Soon they were back on the road. They were just maybe seven days from Yarol, most of which would pass in a flash.

Percy wasn't comfortable though. Their white carriage with an open roof and soft velvet seats was built for three people. And Flynn took advantage of that, begging her parents to sit with them.

Three people was enough, but her youngest brother, little Joey, threw a tantrum till he was allowed to sit with them. The kid was sitting on Percy's legs right now, playing with his hair.

"This is so comfortable," Flynn said in an awkward attempt to fill the silence. "I thought my butt would fall off the first time we travelled for a day in the carriage."

"Oh really," Percy said sarcastically. "I didn't know it was comfortable."

They already tried passing the five-year-old boy back to his sister, but the boy glued himself to Percy. Flynn chuckled slowly.

"So let's talk about Arete," she said. "Like to pass the time. Or we could talk about your favourite monsters."

He stared at her for a moment. What a selfish kid! Take your brother off my lap.

"No. I don't want to talk."

She leaned in and whispered into his ear. "We could also talk about how you were drinking alcohol last night."

He turned to Thalos a bit. There was no way he didn't hear that, but his father seemed to be in a trance, staring out at the passing green fields and cattle.

He turned back to Flynn, sneering quietly.

"Are you seriously threatening me now, kid? You do not want to play this game with me."

"Um… sorry," she murmured. "But I can't do anything about Joey, he loves you."

Percy was about to start screaming about how he hated the kid when the boy turned to him and flashed a smile that was missing a couple of teeth.

"Look, look, it's a cow."

He strained himself to smile and even looked at the cow. After another moment of silence, he decided to be less childish.

"What do you want to know about Arete? How much did your hobo master even teach you? Cause the fact that you can already use a technique puts you ahead of me."

Flynn's amber eyes widened and flashed with joy.

"Okay. This is Flynn reporting to my master, Perseus Amphene—"

"Don't use my full name, and do NOT call me master."

"—I wasn't really taught well by my former master, but he taught me how to train my spirit, and when I was ready he helped me ignite it. This was when I was eleven."

"Wait a minute, you're twelve, right?" Percy asked. "When did you meet this man and start training your Fighting spirit?"

It would take ten years to normally train a person's Fighting spirit and then ignite it. It took Percy just three years. He was ready to ignite when he turned eleven, and praticed with Thalos.

"I started training when I was six," Flynn answered. "But I got a boost from my master's training method."

"Do I even want to know what this method was?"

"He threw me into a river and made me struggle till the last second before he saved me. When I got too used to that he started ambushing me randomly and making me think I would die if I didn't fight. I also did physical training too… It wasn't so terrible."

He was too shocked to speak for a couple of seconds. That had to be illegal, child abuse, or something just plain wrong. If he ever met this master, he would have to beat the guy up just on principle. No wonder she was always so weird.

"Flynn, you really need to stop speaking to homeless people."

Flynn nodded slowly.

"It wasn't that bad. Also I'm almost thirteen, so technically seven years of training. We'll spend a month in Yarol so when I turn thirteen I can have my spirit affinity ceremony. Though it won't be as grand as yours."

Frankly he didn't care about all that, so he barely listened. He immediately went back to the topic of Arete, disregarding Flynn's terrifying past.

"Okay, so you know how to train your Fighting spirit, what about application and using techniques?"

"By igniting our Fighting spirit we can use it to enhance our actions." Flynn raised a fist casually and pretended to punch Percy. "If I channel my intent to attack you and add my spirit onto it, then my punch becomes a lot stronger."

She waited for a flinch or some kind of reaction, but he just stared at her, waiting for her to continue the explanation.

"Um… so techniques are pretty similar to those. Except they come with a mantra that you have to meditate on and recite for a long time. This is to channel your intent towards multiple complex points and perform a special attack.

"For my healing technique, Sundial, I had to recite the mantra for a year straight, and I can still barely use it. It contains poems and limericks about the organs of the body, how they work, the flow of blood, tree branches, and the sun."

Once she was done, Percy finally nodded. She knew almost the same amount as he did. There wasn't much he could teach her except the technical details of applying spirit and some visualization tools he built from personal experience.

"Honestly, you're already pretty adept. There's no reason for you to call me master. All I can teach you is sword fighting and some tips on application. So let's start with how your intent to punch can be improved."

For a long time, they talked about minute details Percy picked up from his scientific knowledge of how punches worked and how the human body worked.

"I never thought about focusing my intent not just on the punch but the entire motion," Flynn murmured. "I always feel sore in my shoulders because of this. But… I doubt your ideas about using your legs"

He rolled his eyes and just ignored her. He couldn't dissect a human body to prove it, so he would just forget it.

Thalos was more focused on them now though.

"These are things you learn over the years after wrecking your body. Good job, Percy. I like how you apply your knowledge."

"What about you?" Percy asked. He had wanted to learn more about his father. "How did you first learn to use Arete?"

Thalos' grey eyes turned stormy with memories.

"I learnt in a similar way to Flynn, I guess."

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