of him with his arms spread.
"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."
He raised Leon's arms, loosened them, and watched them fall. "Good. Watch me."
He positioned himself and began to move in slow motion, like leaves drifting in the air. He swung a hand toward Leon's face with the intention of not striking but letting it push air at his face.
Leon's cheeks twitched as the air passed by and slammed his face the moment Mr. Lee's fingers flew a few inches away from his nose.
"Feel the flow of the air. Feel the intention of each movement. Not by looking, but by sensing."
Mr. Lee swung again. "Do not try to push your energy out. Let it spread. Make it a net that catches the whispers of every motion around you."
Leon watched the finger pass by the second time, then slowly closed his eyes, imagining himself holding the edges of his soul.
Just as Mr. Lee's finger passed by on the third swing, Leon faltered. Pain flashed in him as he felt his bones reshaping, his chest heaving as if on the brink of blasting while the energy within him also flared into a defensive state.
The raw power didn't explode, but the heat it carried flew out of Leon's body and knocked a cup off his small desk, shattering it completely.
Leon flinched as frustration boiled over. "See? I can't! It just… happens."
"Again," Mr. Lee said in an utterly calm voice, as if what he saw was something small and left no time to waste. "Your frustration is just another current in the flood. Acknowledge it. The power is yours."
He closed in on Leon and pressed hard on his right shoulder. "Feel its heat. Then let it pass. The heat is not a separate beast that needs to be trimmed, it is the wild and untrained strength of your own spirit. You must be the rider, not the throne."
Through failures they continued for hours with swing, flare, shatter. And each time Leon's rage grew higher at the impossible task, Mr. Lee said one statement. "Find the space between the trigger and the reaction, then try again."
Slowly and painfully, something began to change. He stopped waiting for Mr. Lee to correct him. He started watching, studying, and choosing for himself.
'He's showing me the path,' Leon whispered in his head, tracking Mr. Lee's every movement. 'But I have to walk through it myself.'
The fifth time Mr. Lee's hand swung, Leon felt the surge of power but didn't let it push.
He adjusted his footing before Mr. Lee could tell him to, lowered his shoulders without being asked, and began imagining the power spreading through his veins, becoming sensitive skin.
Leon didn't feel the air when Mr. Lee swung his fist at his face again; he felt the intent behind the movement seconds before its air could even reach his face.
The golden energy didn't flare out. The heat didn't shatter anything. It simply hummed under Leon's skin like a live wire waiting to be used.
When Mr. Lee stopped, he hovered his hand over Leon's cheeks while a genuine smile formed on 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 fell you."
As the scent of sweat and tired breaths filled the room, Mr. Lee nodded at Leon and exited.
The training memory reeled behind Leon's eyes as he stared at the side of the wall where Mr. Lee had stood. A smile tore onto his lips when he looked at his own hands and then back at the sky with one message replaying in his head.
'The struggle ahead is far from over, but now, I have finally found the right path to follow.'
Leon stretched himself on the bed, crossed his hands behind his neck, and inhaled the cold wind deeply.
His eyes lingered on the ceiling where moonlight bled through the gap in the curtains and created a circular beam.
A minute before his eyes became heavy and closed on their own, surrendering him to his dream-self, a new message flashed into his head.
'Was last night's lesson enough?'
As the air settled on him, raising the strands of his hair, he curled himself to face the window while he drifted into his dream world.
For the first time since he had found his father's cap fluttering on that piece of rebar, Leon's chest didn't feel like a locked vault. Instead, it felt like a room with a small but open window.