Daro Kesh closed the distance across the frosted pavers and Kes angled toward the western pillars with the splint bundle. Then, Seyun circulated his breath through the cool, ringing pressure of Ilyra’s echo and right away felt how much his foundations had grown since the last seven-dawn arrival.
Six days ago, when Daro’s Early Jade echo had arrived from the northern chamber, Seyun had still been at Early Bronze with freshly braced ribs from Keth Or’s squeezing stroke. That morning, his inward channels had been too narrow and battered to hold a Jade-scale question at its true height. He had survived and reached Deeper Bronze only by scaling Daro’s question down to Bronze. Proving that he could keep a single fixed purpose steady while transitioning between a hard spear and a soft cord.
Today, standing on the foundation of that Deeper Bronze attainment and the five days of blind proof drills he had just completed against Vaska’s lens, his upper channels didn’t right away buckle under the Jade-scale prompt.
He could actually hold the full shape of Ilyra’s question inside his chest for more than a single breath.
During those opening three exchanges of the reception pass, Seyun experienced for the first time from the inside what separated a Deeper Bronze fighter from an Early Jade master.
